Download or read book Targeting Civilians in War written by Alexander B. Downes and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-15 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accidental harm to civilians in warfare often becomes an occasion for public outrage, from citizens of both the victimized and the victimizing nation. In this vitally important book on a topic of acute concern for anyone interested in military strategy, international security, or human rights, Alexander B. Downes reminds readers that democratic and authoritarian governments alike will sometimes deliberately kill large numbers of civilians as a matter of military strategy. What leads governments to make such a choice? Downes examines several historical cases: British counterinsurgency tactics during the Boer War, the starvation blockade used by the Allies against Germany in World War I, Axis and Allied bombing campaigns in World War II, and ethnic cleansing in the Palestine War. He concludes that governments decide to target civilian populations for two main reasons—desperation to reduce their own military casualties or avert defeat, or a desire to seize and annex enemy territory. When a state's military fortunes take a turn for the worse, he finds, civilians are more likely to be declared legitimate targets to coerce the enemy state to give up. When territorial conquest and annexation are the aims of warfare, the population of the disputed land is viewed as a threat and the aggressor state may target those civilians to remove them. Democracies historically have proven especially likely to target civilians in desperate circumstances. In Targeting Civilians in War, Downes explores several major recent conflicts, including the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Civilian casualties occurred in each campaign, but they were not the aim of military action. In these cases, Downes maintains, the achievement of quick and decisive victories against overmatched foes allowed democracies to win without abandoning their normative beliefs by intentionally targeting civilians. Whether such "restraint" can be guaranteed in future conflicts against more powerful adversaries is, however, uncertain. During times of war, democratic societies suffer tension between norms of humane conduct and pressures to win at the lowest possible costs. The painful lesson of Targeting Civilians in War is that when these two concerns clash, the latter usually prevails.
Download or read book Civilians at War written by Gunner Lind and published by Museum Tusculanum Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Det er en udbredt antagelse, at krig skaber to slags mennesker: soldater og civile. Men har historien ikke vist os, at denne forsimplede antagelse er smertelig uklar? Civilians at War behandler en række spørgsmål, der knytter sig til de måder, hvorpå en krigs sociale grupperinger – og særligt de grupper, som fordrer aktiv deltagelse – tager sig ud i forskellige historiske og geografiske sammenhænge. Ved hjælp af casestudier fra Europa, Afrika og Sydamerika fra det 15. århundrede til nutiden belyser antologiens bidragydere den traditionelle modsætning mellem civil og soldat og tilbyder herigennem nye forståelser af den komplekse mellemposition, civile befinder sig i under krig. Gunner Lind er professor i tidlig moderne historie ved afdeling for Historie på Saxo-Instituttet, Københavns Universitet. Bidragydere: Steffen Jensen er seniorforsker ved DIGNITY – Dansk Institut Mod Tortur Lars Bo Kaspersen er professor ved Institut for Statskundskab, Københavns Universitet Gunner Lind er professor ved Saxo-Instituttet, Københavns Universitet Jeppe Büchert Netterstrøm er lektor ved Institut for Kultur og Samfund, Aarhus Universitet Palle Roslyng-Jensen er lektor ved Saxo-Instituttet, Københavns Universitet Robin May Schott er seniorforsker ved Dansk Institut for Internationale Studier Finn Stepputat er seniorforsker ved Dansk Institut for Internationale Studier We often think of war as creating two different kinds of people: soldiers and civilians. But hasn’t history taught us that this distinction is painfully nebulous? The contributors to this volume, writing from different disciplinary vantages, address a number of important issues connected to the ways in which the social distinctions and divisions surrounding war — especially those that determine participation — play out across different historical and geographical settings. Contextualizing the dichotomy of civilian and combatant against these larger complexities, this book offers a new understanding of the problematic middle ground that civilians occupy during wartime. Gunner Lind is professor of early modern history at the University of Copenhagen. He is the author of many books in Danish and a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Contributors: Steffen Jensen is Senior Researcher at DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture Lars Bo Kaspersen is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen Gunner Lind is Professor in the Department of History at the University of Copenhagen Jeppe Büchert Netterstrøm is Associate Professor at the Section of History, Aarhus University Palle Roslyng-Jensen is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Copenhagen Robin May Schott is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies Finn Stepputat is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies
Download or read book Civilians in War written by International Peace Academy and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers. This book was released on 2001 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While recognizing the changing face of war casualties (the civilian casualty rate has escalated from five percent in World War I to up to 90 percent in recent conflicts), the 1949 Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians has not been able to reverse that trend. In this project of the International Peace Academy, with which the editor is affiliated, a dozen essays endeavor to expand the tools available to protect civilians in times of war. They address the themes of the evolving norms of international humanitarian law, inducing compliance, enforcing compliance, and reevaluating protection by reviewing traditional assumptions and new needs to deal at the local level with unconventional belligerents like guerillas. c. Book News Inc.
Download or read book Killing Civilians written by Hugo Slim and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about how civilians suffer in war and why people decide that they should. Most civilian suffering in war is deliberate and always has been. Massacres, rape, displacement, famine and disease are usually designed. They are policies in war. In meetings or on mobile phones, political and military leaders decide that civilians are appropriate or inevitable targets. The principle that unarmed and innocent people should be protected in war is an ancient, precious but fragile idea. Today, the principle of civilian immunity is enshrined in modern international law and cherished by many. But, in practice, leaders in most wars reject the principle. Using detailed historical and contemporary examples, Killing Civilians looks at the many ways in which civilians suffer in wars and analyses the main anti-civilian ideologies which insist upon such suffering. It also exposes the very real ambiguity in much civilian identity which is used to justify extreme hostility. But this is also, above all, a book about why civilians should be protected. Throughout its pages, Killing Civilians argues for a morality of limited warfare in which tolerance, mercy and restraint are used to draw boundaries to violence. At the heart of the book are important new frameworks for understanding patterns of civilian suffering, ideologies of violence and strategies for promoting the protection of civilians. This is the first major treatment of the hard questions of civilian identity and protection in war for many years. Written by one of the humanitarian world's leading thinkers and former aid worker, it provides a unique and accessible text on the subject for professional and public readerships alike.
Download or read book The Deaths of Others written by John Tirman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans are greatly concerned about the number of our troops killed in battle--33,000 in the Korean War; 58,000 in Vietnam; 4,500 in Iraq--and rightly so. But why are we so indifferent, often oblivious, to the far greater number of casualties suffered by those we fight and those we fight for? This is the compelling, largely unasked question John Tirman answers in The Deaths of Others. Between six and seven million people died in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq alone, the majority of them civilians. And yet Americans devote little attention to these deaths. Other countries, however, do pay attention, and Tirman argues that if we want to understand why there is so much anti-Americanism around the world, the first place to look is how we conduct war. We understandably strive to protect our own troops, but our rules of engagement with the enemy are another matter. From atomic weapons and carpet bombing in World War II to napalm and daisy cutters in Vietnam and beyond, our weapons have killed large numbers of civilians and enemy soldiers. Americans, however, are mostly ignorant of these methods, believing that American wars are essentially just, necessary, and "good." Trenchant and passionate, The Deaths of Others forces readers to consider the tragic consequences of American military action not just for Americans, but especially for those we fight against.
Download or read book Sparing Civilians written by Seth Lazar and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Killing civilians is worse than killing soldiers. Few moral principles have been more widely and viscerally affirmed. But in recent years it has faced a rising tide of dissent. Seth Lazar aims to turn this tide, and to vindicate international law. He develops new insights into the morality of harm, relevant to everyone interested in the debate.
Download or read book The War Against Civilians written by Vasja Badalič and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a critical analysis of how the “war on terror” affected the civilian population in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This “forgotten war,” which started in 2001 with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, has seen more than 212,000 people killed in war-related incidents. Whilst most of the news media shifted their attention to other conflict zones, this war rages on. Badalič has amassed a vast amount of data on the civilian victims of war from both sides of the Durand line, the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. He conducted interviews in Peshawar, Quetta, Islamabad, Kabul, Jalalabad, and many other cities and villages from 2008 to 2017. His data is mostly drawn from those extensive conversations held with civilian victims of war, Afghan and Pakistani officials, human-rights activists and members of the insurgency. The book is divided into three parts. The first examines the impact the US-led coalition, Afghan security forces and paramilitary groups had on civilians, with methods of combat such as drone strikes and kill-or-capture missions. The second part focuses on civilian victims of abuses of power by Pakistani security forces, including arbitrary detentions and forced disappearances. In the final part, Badalič explores the impact of unlawful practices used by the armed insurgency – the Afghan Taliban. Overall, the book seeks to tell the story of the civilian victims of the “War on Terror".
Download or read book Civilians and War in Europe 1618 1815 written by Erica Charters and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Civilians and War in Europe 1618–1815 is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary look at the role of civilians in early modern warfare, from the Thirty Years War to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Drawing on works by scholars in art, literature, history, and political theory, the contributors to this volume explore the continuities and transformations in warfare over the course of two hundred years, examining topics central to civilian and war dynamics, including incarceration, cultures of plunder, billeting, and wartime atrocities, in addition to the larger legal practices and philosophical underpinnings of warfare and its aftermath. Showcasing the complex ways civilians were involved in war—not just as anguished sufferers, but as individuals who fought back, who profited, and who negotiated for their own needs—Civilians and War in Europe probes what it meant to be a civilian in countries deeply involved in conflict.
Download or read book A People at War written by Scott Reynolds Nelson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-04-16 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Claiming more than 600,000 lives, the American Civil War had a devastating impact on countless numbers of common soldiers and civilians, even as it brought freedom to millions. This book shows how average Americans coped with despair as well as hope during this vast upheaval. A People at War brings to life the full humanity of the war's participants, from women behind their plows to their husbands in army camps; from refugees from slavery to their former masters; from Mayflower descendants to freshly recruited Irish sailors. We discover how people confronted their own feelings about the war itself, and how they coped with emotional challenges (uncertainty, exhaustion, fear, guilt, betrayal, grief) as well as physical ones (displacement, poverty, illness, disfigurement). The book explores the violence beyond the battlefield, illuminating the sharp-edged conflicts of neighbor against neighbor, whether in guerilla warfare or urban riots. The authors travel as far west as China and as far east as Europe, taking us inside soldiers' tents, prisoner-of-war camps, plantations, tenements, churches, Indian reservations, and even the cargo holds of ships. They stress the war years, but also cast an eye at the tumultuous decades that preceded and followed the battlefield confrontations. An engrossing account of ordinary people caught up in life-shattering circumstances, A People at War captures how the Civil War rocked the lives of rich and poor, black and white, parents and children--and how all these Americans pushed generals and presidents to make the conflict a people's war.
Download or read book Civilians and Modern War written by Daniel Rothbart and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-08-06 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the issue of civilian devastation in modern warfare, focusing on the complex processes that effectively establish civilians’ identity in times of war. Underpinning the physicality of war’s tumult are structural forces that create landscapes of civilian vulnerability. Such forces operate in four sectors of modern warfare: nationalistic ideology, state-sponsored militaries, global media, and international institutions. Each sector promotes its own constructions of civilian identity in relation to militant combatants: constructions that prove lethal to the civilian noncombatant who lacks political power and decision-making capacity with regards to their own survival. Civilians and Modern War provides a critical overview of the plight of civilians in war, examining the political and normative underpinnings of the decisions, actions, policies, and practices of major sectors of war. The contributors seek to undermine the ‘tunnelling effect’ of the militaristic framework regarding the experiences of noncombatants. This book will be of much interest to students of war and conflict studies, ethics, conflict resolution, and IR/Security Studies.
Download or read book Civilians in the Path of War written by Mark Grimsley and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Antologi. Bogens 9 historikere har gennemgået mere end 2.500 års befolkningskonflikter og deres forskellige indflydelse på det civile samfund. Hvert behandlet afsnit undersøger ikke alene, hvad de militære styrker gjorde ved civilbefolkningen i operationsområdet, men hvorfor de gjorde det og hvorledes de retfærdiggjorde deres handlinger.
Download or read book The Civilianization of War written by Andrew Barros and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-09 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are civilian populations targeted in modern wars despite laws and ethical claims insisting on civilian protections? This book offers answers.
Download or read book Preventing War and Promoting Peace written by William H. Wiist and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preventing War and Promoting Peace focuses on how health professionals can actively engage in the prevention of war and the promotion of peace.
Download or read book Civilians at War written by George Beardmore and published by . This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barred from the Army by his asthma, George Beardmore started the War working as a cost clerk in the BBC. At the end of 1940 he was moved to Droitwich to help erect an emergency transmitter. In 1942 he returned to London and after a short spell writing for Picture Post, he became first a billeting officer and then an information officer at the sites of VI and V2 bombings in North London. Based on George's vivid and insightful journals, Civilians at War offers a unique record of life on the home front between 1838 and 1946.
Download or read book The Psychological Impact of War Trauma on Civilians written by Stanley Krippner and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the impact of war and extreme stress on civilian populations, as well as psychology's response to these phenomena. Contributors examined and developed interventions in locations including Africa, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Siberia, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
Download or read book Innocent Civilians written by C. McKeogh and published by Springer. This book was released on 2002-04-15 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is it that soldiers may be killed in war but civilians may not be killed? By tracing the evolution of the principle of non-combatant immunity in Western thought from its medieval religious origins to its modern legal status, Colm McKeogh attempts to answer this question. In doing so he highlights the unsuccessful attempts to reconcile warfare with our civilization's most fundamental principles of justice.
Download or read book Civilian Warriors written by Erik Prince and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The founder of Blackwater offers the gripping true story of the world’s most controversial military contractor. In 1997, former Navy SEAL Erik Prince started a business that would recruit civilians for the riskiest security jobs in the world. As Blackwater’s reputation grew, demand for its services escalated, and its men eventually completed nearly 100,000 missions for both the Bush and Obama administrations. It was a huge success except for one problem: Blackwater was demonized around the world. Its employees were smeared as mercenaries, profiteers, or worse. And because of the secrecy requirements of its contracts with the Pentagon, the State Department, and the CIA, Prince was unable to correct false information. But now he’s finally able to tell the full story about some of the biggest controversies of the War on Terror, in a memoir that reads like a thriller.
