OP-ED: The near future direction of the armed forces

[Nilgiri]

@jaibi , add me to your tag list, please and thanks.

 

[jaibi]

Sir, completely agree with you but the only realistic issue we're facing is the fact that our civilian set up does not resonate with those changes and often becomes a hurdle. Your point of education being one I sorely wish to point out this is why the situation becomes more precarious.

It was a lovely read!

I am not a military professional hence my comments may appear to be amateurish and too bookish to the military professionals. However for whatever its worth, here is what comes to my mind.

Von Clausewitz, the famous Austrian military philosopher & a veteran of the Napoleonic wars had defined war as a tool employed in the pursuit of political or policy objectives. This has not changed except that the political/policy objectives of some countries now include dominance not only over the land & sea but also in space.

Wars have also become highly complex requiring the use of advanced technology and the scope of war has also increased. Currently a strong country needs to be able to fight the “Asymmetric & hybrid war”, Conventional war which may or may not involve nuclear weapons and the unconventional war.

I would define asymmetric war where military capabilities of the opposing forces are significantly unequal and also different, such as guerrilla warfare and terrorist activities like suicide bombing, kidnapping & hijacking, etc. The hybrid war would be cyber/informational warfare.

Conventional war is normally an armed conflict between states/nations involving organized military units aiming to seize control of territory, inhabitants, and resources from the enemy. Non-conventional war in my view includes a broad range of military /paramilitary operations conducted through indigenous /surrogate forces directly or indirectly supported by an external force.

It is the near-impossible task for a country to train, equip & educate her armed forces to fight all of the above kinds of war successfully. But, based on the evidence over the last couple of decades, except for a very few, the majority of the future wars are likely to be of asymmetrical, hybrid, and /or of the non-conventional nature.

These days nations/countries usually train their soldiers to fight a 3-dimensional conventional war; that is the combination of land, air & sea-borne operations. Hence the stress is on improving physical fitness & proficiency in the use of their hardware assets for the ranks and on the tactical/strategic planning for the officer corps. Primarily because that’s how the soldiers & the officers have been trained for hundreds of years. But this does not teach them to successfully fight asymmetric and other kinds of wars where the enemy is either hard to locate and identify or even altogether unknown.

Consequently, less powerful forces have managed to overcome/frustrate far more powerful adversaries such as Mujahedeen against Russia in Afghanistan, the Vietcong against USA in Vietnam & the Taliban against the USA in Afghanistan.

Since most non-conventional /asymmetric & hybrid wars last a long time, before anything else, a strong economy with the ability to continuously replace military hardware & personnel is a must in any modern and future war.

A 21st-century war, in any form or manner, would require the use of sophisticated weaponry & advanced technology. This means that a country should not only be able to produce/acquire state of the art weaponry, its soldiers and officers must also be able to make use of the sophisticated gadgetry to its full potential. In other words, the future war would require highly educated officers, non-commissioned officers as well as ordinary soldiers. Additionally, personnel at each level of command would need to be innovative and be able to adapt to changing situations quickly.

In my humble opinion, no army can provide such comprehensive training to every soldier. The only option is to be highly selective in recruitment at all levels, even if it means fewer numbers. Also, the officer promotion needs to be based upon a combination of merit & seniority (with stress on merit) instead of on seniority alone.

For a country like Pakistan, in addition to making the economy strong, improving the overall standard of the education of the ordinary soldier is extremely important. Since to improve the education level of the whole nation would take a long time; officers and ranks of all of the armed services should be encouraged to ‘Self educate’ and a manpower development program inculcating the ability to think on one’s feet should become an important part of the daily routine.

Done.

@jaibi , add me to your tag list, please and thanks.

Thank you for your words, bahijan, your points are quite valid and the illustrations excellent. There's just one issue that becomes the hurdle: sustainability. Such systems, as they become more and more complicated, require a lot of funding and robust logistical systems which of course have to be backed up by an even stronger economy. Not everyone has that luxury and building upon that point, the aim of the enemy becomes to attack you on that very weakness. Therefore, all of your points need to be incorporated systematically and with battlefield testing; though, I agree with you that this is the direction we're invariably heading towards.

@jaibi As usual great job Sir and here are my two cents. I am not expert but I have learnt few things from great people like you so I am going to share my view here.

• First of all those days are long gone where there was very less coordination or joint planning between three main forces of any country that is Army and Air Force and Navy. Modern warfare is all about these three components of your military might being well integrated with each other. They plan entire war together prepare for your enemy together and have single command. You can't afford a war planning where there is no coordination among them and they are fighting their own wars without other one knowing what other component is doing.
• Secondly as today's world is about cyber space it's about artificial Intelligence. These things are not only important and in fact essential not just in modern civilian life but they are indispensable part of modern warfare. This also includes strong SIGINT and COMINT and ISTAR capability. While you need planes like DA 20 and other jamming planes and SIGNIT and COMINT planes through which you can have communication with your enemies and keeping them secure from enemy attacks whether physical or technological like cyber and or jamming you also have to make sure that you destroy your enemies leadership and its Armed Forces mechanism of communicating with each other. Basically keep your communication lines open and totally destroying your enemies one leaving your enemy totally blind and dumbfounded in battle field.
• Use of drones will have to increase also other unmanned systems. Knowing where your enemy is where it is moving what are their plans before enemies implement them will be key for you ability to win wars in future. You simply have to strike before your enemy does and it has to be precision strikes on its main communication systems and its most important military installations and soldiers.
• Finally you have to invest in your soldiers get them new gadgets and guns and equipment. You should have your own future soldier program where your infantry and special forces are trained and equipped with small drones modern communication systems along with night vision sights and day time sights. They will be key to bring victory to you.
• Last but still the most important part no matter How much technologically advance you are, if you don't have the will and guts to give everything for your cause including your life and sacrifice your loved ones for your cause than you are never ever going to win the war. In other words you can't beat some ones sheer will of not giving up and not being subjugated with your technological advancements. Technology helps a lot no doubt but still and in fact for all times to come your will to fight until the end is what will get you to the victory.

These pictures below are for reference purpose.

View attachment 656067

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Sir, I do see the point in your arguments and agree with many of them; however, as you know when it comes to mil dev then the jump from the paper to the ground is one where there are a lot of potential pitfalls and unforeseen hurdles. This is exactly my point, what it all points to is a synchrony of various systems i.e. political, civil, various arms of the forces etc., however, for that to become a reality, in my opinion, first these systems need to be cohesive internally and then with each other.

The post by @jaibi compelled some personal reflections; I find myself much in the position of @niaz Sahib, with lesser intellect to ameliorate the distance between the defence-services experience possessed and the need for direct military experience, knowledge and involvement.

These reflections are based to some extent on the practical tutorials on the higher management of military force provided by @PanzerKiel, who forced home the understanding that between the textbook and bullets fired in anger there is a lot to be learnt and reflected back in our working for the defence of our respective nations. However, the speculative element, the element that @Nilgiri reflects in his rather strange humour as the ‘C’mon, man!’ moment, is entirely the responsibility of this individual.

INTRODUCTION: WARS ARE WON – AND LOST – BY SOCIETIES, AND BY POLITICAL ORIENTATION, NOT BY THE ARMY, NAVY, AIR FORCE OR THE MARINES

1) Political leadership and a unified country are key. A divisive leadership, that leads an active campaign of hate against sections of its countrymen will not last long. The outstanding doctrinal developments of the Wehrmacht in WWII were considerably weakened by the internal fissures and rifts that made the regime kill one of its outstanding military leaders, holding the highest military rank, and distinguished by an extraordinary record in warfare, by suggesting that he should kill himself as an insurance against the persecution of his surviving family illustrates the point. There were nearly a dozen others.

2) The political and military leadership must be on the same page. It is disconcerting to find that, after decades of proclaiming loudly and clearly that it was not intended for counter-insurgency operations, a major South Asian army was compelled to accept supersession of two candidates for the position of Chief of Staff on the grounds that the successful candidate was a counter-insurgency expert. The whole point of the AFSPA was to insulate the Army, and other services, from the compromises needed in military behaviour in fighting the country’s own citizens.

a) Other countries in the region that have taken up counter-insurgency duties with an almost missionary zeal – the adjective was deliberately chosen – will find the chickens coming home to roost in future.

b) The consequences will be felt in the regard and honour paid to the military by citizens, or the regard and honour that is withheld.

c) Examples abound of other such compromises. Most respectfully, a very valid point, the use of artillery mentioned by @jaibi, becomes less significant when the use of artillery in the counter-insurgency context is considered. It will find its uses in future warfare in such terrain, and it will prove a factor that brings an edge to that military and its adaptability, but the context has a price that will be paid elsewhere.

3) The military leadership of a country must take that country’s demographic profile into account, and must think of the consequences of various characteristics of development that exist. How a citizenry is treated, in terms of health care, and the consequent health of the available volunteers, their mental abilities, founded on a minimum degree of nourishment, their physical capabilities, and the very tricky selection of weaponry keeping in view the widely differing physique of soldier candidates, are two factors that may be cited straightaway. However, other factors are equally important. An unlettered, uneducated citizenry will retard the growth of a 21st century military service, at land, sea or in the air. It will also spend a lot of time trying to figure out if they are fighting the right wars.

a) The Wehrmacht of WWII was not sprung from dragon’s teeth; those soldiers were the products of a sophisticated educational system, not just in Prussia but prominently in the Rhineland, in Bavaria, in Saxony and in other components of the German Empire.

b) So, too, the quite ferocious war-fighting ability and the technical excellence of the American soldier was honed in conditions within the USA; they were not injected in boot camp.

c) The Red Armies that crushed the Wehrmacht are a contrast. Their political leadership possessed enough compulsive power to mandate massed attacks by infantry with one weapon for every six or seven soldiers; it also possessed enough industrial power to produce very ordinary pieces of equipment in the bulk, in numbers that allowed their armour, for instance, to overwhelm perhaps more sophisticated German equipment; that allowed the development of aircraft that would lose every engagement with the Luftwaffe, but was present in sufficient numbers to offer realistic ground support to Red forces on the ground, even to develop doctrine and technologies that allowed effective use of what was ultimately very ordinary equipment.

i) One major army in the South Asian region faces such an opponent in one front, and hence these reminders are important.

4) A 21st century Army may actually lose any war it fights in the 21st century. The harsh truth that is emerging is that it is technology from the latter half of the 21st century, and technology that anticipates developments even further ahead in the 22nd century, that will prevail; a sine qua non is the absorption of technology from existing and projected technical developments by jawans.

5) This points both to the need to sharply accelerate technical innovation within a national industrial environment, and to introduce these innovations to military use on a real-time, today, here-and-now basis.

6) Such developments will destroy current military formations. The two-hundred year old concepts that were innovative in their time that saw a squad forming components of a section, that forming parts of a platoon, right through companies, battalions, brigades, divisions and Corps, on through armies and army groups, are outdated. The army that discards these most rapidly is the army that will win.

7) Unfortunately, these changes also affect the relations between services. The harsh lessons imparted by the recent exploration of the conflict between India and Pakistan in 1965 were reminders of the need for various services, in this case, the Army and the Air Force, to work closely together. That means working in the field, in a manner that is reflected in results; headline management, of the sort that the air leadership conducted with his gullible defence minister, does not count in battle.

8) Old roles are changing rapidly. Those armed forces that adapt to it most quickly, and stop fighting the last war that they had fought, will prevail.

a) The Army, as it exists today in South Asia, will have to change; originally that was phrased as ‘....will cease to exist....’ but the hidebound Galapagos-tortoise like characteristics of the military here, that is sadly a derivative of the outcome of the military revolution that took place in Europe centuries ago, make it clear that change will be incremental. Those who change fastest, and absorb the lessons of such changes before going into battle, will win.

b) The Air Force is already clearly outdated. Its division into strategic, front-shaped and tactical is already clear, and it is only a question of waiting for the screaming to subside.

c) The Navy is a victim in some countries of looking at what Big Brother does and trying to imitate it, or using a variant of past themes that have been popular against past Big Brothers.

i) The region is famous for being a-historical in character (referring to a majority cultural segment within it, without any intention of transferring that unflattering estimation to all other countries in the region). Otherwise it would have recognised and imbibed in full the lessons from Classical Greece, where Athens, faced with an invincible Spartan army, took to the sea. This focus on the sea happened a generation before, when they abandoned their city to the Persians, and took to the waters, and smashed their enemy at Salamis. What Themistocles honed into a sharp weapon was wielded by Pericles to devastating effect within a few decades of that transformation.

ii) It is important to remember the parallel lessons from our own history, from the Cholas, for instance, or from the outstanding achievements of the Marakkars in the 16th century and the Angres in the 18th century. Both those families successfully fought the naval hegemons of the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese (and, to some extent, the Dutch) in the 16th century, and the British in the 18th century.

iii) Unfortunately, the thinking about naval power and military power, and the relationship between the two, has been inherited by New Delhi from the thinking of the British colonists, who operated on land with the full backing and support of the Royal Navy, but with no control whatsoever over naval doctrine, strategy or deployment. We therefore continue to labour under the burden of the Jang-i-Lat, and there is not much time for the Navy, or any budget either.

9) This is the current situation from the perspective of one of the major nations of South Asia.

Commenting on the detailed transformation of the military, the air force and the navy is logically determined by the boundaries set down above.

@jaibi

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[Joe Shearer]

Sir, I do see the point in your arguments and agree with many of them; however, as you know when it comes to mil dev then the jump from the paper to the ground is one where there are a lot of potential pitfalls and unforeseen hurdles. This is exactly my point, what it all points to is a synchrony of various systems i.e. political, civil, various arms of the forces etc., however, for that to become a reality, in my opinion, first these systems need to be cohesive internally and then with each other.

Completely agree. These systems need to be cohesive internally before even they face the larger environment.

I just put in that introduction to explain my point of view that if we confine ourselves to the internally cohesive military technology, we may still fail, due to the lack of match between that and the social, economic and political environment.

A case in point is the procurement policy of the IAF. Each system by itself is perfect; the discord between those military systems (the aircraft themselves) and the political environment led to the drawing down of the IAF to a fraction of the required number of squadrons needed to fight the PAF and the PLA AF.

 

[VCheng]

INTRODUCTION: WARS ARE WON – AND LOST – BY SOCIETIES, AND BY POLITICAL ORIENTATION, NOT BY THE ARMY, NAVY, AIR FORCE OR THE MARINES

A great read, Joe, thank you. Let me just add my two cents (worth 0.75 cents adjusted for inflation):

Wars, in the 21st century, will remain mainly economic, specially between relatively evenly matched rivals in military terms. Witness the increasing weaponization of the dollar, and the various ways opponents are trying to counter it. Thus, the foundations must be society-wide, as you point out, taking decades and decades of preparation to bear any kind of fruits of national interest.

Peace!

 

[jaibi]

Agreed, sir, I've been trying to highlight the very point you just did from a mil pov but it gets drowned out by uninformed zeal, sadly.

Completely agree. These systems need to be cohesive internally before even they face the larger environment.

I just put in that introduction to explain my point of view that if we confine ourselves to the internally cohesive military technology, we may still fail, due to the lack of match between that and the social, economic and political environment.

A case in point is the procurement policy of the IAF. Each system by itself is perfect; the discord between those military systems (the aircraft themselves) and the political environment led to the drawing down of the IAF to a fraction of the required number of squadrons needed to fight the PAF and the PLA AF.

If you're interested in this, sir, there's an a piece I remember which basically views warfare from a systems pov and postulates that it's one system trying to overcome another and therefore, as each system becomes more complicated it becomes vulnerable to collapse. I think it analyzed the success of the Mongols/Huns/Goths against much more robust adversaries as an example.

A great read, Joe, thank you. Let me just add my two cents (worth 0.75 cents adjusted for inflation):

Wars, in the 21st century, will remain mainly economic, specially between relatively evenly matched rivals in military terms. Witness the increasing weaponization of the dollar, and the various ways opponents are trying to counter it. Thus, the foundations must be society-wide, as you point out, taking decades and decades of preparation to bear any kind of fruits of national interest.

Peace!

 

[saiyan0321]

What an amazing discussion. Let me add my two cents and hope that i do not make a fool of myself in such esteemed company. Be advised that i am neither a soldier nor have experienced soldiery. I would say i am pretty far away from that so please forgive my naivety.

I believe that the 'Future direction of the armed forces' and the 'Military doctrines' must also take into account concepts of law and the stability the country as well. Let me expand on both.

Lets first talk about the role of international law and international community in general in the future direction of the armed forces. There is a commonplace to observe that the Second World War “total” war, in which the great powers mobilized vast armies and applied the full industrial and economic resources of their nation to the defeat and occupation of enemy states, is no longer the prototype. Concepts of International law and International relations and the rise of global economic interests have not just affected the very nature of the state itself but has also affected the institution of war. Infact wars are now rarely fought between equal nations or coalitions of great industrial powers and this is true due to the absence of such warfare, which was so common in years, decades and centuries before WW2. Days of annexation of lands through absolute brutal military blitz. In the other great thread, we witnessed @PanzerKiel raise the question as to why India, in indo-pak conflicts, has been unable to completely destroy the military capability of Pakistan and has repeatedly posed the question of India's unwilling nature to utilize its quantitative edge to nullify the qualitative gaps. In layman words, he was saying that why India and Pakistan never followed the open war conflict doctrine that was so common in the world pre WW2. If we actually take into account the indo-pak conflicts, we will notice that both sides often tried to contain the engagements rather than enter into blitz armies running through cities or doing offensives after offensives. Infact both armies have often not just tried to contain conflicts to as much minimum as they could but also tried to contain deployments as well. @Indus Pakistan has repeatedly highlighted that lack of conflict of pre-WW2 standards not created the war-aversion effect we see in europe in the modern world. I myself have stated that wars have formed a more romanticized structure, as it was in pre-WW1 in the empires of europe, amongst the people of Pakistan (ofcourse the extreme war on terror has definitely contained such thoughts).
With such a thought we cannot ignore the existence of such happening post the formation of the UN and the solidification of International Law.
Modern wars are rarely fought between equivalent nations or coalitions of great industrial powers. They occur at the peripheries of the world system, among foes with wildly different institutional, economic, and military capacities. The military trains for tasks far from conventional combat: local diplomacy, intelligence gathering, humanitarian reconstruction, urban policing, or managing the routine tasks of local government. It is ever less clear where the war begins and ends or which activities are combat, which “peacebuilding.” Enemies are dispersed and decisive engagement is rare. Battle is at once intensely local and global in new ways. Violence follows patterns more familiar from epidemiology or cultural fashion than military strategy. Networks of fellow travelers exploit the infrastructures of the global economy to bring force to bear here and there. The political, cultural, and diplomatic components of warfare have become more salient and, of course, the whole thing happens in the glare of the modern media. It most classic and home-based example would be our own war on terror or the US invasion of Afghanistan. In such a scenario we must look to the evolution of modern warfare through the lens of International law and how law itself has found a place in warfare. Previously laws and rules played little to no role in a full bearing conflict and even now nobody fully agrees what the law or rules are or even what their limitations are however one thing is clear that war is no longer devoid of law. In fact it can be stated that law no longer stands on the outskirts of war making its boundaries but is part of the conflict and military operations take place under the extremely complex tapestry of local and national law. These laws shape the logistical, institutional and even the physical landscape of where these military operations take place. International law has become the metric for debating the legitimacy for initiating a conflict and we can see this repeatedly that nations justify their military actions under one legal ambit or the other. War on terrorism is in fact fought through such reasons and legitimate legal arguments provided by both parties. I am going to take the most sensitive of examples and highlight that the Baluch insurgency repeatedly highlights that their insurgent actions are in line with international law and are not in conflict with the legal doctrines of war. They try to justify it repeatedly and Pakistan does the same. Pakistan highlights their brutal actions, their usage of terrorist tactics and Pakistan offers their own legitimacy and justification for military operations and we can see how law is used to in its physical form of stating that Pakistan is combating internal conflict which is entirely Pakistan's internal matter. Why bother? why the exercise? did nations pre-WW2 bothered doing that? No but the Pree WW2 nations did not have to face the existence of law in modern conflict. I would even say that in all these ways., law now shapes the political and physical nature of war.

Now war is a legal institution as armies are now linked to the nation’s commercial life, integrated with civilian and peacetime governmental institutions, and covered by the same national and international media. some scholars on this relationship have spoken of how the modern regulation of armies and the professional and legal culture of the armies is evidence of how much law and rules have swept into the institution of war. They often equate such with the regulated military practice of soldiers in groups deployed such as in military zones or even in peacetime zones like in an aircraft carrier. The culture and regulated feel of hundreds if not thousands of men working in a regulated fashion breathes of a military social culture. The modern military being the social system which requires a complex and entrenched culture of standard practices or shared experiences which are the rules and regulations and discipline that governs them. We see this with the entire military structure of modern armies. Pakistan army is no different and now if we were to match this with say the ANA or even the Taliban military structure then we would witness the lack of discipline and lack of social structure coherence and the reason is that its existence is based without law and without regulations and thus this negatively impacts the performance of such armies. Defections, violations, treason etc. e.tc become all too common and i am not saying modern armies dont have such. They have it but it is not on such a larger scale that we witness with unregulated armies. Let me give an example, proper implementation of criminal law does not eradicate crime nor does it promise to do so but it reduces it in comparison to states that do not have such implementation of criminal law. Same is with armies. Warfare is now rules and regulations and this is a very huge topic in itself.
The relationship between modern law and modern warfare has become even more intertwined even more so. The legal regulation of war has actually created the concept of you must kill legally here and only like this and not there and not where such killing is not permitted and killing shall only be permitted when the conditions we have stated are fulfilled and this is now a legal privilege. Do it in any other way apart from sanctioned and it is indeed criminal. Now the legality of war itself is now argued where domestically it must be sanctioned through the supreme institution i.e the president aka the commander in chief or the parliament and international through the compliance of UN Charter and not through reasons of Aggression or annexation or for genocide or the other illegal reasons.

Battlefield conduct is disciplined by rules: kill soldiers, not civilians, respect the rights of neutrals. Do not use forbidden weapons. Behind the rules stand general principles like no “unnecessary” damage, any killing or injury must be “proportional” to the military objective, defend yourself. Together, these principles have become a global vernacular for assessing the legitimacy of war, down to the tactics of particular battles. Was the use of force “necessary” and “proportional” to the military objectives, were the civilian deaths truly “collateral?” Military lawyers today are often forward deployed with the troops poring over planned targets. The Judge Advocate General corps are deployed to advise the military commanders on the legality of their actions and their presence proves how much law has become a part of modern warfare. The judge advocate general branch is becoming even more complicated as the concept of war is becoming even more complicated especially in the days of WOT where human rights violations and media involvement is huge and ofcourse laws such as AFSPA for India or AACP for Pakistan which allow for great powers to military in such areas where these acts are implemented. AACP is a very good example of the legalization of warfare and how powers are allotted as such. For example you can take any person you find suspicious and not bring him to the magistrate in 24 hours in areas where AACP is in force however the same cant be done in areas where AACP is not in force. Army can take property and make checkpost on it or search any property they desire and upon refusal use force but in areas where AACP is not in force like say lahore, army cant do that. The legalization of military capability and operational capability can no longer be ignored and each day it is becoming more and more complicated as the legality of AACP in line with the Constitution of 1973. This is now part of the operational capability of the army.

The vocabulary legitimate targeting and proportionate violence has been internalized by the military complex of the world. Not every soldier not every commander follows the rules but this is less surprising than the fact that people on all sides discuss the legitimacy of battlefield violence in similar legal terms.


This common vernacular has also leached into our political life. If war remains, as Clausewitz taught us, the continuation of politics by other means, the politics continued by warfare today has itself been legalized. The sovereign no longer stands alone, deciding the fate of empire as he stands rather atop a complex bureaucracy, exercising powers delegated by a constitution, and shared out with myriad agencies, bureaucracies and private actors, knit together in complex networks that spread across borders. Even in the most powerful and well-integrated states, power today lies in the capillaries of social and economic life. The sovereigns do not decide alone. The courts resist, the bureaucracy resists.

Now coming back to the relationship of law and warfare. For a long time jurists would highlight the separation of law from politics and warfare and this was true for a long period but modern world especially post WW2 saw law become an integral part. We see military doctrines being based on legal thinking and lawful excuses such as the Cold start doctrine which speaks not of absolute warfare but small scale incursions. Now if we look into the doctrine, we will notice that it starts as a form of responsive military doctrine where India claims that in event of Pakistan's military aggression or any terrorist attack, India will mount an offensive. The doctrine ties to legalize a military response through usage of proportionate response and it does not enter into blitz warfare of racing to Islamabad but of contained warfare where India does not look the aggressor and then it speaks of returning the territory it had taken on the IB. All three of these factors find their formation in legal military code and here we see again how concept of law and legal has affected military doctrines and not just legal but international politico-legal as well. Thus modern warfare cannot dissuade itself from the limitations placed by the involvement of law. It is argued by scholars that presence of law in warfare has not restrained military conflict but justified it and the UN usage of vague terms such as 'armed response' or 'proportionate response' etc. has not helped the humanitarian cause. a few months ago i had downloaded a small handbook issued by the ICRC, the international committee of the red cross on the legal code of modern warfare. This is alongside multiple existence of such volumes that are published. The reason is to train the soldier and the commander on the legal aspects of modern warfare and to tell them where and what can they do.

This is why, for modern military operations and for successful and professional operations, we cannot ignore the existence of law and rule of law in the state. Economics plays an important role as @niaz has stated however the legal structure of the state must also be intact for the success of military operations and for this the civlian and military balance must be structured and follows a constitutional setup where both empower each other rather than undermine each other. Law plays an important role in war and its existence must be utilized as such for successful military operations. In this manner it must be mentioned that law and legal aspect must be given due and absolute significance in military doctrines, operations and deployments.


@jaibi @Joe Shearer @VCheng @Nilgiri @WAJsal @Arsalan if i look all over the place then do forgive.

 

[VCheng]

I believe that the 'Future direction of the armed forces' and the 'Military doctrines' must also take into account concepts of law and the stability the country as well. Let me expand on both.

An interesting take on the topic. Please allow me to ask you to develop this concept further in view of the issues related to the ICJ, UN agencies, and the role of recalcitrant powers like USA to impose any kind of legal framework on their own war activities. The military has long had its own internal review for ethical and legal conduct of its soldiers, but as we know (Abu Gharaib, as a particularly egregious example), even this discipline falls far short.

If you're interested in this, sir, there's an a piece I remember which basically views warfare from a systems pov and postulates that it's one system trying to overcome another and therefore, as each system becomes more complicated it becomes vulnerable to collapse. I think it analyzed the success of the Mongols/Huns/Goths against much more robust adversaries as an example.

That would be an interesting angle to further explore this topic, but - as you well know - I remain inclined to limit my participation. I will read the posts here with interest, of course.

 

[Joe Shearer]

That would be an interesting angle to further explore this topic, but - as you well know - I remain inclined to limit my participation. I will read the posts here with interest, of course.

No, don't. This is too interesting a thread for you to play Little Miss Muffet. Your intervention was fascinating, and you need to get your hands dirty this time.

@jaibi - a million thanks.

the role of recalcitrant powers like USA to impose any kind of legal framework on their own war activities.

What happens, in other words, when the sole super-power prosecutes others for war crimes and inflicts capital punishment on offenders of the law, and commits war crimes itself and blandly denies those? Does anyone remember Lt. William Calley?

However, the near future direction of the armed forces also has a mandate to look at the effects of technology on military formations, and military processes and structures. It will be fascinating to hear more about those aspects as well.

 

[jaibi]

Very well written, I'll unpack it a little later after the forums let me have some time for this

What an amazing discussion. Let me add my two cents and hope that i do not make a fool of myself in such esteemed company. Be advised that i am neither a soldier nor have experienced soldiery. I would say i am pretty far away from that so please forgive my naivety.

I believe that the 'Future direction of the armed forces' and the 'Military doctrines' must also take into account concepts of law and the stability the country as well. Let me expand on both.

Lets first talk about the role of international law and international community in general in the future direction of the armed forces. There is a commonplace to observe that the Second World War “total” war, in which the great powers mobilized vast armies and applied the full industrial and economic resources of their nation to the defeat and occupation of enemy states, is no longer the prototype. Concepts of International law and International relations and the rise of global economic interests have not just affected the very nature of the state itself but has also affected the institution of war. Infact wars are now rarely fought between equal nations or coalitions of great industrial powers and this is true due to the absence of such warfare, which was so common in years, decades and centuries before WW2. Days of annexation of lands through absolute brutal military blitz. In the other great thread, we witnessed @PanzerKiel raise the question as to why India, in indo-pak conflicts, has been unable to completely destroy the military capability of Pakistan and has repeatedly posed the question of India's unwilling nature to utilize its quantitative edge to nullify the qualitative gaps. In layman words, he was saying that why India and Pakistan never followed the open war conflict doctrine that was so common in the world pre WW2. If we actually take into account the indo-pak conflicts, we will notice that both sides often tried to contain the engagements rather than enter into blitz armies running through cities or doing offensives after offensives. Infact both armies have often not just tried to contain conflicts to as much minimum as they could but also tried to contain deployments as well. @Indus Pakistan has repeatedly highlighted that lack of conflict of pre-WW2 standards not created the war-aversion effect we see in europe in the modern world. I myself have stated that wars have formed a more romanticized structure, as it was in pre-WW1 in the empires of europe, amongst the people of Pakistan (ofcourse the extreme war on terror has definitely contained such thoughts).
With such a thought we cannot ignore the existence of such happening post the formation of the UN and the solidification of International Law.
Modern wars are rarely fought between equivalent nations or coalitions of great industrial powers. They occur at the peripheries of the world system, among foes with wildly different institutional, economic, and military capacities. The military trains for tasks far from conventional combat: local diplomacy, intelligence gathering, humanitarian reconstruction, urban policing, or managing the routine tasks of local government. It is ever less clear where the war begins and ends or which activities are combat, which “peacebuilding.” Enemies are dispersed and decisive engagement is rare. Battle is at once intensely local and global in new ways. Violence follows patterns more familiar from epidemiology or cultural fashion than military strategy. Networks of fellow travelers exploit the infrastructures of the global economy to bring force to bear here and there. The political, cultural, and diplomatic components of warfare have become more salient and, of course, the whole thing happens in the glare of the modern media. It most classic and home-based example would be our own war on terror or the US invasion of Afghanistan. In such a scenario we must look to the evolution of modern warfare through the lens of International law and how law itself has found a place in warfare. Previously laws and rules played little to no role in a full bearing conflict and even now nobody fully agrees what the law or rules are or even what their limitations are however one thing is clear that war is no longer devoid of law. In fact it can be stated that law no longer stands on the outskirts of war making its boundaries but is part of the conflict and military operations take place under the extremely complex tapestry of local and national law. These laws shape the logistical, institutional and even the physical landscape of where these military operations take place. International law has become the metric for debating the legitimacy for initiating a conflict and we can see this repeatedly that nations justify their military actions under one legal ambit or the other. War on terrorism is in fact fought through such reasons and legitimate legal arguments provided by both parties. I am going to take the most sensitive of examples and highlight that the Baluch insurgency repeatedly highlights that their insurgent actions are in line with international law and are not in conflict with the legal doctrines of war. They try to justify it repeatedly and Pakistan does the same. Pakistan highlights their brutal actions, their usage of terrorist tactics and Pakistan offers their own legitimacy and justification for military operations and we can see how law is used to in its physical form of stating that Pakistan is combating internal conflict which is entirely Pakistan's internal matter. Why bother? why the exercise? did nations pre-WW2 bothered doing that? No but the Pree WW2 nations did not have to face the existence of law in modern conflict. I would even say that in all these ways., law now shapes the political and physical nature of war.

Now war is a legal institution as armies are now linked to the nation’s commercial life, integrated with civilian and peacetime governmental institutions, and covered by the same national and international media. some scholars on this relationship have spoken of how the modern regulation of armies and the professional and legal culture of the armies is evidence of how much law and rules have swept into the institution of war. They often equate such with the regulated military practice of soldiers in groups deployed such as in military zones or even in peacetime zones like in an aircraft carrier. The culture and regulated feel of hundreds if not thousands of men working in a regulated fashion breathes of a military social culture. The modern military being the social system which requires a complex and entrenched culture of standard practices or shared experiences which are the rules and regulations and discipline that governs them. We see this with the entire military structure of modern armies. Pakistan army is no different and now if we were to match this with say the ANA or even the Taliban military structure then we would witness the lack of discipline and lack of social structure coherence and the reason is that its existence is based without law and without regulations and thus this negatively impacts the performance of such armies. Defections, violations, treason etc. e.tc become all too common and i am not saying modern armies dont have such. They have it but it is not on such a larger scale that we witness with unregulated armies. Let me give an example, proper implementation of criminal law does not eradicate crime nor does it promise to do so but it reduces it in comparison to states that do not have such implementation of criminal law. Same is with armies. Warfare is now rules and regulations and this is a very huge topic in itself.
The relationship between modern law and modern warfare has become even more intertwined even more so. The legal regulation of war has actually created the concept of you must kill legally here and only like this and not there and not where such killing is not permitted and killing shall only be permitted when the conditions we have stated are fulfilled and this is now a legal privilege. Do it in any other way apart from sanctioned and it is indeed criminal. Now the legality of war itself is now argued where domestically it must be sanctioned through the supreme institution i.e the president aka the commander in chief or the parliament and international through the compliance of UN Charter and not through reasons of Aggression or annexation or for genocide or the other illegal reasons.

Battlefield conduct is disciplined by rules: kill soldiers, not civilians, respect the rights of neutrals. Do not use forbidden weapons. Behind the rules stand general principles like no “unnecessary” damage, any killing or injury must be “proportional” to the military objective, defend yourself. Together, these principles have become a global vernacular for assessing the legitimacy of war, down to the tactics of particular battles. Was the use of force “necessary” and “proportional” to the military objectives, were the civilian deaths truly “collateral?” Military lawyers today are often forward deployed with the troops poring over planned targets. The Judge Advocate General corps are deployed to advise the military commanders on the legality of their actions and their presence proves how much law has become a part of modern warfare. The judge advocate general branch is becoming even more complicated as the concept of war is becoming even more complicated especially in the days of WOT where human rights violations and media involvement is huge and ofcourse laws such as AFSPA for India or AACP for Pakistan which allow for great powers to military in such areas where these acts are implemented. AACP is a very good example of the legalization of warfare and how powers are allotted as such. For example you can take any person you find suspicious and not bring him to the magistrate in 24 hours in areas where AACP is in force however the same cant be done in areas where AACP is not in force. Army can take property and make checkpost on it or search any property they desire and upon refusal use force but in areas where AACP is not in force like say lahore, army cant do that. The legalization of military capability and operational capability can no longer be ignored and each day it is becoming more and more complicated as the legality of AACP in line with the Constitution of 1973. This is now part of the operational capability of the army.

The vocabulary legitimate targeting and proportionate violence has been internalized by the military complex of the world. Not every soldier not every commander follows the rules but this is less surprising than the fact that people on all sides discuss the legitimacy of battlefield violence in similar legal terms.


This common vernacular has also leached into our political life. If war remains, as Clausewitz taught us, the continuation of politics by other means, the politics continued by warfare today has itself been legalized. The sovereign no longer stands alone, deciding the fate of empire as he stands rather atop a complex bureaucracy, exercising powers delegated by a constitution, and shared out with myriad agencies, bureaucracies and private actors, knit together in complex networks that spread across borders. Even in the most powerful and well-integrated states, power today lies in the capillaries of social and economic life. The sovereigns do not decide alone. The courts resist, the bureaucracy resists.

Now coming back to the relationship of law and warfare. For a long time jurists would highlight the separation of law from politics and warfare and this was true for a long period but modern world especially post WW2 saw law become an integral part. We see military doctrines being based on legal thinking and lawful excuses such as the Cold start doctrine which speaks not of absolute warfare but small scale incursions. Now if we look into the doctrine, we will notice that it starts as a form of responsive military doctrine where India claims that in event of Pakistan's military aggression or any terrorist attack, India will mount an offensive. The doctrine ties to legalize a military response through usage of proportionate response and it does not enter into blitz warfare of racing to Islamabad but of contained warfare where India does not look the aggressor and then it speaks of returning the territory it had taken on the IB. All three of these factors find their formation in legal military code and here we see again how concept of law and legal has affected military doctrines and not just legal but international politico-legal as well. Thus modern warfare cannot dissuade itself from the limitations placed by the involvement of law. It is argued by scholars that presence of law in warfare has not restrained military conflict but justified it and the UN usage of vague terms such as 'armed response' or 'proportionate response' etc. has not helped the humanitarian cause. a few months ago i had downloaded a small handbook issued by the ICRC, the international committee of the red cross on the legal code of modern warfare. This is alongside multiple existence of such volumes that are published. The reason is to train the soldier and the commander on the legal aspects of modern warfare and to tell them where and what can they do.

This is why, for modern military operations and for successful and professional operations, we cannot ignore the existence of law and rule of law in the state. Economics plays an important role as @niaz has stated however the legal structure of the state must also be intact for the success of military operations and for this the civlian and military balance must be structured and follows a constitutional setup where both empower each other rather than undermine each other. Law plays an important role in war and its existence must be utilized as such for successful military operations. In this manner it must be mentioned that law and legal aspect must be given due and absolute significance in military doctrines, operations and deployments.


@jaibi @Joe Shearer @VCheng @Nilgiri @WAJsal @Arsalan if i look all over the place then do forgive.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Pakistan is combating internal conflict which is entirely Pakistan's internal matter.

Taking my cue from this remark, can my country any longer legitimately plead - AFSPA taken into account - that our internal conflict resolution measures are entirely our internal matter? Is that legal? Even more important, is that equitable? my extensive reading for preparing a response to @jaibi on counter-insurgency made it necessary to look at the conflict over Nagaland's existence as an independent state; over the effort of the Mizos to follow the Naga lead, and the first and last use of the air force in independent India in a counter-insurgency role; at the massacre of Nellie; the battle for central India that the British could not finish and that is being prosecuted now, even as we speak; and Kashmir. Can these remain indefinitely our internal matter?

If, even as our internal matter, our own laws and our constitutional safeguards and restrictions are to by the political leadership, where does the mandate of the people serve as a buttress against law in all its manifestations?

What should a state do to pursue its national policy, but at all times, stay within the law?

How would a youngster straight out of the IMA (our own finishing military institution for army officers) be trained to deal with such issues and given sufficient education to balance his martial duties with the proper use of lawful force? remembering, as we do from the vivid evidence of these pages, that young soldiers (from other countries) can run forward in hot pursuit right into the target areas of an own artillery barrage, knowing the consequences but defying them?

 

[Nilgiri]

How would a youngster straight out of the IMA (our own finishing military institution for army officers) be trained to deal with such issues and given sufficient education to balance his martial duties with the proper use of lawful force? remembering, as we do from the vivid evidence of these pages, that young soldiers (from other countries) can run forward in hot pursuit right into the target areas of an own artillery barrage, knowing the consequences but defying them?

Firstly, this is why the military must be absolute last resort for policing.

Policing is after all a very different scope and needs its particular training and discipline compared to the stated function and role of the military (and scope and threat of its primary kind of opponent).

COIN is where that awful grey area starts between military practice (war, conflict) and policing...given policing would be the set default ROE (given area is not a declared warzone in the regular expected sense a military would prefer).

In COIN...you intend to employ a military setting in area where there is a sizeable credible unconventional armed (often heavily) opponent in a conventional setting (of larger population and society etc). There is simply no good answer there at all at the fundamental root level of the soldier himself.

It is also why we increasingly see wars being won in phase 1, but gains left to fester, rot and bleed out in later phases of COIN...especially with finite resource (political and economic mainly) often exacerbated by theater distance too when you are a highly power-projecting capable force.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Policing is after all avery different scope and needs its particular training and discipline compared to the stated function and role of the military (and scope and threat of its primary kind of opponent).

That is why the Indian Army ALWAYS opposed being sucked into Counter-insurgency, until this latest supersession drama took place and a meat-head gentleman with no war-fighting credentials except wars fought against fellow citizens took over. That is a powerful reason for current military doctrine of the IA including COIN in its scope of work.

 

[Joe Shearer]

COIN is where that awful grey area starts between military practice (war, conflict) and policing...given policing would be the set default ROE (given area is not a declared warzone in the regular expected sense a military would prefer).

....and a VERY edgy Army asked for the protection of the law.

This was the origin of the AFSPA.

In 18th century England, there was actually a statute called the Riot Act. That is the origin of the English phrase, "....reading someone the Riot Act...."

The Statute said that the following wording had to be read out...oh, read for yourselves:

The act created a mechanism for certain local officials to make a proclamation ordering the dispersal of any group of more than twelve people who were "unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled together". If the group failed to disperse within one hour, then anyone remaining gathered was guilty of a felony without benefit of clergy, punishable by death.

The proclamation could be made in an incorporated town or city by the mayor, bailiff or "other head officer", or a justice of the peace. Elsewhere it could be made by a justice of the peace or the sheriff, undersheriff or parish constable. It had to be read out to the gathering concerned, and had to follow precise wording detailed in the act; several convictions were overturned because parts of the proclamation had been omitted, in particular "God save the King".

The wording that had to be read out to the assembled gathering was as follows:

Our sovereign lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.

So what happened if the crowd didn't disperse? Force could be used.

If a group of people failed to disperse within one hour of the proclamation, the act provided that the authorities could use force to disperse them. Anyone assisting with the dispersal was specifically indemnified against any legal consequences in the event of any of the crowd being injured or killed.

Because of the broad authority that the act granted, it was used both for the maintenance of civil order and for political means. A particularly notorious use of the act was the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 in Manchester.

This is what the Army sought in Nagaland; protection from prosecution for deaths that occurred in the course of pursuing their orders of restoring peace and law and order, and restoring the legal magistracy.

Without the AFSPA, the Army is powerless to intervene.

This is all off-topic, in a sense, @saiyan0321; there is a separate thread that is dying for attention, and if you find some time tomorrow to transfer your original post (and it was very, very original) to that thread (also started by @jaibi), it would keep things close together. We could ask @jaibi himself to transfer the other posts, including THIS one.

Just a word in finishing: The US has a similar doctrine, but for a wholly different reason; the reason was to prevent state law enforcement officers from co-opting federal military personnel into a posse, the posse comitatus, to pursue and apprehend criminals. So

The United States' Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878, prohibits any part of the Army or the Air Force (since the U.S. Air Force evolved from the U.S. Army) from engaging in domestic law enforcement activities unless they do so pursuant to lawful authority. Similar prohibitions apply to the Navy and Marine Corps by service regulation, since the actual Posse Comitatus Act does not apply to them. The Coast Guard is exempt from Posse Comitatus since it normally operates under the Department of Homeland Security versus the Department of Defense and enforces U.S. laws, even when operating as a service with the U.S. Navy.

The act is often misunderstood to prohibit any use of federal military forces in law enforcement, but this is not the case. For example, the President has explicit authority under the Constitution and federal law to use federal forces or federalized militias to enforce the laws of the United States. The act's primary purpose is to prevent local law enforcement officials from utilizing federal forces in this way by forming a "posse" consisting of federal Soldiers or Airmen.

In COIN...you intend to employ a military setting in area where there is a sizeable credible unconventional armed (often heavily) opponent in a conventional setting (of larger population and society etc). There is simply no good answer there at all at the fundamental root level of the soldier himself.

 

[saiyan0321]

An interesting take on the topic. Please allow me to ask you to develop this concept further in view of the issues related to the ICJ, UN agencies, and the role of recalcitrant powers like USA to impose any kind of legal framework on their own war activities. The military has long had its own internal review for ethical and legal conduct of its soldiers, but as we know (Abu Gharaib, as a particularly egregious example), even this discipline falls far short.

.

What happens, in other words, when the sole super-power prosecutes others for war crimes and inflicts capital punishment on offenders of the law, and commits war crimes itself and blandly denies those? Does anyone remember Lt. William Calley?

Wasn’t calley pardoned by the US president after his conviction? He was found guilty but the sovereign pardoned him and this is where I will start. The question you guys are bringing is why are powers like US do not impose any kind of international framework on their own war activities since in legal aspects the US army actually has done a lot to implement legal understanding to their soldiers. The more apt example of a self-declared responsible super power in blatantly ignoring the international norms would be the US declaration on the ICJ judgment in the case of ‘Nicaragua vs United States of America’ and even now US is not interested in any framework where they feel the world will hold them accountable and the most concrete example is ICC and the US reluctance to join it and even the populist statements like the one Ron Paul, I believe made in 2008 that it would be the greatest insult if any US citizen was tried in the ICC. The US recalcitrant attitude is a very good study on the limitations of International Law.


International Law is not the law we are familiar with. We see law as a concrete object that if broken would bring wrath upon us of a machinery, we cannot hope to fight nor run away from. If I wanted to kill a person, I wont because I would fear that the entire machinery of something infinite times more stronger than me, would prosecute me. This is how we view our municipal law. The law that is backed by a supra-power and sovereign authority that an individual cannot match. International law is very different since there exists no absolute sovereign authority nor the process of accountability that you may find in municipal law. No sending individuals to jails or prosecuting them. When International law was codified, you would notice that it took into account the freedom of nations as well as their unity into the process. The international law takes its powers from the states that follow it rather than upon a sovereign authority and the only authority that has semblance of such power, cannot be held accountable itself since the biggest problem with international law is that it doesn’t have the concept of accountability of the supra-power like we have with our municipal law.

Louis henkin believed in his book, I think in 1979 that the international is the self-enforcing and in his words he stated that this self-enforcement is duly followed.

“It is probably the case that almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all the time.”

This was echoed by jurists such as John Austin as well that International Law is not an enforcing law but of customs and norms and he declared it as not law but a codification of morals since in international law there exists no sovereign. Infact we can even say that International Law is a form of Natural law that John Locke talked about in his two treatise and highlighted how the most purest form of society and law is one where the individual is governed by law in a self-enforcing manner and not through the power and will of a sovereign be that sovereign a monarch or a parliament composed of people. Austin was a known critic of Natural law thus in his eyes, a law resembling natural law was not really a law but morals.

The question on whether international law is true law is debated even now and it is continuously studied. One thing is very much certain. International law, unlike municipal law, is flexible in nature and is not constrained in its efforts to adapt to new realities and new dynamics of the world and infact, it has shown very effective and very implementable flexibility.

The rogue attitude of super powers stems from these problems that International Law, was not composed to be as Law we understand but a law that would be the duty of the nations and nations as responsible beings to strengthen their reputation and stability in the world community would follow it. Lets take example of the ICJ. Its judgments are binding like any other court however it has no enforcement capability unless the UNSC and UNGA start sanctioning nations. If they refuse, which they can and if they don’t interfere then the ICJ is powerless. This is not true for Muncipal law. A court would send contempt notices, order policing authorities and if ignored, the party could reach higher courts whose orders will force implementation. The ICJ has no such solution. If it is ignored, there exists no contempt notice nor execution of order. There exists only a calling for assembly where the matter could be debated and a resolution passed which would then see proper action. The principle of ‘Parin parem non habitimperium’ is enshrined in Article 2(1) and this is where the strength and weakness of International Law comes to pass. There exists no sovereign thus the nations are free and are not subservient to a sovereign. They are not satellite states nor princely states nor are they answerable to another country. You see when international law was discussed, this was to be the basis because the world had fought for such freedom however there had to exist some enforcement.

I believe, with my humble knowledge, that when international law was codified, it wasn’t truly a law but self-enforcing principles. Louis was right in that sense that there was self-enforcment but we have discussed on how moral understandings become laws and concrete laws as time goes by and that is what happened to international law. What may have started as a form of natural law became more and more concrete, even if today its only basis is self-enforcement through the goal of being a responsible member of the world community. International law, is thus not a law as we see but a different form of law and when such a form of law is in place, what happens when a nation that does not care about the natural law everyone is trying to follow? Such a nation becomes a rogue nation and is left pariah. Case in point is North Korea. However what happens when a nation does not follow the instructions of international law and is so powerful that it cannot be ignored. A behemoth. The US happens. The US has always maintained, when cornered, they don’t see international law as a supreme authority and only the US constitution is the supreme authority that can hold anybody accountable and they use this internationally to highlight their separate nature and they use this domestically to highlight how they are protecting them from the entire world. Many see this hypocrisy and argue repeatedly. The Legal circles in the US talk about this repeatedly. It has been a few decades since the codification of international law where the international community vigorously tried to implement international law. In this period, you must give the law time to grow and time to expand and without a sovereign it’s going to take a very long time but it is happening. Where the ICJ failed in Nicaragua but the ICC is now asking the prosecutor to investigate the war crimes of the United States in Afghanistan. Nations are nations are stating that the discrimination of having permanent seats in the UNSC should be abolished. Without a sovereign, a proper court, a proper policing authority and without a proper hierarchy system, it will take a lot of time and it will be very slow but it will see evolution. The international law of 1979 and the international law of now, is very different in terms of enforceability. Trying to grab the most powerful individual without any enforcing agency is not easy but never underestimate the power of a codified natural law. This is my more positive outlook like louis henkin.

We as nations must support international law as well and try to stick by it as much as we can. Frankly, I am actually happy that the government of Pakistan is passing ordinance (never been happy with ordinance, like acts not ordinances) to create a system for Kulbushan review. You see Pakistan could have said that we don’t care about the ICJ and while many would argue that it would hit the repute of Pakistan but it would also hit international law and the ICJ who would be reminded that forget US, they couldn’t even enforce a judgment on a weak country like Pakistan. Pakistan actually showed maturity and by doing so, played a positive role in strengthening international law.


The US military has a history of military trials and many have seen persecution as well and I can understand why there exists dissatisfaction however we must also understand that the nature of war demands brutality but the involvement of law in the institution of war has greatly reduced as such and this can be seen in the way the US occupied Afghanistan and how the ANA acts in Afghanistan or when the northern alliance or the Taliban took over their respective regions. I am not saying the US military doesn’t do violations. They do and they will do so in the future however it is not unbridled and yes it is not a satisfactory answer but the Us military does teach its soldiers on the legal involvement of law and they are given handbooks of such and soldiers attend seminars, some are held by the ICRC and the same for the officer corps. The problem with internal trials is always the bias factor and because of that we must strengthen international law itself so that the US will be pressured and may even be forced to surrender to an unbiased party trial.

The role of the legal team of Bush that devised the legal aspects of war and the role of the JAG in the Iraq war is also not a good tale to tell which also places responsibility on the jurists as well to enhance international humanitarian law.

Taking my cue from this remark, can my country any longer legitimately plead - AFSPA taken into account - that our internal conflict resolution measures are entirely our internal matter? Is that legal? Even more important, is that equitable? my extensive reading for preparing a response to @jaibi on counter-insurgency made it necessary to look at the conflict over Nagaland's existence as an independent state; over the effort of the Mizos to follow the Naga lead, and the first and last use of the air force in independent India in a counter-insurgency role; at the massacre of Nellie; the battle for central India that the British could not finish and that is being prosecuted now, even as we speak; and Kashmir. Can these remain indefinitely our internal matter?


If, even as our internal matter, our own laws and our constitutional safeguards and restrictions are to by the political leadership, where does the mandate of the people serve as a buttress against law in all its manifestations?


What should a state do to pursue its national policy, but at all times, stay within the law?


How would a youngster straight out of the IMA (our own finishing military institution for army officers) be trained to deal with such issues and given sufficient education to balance his martial duties with the proper use of lawful force? remembering, as we do from the vivid evidence of these pages, that young soldiers (from other countries) can run forward in hot pursuit right into the target areas of an own artillery barrage, knowing the consequences but defying them?

That is why the Indian Army ALWAYS opposed being sucked into Counter-insurgency, until this latest supersession drama took place and a meat-head gentleman with no war-fighting credentials except wars fought against fellow citizens took over. That is a powerful reason for current military doctrine of the IA including COIN in its scope of work.

....and a VERY edgy Army asked for the protection of the law.


This was the origin of the AFSPA.


In 18th century England, there was actually a statute called the Riot Act. That is the origin of the English phrase, "....reading someone the Riot Act...."


The Statute said that the following wording had to be read out...oh, read for yourselves:


The act created a mechanism for certain local officials to make a proclamation ordering the dispersal of any group of more than twelve people who were "unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled together". If the group failed to disperse within one hour, then anyone remaining gathered was guilty of a felony without benefit of clergy, punishable by death.


The proclamation could be made in an incorporated town or city by the mayor, bailiff or "other head officer", or a justice of the peace. Elsewhere it could be made by a justice of the peace or the sheriff, undersheriff or parish constable. It had to be read out to the gathering concerned, and had to follow precise wording detailed in the act; several convictions were overturned because parts of the proclamation had been omitted, in particular "God save the King".


The wording that had to be read out to the assembled gathering was as follows:


Our sovereign lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.


So what happened if the crowd didn't disperse? Force could be used.


If a group of people failed to disperse within one hour of the proclamation, the act provided that the authorities could use force to disperse them. Anyone assisting with the dispersal was specifically indemnified against any legal consequences in the event of any of the crowd being injured or killed.


Because of the broad authority that the act granted, it was used both for the maintenance of civil order and for political means. A particularly notorious use of the act was the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 in Manchester.


This is what the Army sought in Nagaland; protection from prosecution for deaths that occurred in the course of pursuing their orders of restoring peace and law and order, and restoring the legal magistracy.


Without the AFSPA, the Army is powerless to intervene.


This is all off-topic, in a sense, @saiyan0321; there is a separate thread that is dying for attention, and if you find some time tomorrow to transfer your original post (and it was very, very original) to that thread (also started by @jaibi), it would keep things close together. We could ask @jaibi himself to transfer the other posts, including THIS one.


Just a word in finishing: The US has a similar doctrine, but for a wholly different reason; the reason was to prevent state law enforcement officers from co-opting federal military personnel into a posse, the posse comitatus, to pursue and apprehend criminals. So


The United States' Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878, prohibits any part of the Army or the Air Force (since the U.S. Air Force evolved from the U.S. Army) from engaging in domestic law enforcement activities unless they do so pursuant to lawful authority. Similar prohibitions apply to the Navy and Marine Corps by service regulation, since the actual Posse Comitatus Act does not apply to them. The Coast Guard is exempt from Posse Comitatus since it normally operates under the Department of Homeland Security versus the Department of Defense and enforces U.S. laws, even when operating as a service with the U.S. Navy.


The act is often misunderstood to prohibit any use of federal military forces in law enforcement, but this is not the case. For example, the President has explicit authority under the Constitution and federal law to use federal forces or federalized militias to enforce the laws of the United States. The act's primary purpose is to prevent local law enforcement officials from utilizing federal forces in this way by forming a "posse" consisting of federal Soldiers or Airmen.

What you are asking is can domestic law which violates human rights, be an internal matter or can it see itself in international law? Are these indefinitely internal matter?


And


How could a young soldier or officer, straight out of training be taught understandings on legal aspects of warfare?


Alright to the first statement


The ICRC is truly one of the most important organizations that have greatly aided in the evolution of International law in terms of modern warfare. They played a leading role in many conventions and they, to this day, play an important role in the evolution of international law in terms of combat. As you very well know that the codification of law demanded the codification of War as well. They codified it and highlighted which war was legal and which wasn’t which in itself highlights how much involved law has become in the institution of war but we must also understand that the UN was very vague about it, it was reluctant about legalizing war and it was reluctant about banning war as well.

Now the problem basically is international human rights law and internal conflicts and how laws like AFSPA and AACP come into this sphere. ICC, ICJ and the jurists of ICRC along with others have highlighted that internal conflict and internal warfare does not mean that the country is not bound by the common article 3 of the Geneva convention 1949 and additional protocol 1977. The latter looked to provide protection to civilians and victims in non-international conflicts which means that internal conflicts however India, Pakistan, US, Israel, Turkey, Iran did not ratify the protocol and in this we must talk about the limitation of international law again. Pakistan and India are home to some severe internal conflicts and thus they refused to ratify so what can be done to such nations who refused to agree to this amending protocol. Now the US didn’t sign it stating that the domestic legal framework was advanced enough to offer protection to its citizens and indeed, they have some concrete basis however Pakistan and India, do not possess such legal framework so their absence highlights their lack of wish to advance the restrictions of article 3 to internal conflicts. This is again a good example of how legalized the institution of war has become and how military doctrines must take into account the legal aspects of the institution of war. Now the articles come to implementation when there is conflict and conflict is defined the only solution left when all forms of policing are not possible. Infact the protocol itself looked to take this into account by highlighting the exception that rioting and other sporadic acts of violence are not armed conflict. They wanted to strike a balance between the strength and stability of the state and the human rights protection. India has repeatedly maintained that its internal conflicts must be solved through domestic legal framework and without any intervention from another state and recently India has been more accommodating to the Idea of ratifying the protocol, although I don’t think the resurgence in Kashmir and Modi will allow that anymore.

The IHL jurists argue that by signing the Geneva conventions themselves, the state are bound to offer protection to their own civilians in an internal armed conflict and they highlighted this through the changing dynamics of international law and how the change of concept of armed conflict will also bring the responsibilities of IHL in that armed conflict and we see condemnations in the international community. Pakistan has received its fair share as well. The problem is that with the rise of COIN and terrorism as the ‘new war’ the IHL has struggled greatly to adapt to such, although its trying as we see with the II protocol 1977 and ofcourse the ICC in 1990. The war changed immediately and very seriously and created a form of conflict that is now fought in our homes. At one time, wars were fought in far off lands and the loss of life at home ground would send shivers in the populace but this war is the kind of war that is fought in our homes and our streets and here the panic ridden state, the confused military and the pleading populace, demand a strong solution. In such a scenario, IHL must adapt as well and ICRC has been doing that for some time and they are trying to make IHL be more adoptive to the current new war doctrine environment. This is why the jurists have stated that in such conflicts, indiscriminate military usage cannot be allowed and controlled military deployment and professional military attitude where civilian lives are protected at all costs.


These are not internal matters anymore. The world condemns and the world criticizes where it can and when it can. The IHL is the product of international law and thus is inherent of the limitations that come with international law however what used to be internal is no longer internal and while Pakistan and India repeatedly make this excuse for their internal conflicts, the world is not so blind. It may be silent due to the inherent nature of international law in its limitations but it is not that easy. Today the media covers everything and the ICRC has repeatedly told soldiers this again and again.


Let me tell you a story and with it we move to question 2. In 1996, ICRC held a conference with soldiers and officers in central Africa and the maker of the speech, forgot his name, stated that it may be effective to decapitate a guerilla to scare them off but remember CNN will cover it and the soldiers joked that they wont allow CNN to come there. Now the speech maker laughed and stated CNN will be there. They will know and it cannot be hidden from the world. The inaction of the world does not mean that the world does not know. They know and it will be run on the evening news. He told them to imagine as if each of their helmets have large CNN cameras. This was in 1996. We live in this age. A young soldier is repeatedly trained to kill and he is indoctrinated as such and he is told everyday how to fight, how to kill and how to survive. That is a soldier but now soldier programs are even more complicated because within that indoctrination there must come and in most armies, there comes conferences, lessons and teaching of international law and law of modern warfare. What to shoot and where shooting is legal and where it isnt. It does depend on that young officer and soldier however the constant telling by the army that they will prosecuted if they break the law of war does help which is why you see professionalism in professional armies. You see the difference between a militia and a proper army and I have seen US give their soldiers manuals on law of warfare, ICRC gives them, conferences and lessons. Eventually it shows. Like in the Iraq war, in more than one occasion when the Iraqi soldiers hid behind civilian lines, Us soldiers did not steam roll the area and yet there were incidents where to kill their target, they killed civilians as well. What I am saying is that in a conflict, if a soldier is able to think that I am breaking a law, then 95% of it is done. You did it. You ingrained in your soldier whether they are doing the right thing or not and in Iraq war, the collections by ICRC, the soldiers that killed civilians to hit insurgents or soldiers, highlighted that even in that moment, they were conflicted. They didn’t want to but the others were in the way and then there were others who didn’t do as such.

Constant education is the only solution. Yes in the heat of the moment, things are done but prosecution of such, even lenient prosecution will help send home a message that mistakes are not so easily forgivable. What is dishonorable discharge? The army thinks it’s one of the worst punishments they can deliver. Why? Because the soldier is told and the message is sent to all that your entire service, everytime you fought and shed blood or saved lives is wasted by your action in breaking the law. They see that as the message that is sent to other soldiers that the thing they take pride in, is taken away and thrown in the dustbin and nothing breaks a man like that. Well that is the army reasoning.


Anyhow educate the soldiers. They are not dumb jocks who only knows how to fight. They are intelligent beings that will understand what legal warfare is and the ICRC believes in this as well and thus they repeatedly hold programs and tell the JAG to be just as proactive.


Both our armies need laws for military operations because war itself is now a legalized institution and this cannot be ignored.

 

[VCheng]

Both our armies need laws for military operations because war itself is now a legalized institution and this cannot be ignored.

A great post!

What is war indeed if not mere continuation of politics by other means - even in the international geopolitical area where national interests will always reign supreme, as they always have throughout human history.