CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

had been done: soldiers were reluctant to open fire. Part of the problem for the UK
armed forces, perhaps, was the long-standing situation in Northern Ireland where the
Army was rightly in support of the police and operating under very restrictive RoE.
Add to this a decade or so of peacekeeping and a mindset had been established that was,
perhaps, unready for the much more aggressive RoE called for by the asymmetric
conflict in Iraq. Nor is this the first time there has been a confusion between the
requirements of peacekeeping and those of asymmetric warfare (or where what was
intended as peacekeeping became de facto asymmetric warfare). General Riley 142 ,
again, argues that the Bosnian conflict – at Gorazde, for instance – offers examples
where there was disconnect between ends and means (as restricted by RoE). Outside of
peacekeeping, when Kaldor’s ‘police ethic’ is appropriate, RoE must reflect the reality
that asymmetric warfare is warfare.
All this can make for a very confusing set of circumstances for soldiers on the ground.
However, the British Army’s Adjutant General has argued 143 that despite the media
furore, in fact no British soldier has been tried as a result of his actions in a tactical
situation in Iraq. * We must hope that this continues to be the case; whilst robust RoE
may never excuse murder, asymmetric warfare must be fought as warfare and soldiers
must be confident in their actions. No soldier should ever find himself in court for
acting in good faith in a tactical situation into which others have placed him. If the
rules may be complex and difficult to interpret in a tense and dangerous battle situation,
a deeply engrained, indeed intuitive, understanding of the jus in bello principles should
provide soldiers a sound guide as to what constitutes good faith. When Private Johnson
Beharry of the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment was interviewed about the action that
resulted in his being awarded Britain’s highest award for gallantry, the Victoria Cross,
his response was that ‘the training just kicks in’ 144 ; his response to the situation, he
modestly asserted, was an instinctive one. The same training that led to Beharry’s
instinctive gallantry, saving his colleagues’ lives, must be the bedrock of soldiers’
judgement calls in the complex tactical situations presented to them by asymmetric
warfare; their judgements ‘in good faith’ must be based on a firmly embedded
* Perhaps the most celebrated of cases arising from the Iraq conflict, that of Trooper Williams, reached the
stage of pre-trial hearing before being dismissed by the Judge.
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