November 1, 2008
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR REGIME, CHANGE IT:
Review of TARGETING CIVILIANS IN WAR By Alexander B. Downes (Hew Strachan, Wilson Quarterly)
Downes, a political scientist at Duke, argues that the pressure to target civilians has arisen in two types of war: those of territorial annexation, in which enemy civilians are displaced or killed to make way for settlers, and wars of attrition, in which desperation drives even (or particularly) democracies to target civilians in order to coerce the enemy to surrender. In Downes’s view, the types of regime engaged in the war are not significant, nor is either military culture or the racial identity of the enemy. Downes is a reductionist, anxious to seek a single set of explanations for a complex phenomenon.He develops four principal case studies: the blockade of Germany in World War I, the strategic bombing of Japan (but not of Germany) in World War II, the conflict of 1947–49 associated with the founding of Israel, and the South African War of 1899–1902. [...]
Fortunately, most will read this book not for what it has to say about Germany, but for its argument that, at least until 1970, a democracy was as likely to target civilians as was any other type of regime (including the Nazis’), particularly in protracted wars. Downes is on surer ground when he examines the U.S. bombing of Japan during 1944–45 and the wars fought in 1947–49 during Israel’s founding, both of which buttress his conclusion that domestic norms against the killing of civilians are, at best, secondary considerations in explaining how democracies choose to fight.
But there is a case for saying that—at least in the two world wars—regime type was a more important factor than Downes allows. British propaganda in World War I drew a distinction between the German people and the Kaiser. The logic of the blockade was that starvation might provoke revolution, and so effect a change in government. Believing that this was what had happened in 1918, the Allies hoped for the same effects when they bombed Germany in 1944. Hitler proved them wrong. Nonetheless, similar arguments were voiced in advance of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Democracies have targeted civilians at least in part because they believe in the power of the people to overthrow tyrannical governments.
Finally, Downes needs to consider what makes a democracy fight a protracted war. As he rightly observes, no sensible democratic leader will knowingly undertake a long, bloody, and indecisive conflict. In the first half of the 20th century, democracies fought long wars because they saw themselves as defending core values, and so both military and moral imperatives justified breaching the principle of noncombatant immunity.
The Iraq War raises a troubling question for those who oppose targeting civilians: what if failure to do so makes for a more protracted war with greater casualties on the part of the attacking democracy? It seems fair to say that the too bloodless dispatch of Saddam Hussein allowed the Sunni to persist in the belief that they could retain power over the Shi'a, a delusion they were not disabused of until elections showed them how small a minority they are and Mookie and others started launching reprisals for Sunni attacks. Compare that to Germany, which was left with no doubt that Nazism was over, or Japan, which was confronted by our willingness or even eagerness to nuke them into submission. Folk are wont to believe these days that there is something about Salafist Islam that made it especially resilient in Iraq, but the reality is that it didn't need to be all that tough because we weren't as brutal there as we were in earlier wars.
And here's a peculiar thought: isn't the refusal to punish a people for the regime they tolerated in some sense anti-democratic?