What does "minimize civilian casualties" mean?

Great Debates
41

OK, I’ve read the thread and thought some more about it. Thanks for your contributions, they’ve been good. Almost everyone has shown some forbearance and most have shown a lot. e-logic’s link was most informative.

On reflection, I think this is to some degree me being pedantic (and also seeing things though a framework that thinks the docrine of double effect is pretty dubious). Like a utiliarian, I’m inclined to take “maximize” pretty literally. And you can’t maximize two different functions at once. So “minimize civilian casualties” can’t literally mean optimize - it must mean something like civilian casualties are one argument in the objective function. This would lie between my boundary cases.

I see some people are cynical about the term. Whilst I still don’t think that its always or even mainly mostly used in bad faith, I am leaning towards the view that the term is sufficiently woolly as to be of little use and at worst dangerous. Part of the reason is there in John Mace’s post (and indeed in the WeirdDave quote in my OP):

I think that’s right and if it is, it seems to me that’s not useful. If trade-offs differ in different situations and information is tough to come by or evaluate in the confusion of conflict, how could you possibly measure whether a party was trying to keep civilian casualties low? And if you can’t evaluate it, you’re just left with a statement of (somewhat) good intentions.

I don’t want to undersell the real steps that some militaries have taken that do reduce civilian casualties, and I don’t think this is just military doublespeak. But the vagueness of the term worries me, and for reasons other than it seeming to be unobserveable. Part of the research of Kahneman and Tversky on framing involved examining the choices of Israeli military officers. Preference reversals of the same type seen in that link were exhibited. That’s understandable, because military choices are mind-bendingly and soul-sappingly hard. “Minimizing civilian casualties” is a powerful framing term. It makes one think “we must be the good guys” - particularly if the others are pretty clearly bad guys - when it doesn’t seem to have an operational meaning.

There is already a great psychological temptation to say they are the bad guys, so we must be good guys - when it’s obviously really possible that nobody’s the good guys. A term that dubiously rationalises civilian casualties might exacerbate that tendancy.

42

[QUOTE=hawthorne]
OK, I’ve read the thread and thought some more about it. Thanks for your contributions, they’ve been good. Almost everyone has shown some forbearance and most have shown a lot. e-logic’s link was most informative.

On reflection, I think this is to some degree me being pedantic (and also seeing things though a framework that thinks the docrine of double effect is pretty dubious). Like a utiliarian, I’m inclined to take “maximize” pretty literally. And you can’t maximize two different functions at once. So “minimize civilian casualties” can’t literally mean optimize - it must mean something like civilian casualties are one argument in the objective function. This would lie between my boundary cases.

I see some people are cynical about the term. Whilst I still don’t think that its always or even mainly mostly used in bad faith, I am leaning towards the view that the term is sufficiently woolly as to be of little use and at worst dangerous. Part of the reason is there in John Mace’s post (and indeed in the WeirdDave quote in my OP):I think that’s right and if it is, it seems to me that’s not useful. If trade-offs differ in different situations and information is tough to come by or evaluate in the confusion of conflict, how could you possibly measure whether a party was trying to keep civilian casualties low? And if you can’t evaluate it, you’re just left with a statement of (somewhat) good intentions.

I don’t want to undersell the real steps that some militaries have taken that do reduce civilian casualties, and I don’t think this is just military doublespeak. But the vagueness of the term worries me, and for reasons other than it seeming to be unobserveable. Part of the research of Kahneman and Tversky on framing involved examining the choices of Israeli military officers. Preference reversals of the same type seen in that link were exhibited. That’s understandable, because military choices are mind-bendingly and soul-sappingly hard. “Minimizing civilian casualties” is a powerful framing term. It makes one think “we must be the good guys” - particularly if the others are pretty clearly bad guys - when it doesn’t seem to have an operational meaning.

There is already a great psychological temptation to say they are the bad guys, so we must be good guys - when it’s obviously really possible that nobody’s the good guys. A term that dubiously rationalises civilian casualties might exacerbate that tendancy.
[/QUOTE]

You must also account for the fact that some people do not require any pretence of “framing”, but rather glorify the deliberate murder of civilians as both means and ends unto itself. It is “obviously really possible” that such people are unambiguously “bad guys”, and that those who at least worry about and take practical steps to avoid harming innocents (however effective) in combatting such people are morally superior to them.

The fear is that if one elides the distinction, and decides that “nobody is the good guys”, the logical outcome may not be pacifism, but a throwing off of all moral restraint - if there is no moral difference between those who fight only in self-defence and attempt not to harm civilians and those who do, why bother with the (no doubt obstructive to one’s plans) steps required to “minimize civilian casualties”? Why not kill civilians with a will?

Requiring a counsel of perfection which would demand that no civilians be harmed in war is similar to demanding that war not be fought at all - since war is, of necessity, not under any one party’s control - the enemy has a “say” too. You simply cannot guarantee that the enemy will not (for example) locate his forces in places filled with civilians, or deliberately use civilians in other ways as human shields.

43

That’s a good and troubling point. But my problem is that it’s not clear there is anything of substance implied by “minimizing civilian casualties” despite it being clear that some things that are done by some forces do reduce such casualities.

We want something to point to - or to expect of combatants - that is meaningfully more than “don’t kill indiscriminately”. I don’t think “minimize civilian casualties” is that something. And that’s my - unsatisfactory - answer to your point: We must do something; this might be something; we must say we’ll do this even if it’s not clear it means anything. As I said earlier, it doesn’t amount to much more than a statement of good intentions.

I think that ideas mistakenly thought concrete are pretty common in this area. Things that sound awfully good turn out to be indecisive or otherwise insubstantial. Take, for example, your

Sounds good: hiding amongst civilians bad, some (less than crippling) restraint in seeking enemy amongst civilians good. It sounds like kind of a standard. But inevitably, that situation involves a very strong party against a rather weaker one. Is it really the case that the strong have the moral highground? You can easily imagine a dialogue that goes like this:[Q] You hide amongst civilians and we fight you with restraint. The civilian deaths are essentially your fault.

**[P]**What do expect us to do, stand in open ground are get cut to pieces in 5 minutes by your hugely superior hardware? If you are strong, does that mean it is never legitimate to fight you, whatever our cause? The civilian deaths are due to your oppressive strength.

**[Q]**What, so the fact that we’re rich and organised enough to have good weapons means you get carte blanche to hide amongst the populace and even target civilians? You are just denying reponsibility for your actions. If you started behaving in a civilised manner, maybe you’d get rich enough to have decent military hardware.

[P] But you won’t let us have a viable territory to do that.

[Q] Why would we let you have a viable territory when you have consistently tried to destroy us by barbaric means? etc., etc.. The problem is that all those arguments have a lot to them, none of them stop the fighting and none of them do anything verifiable to reduce civilian casualties beyond what is merely expedient.

44

[QUOTE=hawthorne]
So, I’m finding this term a bit hard to pin down. What does it mean?
[/QUOTE]

Either operations are slowed down or delayed to assist the civillian population to evacuate a war zone, shaping the battle space so that the bulk of the civillian population is out of harms way, and using ordinance that is sized or fuzed to direct the blast away from habitats.

As long as it does not put western forces in any greater danger , then its a worthwhile ideal.

Declan

45

[QUOTE=hawthorne]
That’s a good and troubling point. But my problem is that it’s not clear there is anything of substance implied by “minimizing civilian casualties” despite it being clear that some things that are done by some forces do reduce such casualities.

We want something to point to - or to expect of combatants - that is meaningfully more than “don’t kill indiscriminately”. I don’t think “minimize civilian casualties” is that something. And that’s my - unsatisfactory - answer to your point: We must do something; this might be something; we must say we’ll do this even if it’s not clear it means anything. As I said earlier, it doesn’t amount to much more than a statement of good intentions.
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Sounds like you want an expert in military matters to discuss actual, concrete steps by which those planing military operations actually carry them out.

“Minimize civilian casualties” is a goal, not a specific set of instructions - those will vary depending on the situations.

There are lots of examples of similar things - phrases which do not necessarily have specific content, but which state a goal to aim at. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The “reasonable person” standard in tort cases.

These are not mere platitudes, in my opinion.

I think the truth is that those who engage in guerilla operations bear a fearful responsibility. They must know that if they are fighting against a determined enemy, they are exposing the civilian population among which they move to horrible danger. I believe that under just war theory, such an act is only justified if the object for which they fight is “worth it”, morally speaking.

46

It seems to me, after going through the posts, that the difficulty lies in our having ask the military to do jobs that the military isn’t designed to do.

IMHO, if a military force does not intentionally target civilians in person then they have done all they can do to minimize civilian casualties. Going back to WWII, I don’t think either side made much of an effort to avoid civilian casualties and that war.

Military forces are not equipped or designed to combat small terrorist cells, or their close relatives, guerrilla forces. Military forces have never been very successful in combatting guerillas and it almost always leads to frustration on the part of the operational military forces and the killing of civilians out of spite.

Again, IMHO, war should be total war and for that reason we shouldn’t send in the armed forces except as a last resort. Once the armed forces are committed, however, their objective should be to destroy the enemy using all the weapons and methods at their disposal. All means, that is, that are consistent with not doing as much damage to their own country as to the enemy. I think that nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are likely to result in as much danger to us’sn as to them’ns and should be used with such extreme caution as to result in their not being used at all.

But, once again, I believe that not intentionally targeting civilians is all that is required for “minimizing civilian casualties” and if defining “civilian” is so difficult that it results in some groups being wrongly targetted, so be it. And it is because such erroneous judgements will always occur that I believe using the armed forces should only a the very last resort.

47

A History of American Wars this is what peace loving America is about.

48

Least Original User Name Ever, please read the thread. Your posts are completely off topic.

49

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
The common definition is causing the least amount of civilian casualties while achieving your military goals. So you define your objective - say occupying a city - and then you consider the different plans that will achieve that goal and pick the one that causes the fewest casualties. Obviously, the casualty level will not be zero - that would only be achieved by abandoning the goal of occupying the city.
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I agree with this definition. There are many factors being optimized in military decisions. Such as time and resource costs, minimizing your casualties, minimizing civilian casualties, maximizing chance of achieving all military goals. To ‘minimize civilian casualties’ in such a descision just means to give greater importance to the minimizing of civilian casualties than you might otherwise, usually at the expense of some other factors mentioned above.

50

Because we dont care .We just say we do. We are an economy run on a war machine.Been that way a long time.

51

[QUOTE=Bippy the Beardless]
I agree with this definition. There are many factors being optimized in military decisions. Such as time and resource costs, minimizing your casualties, minimizing civilian casualties, maximizing chance of achieving all military goals. To ‘minimize civilian casualties’ in such a descision just means to give greater importance to the minimizing of civilian casualties than you might otherwise, usually at the expense of some other factors mentioned above.
[/QUOTE]
I’m trying to see what a military planner would do differently to minimize civilian casualties. Maybe you can explain in a little more detail.

It seems to me that the best way to minimize casualties of all kinds would be to make the best plan you possibly could emphasizing the accomplishment of the mission in as short a time as possible.

I doubt that the planners would jeopardize the mission. If it needs to be done than you must keep expending personnel and resources until it is done. Or until it has been shown that you can’t do it.

I have great doubt that planners would jeopardize their own forces by accepting more casualties than necessary. Why should they? The detailed operational planning is done at the regimental or battalion level. Would the planners create a plan with the prospect of injuring people they know and work with in order to not overly endanger enemy civilians?

52

Perhaps that’s right. Maybe the place to look for concrete policy is in the influence US military lawyers (for example) have on bombing campaigns. I do recall seeing a story - years ago - where proposed sorties were being vetted by military lawyers (and IIRC, Australian pilots nonetheless declining a task that had been approved). But I suspect that was merely clearing sorties under Fourth Convention considerations).

I take your point about minimizing civilian casualties as a goal - but if it’s nebulous and opaque, is it a real goal, or as I’ve suggested, a statement of good intentions?

And the same goes for the non-guerilla side, of course. Arguably more so, because they are more stronger.

I see where you are coming from. I suppose my concern about the use of the term is that it might lead us to think we are doing something more and make us less inclined to think of war as a last resort because we fool ourselves into thinking that war might not be so terrible.

I think Bippy the Beardless’s formulation is the same as my suggestion that “civilian casualties are one argument in the objective function”.

Least Original User Name Ever, you still need to try harder. The question we are trying to address is what would it mean if a force tried to minimize civilian casualties, not your view about whether a particular force is doing it or why. You are supposing that there is some standard and that the US fails it - surely, then, you should be able to tell us what the standard is.

53

[QUOTE=hawthorne]
Perhaps that’s right. Maybe the place to look for concrete policy is in the influence US military lawyers (for example) have on bombing campaigns. I do recall seeing a story - years ago - where proposed sorties were being vetted by military lawyers (and IIRC, Australian pilots nonetheless declining a task that had been approved). But I suspect that was merely clearing sorties under Fourth Convention considerations).

I take your point about minimizing civilian casualties as a goal - but if it’s nebulous and opaque, is it a real goal, or as I’ve suggested, a statement of good intentions?
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Clearly it could be either, depending on circumstances, just as a trial based on “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” can either be a lynching or a real exercise in justice, or anything inbetween.

I don’t agree that this automatically follows. Surely it depends on which party is doing the acting.

A person who starts a war is not “arguably as guilty” as the person attacked, irrespective of their relative strengths.

Indeed, I seem to recall that it is part of just war theory argued by some, that a person engaging in a military action must, in acting justly, take only those positive actions which have a reasonable hope of success; a vastly weaker party initiating a war that it cannot win is arguably more guilty, not less, as all the horrors and suffering inflicted will be for nothing and the actor ought to have known it in advance.

Naturally, this does not apply in all situations - a party resisting invasion, particularly where the object of that is extermination of civilian populations, is not guilty for resisting, because it effectively has no choice.

To my mind, a just war requires:

  • a morally positive object;

  • a weighing of the value of that object against the chance of success and the inevitable horrors of war;

  • carrying out that object with means designed to limit those horrors to the extent possible.

Your critique is of the third branch. Mine is that blanket condemnation of one of the branches, if true, would make having a “just war” impossible; and the alternative is not “no war” but rather wars waged without concern for justice.

54

[QUOTE=hawthorne]
I see where you are coming from. I suppose my concern about the use of the term (minimizing civilian casualties: DS addition) is that it might lead us to think we are doing something more and make us less inclined to think of war as a last resort because we fool ourselves into thinking that war might not be so terrible.
[/QUOTE]
Many, many, many euphemisms (think “surgical air strike”) in addition to “minimizing civilian casualties” have arisen to soften the image of war in the public mind. In addition, people need to remember that war is hardly less terrible even if it’s only soldiers who are being killed.

I guess I’m still wondering what a planner would actually do to minimize civilian casualties.

55

Consider some concrete examples of how things could be: the occupation forces in Iraq are still the subject of attacks by insurrgents. A commander could, in theory, decide to maximize the safety of his soldiers and tell them to shoot any Iraqi they observe who comes within 100 meters of their position. This would almost certainly decrease American casualties but it would also almost certainly greatly increase Iraqi casualties - many of whom would have had not intent on attacking Americans but where just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or a commander could follow the policies that were used by the SS when it occupied countries and announce that for every American killed that occupation forces would round up and kill one hundred random Iraqis in retribution. Again, it would work but at the cost of killing hundreds of innocent civilians.

56

I had never thought about that angle, but I think you are right. Subtle.

57

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Consider some concrete examples of how things could be: the occupation forces in Iraq are still the subject of attacks by insurrgents. A commander could, in theory, decide to maximize the safety of his soldiers and tell them to shoot any Iraqi they observe who comes within 100 meters of their position. This would almost certainly decrease American casualties but it would also almost certainly greatly increase Iraqi casualties - many of whom would have had not intent on attacking Americans but where just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or a commander could follow the policies that were used by the SS when it occupied countries and announce that for every American killed that occupation forces would round up and kill one hundred random Iraqis in retribution. Again, it would work but at the cost of killing hundreds of innocent civilians.
[/QUOTE]
Bad examples because they do not accomplish the mission. The object of military action is not to keep our forces safe, it is to accomplish some particular mission. Our current mission in Iraq is to keep law an order in a functioning society until the Iraqi’s can do it; to train Iraqi’s to take over law and order and self defense; and to establish a functioning democracy. Your hypotheticals are inconsistant with those objectives.

58

HeadlineAlley Never so simple or so clear .

59

I think most reasonable people would agree that the mission goals in Iraq have never been clearly stated. The goals you mentioned have been on the list but items on the list have repeatedly been added and erased and the ones you’ve mentioned have never had any consistent priority. So I figure that the real American mission in Iraq at the moment is “let’s try to stay alive and provide some level of stability in the short term while the government back home tries to figure out where we’re going in the long term.”

60

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
I think most reasonable people would agree that the mission goals in Iraq have never been clearly stated.
[/QUOTE]

That’s because they’re unmentionable. Both (mutually incompatible) sets of them.

See Armed Madhouse, by Greg Palast.