Explosive Arguments
Sparks are flying at Duck of Minerva over Landmine Action‘s claim that “explosive violence” is a humanitarian problem. In a recent essay Stephanie Carvin makes “the case against the case against blast weapons,” by which she means “explosive weapons” as described by Landmine Action’s recent report:
“The short version is that it is calling for a ban on so-called ‘blast-weapons’ as a method of warfare… I think that 1) the report is problematic; 2) that there may actually be a case for not banning such weapons – possibly even humanitarian ones. Instead, states AND humanitarians should look to regulation as a more effective alternative.
But as I understand it, Landmine Action is not calling for a complete ban on the weapons. The report only calls on states and global civil society to “strengthen further an underlying presumption that the use of explosive weapons in populated areas is unacceptable” (p. 14). I recently spoke with Director of Policy and Research Richard Moyes and he confirmed that Landmine Action is not proposing an outright ban such as a codified rule in an Additional Protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons. Rather, he said simply, “I’d like to see us establish a terrain in which there is a general concern rather than acceptance about the use of explosives in populated areas.”
In other words, Moyes and Carvin seem to be on the same page with respect to regulating conventional explosives. Carvin doesn’t elaborate what regulations she has in mind or why they would be more humanitarian than Moyes’, but some of the organization’s specific proposals include establishing a mechanism to accurately count civilian casualties from explosive violence so some determination can be empirically made about whether these weapons can or cannot be used in a controlled manner; and in particular to reduce their use in specific areas where civilian casualties are likely to be highest.
Carvin does have two deeper critiques about the report that bear further mention. I think both may have some validity but in my view, the first doesn’t actually undermine Moyes’ moral point, and the second merely ducks that point (no pun intended).
One critique centers on whether the report perhaps over-reaches in its assumptions about the relationship of international norms and legitimacy in international society. Carvin particularly takes issue with the following passage:
The use of explosive violence by non-state actors is increasing. This report notes that trend and argues that the state-asserted monopoly on explosive weapons is not being maintained in practice. Furthermore the unacceptability of non-state use of explosive weapons is diminished by the failure of states to enact appropriate categorical controls on the use of these weapons in populated areas, or to attend to the relationships of diminished local accountability that such use articulates.
Carvin argues:
The argument here is that non-state use is effectively legitimized by state use of weapons. From an international legal standpoint this argument is flatly and categorically wrong. International law has always made a distinction between state and non-state actors – the former (at least in theory) subject to accountability proceedings, military codes of conduct and, if it all goes wrong, potentially severe penalties. The latter has no means for following/implementing the laws of war, nor any mechanisms for training or enforcement within their ranks.
Now, I think Carvin might have a point about the empirical validity of this causal claim – although the way to find out if she does would be to look to the empirical literature on norm compliance and strength, not to the law. But even if it turns out to be true that this is an over-reaching claim, this wouldn’t undermine “the case against the case against blast weapons” even remotely, because the case doesn’t rest on this particular causal claim.
It’s very important to distinguish the normative merit of the claim being made from the particular frames that are being used to make it. All I see happening here is an effort by Landmine Action to make a strategic interest-based argument because this type of argument has historically resonated with governments. And all Carvin’s post demonstrates is that this particular way of framing the argument may be less resonant than imagined (at least to military and war law types – it clearly seems to be resonating with the protection of civilians community, as John Holmes has endorsed the report and the UN Institute for Disarmament Research has also begun exploring the idea).
But to evaluate the normative proposal itself, one needs to consider it on its merits. The case against explosive weapons doesn’t rest on whether governments can obtain some additional soft power by (further) stigmatizing the violent behavior of insurgents. The case against explosive weapons is that when used in urban areas they have a low likelihood of being able to discriminate between civilians and combatants no matter how honorable the intent. Of the dataset of explosive violence incidents over the six-month period on which Landmine Action reports, 69% of the dead and 83% of the wounded were civilian. Indeed, according to p. 26 of Explosive Violence, such weapons are likelier than other forms of violence to disproportionately affect particular categories of civilians (such as children.)
Second, when taking into account the harm to civilians caused indirectly by destruction of infrastructure, such acts may not meet the proportionality requirement either:
The category of technology described as ‘explosive weapons’ produces distinctive patterns of mortality and morbidity (in both short and long term), of wider social and economic damage and of post-deployment humanitarian threat. Individually or in combination these effects are capable of severely retarding or actively reversing developmental gains, in particular in low-income settings.
Carvin would need to take on these claims to make “the case against the case.” To be fair, she does explore proportionality in her post, but only to argue that the rules are so ambiguous as to make the use of explosives legal.
There is, quite simply, no objective criterion for making a determination on either front. We might be able to recognize a violation of the principle when it occurs (a daisy cutter in response to a dump truck with an AK-47 would be a slightly absurd example) but even then it would probably have to be argued about in the court of international (and quite possibly domestic) opinion. The report seems to be suggesting that long-term damage is disproportionate, but without any context upon which we can measure proportionality, I would argue that from a legal standpoint this is impossible to know and judge without context.
She is probably right in purely legal terms – but then, Moyes isn’t arguing there is currently a legal rule against explosive violence. He’s arguing that under the existing rules, an unacceptable amount of damage is being done to civilians; he’s documenting that damage and calling on states to do the same; and he’s urging governments to consider rethinking the notion that explosive weapons are acceptable as a default option in urban areas, and move instead toward a threshold for justifying their use only in extreme situations. He’s arguing that perhaps governments should consider the long-term costs of their actions, and not just the direct costs, though they currently aren’t legally bound to do so. It’s a humanitarian argument, not a strictly legal one.
Ultimately Moyes is – like a variety of other norm entrepreneurs in recent years – pointing out that the existing laws of war actually don’t protect civilians very well, and exploring options for strengthening them. Many similar campaigns have succeeded in recent years despite the existing structure of human rights and humanitarian law, either through developing new treaty law (e.g. the Landmines Treaty), updating old law (e.g. the Additional Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War) or developing soft law (e.g. the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement). Moyes’ work fits somewhere on this continuum and it will be interesting to see how it develops and evolves as he interfaces with governments and humanitarian law gatekeepers.
Stephanie Carvin has done Landmine Action a service by providing early feedback on portions of their initial frame. But one needs to distinguish that frame as it develops from their actual proposal – which is just to get states to rethink the acceptability of explosive violence in urban areas – and from their ultimate goals – which are to reduce the tragic and preventable loss of civilian life and property in conflict zones.
Yes, we need to engineer a type of war where people can die without society collapsing. We need to establish disintegration chambers in every city of the world, so that when computer simulations tell us that a particular section of city was “hit” by explosives, those people will calmly report to the disintegration chamber and no infrastructure will be harmed. Yes, let’s remove the “taste of Armageddon” by all means.
Cute, but out of context. On Eminiar, it is civilians who are being marched into the disintegration chamber to avoid damage to infrastructure. What is being proposed here is to minimize civilian casualties, and arguments about protecting infrastructure are a means to that end, not an end in itself.
I was keying on this part of Stephanie’s post:
I never get past the exec sum of reports, so maybe that’s my fault. But I don’t see it as at all realistic to suppose that states are going to either limit their warfare to open, empty plains or go to nonlethal weapons to reduce noncombatant casualties. Ain’t gonna happen.
As the world population goes up, urban centers will become increasingly larger and more numerous, resources will tighten, and nations will go to war, with the resulting civilian casualties. It’s an old story. Pretending that there is a way to make it less ugly isn’t an option here.
In the case of non-state actors, this discussion reminded me of the statements of the attempted Times Square bomber at his recent sentencing. Greenwald’s post about him is
He sure seemed to that the civilian deaths caused by state’s use of explosive weapons were a justification for him to try to respond in kind with a terrorist bombing of NYC.
Whatever international law says on the manner, “You blow up my people, I blow up your people” makes intuitive sense to a lot of people.
I also think that when we’re involved in these little wars that aren’t exactly about our national survival, the presumption that we should use the least deadly to civilians methods possible. Which is callous to U.S. soldiers and Marines, who would probably have to be killed and maimed in higher numbers if we had a stronger bias against using explosive weapons in areas where civilians are around. My solution to that would be fight less frickin’ wars, but the U.S. is unlikely to adopt such a policy anytime soon, so that doesn’t do them any good at all.
Saying that it will lead to shorter war and less casualties in the long run is quite speculative and seems more something I hope is true than something I have real confidence in being true.
But you can radicalize people without blowing them up. If someone came into my home and slit the throats of my family, I might be tempted to set off a car bomb in front of their embassy. It’s a lot easier than finding them and slitting their throats.
Going back to the post itself, I really enjoy these threads where we try to make wars all nice and neat so we can fight them whenever we want.
Yeah, well, since history shows wars will be fought until the structure of the international system changes significantly, I for one prefer precision munitions to carpet-bombing.
SPP,
We’ve gone through this before; at some point you have to establish your basic empirical premise, which is that jus in bello restrictions (laws of war as discussed above) cause additional wars. If you have data on this point, please present; all of the empirical work that I’ve seen on the subject has indicated that interstate war (the type of war in which jus in bello restrictions are most often honored) has declined in tandem with an increase in jus in bello restrictions.
If you have data that suggests otherwise, please indicate.
Nope, I have no data. I’m an English major, not a political scientist. OTOH, it seems to me that neither side here would find it easy to prove *causation*. I’ll accept your correlation of interstate war and jus in bello restrictions, but that’s just correlation. There have always been wars and there have always been rules. Point me towards some good qualitative analysis of the linkages and I’ll read it.
SPP,
As an English major, I’m sure that you’re aware that YOU are making a causal claim regarding jus in bello restriction and the incidence of war. If you “accept” my correlative claim (and indeed, I do believe that it is merely correlation and not causation), you must acknowledge that you own causal argument is in serious jeopardy.
Mostly, I’m just tired of you talking out of your ass on this subject. As you note, you have no empirical data; you repeatedly make claims about the empirical effect of jus in bello restriction (“we try to make these wars nice and neat so we can fight them whenever we want”, and many examples from previous threads), when it’s utterly obvious that you haven’t engaged in even a cursory study of the topic.
This wouldn’t bother me so much if you weren’t, in intent and effect, arguing for making warfare more bloody; the ONLY empirical reality in which this claim is not morally monstrous is one in which there is a clear relationship between jus in bello restriction and the incidence of war.
I was indeed making a causal claim. I am unqualified to do so, which I just admitted. Now you admit that you too believe only correlation is involved. So, my argument is bullshit but what’s yours? Are you arguing about anything? Thousands of words from you and Charli and all it is is correlation?
You’re tired of me talking out of my ass. I asked you to point me towards something that might cause my ass to stop pontificating, and you did nothing but bitch about my moral failings (which, if everything is correlation, do not exist). Well, I’m tired of teachers who scold but don’t teach. Man up. Give me a reference that will show me the light. I promise I’ll read it.
SPP,
The difference is that I was never making a causal claim; if you review my comment, you’ll note that I simply argue that a decline in interstate war and an increase in jus in bello restriction have happened at the same time. Moreover, I don’t believe that increases in jus in bello restrictions reduce the incidence of interstate war, so it would be rather odd for me to make such an argument. Please review my comments for causal claims regarding the relationship between jus in bello restrictions and the incidence of interstate war….
Done? Great, let’s move on. The position that I (and presumably Charli) hold on jus in bello restrictions is that they reduce death and destruction in wars that actually happen. I would hope that you understand the difference between this argument and an argument that jus in bello restriction reduces the incidence of war. Do you understand this? I can only assume that you do, since in previous comments on previous threads (I can link to examples, if you’d like) you have repeatedly argued (as in the comment above) that bloodier wars are worth it in order to reduce the incidence of interstate war, and moreover, that people (such as myself) who worry about jus in bello restrictions are effectively “try[ing] to make wars all nice and neat so we can fight them whenever we want.”
Now, as you have allowed in several comments, you acknowledge that you have no idea whether bloodier wars actually reduce the incidence of interstate war. Thus, I am again forced to conclude that you are “talking out of your ass.”
Here endeth the lesson in basic causal inference. If you desire additional lessons on the laws of war, targeting practice, military culture, and changes over time in the incidence of civilian casualties, I recommend the LGM archives, where I (and others) have discussed such topics at length, with a variety of links.
I have no data. I’m an English major
Perfectly good excuse there.
This would only be true if you believed that I accepted that war crime law reduces the bloodiness of war. Since I did not, you misunderstood my position and called it a moral abomination. My position was that one reason politicians declare war and populations back them up is that they do not understand that all wars are bloody and atrocity-filled. IOW, it is the perception of war as a bloody mess that would, IMHO, reduce the number of wars. I do not advocate bloodier wars as a deterrent to war. My objection to the war crime arguments was that they helped put a kind face on war while doing nothing to change people’s faulty perceptions of war that, see above, is one of the reasons we start wars. IMHO, as an English major.
OK, I will accept that rules of war lower civilian casualties. Therefore I will also conditionally accept that having no rules of war is not a good idea. I say conditionally because nobody (apparently) knows whether the rules of war are saving X civilian casualties while causing X or XX or XXX casualties because they allow people to start wars they might otherwise not.
[...] [...]
“IOW, it is the perception of war as a bloody mess that would, IMHO, reduce the number of wars.”
Nonsense.
The advent of televised coverage of war has ensured that every human with functional vision and a cathode ray tube perceives war as a bloody mess. But for the Western democracies this has been coincident with the decline of mass draftee service and thus the perception is that this bloodshed will happen to OTHER people.
As for “politicians”, there hasn’t been a pol since Alcibiades who didn’t think that THIS war was going to be brilliant, quick, and bloody only for the enemy. Nobody outside a TV show starts a war “because the rules of war are saving X civilian casualties”. They go to war to kill you and take your stuff because they think they can win. The laws of war have nothing to do with it; where the hell do you find a historical example of a war resulting from an expectation of decreased civilian casualties?
And, just speaking as a former GI, the notion of keeping the arty, mortars and tac air out of build-up areas and civilian traffic zones in a LIC seems like damn good sense to me.
First, the whole point of going in without the kinetics is that you win when the locals turn in the G’s to you – no, actually, you win when the locals form a bunch of home guards and fight the G’s FOR you. Bombing the piss out of them? Not typically a great recruiting tool.
And second, frankly, this stand-off kinetic stuff gives you most of your blue-on-blues. If I’m working my way through some ville the LAST thing I want is some hopped-up fast mover streaking in to blow up the house I’m next to because the FAO with the other platoon is lasing it to get the three muj inside. That’s what grenades and AT-4s are for.
I should warn the reader in advance that this comment has nothing to do with talking asses or a dissertation on correlation vs. causation, etc, ad nauseam.
Instead, I have endeavored merely to discuss a few of the interesting items raised in Dr. Carpenter’s original post.
One has to applaud Landmine Action’s efforts, as blast weapons are fundamentally indiscriminate in nature. Of course they are – they were designed to accomplish three particular functions – break up mass formations of troops to render them more vulnerable to direct fire, to mine areas to again either break up or channel enemy troops, and to force cities to submit by either breaching their walls or causing sufficient internal destruction for the local government to capitulate.
That said, I should certainly like to hear the humanitarian case for the use of such weapons, as none come conveniently to mind. The other thing that fails to come to mind is an “underlying presumption” by states and global civil society that “the use of explosive weapons in populated areas is unacceptable.”
It would be more accurate to say that it is a norm in modern warfare. From American and NATO guided bombs dropping in Baghdad, to Israeli shell-fire in Gaza and the West Bank; from Georgian multiple-launch rockets fired into Tskhinvali to Russian counterattacks in Tblisi, name any recent conflict in which state actors have taken part and you will see that use of explosive weaponry against urban targets is the rule, rather than the exception.
Further, I believe Dr. Carpenter errs in a presumption that a separate set of rules exist for state and non-state actors in conflict zones. The fact that a conflict exists is generally due to the fact that one or more parties is contesting the right of a current state actor to maintain sovereign control over a specific territory, with all the perks and perquisites that entails, including, presumably, the use of explosive weapons and other lovely toys.
When discussing the state of conflict in the modern age, to describe the actors as “state” or “non-state” is insufficiently discriminate. The term “non-state” actors should be confined to those organizations such as NGOs, humanitarian groups, political parties or other groups that pursue an agenda that is not aimed at gaining political control over a territory by means of armed force. Another term should be coined to describe those political entities that, while not recognized states, have sufficient military and political clout in a discrete area to represent a challenge or even an alternative to the internationally recognized government.
The Taliban are a perfect example. They began as a militia, evolved into a state government, were overthrown by an offensive (and hence theoretically illegal) war by other states, reconstituted themselves, and are currently back to the “armed alternative governance” entity described above – much as the American Revolutionaries under Washington represented an “armed alternative governance” to British rule in the Colonies between 1775 and 1783.
Further, the idea that such entities have “no means for following/implementing the laws of war, nor any mechanisms for training or enforcement within their ranks” is categorically false.
Certainly many such organizations have managed to follow and implement rigorous policies with respect to laws and morals as they interpret them – the fact that they have yet to get on-board with “laws of war” that were written by states to favor states, and which are often observed in the breach is simply a matter of convenience, and hardly represents a fundamental inability to implement those laws.
As for training mechanisms, they see to do quite well in training their foots-soldiers in a rather wide range of subjects, so again, the fact that a thorough grounding in laws of war is probably not due to an inability to get the word out. As for enforcement? Mmm, again, not sure that an inability to enforce edicts has ever been a particular failing of most alternative governments, where the penalties for breaking codes of conduct tend to be swifter and more readily carried out.
Dr. Carpenter also repeatedly notes the difficulty of assessing an “unacceptable” level violence done to civilians – I should challenge her to respond, then with what an acceptable level is.
How many children is it kosher to kill when bombing a compound in which a “high-value target” may (or may not) be meeting with his henchpeople?
How many civilians may acceptably by killed by incendiary or nuclear devices to force the unconditional surrender of a once-aggressive state which has been driven back within its own borders by more conventional force-on-force combat?
If we use historical numbers as a benchmark, we should certainly find that the acceptable number is quite high, and that current or aspiring state actors should consider themselves rather unconstrained in their “continuation of politics by other means.”
Or perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that any number greater than zero is a bit too high, especially if you or one of your special someones represents the statistic in question.
In closing, as a note to Moyes and others, I should personally like to see us establish a terrain where the word “terrain” is used in its proper context, rather than borrowed to describe a high-level discussion of matters related to military or political affairs.
[...] Explosive Arguments In other words, Moyes and Carvin seem to be on the same page with respect to regulating conventional explosives. Carvin doesn’t elaborate what regulations she has in mind or why they would be more humanitarian than Moyes’, but some of the organization’s specific proposals include establishing a mechanism to accurately count civilian casualties from explosive violence so some determination can be empirically made about whether these weapons can or cannot be used in a controlled manner; and in particular to reduce their use in specific areas where civilian casualties are likely to be highest. [...]