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3.3.3.3 Recognition of Friendly Armed Groups as Lawful Belligerents. In somecases, a State has recognized an armed group that fights alongside it as a belligerent. 35 Onereason for such recognition might be to seek to persuade other States that have not recognizedthe armed group as a belligerent, such as an enemy State, to grant the privileges of combatantstatus to members of those armed groups. 36 An armed group that has been recognized in thisway by a friendly State may be viewed as analogous to an organized resistance movement thatbelongs to a State that is a party to a conflict. 373.3.4 AP I Provision on National Liberation Movements. AP I treats as internationalarmed conflicts “armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination andalien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination.” 38The United States has strongly objected to this provision as making the applicability ofthe rules of international armed conflict turn on subjective and politicized criteria that wouldeliminate the distinction between international and non-international conflicts. 39 The UnitedStates has understood these types of conflicts to be non-international armed conflicts. 4035 For example, Case Concerning Certain German Interests in Polish Upper Silesia (Merits) (Germany v. Poland)P.C.I.J. (series A) No. 7, at 28 (“At the time of the conclusion of those two Conventions, Poland was not recognizedas a belligerent by Germany; it is, however, only on the basis of such recognition that an armistice could have beenconcluded between those two Powers. The Principal Allied Powers had, it is true, recognized the Polish armedforces as an autonomous, allied and co-belligerent (or belligerent) army. This army was placed under the supremepolitical authority of the Polish National Committee with headquarters in Paris.”); Statement of the Secretary ofState, September 1918, reprinted in Charles Henry Hyde, The Recognition of the Czecho-Slovaks as Belligerents, 13AJIL 93-95 (1919) (“The Government of the United States recognizes that a state of belligerency exists between theCzecho-Slovaks thus organized and the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. It also recognizes the Czecho-Slovak National Council as a de facto belligerent government, clothed with proper authority to direct the militaryand political affairs of the Czecho-Slovaks.”).36 For example, Declaration Concerning Czechoslovak Army, Sept. 7, 1944, 11 DEPARTMENT OF STATE BULLETIN263 (Sept. 10, 1944) (“The United States Government therefore declares: … (3) In these circumstances reprisals bythe German military authorities against the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Army violate the rules of war by whichGermany is bound. The United States Government, therefore, solemnly warns all Germans who take part in or arein any way responsible for such violations that they do so at their peril and will be held answerable for theircrimes.”).37 Compare § 4.6.2 (Belonging to a Party to the Conflict).38 AP I art. 1(4) (“The situations referred to in the preceding paragraph [i.e., the situations referred to in Article 2common to those Conventions] include armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial dominationand alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined inthe Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning FriendlyRelations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”).39 See Ronald Reagan, Letter of Transmittal, Jan. 29, 1987, MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT TRANSMITTING AP II III-IV (“But Protocol I is fundamentally and irreconcilably flawed. It contains provisions that would underminehumanitarian law and endanger civilians in war. One of its provisions, for example, would automatically treat as aninternational conflict any so-called ‘war of national liberation.’ Whether such wars are international or noninternationalshould turn exclusively on objective reality, not on one’s view of the moral qualities of each conflict.To rest on such subjective distinctions based on a war’s alleged purposes would politicize humanitarian law andeliminate the distinction between international and non-international conflicts. It would give special status to ‘warsof national liberation,’ an ill-defined concept expressed in vague, subjective, politicized terminology.”).40 Detailed Analysis of Provisions, Attachment 1 to George P. Shultz, Letter of Submittal, Dec. 13, 1986, MESSAGEFROM THE PRESIDENT TRANSMITTING AP II 1-2 (“This Article technically excludes four types of situations from the77