Battlefield Is Not Empty, But It Did Change

The 1999 National Security Strategy (NSS) defines significantly different roles and priorities for the U.S. military. One of the very obvious roles is the use of the military as intervention forces to secure national interests. As military and civilian leaders develop the National Military Strategy (NMS) that supports and achieves the NSS, they must fully understand the contemporary system of conflict and armed conflict. Civilian casualties in armed conflict in the last decade amounted to ninety percent of all casualties. Given that Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) are meant to prevent civilian casualties, there ought to be an explanation of the conduct of armed conflict in the Post-modern Warfare (PMW) era. This monograph determines the basis of and purpose of LOAC in order to be able to identify when LOAC are violated. Using three criteria, political conditions, military, civilian casualties and refugees, and world interest, three historical case studies, the civil war in Sudan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo, are analyzed to investigate and identify trends in the treatment of non-combatants in armed conflict. The trends that are identified suggest that when they conduct armed conflict, belligerents ignore LOAC. Trends also indicate that there are linkages between certain actors and circumstances that result in second- and third-order effects in armed conflict. These relationships suggest, among other things, that Clausewitz' trinity, long used by military and government leaders to plan and conduct armed conflict, no longer explains the conduct of armed conflict LOAC. These trends have significant implications for U.S. military and are discussed. The discussion concludes that there must be greater linkages between the elements of national power in order for the NSS to be achieved and that the U.S. military has several shortcomings in its training, doctrine, planning and employment concepts. The monograph concludes that the current NSS can be achieved, but only if na