The oozing fog of war

Sunday, October 3, 2010 - 22:11 in Psychology & Sociology

The changing face of warfare increasingly puts civilians in battlefront crosshairs, blurring the line between who is a soldier and who is not, and creating quandaries for soldiers seeking assurances that those who look like civilians won’t shoot at them. Three authorities on international conflict discussed the complexities on the ground and in international law because of the spreading fog of war on Wednesday (Sept. 22) during a panel discussion at Harvard’s Center for Government and International Studies. The event, sponsored by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), featured speakers from HHI, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the nonprofit group Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research. In a world where conflicts are increasingly small-scale, intra-national, and waged by nontraditional forces, there is a robust, ongoing debate over who armies can kill and who they cannot. International law makes a clear distinction between combatants (uniformed soldiers who are fair game whether they’re fighting...

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