[eugenekop]

Is that possible? Are there any examples of this in history? What kind of military equipment and strategy is needed for that? Are there any books or articles that elaborate on this subject?

Thank you.

[Cartertonian]

The aim of defence doctrine - at least in NATO nations - is to conduct warfighting without causing civilian casualties, grounded as the doctrine is in the Laws of Armed Conflict as laid out in the various Geneva Conventions and Protocols.

Of course, the reality is that no, it's not possible. All it would take is for one Afghan famer to be hitching a lift in a pick-up truck full of Taliban fighters that got taken out by an Apache, and suddenly the evil West are targetting civilians... ( ).

This is the cornerstone of the pacifist argument that we shouldn't be engaging in any warfighting save, at a grudging extreme, defence of the national homeland.

[eugenekop]

And as a former military man, can you explain what kinds of strategy and tactic are required to avoid civilian causalities to a much larger extent? Is it possible for example to follow the truck until the civilian leaves it and then bomb it? Is it possible to stop the vehicle by shooting at the wheels, then take the combatants one by one?

[Nunt]

The military just fights under different rules. Lets compare two very similar examples.

1) a truck filled with taliban fighters drives through afghanistan. US response would be: bomb the truck first and ask questions later.

2) a truck filled with taliban fighters drives through the US. US response would be: try to surround the truck armed forces, try to force them to surrender, use minimal force to overcome them and put the safety of possible hostages before anything else. It would be unthinkable that the US armed forces would just bomb a building to take out suspected terrorists on US soil. But for some reason, this is common practice when the fighting happens in other countries.

I think police forces are doing a pretty good job at fighting without causing civilian casualties. But somehow the army doesn't bother. As long as the army fights believes killing ennemies is more important than saving civilians, wars will always have a great civilian death toll.

[Eran]

The answer is much simpler - fight the war on your territory, rather than the enemy's. That way, any enemy person you hit is almost certainly not a civilian.

In the American Revolutionary War, for example, the American side caused very few civilian causalities.

[Cartertonian]

as a ... military man, can you explain what kinds of strategy and tactic are required to avoid civilian causalities to a much larger extent?

We have a particular sub-strand of our intelligence community that are known as 'targeteers'. Their whole existence is owed to the degree to which we try and ensure that any and all targets we engage are legitimate and that civilian involvement is minimised.

The snag, as Eran and Nunt allude to, is that we are not currently fighting a conventional, uniformed and organised enemy. We are fighting a semi-organised rabble of irregular forces who strike at targets and then melt back into the civilian community, knowing full well that they are gaining huge propaganda capital from our attempts to strike at them while they cower behind the skirts of their womenfolk and use their children and old folk as human shields.

[eugenekop]

Well, why doesn't the military do what Nunt said? Conduct an investigation and such?

[Hughes_91]

The military just fights under different rules. Lets compare two very similar examples.

1) a truck filled with taliban fighters drives through afghanistan. US response would be: bomb the truck first and ask questions later.

2) a truck filled with taliban fighters drives through the US. US response would be: try to surround the truck armed forces, try to force them to surrender, use minimal force to overcome them and put the safety of possible hostages before anything else. It would be unthinkable that the US armed forces would just bomb a building to take out suspected terrorists on US soil. But for some reason, this is common practice when the fighting happens in other countries.

I think police forces are doing a pretty good job at fighting without causing civilian casualties. But somehow the army doesn't bother. As long as the army fights believes killing ennemies is more important than saving civilians, wars will always have a great civilian death toll.

I think you are comparing apples to oranges here. The environment in which we are fighting the Taliban is very different than the environment which our law enforcement are working in. As Cartertonian said, we are fighting a war against non-uniformed soldiers. We are fighting multiple enemies in multiple scenarios. We do not have the time or the intel to attempt full investigations on every skirmish me engage in. Police officers have full departments to give them information about a suspect. Police officers are not engaging multiple assailants on every city street.

[Eran]

But most importantly, we are fighting a war on somebody else's soil.

[eugenekop]

But most importantly, we are fighting a war on somebody else's soil.

Well, when Israel has to fight Hezbollah terrorists who fire rockets at Israel it has to fight on Lebanon's territory. How do you manage this without hurting civilians? Israel doesn't have police departments in Lebanon, or cooperation from the local population. The resources are not there, yet the threat is much more significant than your usual daily criminal activities.

[Eran]

Assuming Israel's hands were clean, it would be in a tough spot. As we discussed in the past, it should do the utmost to avoid civilian causalities, and accept responsibility for those causalities it is unable to avoid (including compensating families for deaths, individuals for injuries and property damage).

My contention is that if Israel's hands were clean, it would be much less likely to face the kinds of security threats we see today.

[eugenekop]

Well I am not discussing Israel's blame now. I agree with you though that its hands are not clean.

I searched the internet thoroughly for any discussion about libertarian way to wage a war like this. I found none. Isn't there a single military expert who at least proposed some ideas how to fight wars like Israel has to fight with Hamas and Hezbollah, or wars like the six day war or the Yom Kipur war?

Its really odd that libertarians have such an extensive body of knowledge about economics, yet an even more important subject of war is not covered at all, even though if you were to seek the most serious disregard for the non aggression principle, its the waging of wars.

[Eran]

The modern libertarian movement is dominated by American thinkers who focus on American issues. The U.S. has not faced a credible external threat for centuries. Any current threats to U.S. security can easily be traced to illegitimate U.S. foreign interventions.

It thus seem natural to assume that a peace-loving nation will not often face external threats. Whenever such threats do present themselves, the assumption is that they will come from ground-invasion by a foreign government, as opposed to "remote" harassment by non-governmental actors like Hamas or Hezbollah.

Israel doesn't disprove this assumption, as it doesn't count as "peace loving". However, the assumption could easily be false in particular circumstances, leaving any moral person (whether libertarian or not) with a difficult dilemma.

In strategizing about the conduct of a just war, libertarians typically prefer focussed assassinations to wide military actions. Obviously, Israel is not averse to such tactics and, presumably, no easy target of either Hamas or Hezbollah readily presents itself.

Life sometimes presents us with inherently difficult problems. This would be one.

[Nunt]

I searched the internet thoroughly for any discussion about libertarian way to wage a war like this.

Maybe there isn't a libertarian way to fight this war because the war is non-libertarian in itself. Maybe the Israel should loose this war from a libertarian point of view.

[EastCoastAmerican]

Minimizing civilian casualties is a laudable goal, but trying to avoid them entirely is all but impossible. When you've got warfare in urban population centers, or enemy forces using women and children as collateral targets (hiding out in schools and hospitals, for example), there's going to be dead civilians.

Even non-lethal alternates, such as tranquilizers and stun grenades, can still cause deaths.

The Active Denial System is a large-scale non-lethal weapon. It could have great potential in neutralizing enemy combatants with minimal loss of life. Its greatest limitations are its size and availability.

[Gletkin]

In the American Revolutionary War, for example, the American side caused very few civilian causalities.

There were "very few civilian casualties" period (at least caused by regular forces).
Our first enemy, the British (even though we were mutinous British settlers ourselves rather than conquered foreigners fighting back) have actually been the most civil enemy we've ever fought.

On the other hand civilian militias ("Minutemen" and "Loyalist Associations") and Native American allies were not so civil.
Treatment of said Native Americans by regulars of both sides were not so genteel either (Washington wrote some rather brutal orders to one of his commanders regarding Native American populations deemed allies of the British).

[Eran]

Minimizing civilian casualties is a laudable goal, but trying to avoid them entirely is all but impossible. When you've got warfare in urban population centers, or enemy forces using women and children as collateral targets (hiding out in schools and hospitals, for example), there's going to be dead civilians.

That is undoubtedly true once you carried fighting to the enemy's territory.

It is a lot easier to avoid civilian casualties if you restrict fighting to your own territory.

[Nunt]

Minimizing civilian casualties is a laudable goal, but trying to avoid them entirely is all but impossible. When you've got warfare in urban population centers, or enemy forces using women and children as collateral targets (hiding out in schools and hospitals, for example), there's going to be dead civilians.

Maybe your desire to kill the enemy does not allow you to kill a bunch of innocents in the process. The only just war is a war of self defence. Protecting yourself from an agressor. But once you start killing innocents, then you are also an agressor. Your war is no longer just. There is nothing that separates you anymore from your initial agressor. He was willing to kill you to obtain his goals and you are willing to kill innocents to obtain your goals. There is no moral difference.

[EastCoastAmerican]

Maybe your desire to kill the enemy does not allow you to kill a bunch of innocents in the process. The only just war is a war of self defence. Protecting yourself from an agressor. But once you start killing innocents, then you are also an agressor. Your war is no longer just. There is nothing that separates you anymore from your initial agressor. He was willing to kill you to obtain his goals and you are willing to kill innocents to obtain your goals. There is no moral difference.

I'm not arguing in favor of killing civilians, I'm just saying that a "good, clean war" is impossible. Non-lethal alternatives to minimize civilian casualties should still be used and promoted as a moral imperative.