Michael E. Howard, George J. Andreopoulos, and Mark R. Shulman, eds., The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994)
Biography: Michael Howard is a legend in the field, taught at Oxford and Yale Universities, and founded the Department of War Studies at Kings College and co-founded the International Institute for Strategic Studies. George Andreopoulos is a professor of Political Science at CUNY and has taught at Yale who holds a PhD and Law degree from Cambridge. He has written extensively on international organizations, international human rights, and international humanitarian law issues. Mark R. Shulman is a scholar that has taught all over the New York City area with a focus on human rights, international law, history and international affairs at Yale, the War College and Columbia University. He holds both a PhD and JD.
Central Question/Thesis: Restraints on war grew out of the cultures of the war-making societies, rather than being imposed on them by some transcendent moral order. The book shows, “the standards of behavior to which armed forced in the past have aspired” and “they indicate where those armies were conscious of shortcomings, of activities that needed to be prevented by positive prohibitions.” (p. 11)
Scope of Book: This work was published in 1994 and is a collection of essays, organized chronologically, that explore the scope of restraint in war from Classical Greece through the early small wars of the 1990s. It examines both the formal and unwritten constraints on warfare to look show themes that have remained common: belligerent rights, the treatment of prisoners and civilians, the observance of truces, acceptance (or rejection) of weapon systems, differing codes of honor, and war crimes. It deals primarily with jus in bello rather than jus ad bellum although it does touch on the latter when the two intersect. Of interest is the general trend of limited warfare until the manpower revolution in France which brought total war for approximately 150 years until the advent of atomic weapons, which brought a new era of limited warfare. Nine chronological chapters from renowned contributors detailing limits and constraints on warfare, an introduction, and some concluding reflections. Includes a section for further reading.
1. Introduction: Michael Howard- Offers a concise summary of the other authors and gives the reader some things to think about throughout the book. Mainly how the laws of war and self-imposed constraints have evolved over time and how we think about warfare. He states that this is decidedly a western text as those are the limits the editors set for themselves but makes the case that much could be learned from comparing to other cultures. Constraints in the west largely shaped by Christian ethic developed in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
2. Classical Greek Times: Josiah Ober- Concedes there is little evidence of internationally recognized rules. But, Greek combatants did recognize a number of rules of engagement that mimic jus ad bellum and just in bello. Concludes that “archaic and classical Greek culture supported a form of warfare that was highly, if informally, rule oriented.” (p. 25)
3. The Age of Chivalry: Robert C. Stacey- Demonstrates that “The Age of Chivalry” began with Rome, and warfare then began with Roman limitations, notably that “every war needed justification.” (p. 27). Shows how an international law of arms developed, and also shows how the knights of old and their chivalric code became the basis for a code of conduct among military officers in the new national armies.
4. Early Modern Europe: Geoffrey Parker- Demonstrates how western laws of war in Europe have stayed the same since at least the sixteenth century because they were based on the same five foundations: Prescriptive texts, not harming the weak, new codes built upon earlier ones to create continuity, these customs came from the practice of war itself, and finally, warfighters came to appreciate mutual restraint. Parker shows most of the actions “outlawed by the Geneva Convention have been condemned in the West for at least four centuries.” (p. 58)
5. Colonial America: Harold E. Selesky- Shows how contact with and the ruthless and cruel hostilities toward Native Americans were born out of fear and creating a sense of “other.” This allowed the colonials to dispatch Native Americans without using the restraint of European warfare. He shows this in the differing treatment of French and English armies toward each other, and toward Natives. He also shows how smaller, untrained, and undisciplined frontier forces that form the citizen-soldier myth, did not understand what was far and what was not. Decentralized forces increased the lack of restraint.
6. The Age of Napoleon: Gunther Rothenberg- Begins by claiming that between 1792 and 1815 war had one of its “great transitions” from limited war of kings to wars of nations. The concept of general mobilization created a manpower revolution that made the distinction between combatant and non-combatant even more difficult. This led to longer, more frequent, and more intense total war yet still professional armies observed the laws and customs of warfare.
7. Maritime Conflict: John B. Hattendorf- Demonstrates that maritime warfare to the first principle of modern international maritime law: “the open sea is free to the ships of all nations” has existed since the 17th Century. He further demonstrates that the effectiveness of legal restraint is a balance between strategic and economic interests.
8. Land Warfare: From Hague to Nuremberg: Adam Roberts- an account of the failure of conferences to prevent two intense and cruel war in the first half of the 20th Century. Gives seven reasons for the revival of barbarism in warfare, with new weaponry listed last (p. 138). But, despite the failure of The Hague in preventing these brutal wars, they did provide the basis for war crimes trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo as well as the four Geneva Conventions.
9. Air Power: Tami Davis Biddle- Biddle traces the development of airpower theory in juxtaposition with the Hague conferences and the World Wars. She claims that efforts to clarify phrases such as “military objective” and “military necessity” were the crux of the issues surrounding strategic bombing, and that the idea that a nation’s civilian population was central to its war effort led to some of the most horrific theories of warfare, namely Douhet. But she also shows how these theories culminated in Desert Storm to show how effective bombing is often the most discriminate.
10. Nuclear War Planning: David Alan Rosenberg- Claims that nuclear weapons may be able to create the conditions necessary to achieve Clausewitzian “absolute war.” Shows how leaders have attempted to control the use of nuclear weapons, at least in theory, since their advent in 1945. Rosenberg demonstrates in this chapter how “The West relied on nuclear weapons without constraints from 1945 to 1960, and from 1961 onward, the West moved to impose a variety of policy, planning, procurement, and physical checks on existing and planned nuclear forces.” (p. 169)
11. The Age of National Liberation Movements: George J. Andreopoulos- concludes that the inherent strategy of revolutionary armies of blending in precludes Western militaries from drawing combatant-noncombatant distinction. This leads to the adoption of questionable rules of engagement that only serve to legitimize the guerrilla’s movements and delegitimize the counter-guerrilla.
12. The Laws of War: Some Concluding Reflections: Paul Kennedy and George J. Andreopoulos- these two offer the primary challenges facing the future of the laws of war. Two themes of the book are explored: 1. Who is and isn’t included in the rules of war? 2. Has jus in bello practices worsened or improved the longer war lasted? These are central questions with answers that are somewhat surprising. They purport that the general trend now is for human right law and the laws of war to coalesce, and this may become a reason to go to war more often in the future.
Thoughts/Conclusion: This is an excellent summation of the historical precedent for laws of war in Western societies. I’d like to see more on other, eastern cultures, but nonetheless this is an easy to read resource. Its especially important as most readings on ethics in war are done by philosophers and, naturally, ethicists, but this work is written by historians and lawyers which gives it rich historical context.