22 COMMANDO NEWS ~ <strong>Edition</strong> <strong>14</strong> I <strong>2018</strong> Advertisements supporting Life after the ADF
THE CHARACTER OF WAR Some Thoughts on the Changing Nature and Characteristics of Post WW2 Conflicts in Which <strong>Australia</strong>ns Participated as Peacekeepers By MAJ John (Jack) Thurgar, SC. MBE. OAM. RFD. (Retd.) - ACA National Secretary Introduction This article is a tribute acknowledging the 80,000 men and women of the ADF and <strong>Australia</strong>n Police who were deployed overseas, in the national and International Security and Stability interests post WW2, in an attempt to help them and other <strong>Australia</strong>ns ‘to make some sense’ of what those who deployed experienced whilst serving as <strong>Australia</strong>n Peacekeepers and to promote discussion about those experiences. With Peacekeeping the idea using Military to solve conflicts evolved beyond physical inter - vention to using dialogue and intermediaries to resolve the problems that threatened or ended open warfare. Governments and Historians need to adjust to this positive and successful development and begin to see Peacekeeping as the best solution and use of our armed forces to achieve a more stable and secure environment. Unfortunately, perceptions of what an army should be and what its forces should do have remained stalled in the past. If the productive successes of Peacekeepers were put on a scale with the results of our involvement in interventionist conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan they would tip the balance significantly towards Peacekeeping. Consequently, those of our military who have served in Peacekeeping deserve the same respect as those who have served in combat deployments. For me, when personnel, be they Military or Police, who have passed a barrier test to enlist, are screened and selected on merit, undergo rigorous training, are subject to a disciplinary code, and committed to an overseas deployment by the <strong>Australia</strong>n Government in our nation’s national interest, into an uncertain environment with the prospect that they may be killed, wounded or injured during their deployment – should all be treated and referred to as veterans and be regarded equally before relevant legislation and regulations. It is pedantic and petulant to describe one deployment as a war, another as warlike or non-warlike, operational or non-operational or peacekeeping or peacemaking. In some circles Peacekeeping Opera - tions (PKO) are incorrectly labelled as Humanitarian in nature. The level of actual risk remains constant for all TPR John Thurgar 1 Sqn SASR, Sth Vietnam 1970 deployments, the only dynamic that differs is the intensity and frequency of incidents. All personnel who deploy have to leave home knowing they may pay the supreme sacrifice and not return to their families. Terminology Historically, the conventional con cept of ‘war’ – was understood as an armed conflict between two States or belligerents. If such conflict occurred, the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) automatically applied. The second type of war was ‘civil war’, which was a condition of armed conflict between a State and an inter nally-located insurgent move - ment that had taken up arms against their sovereign nation. This was traditionally considered as a domestic concern, and did not usually involve any international legal regulation at all. Only if the ‘host’ State or a third State recognised the insurgents as belligerents did the laws of war come into effect between the parties. 1 International armed conflicts are by far the most highly regulated, with a raft of treaties and com pre - hensive customary international law regulating per - missible State conduct. By comparison, non-inter - national armed conflicts have few laws regulating their conduct. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1977 Additional Protocols have over 550 articles combined, but only 29 of those regulate noninternational armed conflict; The Hague Regulations of 1907 do not contain any provisions regarding noninternational armed conflict. 2 In short, this means, <strong>Australia</strong>n peacekeepers play by the rules, the bad guys do not. For example, Rwanda. In April 1995, elements of the Rwandan People’s Army, while closing a large internally displaced person’s camp at Kibeho in southwest Rwanda, opened fire on its inhabitants with automatic rifles, Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG), mortars and crew served heavy to light machine guns. Thousands were killed. <strong>Australia</strong> had deployed a Casualty Clearing Post (CCP) with protection of a Platoon of <strong>Australia</strong>n Infantry from B Coy 2RAR; who 1 NSW State Library, International Humanitarian Law, Part 4. 2 ibid COMMANDO NEWS ~ <strong>Edition</strong> <strong>14</strong> I <strong>2018</strong> 23