Recent wars interstate as well as internal known as civil wars have seen highly dehumanized conduct by the belligerents.
Ostensibly Geneva Convention 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols which are international treaties that contain the most important rules limiting the barbarity of war have been conveniently lost sight of.
Be it the war in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon or the civil war in Myanmar amongst others, civilian casualties have not been a consideration for military policy makers. The grip of the military-intelligence and industrial “Deep State,” is very clear in many of these scenarios.
Legitimacy of civilian targets is rationalised in many ways such as by the narrative that the enemy forces are using non military assets and establishments as a camouflage to wage war from these locations.
Neither adequate proof is provided nor there is any detailed explanation for strikes such as on shopping malls and children’s hospitals by fighters and missiles.
Another argument for targeting civilians is as a punishment for the criminal misdoings of armed groups such as the Hamas or the Hezbollah.
Indeed civilians in Gaza and Hezbollah have suffered heavy losses in lives and injuries at the hands of Israeli bombing campaigns and ground war.
This is not to justify the October 07, 2023 terrorist attacks by the Hamas which has to be universally condemned.
However, the principle of proportionate casualties is forgotten through use of unrestricted violence unleashed where innocents are seen as ‘collateral’ of the war.
Punitive strikes which are ethnicity and identity based are also evident in the War in Ukraine, where being a Ukrainian is crime enough to be a victim of Russian rockets and missiles.
The unrestricted attacks by Myanmar Air Force in ethnic areas are another example of the same as these are seen as legitimate targets for imposing suffering on the military and its cohorts.
Another rationale is derived from the Clausewitzian trinity for targeting civilians with a view to seek collapse of the will if the nation to resist. This argument is not sustainable as it is proven that attacks from the air and missiles only increase the determination to resist.
Attendant to this is civilian infrastructure – energy sources, fuel dumps and in some cases even nuclear plant locations.
Destruction of these is a part of the campaign waged through missiles, drones and air strikes with a view to ostensibly increasing the logistics challenges for the military but in effect it only results in deprivations for people on the street.
In Ukraine the public faces a grim winter ahead - a third in a row as substantial portion of the energy infrastructure has been systematically degraded.
Even children have not been spared and become perhaps the largest victims of wars from Ukraine to Gaza.
The role of the military industrial complex in sustaining a war is well established. Today many are operating at maximum production capacity and profits.
Failing Grand Strategy
While targeting civilians may seem a sign of success to the military strategist, it invokes the lack of a Grand Strategy – which looks beyond the military phase to peace after the war which is sustainable.
Quite evidently it is believed that killing the last man on the ground will lead to peace that is hardly the case as wars have demonstrated.
There is no such thing as absolute security – Israel should be the one state which should have realised the same through the long period of its tortuous struggle for survival amongst hostile neighbours.
Whenever Israel has followed a strategy of reducing hostility with neighbours it has always found peace for instance with Egypt or Jordan. And this despite the existentialist threat that is posed by Iran.
While Israel may succeed in decimation of a large portion of the Hamas in Gaza and removal of the Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon, peace will be short lived.
Even Iran offers an opportunity for a temporary peace which can in turn lead to conditions for a change of regime and not through war as the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has contended.
It is nobody’s case that nations must succumb to the violence inflicted by terrorist groups, however a strategy of indiscriminate violence cannot be a recipe for states to overcome the challenge from terrorism. “War on Terror,” is a failed strategy as the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan has shown.
What needs to be done?
Increasing awareness of state responsibility and accountability in preventing civilian casualties assumes importance.
Reiteration of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 to limit the brutality of war needs greater emphasis. These conventions are the foundation of international humanitarian law (IHL), which protects people who are not or are no longer fighting.
While the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 established principles for interstate relations, such as national self-determination, peaceful coexistence, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, Europe which was the matrix of its evolution is caught in the vortex of war. The first lessons are thus due here.
Chapter 1 Article 2 of the UN Charter states that, “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered…All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”.
Indeed today this is being grossly violated by the member states including permanent members of the UN Security Council – not just Russia or China but the US, UK and France at various times as well when it suits their political purposes.
Similarly International Criminal Court (ICC) which investigates and prosecutes individuals accused of war crimes, which are serious violations of the laws and customs of international armed conflict remains toothless in implementation in an early stage of any war or conflict and there is no universal commitment to its jurisdiction.
The odds may seem to favour continued dehumanisation of war but there is no alternative but to continue to reiterate these principles and provisions in multiple forums to increase the level of awareness which alone can lead to implementation.
Indian Perspective
India has over the years pursued war as well as counter militancy objectives with a view to minimise civilian casualties.
Use of minimum force, winning hearts and minds and adherence to the Ten Commandments of the Chief of the Army Staff have been some of the tenets on which Indian Army has succeeded in bringing peace to numerous states impacted by militancy.
Despite the criticism of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act [AFSPA] violations have been few and have been investigated and the culprits punished.
There is a temptation to shift to a paradigm of dehumanised war which is seen as tactically lucrative but it would be no more than opportunistic. It will not bring success for the military in the current as well as future wars.
Another dilemma for India is adoption of, “Vishwa Bandhu,” or friend of the world principle in foreign policy. This is a policy of convenience rather than principle by extending political and diplomatic support open or tacit to those states and leaders who have abandoned the principles of the UN Charter and the 1949 Geneva Conventions amongst others.
Pragmatism may not provide the cushion for India to abandon friends of the past, but reiteration of humanitarian considerations should not be shied away from by the Vishwa Bandhu in its true spirit.
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