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This paper analyzes the complexities of conducting military campaigns in highly dense populated areas. It leans on key findings of a NATO Advanced Training Course (ATC), held in November 2017 in Israel. Armed conflicts are increasingly being fought in populated areas.
United Nations, General Assembly, Report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict S/2017/414 (10 May 2017), p. 4, available on http://undocs.org/S/2017/414, referring to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, States of Fragility 2016: Understanding Violence (Paris, OECD Publishing, 2016), as well as to ICRC, “Urban services during protracted armed conflict: a call for a better approach to assisting affected people” (Geneva, 2015). Id., at page 2; Also see Rosa Brooks, “Civilians and Armed Conflict”, in The United Nations Security Council in the Age of Human Rights 35–67 (Jared Genser & Bruno Stagno Ugarte eds., New York: Cambridge University Press 2014), at https://goo.gl/EwiFoV. See Gil Avriel “Terrorism 2.0: The Rise of the Civilitary Battlefield.” Harv. Nat'l Sec. J. 7 199–240 (2016), available at http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Avriel-PUBLISH.pdf. For an expansion on the theory see http://www.civilitary.org; in addition see John Bellinger (The former Legal Adviser for the U.S Department of State 2005–2009), “Terrorism Taxonomy: Gil Avriel's “Civilitary Theory” Lawfare blog," February 6, 2016, available at https://www.lawfareblog.com/terrorism-taxonomy-gil-avriels-civilitary-theory. The term “Lawfare” in the context of this paper refers to the strategy of using law as a weapon of war. For Lawfare in general see Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., Colonel, USA, Law and Military Interventions: Preserving Humanitarian Values In the 21st Conflicts (paper prepared for the Humanitarian Challenges in Military Intervention Conference, Carr. Cnt. For Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Washington D.C November 29, 2001); also see Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., Lawfare Today, in NATIONAL SECURITY LAW 823 (John Norton Moore and Robert F. Turner, eds., 3rd ed. 2015); Carlson, John and Neville Yeomans, “Whither Goeth the Law-Humanity or Barbarity” The Way Out-Radical Alternatives (Margaret Smith & David Crossley eds., 1975); INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF WAR Vol 87, US Naval War College International Law Studies 315 (Raul A. “Pete” Pedrozo and Daria P. Wollschlaeger, eds., 2011). Kittrie, Orde F., Lawfare: LAW AS A WEAPON OF WAR (Oxford University Press, 2016).
At the end of the day, confronting non-State organizations in highly populated environments is a growing challenge and one shared by Western militaries as a whole. In this context Israel's threat environment makes it into a natural testing ground. The understandings drawn from its experience as well as NATO's own experience derived from the past two decades of operations beyond its borders, underline the basic need for a new and comprehensive conceptual framework that recognizes the unique characteristics of campaigns in populated areas.
