There is a saying that it does not take a sledgehammer to swat a gnat. That is, in essence, a maxim based on the principle of proportionality.
Assuming the object of an attack is a legitimate military target and the attack is believed to contribute to achieving a military objective, the law of war requires that the potential advantage to be gained be weighed against the potential cost in terms of collateral damage and unnecessary suffering. That is not to say that the advantage must equal or better the expected collateral costs, but it does require that the scale not tip so excessively the other way that the cost is grossly disproportionate.
Mushroom cloud rises from the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. (National Archives)
The greatest debate on the principle of proportionality relates back to the decision by the United States to use nuclear weapons against Japan in World War II. The exact number killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is unknown, but estimates are in the 150,000 to 250,000 range. In the six months prior to using nuclear weapons, the United States firebombed more than 60 Japanese cities resulting in an estimated 500,000 casualties. Targeting civilian populations and killing civilians by the hundreds of thousands is an exceptionally high cost, but it achieved the objective of forcing Japan to surrender, bringing an end to a long, costly and deadly war. In the end, victors usually do not end up facing international war crimes charges and in this case history will determine if the benefits were sufficient to justify the costs.
An additional factor in the proportionality equation today is the ever-improving perfection of precision munitions and the capability they provide to limit collateral damage. For instance, in World War II and even in Vietnam it often took an entire squadron of bombers dropping their payloads to ensure a bomb or two hit the bulls-eye and destroyed the target. The consequence was a ring of destruction around the target. Today, a single missile or a single smart bomb can achieve the objective with far less risk to the area around the target. That refined capability creates an obligation to match the weapon with the target and its surroundings to achieve the military objective while minimizing collateral costs.
3. Distinction
There are two prongs to the principle of distinction; one is to identify legitimate military targets and the other to identify protected people, places and things. The former is generally a permissible object of lethal force and the latter is generally exempt from deliberate attack. The burden is on all sides to the conflict to ensure the distinction between who and what is unprotected and protected is clearly visible and to honor those distinctions.
The Geneva Convention definition of a legitimate military target is a person, place or thing “which by (its) nature, location, purpose, or use makes an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”
Obviously, things normally associated with the armed forces – troops, arms, munitions, equipment and facilities – fit that definition. Other things that are less obvious – railway lines, radio and television stations, petroleum refineries and distribution systems, and plants that manufacture war-related materials – are all fair game, too. Members of the armed forces, in order to have lawful combatant status and the legal benefits of that status, must have uniforms or some other clearly distinctive markings visible at a distance that sets them apart from the civilian population. Civilian objects that would ordinarily be exempt from attack lose that status if they are used for an improper purpose, so placing an anti-aircraft gun on the roof of a church or a hospital makes it a legitimate military target that can be attacked and destroyed if it poses a threat.
Civilian populations, enemy prisoners of war, enemy wounded, hospitals, ambulances, medical transports, religious facilities, cultural and historical sites, medical personnel, and clergy, among a list of others, have protected status and are exempt from deliberate attack. A red cross, red crescent and red crystal are internationally recognized symbols that designated protected medical personnel, equipment and humanitarian facilities that are immune from attack. Misuse of those protected symbols to play upon the enemy’s duty to respect them only to betray that trust – loading an ambulance with explosives and using its protected status to drive into the enemy’s camp where it is detonated, for instance – is a war crime called perfidy.
Joe Galloway (Source: Miltiary Reporters & Editrors)
Journalists have a unique status under the law of war. If captured, journalists are supposed to be afforded the same treatment as prisoners of war and detained only as long as it is imperative for security reasons.
Journalists are not to be targeted, but their presence among members of the armed forces that are legitimate targets imposes no duty on the enemy to forego an attack.
One of the best known incidents involving a journalist truly at the pointy end of the spear occurred in Vietnam in November 1965 when United Press International journalist Joe Galloway was with fewer than 500 members of the 7th Cavalry under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore when they fought a bloody two-day battle against about 3,500 North Vietnamese regulars. In 1992, Joe Galloway and then Lieutenant General (retired) Hal Moore co-authored “We Were Soldiers Once…And Young” which became the 2002 hit movie “We Were Soldiers.” The book should be required reading for any journalist with an interest in armed conflict.
