Military Ethics in Counterinsurgency

For military operations, the counterinsurgency environment is perhaps the most complicated and arduous environment in history. Often, government and military leaders are unsure how conventional forces should deal with an inferior enemy who stays hidden in the population. Characteristically, this enemy hits hard, and constantly harasses friendly forces while fading quickly into the landscape of the environment. Leaders at all levels wrestle with the conflicting operational designs based on whether insurgents can be directly engaged and defeated tactically or whether the support of the populace has to be won in order to deny insurgent sanctuaries. Some decision-makers fail to realize that goodwill alone will not win the people over if they are held hostage in the grip of fear and terror. The environmental conditions constantly shift to favor operations of direct action against insurgents, and stability and support operations focused on the populace. These Stability and support operations run the gamut from coercive force to benevolent missions of goodwill and humanitarian aid/relief. Commanders may fail to recognize when coercive force may be necessary or may be unsure what level and type of coercive force is acceptable. Leaders must decide, often with inadequate guidance or training how coercive force impacts the concept of legitimacy in the minds of the host nation populace. The key task is to determine the ethics of a counterinsurgency environment and project the impact of those ethics on the outcome of the war. This thesis outlines military ethics in counterinsurgency and examines ethical systems, counterinsurgency principles, and historical examples to shed light on these difficult concepts.