Countering

Military Protection of Cultural Property
archaeologists, preservation architects, and other professionals on staff. The challenge
these two countries have faced since 2001 has been to apply the rigorous heritage
protection standards followed at home to operations abroad.
Ministries of Defence and military organizations tend to take their own history very
seriously and often establish departments of military history and military museums.
One example is the preservation of Yugoslavian Leader Tito’s nuclear bunker in Konjic,
Bosnia and Herzogovina. The nation’s military preserved the bunker and all of its
furnishings completely intact and in operational order and turned it over to the Ministry
of Culture in 2015.
The protection of cultural property during military operations
The looting of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad in 2003 brought the implementation
of the 1954 Hague Convention in the global media spotlight. In addition, when the
international press reported damage by coalition forces assigned to protect the ancient
site of Babylon, it became clear that military personnel assigned to protect archaeological
sites lacked the necessary awareness, materials, and skills to minimize the impacts of
their presence on the ruins for which they were responsible.
Since then, the issues and challenges related to cultural property protection during the
course of military operations have continued to increase in frequency and significance.
Examples include the recovery of art and frescoes after the earthquake in Haiti, the
successful implementation by NATO of a list for World Heritage sites in Libya, the
destruction of Sufi tombs and evacuation of ancient manuscripts from Timbuktu, Mali,
the measured response for recovery of collapsed sacred sites in Nepal, the deliberate
destruction of archaeological sites and museum artifacts, and the massive scale looting by
ISIS. These events evidence that primary stakes in modern conflict and disaster response
increasingly revolve around heritage. Recent history and regional circumstances have
resulted in tremendous variation in awareness, capability, capacity, and practices for
cultural property protection by the responding military organizations.
One way to develop a more nuanced understanding of cultural property protection
during the course of modern military operations is to examine a range of variation in
approach to the issue illustrated here by a series of Western military organizations.
Austria
The Austrian military demonstrates, to this day, tremendous commitment to the
protection of cultural property, and is a world leader in this arena. In a presentation to
an international conference held at the Hague in 2008, Karl Habsburg, Board member of
Blue Shield International, mentioned that a contributing factor to the current Austrian
emphasis on military protection of cultural property was the pro-active labeling of
historic structures using the 1954 ‘Blue Shield’ Convention during the Cold War. Many
Austrians credit the signs as a factor in discouraging aggressive maneuvers from the East
crossing Austrian territory.
The Austrians have also had positive experiences with prioritizing recovery during
disaster response. During a World Archaeological Congress held in Vienna in 2008,
BG Furstenhofer – who is now retired – described his experience of participating in
an Austrian mission to assist the Italians after the 1980 Calabritto earthquake. BG
Furstenhofer’s unit was working in a village where nearly every structure had been
completely destroyed. Since all of the potential survivors had been rescued, the Austrians,
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