War is Hell for those who fight it and those caught in the crossfire. It's best to fight to win as quickly as possible. False compassion to alleviate war at the expense of battlefield victory will backfire.
The Trump administration is moving to abolish a Pentagon office responsible for promoting civilian safety in battlefield operations, suggesting that incoming Defense Department leaders may attempt to loosen restrictions on U.S. military operations worldwide.
This is actually the problem with the office that supposedly simply sought to"prioritize the safety of noncombatants in conflict zones":
“This certainly doesn’t prevent you from ‘taking the gloves off,’” a senior defense official said. “But what it means is, when you ‘put the gloves on’ … you’ll hit what you want to hit, and not what you don’t.”So are the figurative American gloves on or off? When you go to war, winning within the boundaries of the rules of war should be America's practice for use of military force.
To be clear, abolishing this office doesn't abolish the rules of war. They will remain part of how America wages war, notwithstanding hyper-ventilating over American military actions. And knowing our sensitivity to civilian casualties and the bias of our media, enemies simply lie about civilian casualties.
But too often, preventing any civilian casualties (who we don't want to hit) has taken "priority" over achieving military objectives (what we want to hit). And that priority of false compassion can increase civilian casualties as well as our own troop casualties in the long run.
Civilian casualties are allowed in the rules of war as long as the losses are proportional to the military objective sought. And that's aside from the issue of legal responsibility for civilian deaths falling on the side that hides behind human shields.
Of course civilian deaths should be minimized. Rest assured, the American military fought within the boundaries of the rules of war before that recently created office existed and will continue to do so after it is abolished.
UPDATE: Well this is a timely article about the rules of engagement in large-scale combat operations as envisioned by the Army Training and Doctrine Command:
Considering the scale, scope, and violence of LSCO—as envisioned by TRADOC—the ROE will need to be permissive to effectively execute mission command with the appropriate level of control.We can't have commanders frozen into inaction because they can't get a military lawyer's opinion from higher command on the legality of a strike. Understanding the ability to take risks in ROE must be joined to understanding commander's intent in the operation.
Victory first will be ugly but still within the rules of war. And the alternative could be defeat with even uglier outcomes.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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NOTE: I made the image with Bing.
