CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

of Independence, the Napoleonic French army’s bitter engagement with British-backed
Spanish guerrillas, the irregular cavalry of the likes of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the
American Civil War, the various militias and informal armies involved in the break up
of Yugoslavia, or indeed, the ‘post-conflict’ phase of the recent Iraq War. On the latter
the point is made by the fact that the author can think of no allegations of misconduct by
coalition forces during the conflict phase and yet there has been a number of high-
profile cases since the end of ‘major combat operations’ 115 as the conflict has become an
asymmetric one. *
Why should this be so; what is it about irregular warfare that challenges accepted norms
of conflict and militates against moral conduct, even by the regular protagonists?
Firstly, it is almost a defining characteristic of irregular (asymmetric) warfare that the
weak become the target. Unable to match the military might of their regular opponents,
irregulars seek to undermine political will by directly targeting the civilian population.
Thus, as we noted above and heard from Mary Kaldor and Rupert Smith (see p172), it is
a feature of contemporary asymmetric conflict that the civilian population bear the brunt
of the casualties, as was generally the case before the statization of conflict in the 17 th
century. This is as true of ethnic conflict in the Balkans and in Africa, the insurgent
campaign in Iraq and terrorist activity around the world. Even when the people are not
directly targeted, irregulars will use them as a shield, as the screen behind which they
can hide.
It is a deliberate aim of the irregular to blur the distinction between combatant and non-
combatant, removing one of the moral sureties required by the regular. So it is a feature
of asymmetric warfare that the civilian population are much more greatly involved.
They are involved directly as a target but they are also involved as part of the ‘terrain’
that irregulars use for cover. Richard Holmes makes the following point in discussing
US actions in Iraq in 2004:
* It is only right to point out at this stage that although there have been sufficient incidents to illustrate the
point about asymmetric and irregular warfare, it is in fact testament to the professionalism and moral
integrity of coalition forces than proportionate to the number of troops deployed, the incidents of alleged
misconduct are remarkably few as will be shown later.
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