tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/warfare-5604/articlesWarfare – The Conversation2024-03-19T14:07:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2255922024-03-19T14:07:40Z2024-03-19T14:07:40ZHow we discovered the wreck of a torpedoed British ship after a 109-year mystery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581637/original/file-20240313-18-d09lmt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1879%2C720&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The SS Hartdale is lying at a depth of 80 metres, 12 miles off the coast of Northern Ireland.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Roberts/Unpath’d Waters</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A British cargo ship which was torpedoed and sunk during the first world war has finally surrendered its 109-year-old secret. </p>
<p>The SS Hartdale was steaming from Glasgow to Alexandria in Egypt with its cargo of coal when it was targeted by a German U-boat in March 1915. The location of the ship had long been a mystery, but my colleagues and I have, at last, pinpointed its final resting place. </p>
<p>The old adage that we know more about the surface of the Moon and about Mars than we do about Earth’s deep sea may no longer hold entirely true. But the reality is that we still have a great deal more to learn. </p>
<p>Even our seemingly familiar shallow seafloors near the coast are relatively poorly mapped. Many people may think such areas are well explored, but there are still fundamental questions we can’t answer because detailed surveys haven’t been done.</p>
<p>The UK’s surrounding seas hold a vast underwater graveyard. Thousands of shipwrecks, from centuries of trade and conflict, litter the seabed like silent historical markers. </p>
<p>Surprisingly, even though we know where many wrecks lie, their true identities often remain a mystery. But the <a href="https://unpathdwaters.org.uk">Unpath’d Waters</a> project is now linking maritime archives with existing scientific data to help reveal some of these secrets. </p>
<h2>History meets science</h2>
<p>Scientists are using detailed sonar surveys from more than 100 shipwrecks west of the Isle of Man. Combining this underwater data with historical documents from around the world, researchers are piecing together a massive nautical jigsaw puzzle, finally revealing the true stories of these sunken vessels. </p>
<p>The first successful identification to be made as part of this work is that of the SS Hartdale. When the 105 metre long vessel was torpedoed at dawn on March 13 1915 by the <a href="https://uboat.net/wwi/boats/?boat=27">German submarine U-27</a>, two of its crew were lost and its final location remained unknown.</p>
<p>Researchers began by scanning known wrecks in the attack area, narrowing the possibilities down to less than a dozen. Then, they compared wreck details with official records and diver observations, eliminating candidates one by one until the SS Hartdale emerged as the perfect match. The vessel is lying at a depth of 80 metres, 12 miles off the coast of Northern Ireland.</p>
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<img alt="An old longitudinal section drawing of a ship." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582797/original/file-20240319-18-d8akp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The original plans for the SS Hartdale from 1910, originally named Benbrook.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/documents/lrf-pun-w864-0026-p">The Lloyd’s Register Foundation</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Important details about SS Hartdale are available online via the <a href="https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/ships/benbrook-1910-hartdale/search/everywhere:benbrook/page/1">Lloyds Register Foundation</a>. This includes plans for the construction of the ship, formerly known as Benbrook, built for Joseph Hault & Co. Ltd in 1910. This information, together with eye-witness accounts reported in the national press at the time, have proved to be crucial in confirming the wreck’s identity. </p>
<p>The US historian Michael Lowrey also provided the project team with a translated copy of notes extracted from an official German account and scans of U-27’s official war diary made by its commanding officer, <a href="https://uboat.net/wwi/men/commanders/391.html">Kapitänleutnant Bernd Wegener</a>. These contained descriptions of the events leading up to the sinking, coordinates for the attack and the exact location on Hartdale where the torpedo struck its hull – a detail strikingly confirmed by the sonar scan data.</p>
<p>Armed with this compelling evidence, the research team reached a definitive conclusion. The only viable candidate for the SS Hartdale was a previously “unknown” 105 metre long wreck. It has been lying just a few hundred metres to the south of where U-27 launched its fatal attack.</p>
<h2>Unrestricted submarine warfare</h2>
<p>Following its attack on Hartdale, the U-27 went on to play a prominent role in how naval warfare developed during the rest of the first world war. This came during a period of escalating tension in 1915. </p>
<p>Following the sinking of the British ocean liners, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lusitania-British-ship">RMS Lusitania</a> in May, and the <a href="https://wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?11110">SS Arabic</a> in August of that year by U-boats, the way the war at sea was being conducted became increasingly heated and controversial. </p>
<p>Shortly after the SS Arabic was sunk by a different U-boat, the U-27 was itself attacked and destroyed by the Royal Navy Q-ship <a href="https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/the-baralong-incident-29-january-1917/">HMS Baralong</a>. Q-ships were heavily armed merchant ships designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. </p>
<p>The surviving German sailors, including U-27’s commanding officer, were then allegedly executed by British sailors in front of American witnesses. It has since become known as the “Baralong incident”.</p>
<p>German outcry over this event combined with other factors contributed to the start of <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-u-boat-campaign-that-almost-broke-britain">“unrestricted submarine warfare”</a> by Germany in February 1917. This meant that warnings were no longer issued to merchant vessels prior to U-boat attacks and loss of life was significantly increased.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Roberts receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council </span></em></p>The SS Hartdale was sunk by a German U-boat in 1915 and its final resting place had long been unknown.Michael Roberts, SEACAMS R&D Project Manager, Centre for Applied Marine Sciences, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2248332024-03-04T13:37:27Z2024-03-04T13:37:27ZCommander of Iran’s elite Quds Force is expanding predecessor’s vision of chaos in the Middle East<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579281/original/file-20240301-50192-65mwly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C2966%2C1853&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Esmail Ghaani, head of Iran's expeditionary Quds Force, speaks at a ceremony in Tehran on April 14, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IranIsrael/7769f2ccb99244898fcb9149111c664d/photo?Query=quds%20force&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=200&currentItemNo=47">AP Photo/Vahid Salemi</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most Americans have likely never heard of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/who-is-esmail-ghaani-the-successor-to-slain-iranian-general-soleimani/">Esmail Ghaani</a>, despite his fingerprints being over a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/world/middleeast/us-iran-militias.html">slew of recent attacks</a> on U.S. targets.</p>
<p>As the powerful chief of the Quds Force, the unconventional warfare wing of Iran’s <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/irans-revolutionary-guards">Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps</a>, Ghaani is charged with overseeing Tehran’s network of allied and proxy groups across the Middle East.</p>
<p>But despite <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/esmail-qaani-commander-of-the-axis/article67808742.ece">recent media attention</a> following a significant increase in attacks by Quds-backed militants since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel, Ghaani remains a figure who largely shuns the public spotlight.</p>
<p>This is both like and unlike his predecessor Qassem Soleimani, who died in a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mideast/airport-informants-overhead-drones-how-u-s-killed-soleimani-n1113726">controversial 2020 U.S. strike in Iraq</a>.</p>
<p>For the first decade of his stint as Quds Force commander, which began <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190925041643/http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/suleimani.pdf">in the late 1990s</a>, Soleimani also kept a low profile. But in the years leading up to his death in 2020, he promoted his accomplishments <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/esmail-ghaani-iran-announces-new-military-leader-after-commander-killed-in-us-airstrike-11901047">openly on social media</a>.</p>
<p>Soleimani’s loss was seen as a massive blow to the Quds Force and Iran’s national security agenda overall given his popularity in Iran and his achievements, making the task of replacing him daunting. Ghaani had been <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/12/profile-the-canny-general-quds-force-commander-ghasem-soleimani.html">Soleimani’s deputy</a>, and the two had known each other since the early 1980s during their <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/who-esmail-qaani-new-chief-commander-irans-qods-force">military service in the Iran-Iraq War.</a> </p>
<p>In the initial aftermath of Soleimani’s death, experts questioned <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/1/20/esmaii-qaani-new-shadow-commander-of-irans-quds-force">whether Ghaani would be a capable replacement</a>.</p>
<p>But despite differing from Soleimani in both personality and attitude toward publicity, Ghaani has managed to expand upon the foundation that Soleimani carefully cultivated over a 20-year period.</p>
<p>Under Ghaani, the Quds Force has doubled down on the strategy of supporting, arming and funding terrorist and insurgent groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories. </p>
<p>Building from Soleimani’s legacy, Ghaani is responsible for developing the network into what Iranian officials call the “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/irans-axis-resistance-against-israel-faces-trial-by-fire-2023-11-15/">Axis of Resistance</a>.”</p>
<p>It is a coalition that cuts across ethnic and religious divides in the region, despite Iran itself remaining a hard-line theocracy with an ethnic Persian and Shia Muslim identity. In cultivating the network, first Soleimani and now Ghaani have displayed a degree of pragmatism and flexibility at odds with the extreme ideological position of Iran’s ruling ayatollahs. And Ghaani, like Soleimani before him, appears to have done this with the full trust and support of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.</p>
<h2>Pressuring Iran’s enemies</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://fordschool.umich.edu/faculty/javed-ali">an expert in national security issues</a> with a focus on counterterrorism, I have observed how the Quds Force’s <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/07/iran-unleashed-forces-that-it-can-no-longer-control/">unconventional warfare strategy</a> has changed the security landscape in the region. It is premised on creating pressure against Iran’s enemies — Israel, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia — through partnering with groups within the axis.</p>
<p>As Quds Force commander, Ghaani has to manage his organization’s relationships with each of these groups. This is made all the more tricky as each maintains its own agendas, decision-making calculations and, at times, independence despite Iran’s influence and largesse.</p>
<p>Take the Quds Force’s relationship with Hamas. Despite the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/04/hamas-drew-detailed-attack-plans-for-years-with-help-of-spies-idf-says">long planning involved</a> with the horrific Hamas attacks in Israel in October 2023, the Quds Force <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2023/12/28/Iran-s-IRGC-retracts-statement-on-Oct-7-attacks-after-rare-public-spat-with-Hamas">does not appear to have had a direct role</a>.</p>
<p>Not that the assault wasn’t welcomed by Ghaani, in public at least. In late December 2023, he <a href="https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-780069">was reported as saying</a> on Iran’s official news agency that, “Due to the extensive crimes committed by the Zionist regime against the Muslim people of Palestine, [Hamas] themselves took action. … Everything they did was beautifully planned and executed.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man speaking in front of image of two men." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579283/original/file-20240301-22-9av044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579283/original/file-20240301-22-9av044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579283/original/file-20240301-22-9av044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579283/original/file-20240301-22-9av044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579283/original/file-20240301-22-9av044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579283/original/file-20240301-22-9av044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579283/original/file-20240301-22-9av044.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Esmail Ghaani speaks at event commemorating the death of former Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2024.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com.mx/detail/fotograf%C3%ADa-de-noticias/commander-esmail-qaani-of-the-islamic-fotograf%C3%ADa-de-noticias/1898123764?adppopup=true">Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>With other militant groups in the region, Ghaani appears to have a more hands-on approach. The deadly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/28/politics/us-troops-drone-attack-jordan/index.html">Jan. 28, 2024, drone attack</a> against a U.S. military outpost in Jordan, launched by the Iraq-based and Iran-supported <a href="https://theconversation.com/drone-attack-on-american-troops-risks-widening-middle-east-conflict-and-drawing-in-iran-us-tensions-222216">Islamic Resistance in Iraq</a> network, significantly escalated tensions in the region.</p>
<p>It provoked a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/world/middleeast/us-iran-militias.html">significant U.S. and British response</a> in Iraq and Syria. After the incident, it was reported that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iraqi-armed-groups-dial-down-us-attacks-request-iran-commander-2024-02-18/">Ghaani spent considerable effort</a> getting the Iraqi groups responsible to temporarily pause anti-U.S. attacks. </p>
<p>Whether that pause lasts for an extended period or if attacks resume will be a test of Ghaani’s ability to wield his influence in Iraq.</p>
<p>Ghaani’s calculus in regard to Yemen, where the Houthis have emerged as a dangerous insurgent group, looks less clear.</p>
<p>Having been armed throughout a decadelong civil war by Iran, the Houthis responded to Israel’s campaign in the Gaza Strip <a href="https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Documents/News/Military_Power_Publications/Iran_Houthi_Final2.pdf">by launching hundreds of rocket, missile and drone attacks</a> against commercial and military shipping in the Red Sea. </p>
<p>Retaliatory strikes by the U.S. and other coalition members <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/24/politics/us-uk-strikes-houthi-targets-yemen/index.html">on Houthi targets</a> have destroyed a significant amount of the capability that Iran had provided. Yet the Houthis seem undeterred and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/02/stricken-ship-attacked-by-houthi-rebels-sinks-in-red-sea">have continued anti-shipping operations</a>. </p>
<p>It is unclear if Ghaani has attempted to dial those operations back or if he has encouraged the Houthis to maintain their pace, given the shared goals between Iran and the Houthis to keep pressure on the United States and Israel.</p>
<h2>Relationship with Hezbollah</h2>
<p>Beyond Israel, Iraq and Yemen, Ghaani is also likely attempting to manage the Quds Force’s relationship with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/hizballah-and-the-qods-force-in-irans-shadow-war-with-the-west">arguably Iran’s strongest partner</a> in the Axis of Resistance. The partnership stretches back to the early 1980s and has transformed Hezbollah into a powerful force in Lebanon and a serious security concern in the region.</p>
<p>Since Oct. 7, the group has engaged in near daily conflict with Israel, with both sides conducting cross-border strikes. Hezbollah’s general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah, seems wary of engaging in a broader war with Israel, but at the same time he has not reined in the attacks and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/16/hezbollah-warns-that-israel-will-pay-in-blood-for-killing-civilians">has vowed to retaliate against Israel</a> for the death of civilians in Lebanon. </p>
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<img alt="Three Iranian leaders, two in military fatigues stand and talk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579285/original/file-20240301-51872-or5k22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579285/original/file-20240301-51872-or5k22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579285/original/file-20240301-51872-or5k22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579285/original/file-20240301-51872-or5k22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579285/original/file-20240301-51872-or5k22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579285/original/file-20240301-51872-or5k22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579285/original/file-20240301-51872-or5k22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, left, meets with Esmail Ghaani, right, and Revolutionary Guards General Commander Hossein Salami, center, on Dec. 28, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com.mx/detail/fotograf%C3%ADa-de-noticias/iranian-leader-ali-khamenei-iranian-fotograf%C3%ADa-de-noticias/1883329738?adppopup=true">Anadolu via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Although Iran may well welcome Hezbollah becoming a persistent irritant to Israel, Tehran is also wary of a full-blown conflict. In such a scenario, Nasrallah, Ghaani and Supreme Leader Khamenei would have to worry about whether the United States would get directly involved – as, reportedly, the White House <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/17/israel-news-us-military-hezbollah-attacks">had been considering</a> in the days after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.</p>
<p>Any future statements by Ghaani regarding Hezbollah will be a strong indicator of Iran’s intent in regard to how it sees this volatile aspect of tensions in the Middle East developing.</p>
<h2>Walking a tightrope</h2>
<p>To date, Ghaani seems to have successfully navigated the transition between replacing the charismatic figure of Qassem Soleimani and advancing Iran’s interests through Quds Force operations with the full backing of Khameini.</p>
<p>He may never be as revered in Iran as Soleimani, but by managing the Quds Force’s relationship with Axis of Resistance groups, Ghaani has proved to be a formidable and capable adversary who should not be underestimated. </p>
<p>The recent escalation of multifaceted tensions across the Middle East has provided both opportunities and potential pitfalls for Ghaani’s strategy – how to encourage the activities of its Axis of Rrsistance while insulating Iran from any direct blowback from the United States.</p>
<p>But one thing is becoming clear: Reversing the Quds Force’s influence while bolstering U.S. interests is likely to be a top policy priority for Washington as it attempts to manage the developing conflict in the Middle East.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Javed Ali does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Esmail Ghaani took control of the unconventional warfare wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps following the killing of predecessor Qassem Soleimani.Javed Ali, Associate Professor of Practice of Public Policy, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2202672024-02-28T12:34:47Z2024-02-28T12:34:47ZLow-level blasts from heavy weapons can cause traumatic brain injury − 2 engineers explain the physics of invisible cell death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574230/original/file-20240207-24-4417vk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3500%2C2331&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Low-level blasts can cause physical changes in the brain.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaUkraineWarFrenchWeapons/0b650af49a654704a4bef82ae8a4bc93">Libkos/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the force of a blast shoots a round out of a large-caliber rifle, howitzer or M1 Abrams tank gun, the teams of people operating these weapons are exposed to <a href="https://health.mil/Reference-Center/Fact-Sheets/2023/07/18/Low-Level-Blast-Service-Members-Fact-Sheet">low-level blasts</a> that can cause <a href="https://www.brainline.org/qa/what-do-blast-injuries-do-your-brain">traumatic brain injuries</a>.</p>
<p>Low-level blasts do not cause visible trauma, such as bleeding from ruptured eardrums, and they don’t cause injury through violent head motion, such as a concussion. Yet, these blasts can cause <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27291520/">physical changes in the brain</a> that lead to a host of neuropsychiatric symptoms.</p>
<p>The link between the force of a blast and the resulting changes in the brain is not completely understood. So our team of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VlzdxcEAAAAJ&hl=en">engineers and</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aIl1GHoAAAAJ&hl=en">scientists in</a> the <a href="https://www.panther.engr.wisc.edu/">PANTHER program</a>, funded by the Department of Defense, is using physics to elucidate how blasts cause traumatic brain injury.</p>
<h2>What is a blast?</h2>
<p>When a weapon like a rifle <a href="https://www.hunter-ed.com/national/studyGuide/Video-How-a-Cartridge-Is-Fired/201099_92813/">is fired</a>, the round is initially in its barrel. Pulling the trigger engages a primer that produces a flame, igniting the propellant. This chemical reaction releases stored energy and creates high-pressure, rapidly expanding gas. This is the blast.</p>
<p>The rate and magnitude of gas expansion are often so extreme that they <a href="https://www.americanscientist.org/article/high-speed-imaging-of-shock-waves-explosions-and-gunshots">create a shock wave</a>, where high-pressure air molecules travel outward faster than the speed of sound. This invisible pulse of high pressure carries a tremendous amount of energy. It’s the same force that can propel a 24-pound warhead out of the muzzle of a howitzer to hit a target 19 miles (30.6 kilometers) away. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574231/original/file-20240207-29-yowd6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cross-section of a cartridge" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574231/original/file-20240207-29-yowd6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574231/original/file-20240207-29-yowd6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574231/original/file-20240207-29-yowd6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574231/original/file-20240207-29-yowd6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574231/original/file-20240207-29-yowd6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574231/original/file-20240207-29-yowd6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574231/original/file-20240207-29-yowd6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This cross-section shows: 1. bullet; 2. case; 3. gunpowder; 4. rim; and 5. primer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cartridge_cross_section.svg">Glrx/Quadrell via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the blast leaves the gun’s muzzle, it dissipates quickly because it is free to expand in the open air. This is when the high pressure washes over the bodies of nearby people. </p>
<p>The blast from the muzzle of a large gun like the <a href="https://youtu.be/1anCHKq6ESg?feature=shared">M777 howitzer</a> does not pulverize rocks or knock someone off their feet. But some of the blast pressure enters the body, passing through the skin and rigid skull bone and into the soft tissue of the brain. </p>
<h2>Linking blast to brain injury</h2>
<p>As blast pressure enters the brain, it is initially compressive, meaning it squeezes the tissue equally from all sides. Because brain tissue is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11831-019-09352-w">largely composed of water molecules</a>, which are difficult to compress, this type of pressure <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10439-019-02437-4">tends to cause little known harm</a> to cells. </p>
<p>An initially compressive wave, or positive pressure wave, that squeezes brain tissue changes when it bounces off the inside of the skull. It is reflected as a tensile wave, or negative pressure wave, which tends to pull brain tissue apart. With low enough pressures, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2217/cnc-2017-0011">micron-sized bubbles can form</a> in a process called cavitation. These bubbles can grow 10 to 50 times their initial size over the course of less than a tenth of a millisecond, rapidly stretching the adjacent brain tissue.</p>
<p>Experiments from our lab have shown that the deformation caused by cavitation bubbles happens so rapidly – like the speed of a bullet – that cells tend to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666522021000149">get torn apart</a>. The extreme speed of stretching and squeezing causes nearby brain cells to die immediately. Afterward, we see only fragments where healthy cells used to be.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577687/original/file-20240223-20-xi71p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Diagram showing blast pressure creating microbubbles in the brain after reflecting off surfaces, stretching and destroying cells in a process called cavitation." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577687/original/file-20240223-20-xi71p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/577687/original/file-20240223-20-xi71p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577687/original/file-20240223-20-xi71p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577687/original/file-20240223-20-xi71p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577687/original/file-20240223-20-xi71p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577687/original/file-20240223-20-xi71p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/577687/original/file-20240223-20-xi71p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This diagram depicts how blast pressure from a gun can result in brain trauma.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alice Lux Fawzi and Manik Bansal</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cell death is the physical root cause of brain injury. In the lab, when the cells that make up brain tissue are deformed at a magnitude and rate beyond what they can withstand, they die – either immediately, as in the case of blast-induced cavitation, or slowly over six to 24 hours, as in most brain injuries from blunt impacts such as concussions. </p>
<p>In low-level blast exposure, the cavitation bubbles are very small, and the trauma is contained to the small area around them. However, repeated exposure to blasts can lead to an accumulation of these microtraumas, eventually reaching a volume large enough to cause significant and irreversible neurological symptoms. </p>
<p>Although evidence is mounting, it has yet to be fully proven that cavitation directly causes blast-induced traumatic brain injury. The hypothesis fits with <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27291520/">post-mortem analyses</a> of the brains of service members with a history of blast exposure. It also fits with the physics that link blast exposure to injury from tissue deformation. </p>
<p>Understanding the connection between blasts and cellular damage in the brain will help researchers develop better ways to protect against repetitive blast-induced traumatic brain injury.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Lux Fawzi receives funding from the U. S. Office of Naval Research under the PANTHER Program.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Franck receives funding from the U.S. Office of Naval Research under the PANTHER program. </span></em></p>The people manning the guns are also at risk of injury from the force of the weapon.Alice Lux Fawzi, PANTHER Engineering Project Manager and Associate Director of the Center for Traumatic Brain Injury, University of Wisconsin-MadisonChristian Franck, Bjorn Borgen Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Center for Traumatic Brain Injury, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2239352024-02-19T18:27:05Z2024-02-19T18:27:05ZRussia’s space weapon: anti-satellite systems are indiscriminate, posing a risk to everyone’s spacecraft<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576566/original/file-20240219-22-dvgtci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C22%2C7657%2C5725&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/telecommunication-satellite-providing-global-internet-network-2375569273">NicoElNino / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a week where national security has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/12/trump-nato-russia-comments-republicans">taken centre stage in Washington</a>, the White House confirmed on Thursday that it had evidence that Russia was developing a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68309496">space-based nuclear anti satellite weapon</a>.</p>
<p>John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/15/russia-anti-satellite-weapon-space-white-house">informed reporters</a> that the White House believe Russia’s programme to be “troubling”, despite “no immediate threat to anyone’s safety”. </p>
<p>The problem is that, depending on what type of weapon this is, the consequences of using it could be indiscriminate – threatening everyone’s satellites and causing a breakdown of the vital services that come from space infrastructure.</p>
<p>The White House revelations come after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike
Turner urged the administration, late on Wednesday, to declassify information
concerning what he called a “serious national security threat”. There were then several days <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/republican-warns-of-national-security-threat-amid-fears-of-russian-space-weapon-13071884">of comments</a> and speculation about Russia <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/u-s-officials-dont-freak-out-about-russian-nukes-in-space.html">either being ready to launch a nuclear weapon into space</a>, or deploying an anti-satellite <a href="https://spacenews.com/white-house-confirms-it-has-intelligence-on-russians-anti-satellite-weapon-but-says-no-immediate-threat/">weapon powered by nuclear energy</a>.</p>
<p>Kirby did not fully outline the nature of the threat, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/national-security-threat-update-russia-b2497015.html">but he added</a> that officials believed the weapons system was not an “active capability” and had not been deployed. To reassure those listening, Kirby said that the weapon was not one that could be used to cause physical destruction on Earth but that the White House was monitoring Russian activity and would “continue to take it very seriously”.</p>
<p>During a visit to Albania on Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed the news and stated that he expected to have more to say soon, adding that the Biden administration was “also conferring with allies and partners on the issue”.</p>
<p>While discussing the matter with Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar and Chinese
Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the <a href="https://securityconference.org/en/">Munich Security Conference</a>, Blinken is <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/joe-biden-ap-russia-antony-blinken-washington-b2497667.html">reported</a> to have “emphasised that the pursuit of this capability should be a matter of concern”.</p>
<h2>Denials from Russia</h2>
<p>Moscow immediately denied the existence of such a programme and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/kremlin-dismisses-us-warning-about-russian-nuclear-capability-space-2024-02-15/">stated</a> that it was a “malicious fabrication” created by the Biden administration to pressurise Congress into passing the USD$97bn (£77bn) <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/12/politics/senate-foreign-aid-bill-ukraine/index.html">foreign aid bill</a>, $60bn of which was destined for Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/kremlin-dismisses-us-warning-about-russian-nuclear-capability-space-2024-02-15/">told reporters</a>: “It is obvious that the White House is trying, by hook or by crook, to encourage Congress to vote on a bill to allocate money; this is obvious”. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/02/16/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-reported-death-of-aleksey-navalny/">At a press conference</a> on the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Joe Biden stated that there was “no nuclear threat to the people of America or anywhere else in the world with what Russia is doing at the moment”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Orbital debris" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576569/original/file-20240219-20-pya8br.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576569/original/file-20240219-20-pya8br.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576569/original/file-20240219-20-pya8br.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576569/original/file-20240219-20-pya8br.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576569/original/file-20240219-20-pya8br.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576569/original/file-20240219-20-pya8br.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576569/original/file-20240219-20-pya8br.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Space is already crowded with human-made objects and anti-satellite weapons can make the situation much worse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/photo-gallery/">NASA ODPO</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The president added that there was “no evidence that they have made a decision to go forward with doing anything in space either”. If Moscow did decide to go ahead with the programme it would be contrary to the <a href="https://www.unoosa.org/pdf/publications/STSPACE11E.pdf">Outer Space Treaty</a> which 130 countries have signed onto, including Russia.</p>
<p>The treaty prohibits “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass
destruction” in orbit or stationing weapons in outer space “in any other manner”.
Anti-satellite weapons are nothing new. <a href="https://swfound.org/media/9550/chinese_asat_fact_sheet_updated_2012.pdf">China launched a
weapon</a> to destroy a non-operational weather satellite in January 2007. </p>
<p>While the temptation to launch a nuclear strike in space may seem alluring to nations looking to challenge US dominance in the domain, such actions come at huge risk. It is not necessarily the destruction of objects in space from Earth that should be the primary concern when it comes to anti-satellite weapons more generally, but the effect they have in space.</p>
<h2>Mass of debris</h2>
<p>The destruction of any celestial object creates a mass of debris varying in size from a few millimetres to several centimetres. Currently, there are hundreds of millions of tracked pieces of space debris orbiting <a href="https://earth.org/space-junk-what-is-it-what-can-we-do-about-it/">the Earth</a>.</p>
<p>The speed at which this space debris is travelling makes it a major hazard to other satellites and entities in space such as the International Space Station (ISS), which has to change course in order to avoid collisions which can cause widespread damage. The ISS has had to <a href="https://www.space.com/international-space-station-space-debris-spacex-dragon-spacecraft-arrival">changed course 32 times since 1999</a>.</p>
<p>Once space debris has been created, it is almost impossible to control the trajectory after the strike or the orbital pattern it will take around the Earth. This can put a nation’s space assets – such as its satellites – at the same risk of destruction as that of an adversary. This situation has been described in similar terms to that applied to nuclear weapons on Earth, <a href="https://www.guspaceinitiative.org/contentmaster/mutually-assured-destruction-in-low-earth-orbit">in terms of mutually assured destruction</a>.</p>
<p>If a nuclear strike were to be conducted by a nation in space with the intention of destroying satellites and also to demonstrate both an ability and willingness to use nuclear weapons more generally, it would be next to impossible to control the consequences of such an action.</p>
<p>It would be fairly certain that such a strike would have the intended effect in reducing the space capabilities of an opponent. For example, an attack on US assets could disable the satellite-based global positioning system (GPS) that is relied on by western nations. </p>
<p>There is, however, the very real possibility that it would also destroy the space assets of the nation behind the attack, as well as allies and friends of that same nation. This could lead to tensions being raised and lead to a loss of that country’s support.</p>
<p>The inability to control the effects of attacks in space, whether they originate from a weapon in space or on the Earth, makes such actions subject to a great degree of consideration and debate in all nations that are active in the space domain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223935/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Destroying satellites in space can lead to cascades that are hard to predict.Matthew Powell, Teaching Fellow in Strategic and Air Power Studies, University of PortsmouthDafydd Townley, Teaching Fellow in International Security, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215102024-01-22T14:55:11Z2024-01-22T14:55:11ZDrone-zapping laser weapons now effective (and cheap) reality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570470/original/file-20240121-38659-1vateu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C3%2C589%2C363&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dragonfire laser system test firing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UK Ministry of Defence/wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A single burst of light is precisely aimed at a tiny drone flying at breakneck speed far in the distance. Instants later, the deactivated drone crashes into the sea. Not a sound made, no human casualties, no messy explosions. A lethal, multimillion-dollar drone cleanly taken out by a shot that cost less than a good bottle of wine.</p>
<p>If you think this is a scene from a sci-fi movie, think again. Only a few days ago, a team of UK scientists and engineers successfully <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/advanced-future-military-laser-achieves-uk-first">demonstrated that this is viable technology</a> that could find its way on to the battlefield in the next five to ten years. </p>
<p>DragonFire, a £30 million technology programme launched in 2017 and involving the UK government agency Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, missiles manufacturer MBDA, aerospace company Leonardo UK and defence technology company QinetiQ, has passed its first field test by shooting down several drones off the coast of Scotland using laser beams. </p>
<p>Drones are unmanned and semi-automatic aircrafts capable of delivering deadly damage with pinpoint accuracy. They feature <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-drones-are-changing-the-conflict-both-on-the-frontline-and-beyond-211460">heavily on modern battlefields</a>, including the Ukrainian war and the commercial naval routes in the Red Sea.</p>
<p>Shooting them down is not easy and typically involves firing missiles that cost up to £1 million each. While usually effective, defensive systems of this kind are costly and carry a significant risk of causing collateral damage; if a missile misses its target, it will eventually land somewhere and still explode.</p>
<p>However, you don’t have to cause a spectacular explosion to deactivate a drone; interfering with its control and navigation systems is more than enough. This is a job that a laser beam can do. Lasers are nothing but particularly bright and directional beams of light – a particular kind of <a href="https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/toolbox/emspectrum1.html">electromagnetic radiation</a>. A sufficiently powerful laser can interfere with any electronic device, causing it to malfunction. </p>
<p>Compared to standard missiles, a high-power laser system has a range of strategic advantages. It is surprisingly cheap to operate. Running DragonFire for ten seconds costs the equivalent of using a heater for an hour (less than £10 per shot). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="DragonFire laser system." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570477/original/file-20240121-28-ilxzdp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570477/original/file-20240121-28-ilxzdp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570477/original/file-20240121-28-ilxzdp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570477/original/file-20240121-28-ilxzdp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570477/original/file-20240121-28-ilxzdp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570477/original/file-20240121-28-ilxzdp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570477/original/file-20240121-28-ilxzdp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">DragonFire laser system.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.mbda-systems.com/press-releases/dragonfire-proving-trials-underway">MDBA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lasers are also free from the risk of collateral damage. Even if a laser misses its target, it will keep on propagating upwards and eventually be absorbed and scattered in the atmosphere. A laser is a beam of light, so it only propagates in straight lines, regardless of gravity. Also, they usually cover a small area of the order of a few millimetres – they are akin to a surgical intervention.</p>
<p>Lasers are therefore the defensive weapon par excellence; they can only be used to stop incoming threats, not cause significant harm. Lasers are also far less susceptible to countermeasures. By its very nature of being a beam of light, lasers travel at the fastest possible speed: the speed of light. Once a laser beam is fired, there is nothing else in nature that can catch up with it and neutralise it.</p>
<p>Laser beams have been used on the battlefield for quite some time. They are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214914719312231">mainly used for</a> tracking targets, remote sensing and precision aiming. However, this is the first time that this type of technology has proven effective in a disruptive application. </p>
<h2>Challenges remain</h2>
<p>The reason it has taken so long to develop this weapon is that to disable a drone, you need a laser beam with significant intensity.</p>
<p>However, if the laser beam is too powerful, it can strongly interact with the air in the atmosphere, <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/12/7/918">causing it to be absorbed or scattered</a>. One needs to strike the perfect balance of beam parameters, such as its <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/schwartz/files/lecture10-power.pdf">wavelength power</a> and shape, to make sure that it can propagate over long distances without significant degradation.</p>
<p>A laser beam will also be particularly sensitive to atmospheric conditions. The presence of fog, rain, or clouds <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/12/7/918">can significantly affect its performance</a>. </p>
<p>Due to the increasing threat posed by drones and subsonic missiles on a global scale, the UK defence ministry is now accelerating the development of this technology, with the expectation of having it fielded on war vessels in the next five to ten years. </p>
<p>Several technical and scientific issues still need to be addressed. For example, keeping the pointing of the laser stable on a moving platform (such as a cruiser in choppy waters) is not a simple task. It is like trying to hit the bullseye on a dartboard while standing on a balance board. However, this will only affect the accuracy of the weapon, without increasing the risk of collateral damage.</p>
<p>It will also be necessary to decouple the laser system performance from the weather conditions. Water droplets and air drafts can scatter or absorb the laser, reducing its effects. One would need to precisely factor in variable weather conditions in the preparation of the beam to be fired. While this is not an impossible task, it is technically difficult.</p>
<p>A structured training programme must also be established to ensure soldiers can efficiently operate such a high-tech system. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, these first tests demonstrate the viability and efficacy of this weapon, which promises to revolutionise modern warfare in the coming years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221510/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gianluca Sarri receives funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), InnovateUK, and Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL). </span></em></p>Operating the DragonFire laser system for ten seconds costs the equivalent of using a heater for an hour (less than £10 per shot).Gianluca Sarri, Professor at the School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2203962024-01-10T16:04:48Z2024-01-10T16:04:48ZWar in Europe is more than 5,000 years old – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567413/original/file-20231220-15-uaocdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2700%2C1750&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Image of the site of San Juan ante Portam Latinam (Laguardia, Álava).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://comunicacion.uva.es/es/detalle/La-primera-guerra-en-Europa-tuvo-lugar-mil-anos-antes-de-lo-que-se-pensaba-hasta-ahora-segun-el-estudio-de-una-investigadora-de-la-UVa/">José Ignacio Vegas / Universidad de Valladolid</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Conflict has existed throughout human history, and it has often been violent. Attacks, assassinations, raids, ambushes and vendettas feature in archaeological records almost as far back as the origin of humankind itself. But not war. </p>
<p>War – as opposed to conflict – requires organisation, be it temporary or permanent. This usually involves the creation of institutionalised armies belonging to at least one of the groups involved. War legitimises violence, meaning one person can kill another without it being considered murder. War is also temporary by nature, usually lasting for a period of months or years.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1235675">Various studies</a> <a href="https://faculty.washington.edu/plape/citiesaut11/readings/Ferguson_Intensifications_War.pdf">suggest</a> a connection between the birth of war and human settlement, when control of land and property became increasingly important. </p>
<p>The emergence of surpluses during the Neolithic era, especially in agriculture and livestock, soon led to concentrated power, permanent inequality, and the desire to expand and defend territories. It also led to the establishment of the first states, which maintained, expanded and consolidated power by recruiting large armies to wage war as we understand it today.</p>
<h2>The birth of war</h2>
<p>To trace the emergence of warfare, prehistorians and archaeologists have long been forced to rely on indirect indicators. These include defences, recorded appearances of weapons, or the identification of certain graphic elements, such as cave paintings. More recently, <a href="https://faculty.uml.edu/ethan_spanier/Teaching/documents/WarfareintheNeolithic.pdf">research has shifted towards direct evidence</a>, particularly wounds on human bones, which are arguably the most incontrovertible evidence we have of past violence.</p>
<p>Thanks to advances in forensic anthropology, we have learned that the vast majority of known mass burial sites with signs of violence in European prehistory until well into the Neolithic era (6000-3000 BC) <a href="https://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/book/295655">were essentially massacres</a>. These were indiscriminate killings of communities of no more than 20-30 people, including whole populations of men, women and children, as a result of brutal surprise attacks by other groups.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/abs/mass-cannibalism-in-the-linear-pottery-culture-at-herxheim-palatinate-germany/2E337084566E8E0E8C8CBF18F1E33157?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=bookmark">few archaeological sites that do not fit into this category</a> appear to be the result of sacrifices or other violent ritual practices. </p>
<p>At sites such as the British settlements of Crickley Hill and Hambledon Hill, the discovery of hundreds of arrow heads around defences might suggest large coordinated attacks, but there is little to no skeletal evidence that they had actually been used in battle. For this, one would have to wait until the Bronze Age, around 1200 BC and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollense_valley_battlefield">Battle of Tollense</a> in Germany.</p>
<h2>San Juan ante Portam Latinam: broken bones and paradigms</h2>
<p>The burial site at <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/3090/chapter-abstract/143895769?redirectedFrom=fulltext#:%7E:text=San%20Juan%20ante%20Portam%20Latinam%20(Laguardia%2C%20%C3%81lava%2C%20Spain),3000%20cal%20bc">San Juan ante Portam Latinam</a> (SJAPL) was discovered in 1985 in Laguardia (Álava, Spain), and was excavated by J. I. Vegas and his collaborators 1990 and 1991. The skeletal remains of at least 338 people were found there, which were dated to around 3200 BC, in the late Neolithic period. </p>
<p>Initial studies found evidence of violence. Specifically, there were 53 head injuries and eight arrowhead wounds that had occurred some time before death (antemortem), and had already healed. However, there were also five arrowhead wounds and one head injury that had occurred around the time of death (perimortem), and had not healed.</p>
<p>Furthermore, it was suspected that the 52 flint arrowheads found in isolation (most with signs of impact) had been stuck in the bodies buried there, and had not been deliberately buried with them. Therefore, despite the apparently limited number of unhealed wounds, the burial site was originally thought to be the result of a massacre, possibly because of the lack of known prehistoric sites with signs of collective violence at the time.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2209481119">Previous study on European Neolithic sites with evidence of violence</a> soon made the uniqueness of SJAPL clear. While perimortem trauma, especially cranial trauma that is typical of melee combat, predominated at other sites, arrowhead wounds – evidence of combat at a distance – and antemortem trauma seemed to predominate at SJAPL. This suggested a longer, more complex and less lethal conflict. </p>
<p>The demographic at the site is also different from others. While at other sites there were men, women and children, there were predominantly adolescent or adult males at SJAPL.</p>
<h2>Reexamining the remains</h2>
<p>Recently, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-43026-9">we have reexamined</a> the remains found at SJAPL to assess its singular, anomalous results. This review identified a total of 107 head injuries, of which 48 were unhealed and 59 healed, and a total of 47 injuries to other parts of the skeleton, of which 17 were unhealed and 30 healed.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the vast majority involved adolescent and adult males, particularly those that were unhealed. In addition, some of these men were found to have both healed and unhealed wounds, indicating that they had been exposed to violence on several occasions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566908/original/file-20231220-29-z80wdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photograph of a skull with impact injuries." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566908/original/file-20231220-29-z80wdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566908/original/file-20231220-29-z80wdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566908/original/file-20231220-29-z80wdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566908/original/file-20231220-29-z80wdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566908/original/file-20231220-29-z80wdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566908/original/file-20231220-29-z80wdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566908/original/file-20231220-29-z80wdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Photograph of a skull with impact injuries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://comunicacion.uva.es/es/detalle/La-primera-guerra-en-Europa-tuvo-lugar-mil-anos-antes-de-lo-que-se-pensaba-hasta-ahora-segun-el-estudio-de-una-investigadora-de-la-UVa/">Teresa Fernandez Crespo/Universidad de Valladolid</a></span>
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<p>This review estimated that at least 23% of the people buried at SJAPL had suffered a violent event in their lifetime, and at least 10% had died as a result. However, this is a very low estimate, as it does not take into account the 52 arrowheads that may have impacted soft tissue, nor injured bones that cannot be linked to specific individuals. Including these factors would mean that an estimated 90 individuals (27%) died due to violence at SJAPL. </p>
<p>In addition, it is worth bearing in mind that only around 50% of wounds leave a mark on the bone, and that the preservation of the remains at SJAPL is quite poor, with multiple recent postmortem fractures affecting the record. Therefore, the final number could easily be double or triple our estimates. </p>
<p>Based on these results, SJAPL is the oldest European site to date in which a large scale, organised and long-lasting conflict has been clearly documented. Furthermore, the area of Rioja Alavesa, where SJAPL is located, is the European region with the highest total number of arrowhead wounds (identified in at least three other sites), all of them from between 3380 and 3000 BC, indicating a regional conflict.</p>
<p>High rates of nutritional deficiency documented in SJAPL show a declining quality of life, but also reveal the previously unsuspected logistical capacity of late neolithic communities to sustain violent conflict over time, i.e. to wage war. That makes it the first documented example of warfare on the continent in Neolithic times, almost two millennia earlier than previously assumed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Teresa Fernández Crespo has received funding from the British Academy (NF170854), the European Union (MSCA-IF790491), and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CNS2022-136080) in carrying out and publishing this research.</span></em></p>New analysis of archaeological remains in Spain has revealed that warfare is at least 2000 years older than we thought.Teresa Fernández Crespo, Investigadora Distinguida en Prehistoria, Universidad de ValladolidLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2200922023-12-21T19:11:03Z2023-12-21T19:11:03ZUkraine can still defeat Russia, but it needs the right tools to do it<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/ukraine-can-still-defeat-russia-but-it-needs-the-right-tools-to-do-it" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Ukraine’s strategic position has declined over the last six months. The summer offensive, which sparked hope among Ukraine and its supporters, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-ukrainian-counteroffensive-ran-into-trouble-2023-11?op=1">failed to deliver</a> significant territorial gains.</p>
<p>Furthermore, support for Ukraine — a given in 2022 — is increasingly under pressure due to <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/europes-emerging-war-fatigue">the prolonged nature of the conflict</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/06/1217576804/biden-says-congress-must-approve-ukraine-aid-this-month-we-cant-let-putin-win">domestic pressures</a> among its allies.</p>
<p>But this decline in Ukrainian fortunes does not mean, as <a href="https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/bound-to-lose">some have claimed</a>, that the war is unwinnable. Nor would a <a href="https://theweek.com/politics/whats-really-needed-is-a-cease-fire-in-ukraine">ceasefire necessarily mean an end to the conflict</a>, given Vladimir Putin and his allies’ <a href="https://www.unian.info/war/donbas-war-update-ukraine-reports-six-ceasefire-violations-on-nov-22-11229191.html">past track record</a> in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.</p>
<p>Instead, what’s needed now is a realistic assessment of Ukraine’s position and what is achievable.</p>
<h2>Assessing the situation</h2>
<p>Military conflict is about achieving political objectives. Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1219322119/russia-putin-press-conference-ukraine-evan-gershkovich">for both Russia</a> and Ukraine, there’s a disconnect between their military capabilities and their desired political goals.</p>
<p>President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s rallying of the Ukrainian people at the start of the current phase of the conflict is one of the most <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/03/1084310503/how-president-zelenskyys-wartime-leadership-has-transformed-his-image">impressive displays of wartime leadership</a> in recent memory. Zelenskyy’s efforts, however, sowed the seeds of the current problem.</p>
<p>Zelenskyy, at the outset of the conflict, argued that Ukraine would not stop until <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-05-03/card/ukraine-seeks-full-restoration-of-territory-including-crimea-zelensky-says-OhagEzR1JZ2B7T3kTlnz">all Ukrainian territory</a>, including Crimea — annexed by Russia in 2014 — is liberated and Russian forces expelled from the country. </p>
<p>This defiance served to rally the Ukrainian people in a moment of need. Zelenskyy’s inability to pivot from this maximalist argument, however, is now becoming a hindrance.</p>
<p>In the ongoing battle for Bakhmut, the symbolism of the battle has long overtaken military calculations. With the world watching, Zelenskyy <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-russia-bakhmut-military-aid-1.6736374">refused to disengage</a> after Ukrainian forces had arguably achieved their objectives in the eastern city. </p>
<p>Bakhmut, instead, <a href="https://theconversation.com/bakhmut-is-increasingly-a-quagmire-that-works-to-russias-advantage-203524">has become exactly what Ukraine needed to avoid</a>: a protracted battle in a region <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/21/why-is-bakhmut-important-in-the-russia-ukraine-war">that does not help its ultimate goal of defeating Russia</a>.</p>
<h2>Rallying international support</h2>
<p>Ongoing support for Ukraine is vital. Not only does <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67748813">Ukraine require it</a>, but <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/venezuela-s-president-orders-creation-of-new-state-and-map-including-land-from-guyana/ar-AA1l6o1j">Russian ally Venezuela</a>’s threats to annex territory from neighbouring Guyana demonstrate that protecting international norms is in the interest of Ukraine’s allies as well. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1730546555843670188"}"></div></p>
<p>One point that critics of Ukrainian aid are correct in pointing out is that aid is currently not tied to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67649497">clear objectives</a>. </p>
<p>In the initial stages of the war, it was important for Ukraine’s allies to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/22/ukraine-weapons-military-aid-00019104">provide anything and everything</a> and worry about its application later. Now that the front has stabilized, however, the goal should be to provide aid that will help Ukraine achieve its objectives.</p>
<p>Zelenskyy is aware of the importance of international aid for Ukraine. Zelenskyy’s North American trip in September was aimed at helping Ukraine win the long war. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/zelenskyys-meetings-with-trudeau-and-biden-are-aimed-at-winning-the-long-war-214023">Zelenskyy's meetings with Trudeau and Biden are aimed at winning the long war</a>
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<p>He <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/live-blog/zelenskyy-biden-ukraine-congress-live-updates-rcna129211">recently returned</a> to the United States due to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/12/08/about-half-of-republicans-now-say-the-us-is-providing-too-much-aid-to-ukraine/">domestic American politics that threaten ongoing aid.</a></p>
<p>But in order to maintain the support of increasingly skeptical allies, Zelenskyy needs to be equally honest about Ukrainian objectives and acknowledge it’s not realistic, given Ukraine’s current political and military situation, to return to pre-2014 borders.</p>
<h2>Providing the right tools</h2>
<p>The more limited goal of retaining the country’s pre-February 2022 territory is within the realm of possibility, but Ukraine’s allies need to provide it with the right type of aid. That would solve two problems: one military, and one political.</p>
<p>In terms of the military problem, it’s quite clear from the summer counteroffensive that it’s one thing to provide aid, but another for a state to employ it effectively. One cannot simply <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/us/politics/ukraine-troops-counteroffensive-training.html">deploy American and European military hardware</a> and expect the Ukrainian army to fight like American or German forces.</p>
<p>Western military doctrine, furthermore, is not perfect. In fact, <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/would-we-do-better-hubris-and-validation-in-ukraine/">many of the issues</a> present in the Russian armed forces that have drawn criticism — <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/russia-takes-losses-in-failed-river-crossing-officials-say-/6570694.html">such as the principles behind river crossings</a> — exist within western-style armies as well. </p>
<p>Instead of basing the types of supplies provided on what Ukraine believes is needed under western doctrine and tactics, its allies should ground that aid in the experience of the summer counteroffensive.</p>
<p>It failed for several reasons. Prominent among them was Russia’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/half-village-is-gone-ukraine-hamlet-reels-after-missile-strike-2023-10-06/">development of extensive fortifications</a> and what’s known as <a href="https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/defense-in-depth">defence in depth.</a> Both are designed <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/09/30/trench-warfare-makes-a-comeback-in-ukraine-s-fight-against-russia_6142009_4.html">to counter the manoeuvre warfare</a> favoured by western-trained forces. </p>
<p>If Ukraine’s allies continue to provide weapons the Russians have successfully countered, it will not only be ineffective aid from a military standpoint but contribute to potential war fatigue as well.</p>
<p>Instead, western aid should focus on providing tools to overcome Russia’s defensive systems. Foremost among them <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/dec/19/artillery-shortage-in-ukraine-could-delay-countero/">are artillery</a>, both shells and replacement artillery tubes, as well as <a href="https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/analysis-opinion/1690404329-analysis-ukraine-offensive-struggles-without-engineering-assets">engineering vehicles</a>. Ukraine needs these tools, rather than <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-is-forming-five-new-mechanized-brigades-now-they-need-vehicles/ar-AA1lawTF">new mechanized brigades</a>, to overcome Russian defences.</p>
<p>The problem in Ukraine fighting in a slow, deliberate manner that is ably supported by artillery and engineering vehicles is that territorial gains will be slow. </p>
<p>The slow pace of the operations is difficult for allied politicians to sell to their constituents. But doing so will be considerably easier with a clearly defined, and plausible, objective.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Horncastle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ukraine can still emerge victorious in its war with Russia despite a failed summer counteroffensive. But what’s required now is a realistic assessment of Ukraine’s position and what is achievable.James Horncastle, Assistant Professor and Edward and Emily McWhinney Professor in International Relations, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2191572023-12-13T18:24:59Z2023-12-13T18:24:59ZThe Middle East and Ukraine: The rules of war depend on the nature of the conflict<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-middle-east-and-ukraine-the-rules-of-war-depend-on-the-nature-of-the-conflict" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Even in war, there are rules that are supposed to be followed by way of several multilateral legal frameworks that govern warfare and issues like the treatment of combatants and civilians. </p>
<p>Understanding what rules apply to what types of conflicts is important because it can lead to the greatest protections for civilians caught in the crossfire, and greater accountability to perpetrators of war crimes. At a time when two major wars are being waged — in the Middle East and in Ukraine — this understanding takes on a special urgency.</p>
<p>Historically, the laws of war have been <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/what-are-jus-ad-bellum-and-jus-bello-0%EF%BB%BF">divided into two categories</a>: <em>jus in bello</em> that pertains to acceptable conduct in war; and <em>jus ad bellum</em>, which involves adaptable justifications for going to war.</p>
<p>Let’s examine <em>jus in bello</em>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S181638310900023X">more commonly known as international humanitarian law.</a></p>
<p>The two primary sources for international humanitarian law are multilateral treaties — including the <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/hague-conv-iv-1907">Hague Convention IV</a> of 1907, the four <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/geneva-conventions-1949additional-protocols-and-their-commentaries">Geneva Conventions</a> of 1949 and what are known as the <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/geneva-conventions-1949additional-protocols-and-their-commentaries">Additional Protocols</a> of 1977 — along with <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl">customary international law</a>, the unofficial rules governing the conduct of hostilities.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-israel-and-hamas-be-held-to-account-for-alleged-crimes-against-civilians-215705">Can Israel and Hamas be held to account for alleged crimes against civilians?</a>
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<h2>Three principles</h2>
<p>Contemporary international humanitarian law is based on three important principles: distinction, military necessity and proportionality.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-48/commentary/1987">principle of distinction</a>, formalized in the Additional Protocols, refers to military obligations to differentiate between combatants and civilians when military leaders decide who to target.</p>
<p>This requires combatants to distinguish themselves from non-combatants, usually accomplished by wearing uniforms. It also requires combatants to only target military objectives. </p>
<p>Military necessity is used as a guide to determine what counts as a legitimate military objective. This principle is an attempt to balance an aggressor’s need to gain military advantage with minimizing suffering. While mentioned in several multilateral treaties, neither the Geneva Conventions nor Additional Protocols explicitly codify this important concept.</p>
<p>Lastly, the principle of proportionality is an attempt to provide guidance to military commanders about how to balance the value of a particular military objective with humanitarian concerns. <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-51?activeTab=undefined">Articles 51</a> <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-57?activeTab=undefined">and 57</a> of the Additional Protocols formalize this principle.</p>
<h2>Relevance to ongoing wars</h2>
<p>Applying international humanitarian law to the Russia-Ukraine war is straightforward. Because the conflict is between two states and both Russia and Ukraine are signatories to all four Geneva Conventions, the conflict is an international armed conflict and those conventions completely apply.</p>
<p>In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and">arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin</a>, charging him with war crimes, including the unlawful deportation and transfer of children.</p>
<p>In terms of the Israel-Hamas war, the application of international humanitarian law is more complicated because it’s unclear whether it can be considered an international or non-international armed conflict. If Hamas is an independent militant organization not fighting on behalf of an existing Palestinian state, then the current conflict would be a non-international armed conflict.</p>
<p>That means only <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gci-1949/article-3">Common Article 3</a> of the Geneva Conventions would apply. This is important because Common Article 3 offers fewer protections to combatants and civilians. </p>
<p>For example, while prisoners of war and civilians must be “treated humanely” according to Common Article 3, that’s a far cry from the full range of protections in existing multilateral treaties.</p>
<h2>Palestinian statehood in question</h2>
<p>However, if the Israel-Hamas war is considered an international armed conflict, the situation is different. <a href="https://opiniojuris.org/2023/11/09/israels-war-in-gaza-is-not-a-valid-act-of-self-defence-in-international-law/">Some argue</a> that because the situation in Gaza involves an ongoing occupation, the conflict is international in nature and the Geneva Conventions apply.</p>
<p>This stance is obviously unacceptable to the Israeli government because it would imply that Palestine is a state and therefore Hamas fighters ought to receive full prisoner-of-war protections.</p>
<p>But even if Palestine is considered a state, there is no reason that Hamas fighters should be considered prisoners of war. <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciii-1949">Geneva Convention III</a> is quite explicit about who qualifies for that status. </p>
<p>The convention states that all those taking part in hostilities must conduct “… their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.”</p>
<p>The Oct. 7 attacks in Israel killed some 1,200 people. Since that time, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fires-rockets-deep-into-israel-setting-off-sirens-tel-aviv-2023-11-10/">Hamas has launched hundreds of rockets into Israel</a>, indiscriminately targeting population centres. Israel has retaliated with an unprecedented use of force in the Gaza Strip, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-12-13-23/index.html#:%7E:text=Gaza%20death%20toll%3A%20The%20death,not%20independently%20verified%20these%20numbers.">killing more than 18,000 people.</a></p>
<h2>Violating international law</h2>
<p>Hamas’s deliberate targeting of civilians and taking of hostages are in direct violation of international humanitarian law. </p>
<p>The International Criminal Court has an open investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Palestine by both Hamas and Israel, which it began in 2015. <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/icc-prosecutor-karim-khan-kc-concludes-first-visit-israel-and-state-palestine-icc-prosecutor">ICC prosecutor Karim Khan recently visited Israel</a> and called on both sides to respect their obligations to adhere to international humanitarian law.</p>
<p>There are growing international calls for a ceasefire. More than 150 members of the United Nations General Assembly, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-sustainable-ceasefire-israel-gaza-1.7056626">including Canada</a>, have voted in favour of a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/12/middleeast/ceasefire-vote-gaza-israel-un-intl">resolution calling for a ceasefire</a>. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67687628">Ten members voted against</a> the resolution, including Israel and the United States. </p>
<p>The U.S. also <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-vote-delayed-demand-gaza-humanitarian-ceasefire-2023-12-08/">recently vetoed a UN Security Council resolution</a> for a ceasefire.</p>
<p>As developments unfold, it’s important to keep in mind that whether an armed conflict is classified as international or non-international has a significant impact on the protections afforded combatants and civilians. </p>
<p>In the absence of a ceasefire, that category of classification will also affect the level of accountability to which perpetrators of war crimes will be held.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bryan Peeler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In war time, the type of conflict determines what formal rules of war apply. But how to determine the nature of the conflict?Bryan Peeler, Assistant Professor, Political Studies, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2193022023-12-08T05:11:49Z2023-12-08T05:11:49ZIsrael’s AI can produce 100 bombing targets a day in Gaza. Is this the future of war?<p>Last week, reports emerged that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are using an artificial intelligence (AI) system <a href="https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/">called Habsora</a> (Hebrew for “The Gospel”) to select targets in the war on Hamas in Gaza. The system has reportedly been used to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/01/the-gospel-how-israel-uses-ai-to-select-bombing-targets">find more targets for bombing</a>, to link locations to Hamas operatives, and to estimate likely numbers of civilian deaths in advance.</p>
<p>What does it mean for AI targeting systems like this to be used in conflict? My research into the social, political and ethical implications of military use of remote and autonomous systems shows AI is already altering the character of war. </p>
<p>Militaries use remote and autonomous systems as “force multipliers” to increase the impact of their troops and protect their soldiers’ lives. AI systems can make soldiers more efficient, and are likely to enhance the speed and lethality of warfare – even as humans become less visible on the battlefield, instead gathering intelligence and targeting from afar. </p>
<p>When militaries can kill at will, with little risk to their own soldiers, will the current ethical thinking about war prevail? Or will the increasing use of AI also increase the dehumanisation of adversaries and the disconnect between wars and the societies in whose names they are fought?</p>
<h2>AI in war</h2>
<p>AI is having an impact at all levels of war, from “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” support, like the IDF’s Habsora system, through to “lethal autonomous weapons systems” that can choose and attack targets <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/icrc-position-autonomous-weapon-systems">without human intervention</a>.</p>
<p>These systems have the potential to reshape the character of war, making it easier to enter into a conflict. As complex and distributed systems, they may also make it more difficult to signal one’s intentions – or interpret those of an adversary – in the context of an escalating conflict.</p>
<p>To this end, AI can <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/02/geoffrey-hinton-godfather-of-ai-quits-google-warns-dangers-of-machine-learning">contribute to mis- or disinformation</a>, creating and amplifying dangerous misunderstandings in times of war. </p>
<p>AI systems may increase the human tendency to trust suggestions from machines (this is highlighted by the Habsora system, named after the infallible word of God), opening up uncertainty over <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15027570.2018.1481907">how far to trust</a> autonomous systems. The boundaries of an AI system that interacts with other technologies and with people may not be clear, and there may be <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11g97wm">no way to know who or what has “authored” its outputs</a>, no matter how objective and rational they may seem.</p>
<h2>High-speed machine learning</h2>
<p>Perhaps one of the most basic and important changes we are likely to see driven by AI is an increase in the speed of warfare. This may change how we understand <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2797.html">military deterrence</a>, which assumes humans are the primary actors and sources of intelligence and interaction in war.</p>
<p>Militaries and soldiers frame their decision-making through what is called the “<a href="https://fhs.brage.unit.no/fhs-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2683228/Boyds%20OODA%20Loop%20Necesse%20vol%205%20nr%201.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">OODA loop</a>” (for observe, orient, decide, act). A faster OODA loop can help you outmanoeuvre your enemy. The goal is to avoid slowing down decisions through excessive deliberation, and instead to match the accelerating tempo of war.</p>
<p>So the use of AI is potentially justified on the basis it can interpret and synthesise huge amounts of data, processing it and delivering outputs at rates that far surpass human cognition. </p>
<p>But where is the space for ethical deliberation in an increasingly fast and data-centric OODA loop cycle happening at a safe distance from battle?</p>
<p>Israel’s targeting software is an example of this acceleration. A former head of the IDF has <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/ry0uzlhu3">said</a> that human intelligence analysts might produce 50 bombing targets in Gaza each year, but the Habsora system can produce 100 targets a day, along with real-time recommendations for which ones to attack.</p>
<p>How does the system produce these targets? It does so through probabilistic reasoning offered by machine learning algorithms.</p>
<p>Machine learning algorithms learn through data. They learn by seeking patterns in huge piles of data, and their success is contingent on the data’s quality and quantity. They make recommendations based on probabilities. </p>
<p>The probabilities are based on pattern-matching. If a person has enough similarities to other people labelled as an enemy combatant, they too may be labelled a combatant themselves. </p>
<h2>The problem of AI enabled targeting at a distance</h2>
<p>Some claim machine learning enables <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/ARKTCF">greater precision in targeting</a>, which makes it easier to avoid harming innocent people and using a proportional amount of force. However, the idea of more precise targeting of airstrikes has not been successful in the past, as the high toll of <a href="https://airwars.org/">declared and undeclared civilian casualties</a> from the global war on terror shows. </p>
<p>Moreover, the difference between a combatant and a civilian is <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/WILSAU">rarely self-evident</a>. Even humans frequently cannot tell who is and is not a combatant.</p>
<p>Technology does not change this fundamental truth. Often social categories and concepts are not objective, but are contested or specific to time and place. But computer vision together with algorithms are more effective in predictable environments where concepts are objective, reasonably stable, and internally consistent. </p>
<h2>Will AI make war worse?</h2>
<p>We live in a time of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8497.2005.00393.x">unjust wars</a> and military occupations, egregious <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/about/reviews-inquiries/afghanistan-inquiry">violations of the rules of engagement</a>, and an incipient <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/25/world/asia/asia-china-military-war.html">arms race</a> in the face of US–China rivalry. In this context, the inclusion of AI in war may add new complexities that exacerbate, rather than prevent, harm. </p>
<p>AI systems make it easier for actors in war to <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1802.07228">remain anonymous</a>, and can render invisible the source of violence or the decisions which lead to it. In turn, we may see increasing disconnection between militaries, soldiers, and civilians, and the wars being fought in the name of the nation they serve.</p>
<p>And as AI grows more common in war, militaries will develop countermeasures to undermine it, creating a loop of escalating militarisation. </p>
<h2>What now?</h2>
<p>Can we control AI systems to head off a future in which warfare is driven by increasing reliance on technology underpinned by learning algorithms? Controlling AI development in any area, particularly via laws and regulations, has proven difficult.</p>
<p>Many suggest we need better laws to account for systems underpinned by machine learning, but even this is not straightforward. Machine learning algorithms are <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/06/01/151447/secret-algorithms-threaten-the-rule-of-law/">difficult to regulate</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-military-plans-to-unleash-thousands-of-autonomous-war-robots-over-next-two-years-212444">US military plans to unleash thousands of autonomous war robots over next two years</a>
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<p>AI-enabled weapons may program and update themselves, evading legal requirements for certainty. The engineering maxim “software is never done” implies that the law may never match the speed of technological change.</p>
<p>The quantitative act of estimating likely numbers of civilian deaths in advance, which the Habsora system does, does not tell us much about the qualitative dimensions of targeting. Systems like Habsora in isolation cannot really tell us much about whether a strike would be ethical or legal (that is, whether it is proportionate, discriminate and necessary, among other considerations).</p>
<p>AI should support democratic ideals, not undermine them. Trust in governments, institutions, and militaries <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/2021/07/trust-public-institutions/">is eroding</a> and needs to be restored if we plan to apply AI across a range of military practices. We need to deploy critical ethical and political analysis to interrogate emerging technologies and their effects so any form of military violence is considered to be the last resort.</p>
<p>Until then, machine learning algorithms are best kept separate from targeting practices. Unfortunately, the world’s armies are heading in the opposite direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bianca Baggiarini does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>AI systems will accelerate the pace of war.Bianca Baggiarini, Lecturer, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116272023-09-04T14:06:53Z2023-09-04T14:06:53Z‘My home city was destroyed by war but I will not lose hope’ – how modern warfare turns neighbourhoods into battlefields<p>It has been almost 12 years since I left my city. And I have never been able to return. Homs, the place I was born and grew up, has been destroyed and I, like many others, have been left in exile: left to remember how beautiful it once was. What can a person do when their home – that place within them that carries so much meaning – has effectively been murdered?</p>
<p>I have spent my academic career studying the impact of war on architecture and cities and researching acts of deliberate destruction of home, termed by scholars as <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Domicide.html?id=6t_KSirfEnsC&redir_esc=y">domicide</a>. <em>Domus</em> is the Latin word for home and domicide refers to the deliberate destruction of home – the killing of it. I have investigated how architecture, both at the time of war and peace, has been weaponised; wilfully targeted, bombed, burnt and contested. It has led me to publishing my first book, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/domicide-9781350248106/">Domicide: Architecture, War, and the Destruction of Home in Syria</a>.</p>
<p>From the burning of housing, land and property ownership documents, to the destruction of homes and cultural heritage sites, the brutal destruction in Homs, and other cities in Syria, has not only erased our material culture but also forcibly displaced millions.</p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://reporting.unhcr.org/operational/situations/syria-situation#:%7E:text=Over%2012%20million%20Syrians%20remained,from%205.7%20million%20in%202021.">over 12 million people</a> have been displaced from their homes within Syria, and beyond in countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Germany and Egypt. This destruction has been “justified” by the Syrian government and its allies, who claim these ordinary neighbourhoods are in fact “battlefields” in what they call a “war on terror and on terrorists”.</p>
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<img alt="Aerial photo showing a city devastated by bombing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544590/original/file-20230824-17-ns1kk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544590/original/file-20230824-17-ns1kk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544590/original/file-20230824-17-ns1kk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544590/original/file-20230824-17-ns1kk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544590/original/file-20230824-17-ns1kk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544590/original/file-20230824-17-ns1kk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544590/original/file-20230824-17-ns1kk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An aerial photo shows the devastation caused in Homs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/city-homs-syria-1057305518">Shutterstock/FlyandDive</a></span>
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<p>In March 2011, peaceful protests against the government <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35806229">began to grow</a>. The protests evolved into a violent insurgency when the government responded with force. Syrians were protesting over issues like oppression and a lack of political freedom.</p>
<p>Amid the brutal crackdown, there were soldiers from the Syrian army who switched sides and formed the breakaway Free Syrian Army to support the revolution. Throughout the years, more armed and rebel groups emerged. But powerful allies also came to the government aid, such as Russia and Iran. This has <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2023/07/13/syria-between-civil-and-proxy-war-the-question-of-terminology/">led the country into war</a>. To date, more than <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-war-factbox-idUSKCN1GR2VT">half million</a> people have been killed.</p>
<p>The government destroyed and bombed rebel held areas as well as issuing new urban planning laws to carry out further devastation without the need for a military justification. The new planning <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/05/syria-new-property-law-punishes-the-displaced-and-could-obstruct-investigation-of-war-crimes/">decrees</a> led to the erasure of entire neighbourhoods which were largely populated by people who opposed the government. These sites were labelled as “illegal” or “built without permission”. These wanton acts of destruction were carried out to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17502977.2016.1158527">punish opponents of the government</a>.</p>
<h2>My home</h2>
<p>I sometimes wish there were cameras that could livestream the streets of Homs in Syria. I wonder, how is my city getting on? How are the people? Can I see their faces again, and can I, even through a camera, see every corner of the streets of Homs. </p>
<p>I search for every new video published on the city, looking at the new shops that opened, and the many that have remained in ruins. I look in these videos at the people. What is happening in their minds? Who have they lost? Is their home still intact? They have endured so much pain. I wonder how they are after 12 years of suffering that left over half of the neighbourhoods in ruins.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p>It feels like a dream now when I see Homs. Even after being so privileged to visit so many cities around the world (from New York and Berlin, to Rome, Istanbul and Athens). Every city reminds me of the city of my birth.</p>
<p>When my well-meaning friends tell me to forget about Homs, forget about the past – “Syria is no longer for us”, I refuse to forget, even when the world seems to do exactly that. I don’t want to live in a landscape of forgetting.</p>
<p>Now, when walking the streets of my newly adopted home city of Oxford, Homs remains in my mind. I remember the day I left on November 17, 2011. The departure day was filled with tears to leave as tanks were positioned across different parts of the city and Homs was being divided and shelled. I feel a deep sense of grief for the people who have been killed since the start of the revolution - and for those who remain, for those who are forcibly displaced: for us. Grief was aching my heart for my friend who was killed while marching in a peaceful demonstration. His name was Taher Al Sebai. He was killed on October 16, 2011, a month before my departure from Homs to Manchester.</p>
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<img alt="Homs City Centre before the war." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543461/original/file-20230818-15-8pdupj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543461/original/file-20230818-15-8pdupj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543461/original/file-20230818-15-8pdupj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543461/original/file-20230818-15-8pdupj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543461/original/file-20230818-15-8pdupj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543461/original/file-20230818-15-8pdupj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543461/original/file-20230818-15-8pdupj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A newly built clock tower in Homs city centre in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author</span></span>
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<p>Protests in Homs were spreading across neighbourhoods, with men, women and children calling for a new future inspired by the waves of protests sweeping countries as part of the wider movements of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13604813.2011.632900">Arab Spring</a>. “Death but not indignity”, people in Homs chanted, “One. One. One. The Syrian People Are One”, they called in the streets, and “Freedom Forever”. The protests were brutally attacked.</p>
<p>When protests were targeted and oppressed, people chanted from their own homes; from their balconies. I watched this from my own bedroom. I remember women in the neighbouring buildings breaking the silence of the dark nights; “where is everyone”, a woman cried to encourage our neighbours to start chanting.</p>
<p>This became a daily practice in the early days of the revolution when the streets became no-go zones because bullets were being shot randomly from cars to spread fear and prevent protest. There were times I sheltered in the corridors of my home with all the lights off, away from the windows, for fear of being hit by a stray bullet.</p>
<p>Despite the constant threat and fear of death, the people stood up. Walls of fear and silence were knocked down as thousands of Homsis gave the streets new purpose, turning them into sites of resistance and protest. 2011 will forever be engraved in my mind because it was a historical moment of discovery built on the hopes of everyday people who dared to imagine and construct a new way of life based on the simplest of things: freedom. Homs, often known for its jolly people and their sense of humour, took a new name, “The Capital of the Revolution”.</p>
<p>When a peaceful demonstration marched in my street on October 16, it was targeted. I remember the screams and the shouting in the street. Soon I was told that Taher was killed. A martyr, everyone wrote on social media. How did I, at the age of 23, come to have a martyr as a friend?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543464/original/file-20230818-17-yxmgtx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543464/original/file-20230818-17-yxmgtx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543464/original/file-20230818-17-yxmgtx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543464/original/file-20230818-17-yxmgtx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543464/original/file-20230818-17-yxmgtx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543464/original/file-20230818-17-yxmgtx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543464/original/file-20230818-17-yxmgtx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543464/original/file-20230818-17-yxmgtx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women protesting in Homs on October 31, 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Given to the author with a request of anonymity.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And not only Taher, two other young children were killed too. I knew Taher from the Department of Architecture, as we both studied there. I remember his smile; his face radiated with kindness, tranquillity and goodness. His name in Arabic means “pure” or “virtuous” and everyone who knew him described him like that.</p>
<p>Even when writing this piece on a rainy and cloudy summer day in Oxford, the images of Taher return as if it all was just yesterday. Can someone tell me how to live after death? Is there a life after destruction?</p>
<h2>From Ukraine to Syria: civilians as the frontline</h2>
<p>This is surely a question which occupies the minds of the many millions of ordinary people caught up in today’s wars - wars which have transformed streets, towns and neighbourhoods into battlefields.</p>
<p>On February 20, 2022, I contacted <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c2e418d0zxqt">Lyse Doucet</a>, the BBC’s chief international correspondent to invite her to write the foreword to my book. She replied from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Throughout her career, Doucet has covered several conflicts around the world, including Afghanistan and Syria, by taking the audiences globally to the intimate stories and lives of those civilians who suffer the horrors of war.</p>
<p>At the time of her response, the emerging videos and photos from Ukraine, reminded me of the trauma that the Syrian people have suffered through. “All the images were trembling into our lives again”, Doucet wrote in her foreword, adding:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Moscow’s cruise missiles smashing into high-rise residential blocks, exposing wrecked homes within: tidy rooms turned topsy-turvy; crockery shattered; children’s torn toys strewn across the floor. Heartbreaking images of petite suburban bungalows with pocket gardens swallowed up by flames. Stomach-churning images of bodies sprawled out along the streets.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MG8waU7Evpo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Cities have become the battlefields making the everyday urban life the site of contestation, division, siege and destruction. And we have all seen this destruction, which has been wiping out peoples’ intimate and cherished places causing a deep sense of grief and rupture. This is Domicide. As Doucet adds:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Wars of our time, sometimes fought in our name, are not in the trenches; they’re fought street-to-street, house to house, one home after another. Why does a hospital, a kindergarten, always seem to be hit in every outbreak or hostilities? After nearly four decades of reporting on conflict, I now often say: civilians are not close to the front lines; they are the frontline.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is what we have seen in Ukraine, and before that in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and many other countries. Civilians are the frontline. In my city, some people have been displaced multiple times within the last 12 years. </p>
<p>As a London-based citizen from Homs, who I interviewed in 2019 told me: “We left Homs in 2012. We lived in rural Damascus for a year and a half. During that time, we rented another house, we furnished it, and we wanted to start over, but then again, we had to leave, and we went back to Homs. It was bombed again. So I think my mother lost two houses. After that, she decided she does not want to furnish any house, she doesn’t want to buy any luxurious things because she was afraid it might be destroyed again.”</p>
<h2>Architecture at the time of war</h2>
<p>When I tell people that I am researching the impact of war on architecture and cities, they often get surprised, even some of those within the field of architecture. For some, architecture is about shiny buildings, luxurious design and skyscrapers.</p>
<p>But then I start explaining that architectural questions are central at the time of war. Questions like: How do we rebuild cities after war? What should we remember and what should we forget? Who decides the shape of the future of cities? How do you protect endangered heritage? And how can you engage with local communities in the process of reconstruction so that their voices are heard?</p>
<p>Once I unpack these questions, the people I meet start reflecting on these themes by telling me of an example they are aware of, such as the preservation of the remains of the Berlin Wall after its fall, or the reconstruction of Coventry after World War II, or Beirut after the civil war, or struggles to decide how to rebuild Mosul, or the destruction of peoples’ ways of living in Gaza.</p>
<p>Architecture is a fundamental part of the process of making and unmaking a home, an essential debate to be discussed and researched in our times as many cities remain in ruins around the world.</p>
<p>These questions and more have been <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14696053221073992">researched</a> by architects and academics writing about their own cities and countries, either from within or from <a href="https://carnegie-mec.org/2020/05/15/syria-s-reconstruction-between-discriminatory-implementation-and-circumscribed-resistance-pub-81803">exile</a>. Bringing this personal attachment to the research is, in my opinion, fundamental when it comes to explaining the impact of destruction on people who cherish their own architecture and cultural heritage. As Doucet added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In many realms, from journalism to academe to literature and art, there is now a deepening appreciation that whoever asks the questions and seeks the answers can have a decisive impact on how much, and what kind of knowledge we gain. A new generation of scholars, researchers and writers bring to their work a fluency in relevant languages and a more visceral understanding of their own cultures and societies, including its deepest pain and greatest joys. This is lived experience.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Ukraine, Ievgeniia Gubkina wrote about the destruction and reconstruction of cities. In her book, <a href="https://dom-publishers.com/products/being-a-ukrainian-architect-during-wartime">Being a Ukrainian Architect During Wartime: Essays, Articles, Interviews, and Manifestos</a>, Gubkina included a letter titled Unseen Realities: Let History Be Told by the Victims.</p>
<p>In the letter, she emphasised the need to bring trauma to the surface, instead of hiding it. By doing so, Gubkina centralised the concept that architecture is not just about stones and buildings, it is about people and their pain and hopes. This is the reality that Gubkina lived at the time of war:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My reality is thousands of missiles that have been fired at civil infrastructure and all-day shelling aimed at residential areas. My reality is thousands of people and hundreds of children that have been killed. My reality is millions of people that have been forced to leave their homes. My reality is my substantially destroyed home city of Kharkiv … My world, my reality, is being destroyed, bombed, exterminated, erased, exploded, demolished, deconstructed and killed.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Bombed out school viewed from the play ground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544595/original/file-20230824-29-8l0xbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544595/original/file-20230824-29-8l0xbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544595/original/file-20230824-29-8l0xbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544595/original/file-20230824-29-8l0xbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544595/original/file-20230824-29-8l0xbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544595/original/file-20230824-29-8l0xbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544595/original/file-20230824-29-8l0xbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Kharkiv school destroyed by Russian bombs in June 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kharkiv-ukraine-1006-russianukraine-war-destroyed-2166429019">Shutterstock/MagicGeorge</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And through this new history, written by the victims, we are able to enter the worlds and the realities of others. Through these entries, we are able to create spaces of solidarity and understanding and construct narratives that are often kept hidden, silenced and unspoken. </p>
<p>Gubkina adds: “The pain that, when people see Saltivka, a residential district in Kharkiv, is felt not just in the rest of Ukraine but in Paris and London too and can bring tears to eyes from Palmyra to New York. This is the pain of loss, loss of what we all, regardless of nationality, social status, and place of residence, understand as life, way of living, and memory of lives. These are tears of shared despair at our inability to stop these lives being destroyed.”</p>
<p>In the case of Syria, there are several architects who lived there and are writing about cities and war, such as the work of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve6pC8Vfm34">Nasser Rabbat</a>, <a href="https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/informal-settlements-in-syria-what-approach-after-the-conflict/">Sawsan Abou Zainedin, Hani Fakhani, Ahmad Sukkar,</a> and <a href="https://thamesandhudson.com/the-battle-for-home-the-memoir-of-a-syrian-architect-9780500292938">Marwa al-Sabouni</a>.</p>
<p>On Iraq, Sana Murrani, has researched questions of memory, belonging and refuge through interviews with Iraqis from different parts of the country, and through deep-mapping and storytelling methods. Murrani left Iraq in June 2003 shortly after the US-led invasion. She has never been able to return. Now two decades later, she has written a <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2023/04/20220403vATR/Ruptured-Domesticity">book</a> on her beloved country which will be published in 2024; Rupturing architecture: spatial practices of refuge in response to war and violence in Iraq.</p>
<p>I have been privileged to talk to some of these architects, including Abou Zainedin, Rabbat, Murrani and Gubkina. Today, as we live in a world of ruins, it is vital that we have conversations and exchange ideas, to support each other and learn – perhaps, to write a new history together.</p>
<h2>Deconstructing reconstruction</h2>
<p>As wars continue to destroy many cities around the world, reconstruction has become an important word of our times. From Syria to Ukraine, this word has been debated and discussed.</p>
<p>Syria was a fashionable conflict site, covered widely in the media and studied in academia – unlike other conflicts, such as Yemen and Libya. Conversations and debates about reconstruction have already been discussed both inside and outside the country. </p>
<p>Today, however, 12 years into the conflict, no reconstruction project has been implemented. In Homs, some partially damaged buildings have been rehabilitated but most of the heavily damaged buildings remain in ruins. The continuation of the war, the collapsed economy and the financial sanctions, have all contributed to a country in ruins.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/every-day-is-war-a-decade-of-slow-suffering-and-destruction-in-syria-154595">'Every day is war' – a decade of slow suffering and destruction in Syria</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It feels like the world moved on from Syria. All the eyes have now turned to a new conflict site: Ukraine. It has attracted significant attention in the media and academia. The <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/school-of-public-policy/The-ukraine-Reconstruction-Forum">reconstruction question</a> has become highly debated in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/ukraine-recovery-conference-2023">conferences</a> and architecture <a href="https://www.reconstruct.in.ua/">symposiums</a> both inside and outside of Ukraine.</p>
<p>One of these conversations that has fuelled big debates and discussions is “a <a href="https://unece.org/media/press/367310">vision for the Master Plan for the city of Kharkiv</a>”. <a href="https://unece.org/housing/un4kharkiv-rehabilitation#:%7E:text=1.,2.">The Master Plan</a>, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), “is being developed under the leadership of and with substantial expert contribution from the Norman Foster Foundation on a pro bono basis”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2st3hQoZTx4">In his presentation at MIT</a> in January 2023, the British architect and designer, Sir Norman Foster, explained that thinking about reconstruction does not start after the end of the war, but at the time of war. He referenced the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2014/mar/22/london-county-plan-abercrombie-forshaw">Greater London Plan of 1944</a> which was developed by Patrick Abercrombie.</p>
<p>But as he referenced the case of London, Foster did not note that the architect at the time was British, not Iraqi, Polish or Ukrainian. In other words, would the UK have let a foreign star architect lead its master plans for the destroyed cities of Coventry, Manchester and London? Would they hire someone who knows nothing about the history and culture of these cities?</p>
<p>If this seems like harsh criticism, it is not, as Foster himself admitted in the presentation that: “I knew nothing about the city other than I might find out from a Google search.”</p>
<p>Responses to Foster’s involvement have varied between those who say that star architects bring money and attention to those who fear that the voices of local architects will be marginalised. Oleg Drozdov, the founder of the Kharkiv School of Architecture, said in a webinar earlier in 2023 that Ukraine’s leaders should be wary of <a href="https://architecturetoday.co.uk/kharkiv-must-be-rebuilt-by-architects-with-experience-in-ukraine/">“intellectual colonisation”</a>, and the deputy vice chancellor of the school, Iryna Matsevko, <a href="https://architecturetoday.co.uk/kharkiv-must-be-rebuilt-by-architects-with-experience-in-ukraine/">emphasised the need</a> for “architects who have deep knowledge of the local context to avoid a ‘copy paste’ rebuilding programme”.</p>
<p>Foster explained that the work they have been doing on the city included a questionnaire where over 16,000 people responded. In one of his slides, he showed two pie charts with questions that read: “Are you satisfied with the quality of the house you live in?” and “Are you satisfied with the neighbourhood you live in?”</p>
<p>Imagine your city is being bombed, that your world is collapsing, that you are escaping in a search of a shelter and thousands of homes are being destroyed. Next, imagine you are being asked about your “satisfaction”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2st3hQoZTx4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Oleksii Pedosenko, an urban planning specialist, has <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/progressingplanning/2023/06/19/planning-in-ukraines-kharkiv-when-radical-hope-meets-starchitecture-is-there-a-place-for-local-voices/">written</a> an excellent reflection on the questions of reconstruction in Ukraine. He raises ethical points about the transparency of the work being done on Kharkiv’s master planning. Pedosenko writes that even though the project continues to engage with Kharkiv architects and local government officials, it only reports limited information to the public. He has also asked for the written report of the plan, but the foundation never responded to him. </p>
<p>Pedosenko asks: “How can solidarity be created if the very process of plan development is left to be constantly hidden from the very people who will live with the outcomes of the master plan long into the future? Also is it reasonable and practical for international actors to work remote from the local context if a truly collaborative process is the goal?”</p>
<p>These are important questions to think about at the time of reconstruction, and I have come across the same dilemmas when researching the reconstruction in Syria. Who has the right to write history? How could architects engage with local communities? And whose voice is heard? These questions matter, and they matter the most, when people have lost so much including their choices to shape their own future.</p>
<p>Star architects can bring with them power, money, fame, prestige and attention. But there are times where none of these are needed. Who knows what it means to lose home but the victim?</p>
<p>Good intentions are important. Global solidarity is important. But sometimes good intentions are not enough. As Pedosenko writes, there needs to be a more critical approach towards reconstruction.</p>
<h2>Reconstructing hope</h2>
<p>Despite everything we have lost, we should not lose hope. And despite the destruction of war, we must not let the war defeat us on the inside. It is hard to believe what has happened, it is hard to believe how death and destruction have shaped our lives in Syria. But at moments of despair and hopelessness, I return to the words of the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, who wrote in 1970:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hopelessness is a form of silence, of denying the world and fleeing from it. The dehumanisation resulting from an unjust order is not a cause for despair but for hope, leading to the incessant pursuit of the humanity denied by injustice. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In moments of despair, I also return to the words of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/world/middleeast/fadwa-suleiman-actress-and-voice-of-syrian-opposition-dies-at-47.html">Fadwa Souleimane</a>, a Syrian artist who became an icon of the revolution. In the early days of the revolution she led protests in Homs and was one of the few women who spoke publicly about the situation in Homs – from within Homs. I still remember when she was asked live by the news reporter if she was aware that her face was visible on the screen, or whether she thought it was a phone call only. She replied confidently that she was aware of being visible.</p>
<p>Her belonging to the revolution put her life under threat. She fled to Paris and continued her struggle from exile until she died from cancer at the age of 47. During her time in Paris, she advocated for peaceful tools and devices to face war. She remembered the art, culture, dance and music of the people who protested in the streets. Until her last moments, she remembered hope, and reconstructed it, reminding people to not live in a landscape of despair. In 2016, she said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even if they erase everything, we should not let them erase our dream. If there is only one Syrian left, I am sure he [or she] will build the Syria that we love. Syria is not a country, a geography. It’s an idea. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And as time passes, as the years move with new degrees of pain, let us remember this hope. Let us think and work towards the rebuilding of Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Palestine. Let’s fight the bulldozers that destroy our memories and presence. Let’s remember.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ammar Azzouz receives funding from British Academy for his research at the University of Oxford. </span></em></p>Wars are no longer fought in the trenches, they’re fought in the streets and civilians are on the frontline.Ammar Azzouz, Research Fellow, School of Geography and the Environment, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2111272023-08-28T20:03:56Z2023-08-28T20:03:56ZA battlefield for ants? New study on ant warfare shows we could manipulate their fights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542462/original/file-20230813-108238-w4bkeb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C903%2C3234%2C1887&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bruce Webber</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Humans are not the only animals <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2020.1846456">that go to war</a>. Ants do so too, and on a similarly catastrophic scale.</p>
<p>Battles play out daily – in human conflicts, among animals in nature, and across the virtual worlds of video games. How these battles progress depends on the combatants involved and what their battlefields are like.</p>
<p>In a new study <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217973120">published in PNAS today</a>, we used mathematical models on video game simulations to test how battlefield dynamics change warfare outcomes. We then confirmed these concepts in the real world – using ant battles.</p>
<h2>The mathematics of a battle</h2>
<p>Despite the horror of war, it occupies a prominent place in public imagination. In the early 1900s, English engineer Frederick William Lanchester developed a mathematical model that described the outcome of battles as dependent on the individual strength of each soldier in opposing armies, and on the size of each army. </p>
<p>To this day, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10407413.2020.1846456">Lanchester’s laws</a> remain valuable tools for evaluating battles. Investing in a few strong soldiers should be more effective when battles resemble a series of one-on-one duels. On the other hand, investing in large armies should be more effective when they can surround their enemies and concentrate their attacks.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/11.6.686">Later research</a> by evolutionary biologists Nigel Franks and Lucas Partridge revealed it’s not just the soldiers. The complexity of the battlefield itself can also tip the balance in favour of one strategy over another.</p>
<p>When fighting in tunnels, alleyways, or difficult terrain, it’s harder for large armies to surround their opponents, so small forces of strong or savvy soldiers can succeed. Such tactics are the basis for the story of Spartans holding off hundreds of thousands of Persian soldiers at the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2022/01/betrayal-crushed-spartas-last-stand-at-the-battle-of-thermopylae">Battle of Thermopylae</a> in 480 BCE.</p>
<h2>Age of Empires II versus ants</h2>
<p>In our study, we first used the video game <a href="https://www.ageofempires.com/">Age of Empires II</a> to assess the importance of battlefield complexity.</p>
<p>This game allows players to arrange different soldier types, build maps and fight against computer-driven enemies. In featureless battlefields, small armies of strong infantry units (Teutonic Knights) could defeat up to 50 weaker units (Two-Handed Swordsmen), but no more.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542468/original/file-20230813-101760-mirg3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="In a video game, a group of nine soldiers in blue are surrounded by a larger group of soldiers in red" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542468/original/file-20230813-101760-mirg3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542468/original/file-20230813-101760-mirg3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542468/original/file-20230813-101760-mirg3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542468/original/file-20230813-101760-mirg3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542468/original/file-20230813-101760-mirg3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542468/original/file-20230813-101760-mirg3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542468/original/file-20230813-101760-mirg3t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A small army of Teutonic Knights (blue) are surrounded and overwhelmed by 60 Two-Handed Swordsmen in a simple battlefield in the strategy game, Age of Empires II.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Age of Empires II</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, in complex battlefields, nine Knights could slay up to 70 Swordsmen. We found that video game wars, even though not explicitly programmed to do so, clearly followed Lanchester’s laws. But how relevant are these laws to real-world battles?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542469/original/file-20230813-196116-xbiy6a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="In a video game, groups of soldiers in red move down narrow alleyways of land between strips of water. Facing them in the alleyways are small groups of soldiers in blue" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542469/original/file-20230813-196116-xbiy6a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542469/original/file-20230813-196116-xbiy6a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542469/original/file-20230813-196116-xbiy6a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542469/original/file-20230813-196116-xbiy6a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542469/original/file-20230813-196116-xbiy6a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542469/original/file-20230813-196116-xbiy6a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542469/original/file-20230813-196116-xbiy6a.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In a complex battlefield, the same army of Swordsmen are unable to surround the Knights, and are instead funnelled between barriers of water. Now, the Knights have fewer Swordsmen to face at any one time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Age of Empires II</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most animals do not engage in warfare on the same scale as humans. This is because there’s no evolutionary incentive in risking their lives for a cause in which they don’t necessarily have a direct stake.</p>
<p>Social insects such as ants <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2020.1846456">are an exception</a>, because through warfare, the evolutionary future of the sterile worker ants who do the fighting is invested in the greater good of the colony.</p>
<p>Testing Lanchester’s laws required two ant species that clearly differed in their fighting prowess. Our first combatant was the Australian meat ant, <em>Iridomyrmex purpureus</em>. These large and beautiful ants, with their conspicuous gravelly nests, are familiar to many people in regional Australia as they are dominant in undisturbed or remnant bushland habitats.</p>
<p>As their enemies, we selected the notorious Argentine ant, <em>Linepithema humile</em>. These aggressive invasive ants are comparatively tiny but live in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2009.01.013">extremely large, hyper-cooperative colonies</a>.</p>
<p>Because of the size difference, meat ants always defeat Argentine ants in one-on-one duels. We formed small armies of 20 meat ants, and opposed them in the lab to increasingly large armies of up to 200 Argentine ants.</p>
<p>These battles took place either in simple arenas (featureless plastic containers) or complex arenas (the same containers with narrow wooden strips glued to the floor).</p>
<p>As predicted by Lanchester’s laws and by our video gaming, fewer large meat ants died in battle in complex arenas compared to simple ones.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542467/original/file-20230813-29-sz0e9o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large ant is being attacked by two smaller ants, while another large ant stands to the side" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542467/original/file-20230813-29-sz0e9o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542467/original/file-20230813-29-sz0e9o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542467/original/file-20230813-29-sz0e9o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542467/original/file-20230813-29-sz0e9o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542467/original/file-20230813-29-sz0e9o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542467/original/file-20230813-29-sz0e9o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542467/original/file-20230813-29-sz0e9o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A meat ant grapples with two smaller Argentine ant adversaries, while a fellow meat ant watches on.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bruce Webber</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Understanding ant invasions</h2>
<p>Experiments like this can inform us about the dynamics between native and non-native invasive ants. <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-red-fire-ants-and-yellow-crazy-ants-have-given-themselves-a-green-light-to-invade-australia-208479">Non-native invasive ants</a> are some of the worst pests on the planet, costing the global economy <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-022-02791-w">tens of billions of dollars per year</a>. Ecosystem managers are keenly interested in new ways to manipulate the competitive success of these invaders.</p>
<p>One of the unifying features of non-native invasive ants is that, like our Argentine ants, they are generally individually <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/303270">smaller than non-invasive species</a> in the areas they invade, while living in extremely large colonies. It has also been observed that non-native invasives are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1603/0013-8746(2004)097%5b0513:COFCFN%5d2.0.CO;2">particularly dominant in disturbed environments</a>. </p>
<p>While there are many possible reasons for this, disturbed environments are often simplified at ground level, with the removal of undergrowth and natural debris creating open battlefields.</p>
<p>The fact that small but numerous non-native invasive ants are more successful against their large native competitors in simplified environments makes sense, in light of our experimental study of ant warfare.</p>
<p>It also suggests that adding ground-level complexity, such as natural debris, may tip the balance in favour of larger native species. Just like for humans (and in computer games), the outcome of ant wars depends on the nature of the battlefield.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-know-if-were-winning-the-war-on-australias-fire-ant-invasion-and-what-to-do-if-we-arent-121367">How to know if we’re winning the war on Australia’s fire ant invasion, and what to do if we aren't</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211127/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Lymbery was supported by a Forrest Prospect Fellowship from the Forrest Research Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Webber is supported by CSIRO Health & Biosecurity. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raphael Didham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mathematical models, video games and experiments with ants can all further our understanding of the dynamics of war.Samuel Lymbery, Postdoctoral Fellow in Biosecurity, Murdoch UniversityBruce Webber, Principal Research Scientist, CSIRORaphael Didham, Professor of Ecology, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2097212023-07-25T17:47:00Z2023-07-25T17:47:00ZOutrage over the U.S. decision to give Ukraine cluster bombs overlooks facts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538315/original/file-20230719-21-9hcfvz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3006%2C2002&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police officers look at collected fragments of Russian rockets, including cluster rounds, that hit Kharkiv, Ukraine, in December 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Libkos)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/outrage-over-the-us-decision-to-give-ukraine-cluster-bombs-overlooks-facts" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The decision by the United States to donate DPICMs (dual-purpose improved conventional munitions) — known as cluster bombs — to Ukraine has been met with withering criticism, with a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66133527">BBC report</a> suggesting that it would “knock away much of the moral ground” the U.S. has had in its support of Ukraine.</p>
<p>There are legitimate concerns about cluster munitions — the <a href="https://www.clusterconvention.org">Convention on Cluster Munitions</a> that commits signatories to never using, developing, or assisting others to use cluster munitions is indicative of this. But it’s important to place these weapons in the context of <a href="https://www.redcross.ca/how-we-help/international-humanitarian-law/what-is-international-humanitarian-law">international humanitarian law</a> — the “laws of war” — and examine the way Ukraine intends to deploy them. </p>
<p>In doing so, it becomes apparent that nuance is missing in accusations of harm and hypocrisy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/there-is-no-legal-reason-the-us-cant-supply-cluster-bombs-to-ukraine-but-that-doesnt-justify-bidens-decision-to-do-so-207717">There is no legal reason the US can’t supply cluster bombs to Ukraine – but that doesn’t justify Biden's decision to do so</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How cluster bombs work</h2>
<p>Cluster munitions are a method of deploying small explosive charges (“sub-munitions”) over a large area. The name covers a variety of weapons, dispersing from tens to hundreds of sub-munitions, designed to be fired or dropped in different ways. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/cluster-munitions-what-are-they-and-why-united-states-sending-them-ukraine#:%7E:text=The%20standard%20U.S.%20submunition%20is,fragmentation%20element%20for%20attacking%20personnel.">The cluster munitions donated to Ukraine by the U.S.</a> are fired from artillery, and each cannister contains either 88 or 76 sub-munitions. Depending on the height from which the sub-munitions are released, a single round can cover up to 30,000 square metres.</p>
<p>The “laws of war” are founded on <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/law1_final.pdf">six principles</a>, three of which are particularly relevant in the Ukraine situation: </p>
<ol>
<li>A distinction must be drawn between combatants and civilians (principle of discrimination);</li>
<li>Collateral damage must not be excessive in relation to the direct military advantage (principle of proportionality);</li>
<li>Weapons that cause unnecessary suffering are prohibited.</li>
</ol>
<p>The criticism of the U.S. decision to donate cluster munitions to Ukraine is based on potential civilian harm, as well as the perceived hypocrisy of facilitating the use of a weapon Russia was condemned for using in Ukraine.</p>
<h2>The dangers of cluster bombs</h2>
<p>Cluster munitions have two concerning features. First is the impossibility of pinpointing exactly where each sub-munition will detonate. Consequently, using cluster munitions in the midst of a civilian population (<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/04/ukraine-cluster-munitions-launched-kharkiv-neighborhoods">as Russia did in Kharkiv</a> in 2022) risks violating the principle of discrimination: there is no certainty that casualties will be military. </p>
<p>It is similarly difficult to calculate likely collateral damage. This makes it devastatingly challenging to meet the criteria of proportionality when used in areas of high civilian population.</p>
<p>Second, it’s possible that not all of the sub-munitions detonate, and unexploded bombs can kill or injure civilians after the conflict. <a href="https://www.halotrust.org/where-we-work/south-asia/laos/">Vietnamese and Laotian</a> civilians continue to be injured by sub-munitions deployed by U.S. forces more than 40 years ago. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Vaguely butterfly shaped metal objects." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538299/original/file-20230719-19-11aez0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538299/original/file-20230719-19-11aez0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538299/original/file-20230719-19-11aez0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538299/original/file-20230719-19-11aez0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538299/original/file-20230719-19-11aez0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538299/original/file-20230719-19-11aez0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538299/original/file-20230719-19-11aez0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russian butterfly mines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Carl Montgomery/Wikimedia)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the U.S. in Vietnam used “butterfly” cluster munitions, designed to be triggered by someone attempting to handle the innocuous-looking object, rather than detonating in the air. </p>
<p>Again, this raises the potential for civilian casualties that outweighs military advantage.</p>
<h2>Ukraine’s use of cluster bombs</h2>
<p>Both of these threats represent strong reason to limit cluster munitions. However, they don’t really apply to Ukraine’s anticipated use of them. </p>
<p>Unlike, for example, blinding lasers (banned under the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.43_CCW%20P-IV.pdf">Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons</a>) — which are deemed to violate the third principle of the laws of war noted above (causing unnecessary suffering to the individual who is affected by the weapon) — there is little meaningful difference between cluster munitions and any other explosive munition. </p>
<p>If used improperly, they may violate the first and second principles. However, when used against military targets, they aren’t understood to cause “unnecessary suffering” to the combatants who are targeted, with the cluster munitions simply replicating the effects of firing a large number of small bombs. </p>
<p>These weapons are intended to enable the Ukrainian military to defeat the invading Russian forces and, as has been demonstrated by their use in the past weeks, are well-suited to current battlefield conditions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A small rocket lies amid sunflowers at dusk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538314/original/file-20230719-21-x5upky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4143%2C2735&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538314/original/file-20230719-21-x5upky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538314/original/file-20230719-21-x5upky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538314/original/file-20230719-21-x5upky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538314/original/file-20230719-21-x5upky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538314/original/file-20230719-21-x5upky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538314/original/file-20230719-21-x5upky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cluster ammunition rocket lies on a sunflower field at sunset in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine in September 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-vows-use-cluster-bombs-de-occupy-only-defence-minister-2023-07-08/">Ukraine has committed</a> to only using them on Ukrainian territory, and it would therefore be counter-productive to deploy them in civilian centres and harm its own citizens. The potential for direct harm to civilians is therefore low.</p>
<p>Second, the “dud rate” (the likelihood of unexploded sub-munitions) of the DPICMs being provided by the U.S. is significantly lower than that of similar munitions. </p>
<p>Cluster munitions used by Russia in 2022, for example, are estimated to have had a “dud rate” of between <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2023/07/07/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-and-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-5/">30 and 40 per cent</a>. The U.S. military has indicated that the “dud rate” of the DPICM is around 2.5 per cent. </p>
<p>That means of the 88 sub-munitions, two may not detonate. A single “dud” is dangerous, but the use of DPICMs against military targets is less likely to cause long-term harm to the Ukrainian civilian population than in countries where cluster munitions have been used previously. </p>
<h2>Misunderstanding effects</h2>
<p>Unlike “butterfly” bombs, DPICMs are not designed to linger on the ground. In addition, Ukraine is likely to use DPICMs in areas where Russia has deployed large numbers of landmines, which will require clearance before civilians return.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1680517395079634948"}"></div></p>
<p>The potential addition of unexploded sub-munitions isn’t trivial, but the current presence of landmines reduces its relative importance.</p>
<p>Framing the decision to donate cluster munitions to Ukraine as hypocritical indicates a misunderstanding of the context of how they are used. </p>
<p>Ideally, Russia would withdraw from Ukraine peacefully. Absent this, cluster munitions represent an effective way for Ukraine to defeat Russia’s invasion, and the Ukrainian use of these weapons is unlikely to violate the principles of the laws of war.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Hughes is affiliated with the Centre for Defence and Security Studies, and the North American and Arctic Defence and Security Network. </span></em></p>Ideally, Russia would withdraw from Ukraine peacefully. Absent this, cluster munitions represent an effective way for Ukraine to defeat Russia’s invasion.Thomas Hughes, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Political Studies, Mount Allison UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2077172023-06-23T12:27:51Z2023-06-23T12:27:51ZThere is no legal reason the US can’t supply cluster bombs to Ukraine – but that doesn’t justify Biden’s decision to do so<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533480/original/file-20230622-5172-r9f59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C25%2C4214%2C2799&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The remains of a rocket that carried cluster munitions found in a Ukrainian field.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-remains-of-a-rocket-that-carried-cluster-munitions-news-photo/1258233929?adppopup=true">Alice Martins/For The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Biden administration announced on July 7, 2023, that it would <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-cluster-munitions-ukraine-expected-fridays-800m-aid-package-2023-07-07/">send cluster bombs to Ukraine</a> – a deeply controversial move given the munition is prohibited by more than 120 countries because of risks to civilian populations.</p>
<p>The U.S. has been here before. It <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/29/politics/saudi-arabia-us-cluster-bombs-on-civilians/index.html">provided Saudi Arabia with cluster munitions</a> – which <a href="http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/en-gb/cluster-bombs/what-is-a-cluster-bomb.aspx">contain bomblets that can scatter</a> across a wide area, often not exploding until later – during the kingdom’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44466574">military intervention in Yemen</a>.</p>
<p>Washington <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/27/exclusive-white-house-blocks-transfer-of-cluster-bombs-to-saudi-arabia/">suspended sales of cluster bombs to the Saudis</a> in 2016 following mounting concern over the <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/05/yemen-children-among-civilians-killed-and-maimed-in-cluster-bomb-minefields/">toll they were taking on civilian lives</a>. But the U.S. is still <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/09/coalition-calls-us-swiftly-ratify-global-treaty-banning-cluster-bombs">holding out from joining</a> an <a href="http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/en-gb/home.aspx">international ban on cluster bombs</a>.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.wcl.american.edu/community/faculty/profile/goldman/bio">scholar of the law of war</a>, I know that cluster bombs highlight a reality about the use and regulation of weapons, even those that can cause widespread civilian suffering: These munitions are not in themselves illegal, but their usage can be. Furthermore, the decision by the U.S. to provide Ukraine with cluster bombs could weaken the argument against others’ doing likewise. And that, in turn, could increase the chances of cluster bombs’ being deployed illegally.</p>
<h2>Effective or indiscriminate?</h2>
<p>Cluster munitions have been <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/legal-fact-sheet/cluster-munitions-factsheet-230710.htm#:%7E:text=Cluster%20munitions%20were%20first%20used,to%20kill%20or%20injure%20combatants.">part of nations’ arsenals since World War II</a>. Delivered by air or ground artillery, they have been used by the <a href="https://asiasociety.org/northern-california/legacies-war-laos">United States in Laos and Vietnam</a> during the Vietnam War, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/8/13/life-among-israeli-cluster-bombs-in-lebanon#:%7E:text=Four%20million%20cluster%20munitions%20were,spread%20across%2015.23%20square%20kilometres.">Israel in southern Lebanon</a>, <a href="http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/en-gb/cluster-bombs/use-of-cluster-bombs/a-timeline-of-cluster-bomb-use.aspx">the U.S. and U.K. in Iraq</a>, Russia and Syria <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/28/russia/syria-widespread-new-cluster-munition-use">in the ongoing Syrian civil war</a>, and the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/05/06/yemen-saudis-using-us-cluster-munitions">Saudis in Yemen</a>. And now they are being <a href="http://www.the-monitor.org/media/3348257/Cluster-Munition-Monitor-2022-Web_HR.pdf">deployed in Ukraine</a>. </p>
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<p>If deployed responsibly, they can be an effective military tool. Because they can spread hundreds of bomblets across a wide area, they can prove a potent weapon against concentrations of enemy troops and their weapons on a battlefield. In 2017, a <a href="https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/DOD-POLICY-ON-CLUSTER-MUNITIONS-OSD071415-17.pdf">U.S. Department of Defense memo</a> said cluster munitions provided a “necessary capability” when confronted with “massed formation of enemy forces, individual targets dispersed over a defined area, targets whose precise location are not known, and time-sensitive or moving targets.” And on June 22, 2023, <a href="https://twitter.com/laraseligman/status/1671935568664559632">it was reported</a> that the Department of Defense has concluded that cluster bombs would be useful if deployed against “dug-in” Russian positions in Ukraine.</p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/DOD-POLICY-ON-CLUSTER-MUNITIONS-OSD071415-17.pdf">the Department of Defense argued</a> that in some limited circumstances cluster bombs can be less destructive to civilians. In Vietnam, the U.S. sanctioned the use of cluster bombs – over more powerful bombs – to disrupt transport links and enemy positions while <a href="https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/nat-sec/Vietnam/Linebacker-and-the-Law-of-War.html">minimizing the risk of destroying nearby dikes</a>, which would have flooded rice fields and caused widespread suffering to villagers.</p>
<p>Still, their use has always been controversial. The problem is that not all the bomblets explode on impact. Many remain on the ground, unexploded until they are later disturbed – and that increases the chances of civilians’ being maimed or killed. Their use in urban settings is particularly problematic, as they cannot be directed at a specific military target and are just as likely to strike civilians and their homes.</p>
<h2>Cluster bombs under international law</h2>
<p>Concern over the risk to civilian harm led in 2008 to a <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/2008-convention-cluster-munitions#:%7E:text=The%20Convention%20on%20Cluster%20Munitions,international%20treaty%20prohibiting%20these%20weapons.">Convention on Cluster Munitions</a>, which bans their use, production or sale by member states.</p>
<p>But as of 2023, the convention is legally binding for only the 123 states that are signatories – and Ukraine, Russia and the U.S. are not among them. Nor can they – or any of the other countries yet to sign up to the convention – be compelled to join the ban.</p>
<p>As such, there is no legal reason that Ukraine or Russia cannot deploy cluster bombs in the current conflict – as <a href="http://www.the-monitor.org/media/3348257/Cluster-Munition-Monitor-2022-Web_HR.pdf">both have done</a> since the invasion of February 2022. Nor is there any legal reason the Biden administration can’t sell the munitions to Ukraine.</p>
<p>But there are laws that set out how cluster bombs can be used, and how they must not.</p>
<p>The relevant part of international humanitarian law here is 1977’s <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977">Additional Protocol I</a> to the <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions">Geneva Conventions</a>, which both Ukraine and Russia have ratified. The additional protocol sets out rules the warring parties must observe to limit harm to civilians. Acknowledging that civilian deaths are an inevitable part of war, <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-51">Article 51 of Additional Protocol I</a> prohibits “indiscrimate” attacks. Such attacks include those employing a weapon that cannot be directed at a specific military target or of such a nature to strike military targets and civilians and civilian objects without distinction.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-57">Article 57 of the additional protocol</a> stresses that attacking armies have a duty of care to spare civilian populations. This includes taking “all feasible precautions in the choice of means and method of attack.”</p>
<p>Neither article specifies any weapons deemed off-limits. Rather, it is how the weapons are used that determines whether the attack constitutes an indiscriminate one and hence a crime under international law.</p>
<h2>More than an ‘optical’ risk?</h2>
<p>Even if cluster bombs are not inherently indiscriminate – a claim that <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2022/06/anyone-can-die-at-any-time-kharkiv/">advocates of an international ban</a> put forward – their use in urban settings greatly increases the chance of civilian harm. In 2021, <a href="http://www.the-monitor.org/media/3348668/CMM2022_PPT.pdf">97% of cluster bomb casualties were civilians</a>, two-thirds of whom were children. And the experience of cluster bomb use in Syria and Yemen shows that it can be difficult to hold governments to account.</p>
<p>Which is why Ukraine’s request for U.S. cluster munitions has led to concerns. The <a href="http://www.the-monitor.org/media/3348257/Cluster-Munition-Monitor-2022-Web_HR.pdf">Cluster Munitions Monitor</a>, which logs international use of the bombs, found that as of August 2022, Ukraine was the only active conflict zone where cluster bombs were being deployed – with Russia using the weapon “extensively” since its invasion, and Ukraine also deploying cluster bombs on a handful of occasions.</p>
<p>Ukraine <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-seeks-us-cluster-bombs-adapt-drone-use-lawmakers-2023-03-06/">reportedly sought some of the United States’ stockpile</a> of Cold War-era MK-20 cluster bombs to drop on Russian positions via drones. The White House had previously <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/09/biden-administration-ukraine-cluster-munitions-00073316">aired “concern</a>” over the transfer.</p>
<p>In announcing the decision to send U.S.-made cluster bombs to Ukraine, Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-cluster-munitions-ukraine-expected-fridays-800m-aid-package-2023-07-07/">noted that</a> “cluster munitions create a risk of civilian harm from unexploded ordnance,” adding: “This is why we’ve deferred the decision for as long as we could.”</p>
<p>The Biden administration’s earlier hesitancy was <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/09/biden-administration-ukraine-cluster-munitions-00073316">reportedly over the “optics</a>” of selling cluster bombs and that it may introducing a wedge between the U.S. and other NATO countries over the weapon’s use. </p>
<p>Certainly, there would be very little legal risk under international law of providing cluster bombs to Ukraine – or any other nation – even if that country were to use the weapon illegally.</p>
<p>There is no case I know of in which a state has been found legally responsible for providing weapons to another that flagrantly misuses them – there is no equivalent to efforts in the U.S. seeking to hold gun manufacturers <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/can-us-gunmakers-be-liable-mass-shooting-2022-05-25/">legally responsible for mass shootings</a>, or state “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/dram_shop_rule">dram shop laws</a>” that hold the suppliers of alcohol culpable for the actions of an inebriated driver.</p>
<p>Yet one of the things that worried people in Congress regarding the sale of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia was that the Saudis’ <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/01/07/yemen-coalition-drops-cluster-bombs-capital">consistently indiscriminate use of those weapons</a> in Yemen could be seen at home and abroad as making the U.S. complicit in those violations.</p>
<p>I would argue that it became difficult for Washington to continue to supply the Saudis on moral ground. But still, there was and is presently no clear-cut legal obligation for the U.S. to stop supplying other nations with cluster bombs.</p>
<p>In my opinion, it is highly unlikely that Ukraine will deliberately use U.S.-supplied cluster munitions to target civilians and their environs. </p>
<p>And Ukraine provided “written assurances that it is going to use these in a very careful way,” Sullivan said in announcing the transfer.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, providing Ukraine with cluster weapons could serve to destigmatize them and runs counter to international efforts to end their use. And that, in turn, could encourage – or excuse – their use by other states that may be less responsible.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story was updated on July 7, 2023, in light of the Biden administration’s decision to supply Ukraine with cluster bombs.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Goldman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US administration said that it had received ‘written assurances’ from Ukraine that it would use cluster bombs carefully. Nonetheless, the munition will provide an additional risk to civilians.Robert Goldman, Professor of Law, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2046192023-04-28T04:33:57Z2023-04-28T04:33:57ZThe defence review fails to address the third revolution in warfare: artificial intelligence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523372/original/file-20230428-15-gy0qd6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=102%2C56%2C7498%2C4102&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout history, war has been irrevocably changed by the advent of new technologies. Historians of war have identified several technological revolutions.</p>
<p>The first was the <a href="https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/13things/7687.html">invention of gunpowder</a> by people in ancient China. It gave us muskets, rifles, machine guns and, eventually, all manner of explosive ordnance. It’s uncontroversial to claim gunpowder completely transformed how we fought war. </p>
<p>Then came the invention of the nuclear bomb, raising the stakes higher than ever. Wars could be ended with just a single weapon, and life as we know it could be ended by a single nuclear stockpile.</p>
<p>And now, war has – like so many other aspects of life – entered the age of automation. AI will cut through the “fog of war”, transforming where and how we fight. Small, cheap and increasingly capable uncrewed systems will replace large, expensive, crewed weapon platforms.</p>
<p>We’ve seen the beginnings of this in Ukraine, where sophisticated armed home-made drones <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65389215">are being developed</a>, where Russia is <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/29/ukraine-russia-uses-banned-antipersonnel-landmines">using AI “smart” mines</a> that explode when they detect footsteps nearby, and where Ukraine successfully used autonomous “drone” boats in a major attack on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-how-uncrewed-boats-are-changing-the-way-wars-are-fought-at-sea-201606">Russian navy at Sevastopol</a>.</p>
<p>We also see this revolution occurring in our own forces in Australia. And all of this raises the question: why has the government’s recent defence strategic review failed to seriously consider the implications of AI-enabled warfare?</p>
<h2>AI has crept into Australia’s military</h2>
<p>Australia already has a range of autonomous weapons and vessels that can be deployed in conflict. </p>
<p>Our air force expects to acquire a number of 12 metre-long uncrewed <a href="https://www.airforce.gov.au/our-work/projects-and-programs/ghost-bat">Ghost Bat</a> aircraft to ensure our very expensive F-35 <a href="https://www.airforce.gov.au/our-work/projects-and-programs/ghost-bat">fighter jets</a> aren’t made sitting ducks by advancing technologies. </p>
<p>On the sea, the defence force has been testing a new type of uncrewed surveillance vessel called <a href="https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2023-03-06/first-ocius-bluebottle-uncrewed-surface-vessels-adf">the Bluebottle</a>, developed by local company Ocius. And under the sea, Australia is building a prototype six metre-long Ghost Shark <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2022-12-14/ghost-shark-stealthy-game-changer">uncrewed submarine</a>. </p>
<p>It also looks set to be developing many more technologies like this in the future. The government’s <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/3bn-accelerator-puts-war-hitech-on-fast-track/news-story/4b4cabf8e40b37ef687d30ce3ea121d0">just announced A$3.4 billion defence innovation “accelerator”</a> will aim to get cutting-edge military technologies, including hypersonic missiles, directed energy weapons and autonomous vehicles, into service sooner.</p>
<p>How then do AI and autonomy fit into our larger strategic picture?</p>
<p>The recent defence strategy review is the latest analysis of whether Australia has the necessary defence capability, posture and preparedness to defend its interests through the next decade and beyond. You’d expect AI and autonomy would be a significant concern – especially since the review recommends <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/defence-rejig-costs-budget-19b-and-rising-20230424-p5d2qw">spending a not insignificant A$19 billion</a> over the next four years. </p>
<p>Yet the review mentions autonomy only twice (both times in the context of existing weapons systems) and AI once (as one of the four pillars of the AUKUS submarine program). </p>
<h2>Countries are preparing for the third revolution</h2>
<p>Around the world, major powers have made it clear they consider AI a central component of the planet’s military future. </p>
<p>The House of Lords in the United Kingdom is holding a <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/646/ai-in-weapon-systems-committee/">public inquiry</a> into the use of AI in weapons systems. In Luxembourg, the government just hosted an <a href="https://www.laws-conference.lu/">important conference</a> on autonomous weapons. And China has announced its intention to become the world leader in AI by 2030. Its New Generation AI Development Plan <a href="https://digichina.stanford.edu/work/full-translation-chinas-new-generation-artificial-intelligence-development-plan-2017/">proclaims</a> “AI is a strategic technology that will lead the future”, both in a military and economic sense.</p>
<p>Similarly, Russian President Vladimir Putin has <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/01/world/putin-artificial-intelligence-will-rule-world/index.html">declared that</a> “whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become ruler of the world” – while the United States has <a href="https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/publications/17855.pdf">adopted a</a> “third offset strategy” that will invest heavily in AI, autonomy and robotics. </p>
<p>Unless we give more focus to AI in our military strategy, we risk being left fighting wars with outdated technologies. Russia saw the painful consequences of this last year, when its missile cruiser Moscova, the flagship of the Black Sea fleet, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61103927">was sunk</a> after being distracted by a drone. </p>
<h2>Future regulation</h2>
<p>Many people (including myself) hope autonomous weapons will soon be regulated. I was invited as an expert witness to an intergovernmental <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/02/more-than-30-countries-call-for-international-legal-controls-on-killer-robots/">meeting in Costa Rica</a> earlier this year, where 30 Latin and Central American nations called for regulation – many for the first time. </p>
<p>Regulation will hopefully ensure meaningful human control is maintained over autonomous weapon systems (although we’re yet to agree on what “meaningful control” will look like).</p>
<p>But regulation won’t make AI go away. We can still expect to see AI, and some levels of autonomy, as vital components in our defence in the near future.</p>
<p>There are instances, such as in minefield clearing, where autonomy is highly desirable. Indeed, AI will be very useful in managing the information space and in military logistics (where its use won’t be subject to the ethical challenges posed in other settings, such as when using lethal autonomous weapons).</p>
<p>At the same time, autonomy will create strategic challenges. For instance, it will change the geopolitical order alongside lowering costs and scaling forces. Turkey is, for example, becoming a <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/has-turkey-become-an-armed-drone-superpower/">major drone superpower</a>. </p>
<h2>We need to prepare</h2>
<p>Australia needs to consider how it might defend itself in an AI-enabled world, where terrorists or rogue states can launch swarms of drones against us – and where it might be impossible to determine the attacker. A review that ignores all of this leaves us woefully unprepared for the future. </p>
<p>We also need to engage more constructively in ongoing diplomatic discussions about the use of AI in warfare. Sometimes the best defence is to be found in the political arena, and not the military one.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bet-youre-on-the-list-how-criticising-smart-weapons-got-me-banned-from-russia-185399">'Bet you're on the list': how criticising 'smart weapons' got me banned from Russia</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204619/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby Walsh receives funding from the Australian Research Council as an ARC Laureate Fellow. He has been banned indefinitely from Russia for his outspoken criticism of Russia's use of AI weapons in Ukraine. </span></em></p>AI is going to fundamentally transform how nations wage far. By failing to address it, the defence review leaves Australia unprepared for the future of war.Toby Walsh, Professor of AI, Research Group Leader, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2012672023-04-18T10:51:30Z2023-04-18T10:51:30ZUkraine war: why WWI comparisons can lead to underestimates of Russia’s strengths<p>The current conflict in Ukraine frequently elicits parallels with the first world war. It’s a comparison being <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/08/war-ukraine-trench-warfare-angus-king-00076925">made by politicians</a>, journalists, analysts and <a href="https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/articles/2022/11/13/7376017/">military personnel</a>. </p>
<p>Coverage over the past winter months, for example, has focused on how Ukrainians are fighting in WWI-like muddy <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/uk-news/2023/01/31/ukraine-in-wwi-like-battle-for-bakhmut-as-it-races-russia-for-arms/">trenches</a> in Bakhmut, while Russia suffers <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-64634760">almost WWI levels of casualties</a>. </p>
<p>It’s no surprise that commentators turn to these comparisons. The return of war in all its destructive might to Europe has awoken western society’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9780511675683.031">cultural</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bq9m.14">memory</a> of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1q69znd">war on this scale</a>. Unfortunately, these comparisons are often unhelpful.</p>
<p>Many of the WWI comparisons <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11826411/Ukraine-Forces-fight-mud-repel-WW1-style-human-waves-Russian-troops-Bakhmut.html">stress</a> the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-using-world-war-i-era-machine-guns-sniper-traps-to-fight-off-russia-2023-3?international=true&r=US&IR=T">unmodern</a> nature of what is happening on Ukraine’s battlefields. This leads to ignoring the modern nature of what is happening, even in Bakhmut, thereby potentially underestimating Russia and overestimating the differences between Russian and Ukrainian forces. And, most importantly, by making these kinds of historical comparisons, we detach ourselves from the war’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-casualty-counts-from-either-side-can-be-potent-weapons-and-shouldnt-always-be-believed-198894">horrors and violence</a>.</p>
<h2>Unmodern and modern war</h2>
<p>It is striking how many of the WWI comparisons underline the <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/post/13868">crude</a> nature of Russia’s military effort and the apparent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/02/russia-vicious-tactics-ukraine-further-expose-weakness">failure</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-64634760">cold-heartedness</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63408506">irrationally</a> of Russia’s generals. In these comparisons, WWI does not serve as the benchmark of modern war, but as the haunted image of primitive industrial warfare from more than a century ago.</p>
<p>Netflix’s recent <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/how-netflixs-quiet-western-front-became-war-film-age/">prize-winning</a> <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/how-netflixs-quiet-western-front-became-war-film-age/">film</a> of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front helped to bring this WWI image to the fore again. </p>
<p>What’s so characteristic of WWI, and seems so unmodern, is its lack of progress. Four years of fighting on small strips of land with little to show for it. Modern conventional war is expected to be fast-paced, such as Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and the second US invasion of Iraq in 2003 (if we conveniently ignore the years of insurgency that followed), or like the fighter pilots in the film <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/26/top-gun-for-hire-why-hollywood-is-the-us-militarys-best-wingman">Top Gun: Maverick</a>, to provide another cinematic reference. And while we have seen drones and other hi-tech tools of war on the news, we haven´t seen much progress on pushing back the frontline. Instead we have seen images of trenches and read of massive casualties.</p>
<p>Western military planners have been <a href="https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2023/3/16/the-fallacy-of-the-short-sharp-war-optimism-bias-and-the-abuse-of-history">obsessed</a> with <a href="https://www.rand.org/blog/2023/03/americas-dangerous-short-war-fixation.html">short wars</a> for decades. One reason for this is the belief in swift results delivered by modern technology.</p>
<p>Yet the war in Ukraine is modern in the sense that it is what is expected in the given circumstances and conditions when roughly comparably equipped forces meet each other on the battlefield and do not have enough strength (yet) to fully overcome the other. </p>
<h2>Underestimating Russia’s objectives</h2>
<p>One of the consequences of using the WWI comparison might be to miss the point of what the Russians are trying to achieve. The unmodern is, of course, closely associated not just with the war in general, but especially with Russia’s conduct. I don’t want to suggest that Russia’s tactical and operational conduct of the war, especially during the last few winter months, has been impressive and successful – quite the opposite. But by tying Russia’s conduct to a stereotypical image of WWI fighting, we might stop analysing the full context. Russia’s conduct of the war is ridden with mistakes, but also rational when seen within the context of a rapidly expanded and ill-prepared military force, the dynamics of Russian politics and the regime’s ideology.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/drones-over-ukraine-what-the-war-means-for-the-future-of-remotely-piloted-aircraft-in-combat-197612">Drones over Ukraine: What the war means for the future of remotely piloted aircraft in combat</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>At the operational and tactical level, the WWI comparison could prompt people to underestimate what Russia might be <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/07/myths-and-misconceptions-around-russian-military-intent">trying to achieve</a> and how it attempts to adapt its force structure and tactical <a href="https://twitter.com/WarintheFuture/status/1630089568195313669">practice</a> on the <a href="https://twitter.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1634799680126058502">battlefield</a>. One might also lose sight of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/us/politics/ukraine-russia-casualties.html">toll</a> the current fight might be taking on the “more modern” Ukraine’s forces.</p>
<p>Finally, by focusing so strongly on battlefield failure and success (and seeing this through the prism of a stereotypical WWI image), we might miss Russian interpretations of strategic and political success. While taking Kyiv and not losing Kherson is more attractive than the alternative for the Kremlin, it is wise to question how the Russian leadership understands the war. Is it a war against Ukraine, or a war against the west that happens to be fought in and over Ukraine? And as a result what is it that Russia needs to achieve on the battlefield in order to achieve its strategic and political goals, both in the short, intermediate and long term? While battlefield and strategic and political success are related, this connection is <a href="https://mwi.usma.edu/what-is-russias-theory-of-victory-in-ukraine/">anything but straightforward</a>. It might be the case that in its current assessment of the situation, a stalemate in eastern Ukraine serves the Kremlin’s purpose and (revised) goals. </p>
<h2>Disengaging from reality</h2>
<p>For some, the war in Ukraine is a return to the barbarism of <a href="https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_losses">early 20th-century</a> industrial slaughter. It serves as an indictment of Putin’s war and regime, but also stresses our own modernity: this should not be happening in 2023.</p>
<p>But that is a dangerous and misleading thought, as it isolates what is happening in Ukraine from our own times. What we see in Ukraine is not a historical horror show, it is the ugly face of full-scale <a href="https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/2023/01/strategic-survey-2022-russias-war-in-ukraine">modern war</a>. Over the past decades, western society has become strangely unaware of what happens in a modern war. The war in Ukraine confronts us with these horrors.</p>
<p>It’s not that western powers or other powers haven’t fought wars over the past 50 years. But since most of these were relatively small scale, and have been fought beyond the west (with the exception of the 1990s Balkan wars) and against non-western powers (or among non-western powers), coverage of those people and societies on the receiving end of modern weapons of war has been limited. Now, with war so much closer to home (as far as Europe is concerned) and between comparably equipped forces, we are starting to see the <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/conflict-ukraines-donbas-visual-explainer">costs of a modern war</a>. </p>
<p>When future generations look for something to compare the horrors of their new wars with, they might not choose <a href="https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/get-involved/remembrance/about-remembrance/in-flanders-field">Flanders Fields</a> and turn instead to what happened in the fields of Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, and Kherson in the 2020s. I’m sure the Ukrainians will.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christiaan Harinck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Western society has become strangely unaware of the horrors of modern war, says an expert.Christiaan Harinck, Lecturer in the history of international releations and war , Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2024712023-04-11T15:05:06Z2023-04-11T15:05:06ZWhy some terror campaigns escalate to civil war and others don’t – study reveals surprising new answers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520257/original/file-20230411-602-1a1qsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Guerillas from the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) pictured in 1990. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Hoffmann/Sygma via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most terrorist campaigns are short-lived. But some aren’t. In some cases, terror campaigns (low-intensity violence) turn into civil wars (high-intensity violence) where militants fight the government for control of the state. </p>
<p>Mozambique and Angola provide examples of countries in which low-level attacks eventually escalated into protracted armed rebellions. But in Spain, the First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Group remained just that – a resistance group. Similarly, Front De Liberation Du Quebec was unable to turn its campaign into a civil war in Canada. </p>
<p>These contrasting examples inspired our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17467586.2023.2182446?j=4586542">recent study</a>. We examined what makes terrorist attacks more likely to turn into a civil war. </p>
<p>We explored the impacts of three factors:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>how the state responds to a terror campaign</p></li>
<li><p>how the terrorist group responds to the state’s counterterrorism strategies</p></li>
<li><p>the state’s relations with other states. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>We found that a terror campaign is more likely to escalate when the state <a href="https://repository.essex.ac.uk/17284/1/PG_full.pdf">uses repression</a> to stop the terror group and when the group diversifies its <a href="https://personal.utdallas.edu/%7Etsandler/website/Demise%20of%20Terrorist%20Organizations.pdf">attack tactics</a>. </p>
<p>Conversely, we found that a civil war is less likely if the state responds with higher spending on health, education and social welfare. Policies that reduce poverty, inequality and socioeconomic insecurity reduce the incentive to engage in or tolerate terrorism.</p>
<p>We also found, surprisingly, that states that engage in some form of rivalry with other countries are more likely to prevent the escalation of a terror campaign into a long-running insurgency.</p>
<h2>How we did it</h2>
<p>We reviewed past research on the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sambuddha-Ghatak/publication/341143687_Terrorists_as_Rebels_Territorial_Goals_Oil_Resources_and_Civil_War_Onset_in_Terrorist_Campaigns/links/5eb4a60c92851cd50da12705/Terrorists-as-Rebels-Territorial-Goals-Oil-Resources-and-Civil-War-Onset-in-Terrorist-Campaigns.pdf">escalation of violent</a> and <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/225561475.pdf">non-violent conflicts</a> into civil wars. We found that research focused more on non-violent movements that turned into civil wars, but didn’t pay due attention to terrorist campaigns doing the same. </p>
<p>Against this backdrop, we developed our theory on the three influencing factors listed above. We tested several hypotheses with data, including statistics on <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022002719857145">terrorist groups from across the world between 1970 and 2007</a>. </p>
<p>We focused on these three factors because the ability of a terrorist group to sustain a long insurgency depends on surviving the initial stage of conflict with the government. About <a href="https://ccjs.umd.edu/sites/ccjs.umd.edu/files/pubs/COMPLIANT-Survival%20of%20the%20Fittest%20%20Why%20Terrorist%20Groups%20Endure%2C%20Joseph%20K.%20Young%20and%20Laura%20Dugan.pdf">70% of terrorist groups end their campaigns within a year</a> of their first attack. </p>
<p>To survive this initial vulnerability, a terrorist group needs to be able to mobilise its forces for a more systematic form of warfare. Terrorism doesn’t require mobilisation, but insurgency does. </p>
<h2>The findings</h2>
<p>Our research led to four major findings. </p>
<p>First, we found that there’s a higher likelihood of an insurgency when a state violently represses a terrorist group. Violent repression helps terrorist groups convince moderate members to wage a rebellion. It also makes recruitment easier by increasing grievances against the state. </p>
<p>This was seen with the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Renamo">Mozambican National Resistance</a> (Renamo) rebel group. It escalated its violent campaign into a protracted armed rebellion against the country’s ruling party between <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-46636-7_18">1975 and 1992</a>. The group initially emerged in response to the marginalisation of Mozambique’s rural population in the 1970s. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/UNITA">National Union for Total Independence of Angola</a> (UNITA) similarly turned its violent campaign for Angola’s independence from the Portuguese into a long and brutal civil war against the ruling party between 1975 and 2002. </p>
<p>In contrast, Spain and Canada put policies in place that addressed grievances and gave people less incentive to support rebellions.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/politics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/first-october-anti-fascist-resistance-group-grapo">First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Group</a> in Spain started its terrorist campaign in 1975 with anti-capitalist motivations. Its last attack was in 2006. The government pursued a policy of negotiation to persuade the group to lay down its arms, and enhanced security measures and anti-terrorism laws. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/flq-front-de-liberation-du-quebec-seven-years-terrorism">Front De Liberation Du Quebec</a> in Canada launched a violent campaign with the goal of establishing an independent Quebec. It conducted terror attacks between 1963 and 1970. Similar to the reaction in Spain, Canada used negotiation to quell the rebellion. The government also adopted reforms, including establishing bilingualism and multiculturalism policies. </p>
<p>Second, we found that when a state prioritises the provision of public goods over repressive counterterrorism policies, a terrorist group is less likely to turn its campaign into an insurgency. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/islamist-terrorism-is-rising-in-the-sahel-but-not-in-chad-whats-different-199628">Islamist terrorism is rising in the Sahel, but not in Chad – what's different?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We found that the chances of a group conducting a terror campaign decrease by 57% when a state increases government spending per person by 2%. This indicates that better redistributive policies are more likely to prevent organised rebellions. </p>
<p>Fewer terrorist attacks occur in nations with more generous welfare policies. Côte d’Ivoire, for instance, managed to avoid conflict between several ethnic groups for two decades after its independence in 1960 by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01047691">redistributing a substantial portion of the government’s budget between regions</a>. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/424895">Tuaregs of Mali</a> in the early 1990s led an insurrection after realising that they had been poorly educated and economically marginalised. This developed into a civil war, with the last attack happening in 2012. There have been sporadic clashes since. </p>
<p>Third, we found that groups with diversified attack strategies are more likely to escalate their campaigns into organised insurgencies against the state. This has important implications for policymakers looking at counterterrorism efforts. </p>
<p>A terrorist group that uses a wide range of tactical strategies – such as assassinations, armed assaults, bombings and hostage taking – could sound an early warning that it’s capable of waging an organised insurgency. </p>
<p>Both UNITA in Angola and Renamo in Mozambique used a <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/intorgz72&div=9&g_sent=1&casa_token=zvve5kXRRlUAAAAA:z6zH2eSzo1LsvUCClZkg-tqW_Lez9VVYsrBlLFX3PC_o_dNVi_ZJyqwAdENCXsQ9tubM0E9ZVQ&collection=journals">wide range of attack strategies</a>. On average, 53% of UNITA’s tactical portfolio included three or more attacks, as did 63% of Renamo’s portfolio. </p>
<p>Our fourth major finding highlights the role of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022002716645656?journalCode=jcrb">interstate relations</a> on escalation dynamics. It suggests that a country’s involvement in a rivalry with another state reduces the chances of a terror group escalating its campaign into an armed rebellion. Turkey and Greece have had <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/despite-rhetoric-greek-turkish-armed-conflict-seen-remote-/6899227.html">strained relations</a> and last came <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/02/01/world/charges-fly-as-the-greeks-and-turks-avert-a-war.html">close to war in 1996</a>. This interstate dynamic helped Turkey <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0022343314531003">unite its citizens</a> against early efforts by the Islamic State to turn its terror attacks into a civil war. </p>
<p>A government facing an interstate rival and a terrorist threat at the same time can use the external conflict to consolidate public support. This can shift public opinion against the terrorist group. </p>
<p>Understanding the effect of interstate rivalry on escalation dynamics is important in Africa. It would help explain why some terrorist campaigns in the continent turn into long and brutal rebellions as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Wars-Africa-Guide/dp/0810868857/">external states historically affect</a> the tide of African civil conflicts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Isa Haskologlu is affiliated with Beyond the Horizon International Strategic Studies Group. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ibrahim Kocaman and Mustafa Kirisci do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Policies that reduce poverty, inequality and socioeconomic insecurity lower the incentive to engage in or tolerate terrorism.Ibrahim Kocaman, Assistant Professor, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical UniversityIsa Haskologlu, Lecturer, American UniversityMustafa Kirisci, Assistant Professor of Homeland Security, DeSales UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2019422023-04-03T18:31:34Z2023-04-03T18:31:34ZHow Russian and Iranian drone strikes further dehumanize warfare<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517688/original/file-20230327-26-ixfgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1997%2C1370&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An unmanned U.S. Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan, on a moon-lit night several years ago. Drone strikes are now a major feature of modern warfare, including in Ukraine and Syria.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-russian-and-iranian-drone-strikes-further-dehumanize-warfare" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Along with the recent <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/middleeast/us-syria-drone-strike-analysis-intl/index.html">reciprocal drone strikes by Iran and the United States in Syria</a>, Russia continues to unleash its arsenal on Ukrainian <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/23/world/europe/ukraine-civilian-attacks.html">civilian and military targets alike</a>. While the Russian armies have started using <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/03/13/russias-best-tank-army-might-have-no-choice-but-to-reequip-with-60-year-old-t-62s/?sh=3fd316ec3624">outdated weapons</a>, novel technologies remain the objects of fascination on the battlefield.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60806151">Hypersonic missiles</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-russia-pay-increased-attention-boosting-nuclear-forces-2023-02-22/">nuclear weapons</a> have understandably grabbed media attention. However, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/western-supplied-air-defense-helps-ukraine-repel-russian-drone-attacks-11672750680">drone warfare</a> continues to occupy a central role in the conflict.</p>
<p>Ukraine’s not the only battlefield. Drone warfare has played a significant role in the Azerbaijan-Armenian conflict, with Armenia’s superior conventional forces being challenged by <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/tactical-reasons-behind-military-breakthrough-in-karabakh-conflict/">the kamikaze drones, strike UAVs and remotely controlled planes of Azerbaijan</a>. A world away, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/10/world/asia/china-taiwan-drones.html">China’s drones continue to test Taiwan’s defensive capabilities and readiness.</a></p>
<p>Drones are not the only weapons. As the global <a href="https://hcss.nl/event/summit-responsible-artificial-intelligence-military-domain-reaim-2023/">Summit on Responsible AI in the Military Domain (REAIM)</a> illustrates, there is a growing recognition that lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) pose a threat that must be reckoned with.</p>
<p>Understanding this threat requires grasping the psychological, social and technological challenges they present. </p>
<h2>Killing and psychological distance</h2>
<p>Psychology is at the heart of all conflicts. Whether in terms of perceived existential or territorial threats, individuals band together in groups to make gains or avoid losses.</p>
<p>A reluctance to kill stems from our <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115045">perceived humanity</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsq011">membership in the same community</a>. By turning <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17541328.2014.947794">people into statistics</a> and dehumanizing them, we further dull our moral sense.</p>
<p>LAWS remove us from the battlefield. As we distance ourselves from human suffering, <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/killing-psychological-cost-learning-kill-war-and-society">lethal decisions become easier</a>. Research has demonstrated that distance is also associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.123.3.238">more antisocial behaviours</a>. When viewing potential targets from drone-like perspectives, people become <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.02008">morally disengaged</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young man stands with out-stretched arms with a drone in the sky in front of him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517682/original/file-20230327-720-mu4wn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517682/original/file-20230327-720-mu4wn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517682/original/file-20230327-720-mu4wn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517682/original/file-20230327-720-mu4wn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517682/original/file-20230327-720-mu4wn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517682/original/file-20230327-720-mu4wn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517682/original/file-20230327-720-mu4wn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young man flies a drone while testing it on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, in June 2022. Drones are being extensively used by Russian and Ukrainian troops.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Autonomy, intelligence differ</h2>
<p>Many modern weapons rely on artificial intelligence (AI), but not all forms of AI are autonomous. <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003143284">Autonomy and intelligence are two distinct characteristics</a>.</p>
<p>Autonomy has to do with control over specific operations. A weapons system might gather information and identify a target autonomously, while firing decisions are left to human operators. Alternatively, a human operator might decide on a target, releasing a self-guided weapon to target and detonate autonomously.</p>
<p>Autonomous weapons are not new to warfare. In the sea, <a href="https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/e/evolution-of-naval-weapons.html">self-propelled torpedos and naval mines</a> have been in use since the mid-1800s. On the ground, elementary land mines have given way to <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/foreign-policy-essay-south-korean-sentry%E2%80%94-killer-robot-prevent-war">autonomous turrets</a>.</p>
<p>In the air, Nazi Germany wielded V1 and V2 rockets and <a href="https://defencyclopedia.com/2014/07/01/the-worlds-first-guided-missiles-v1-and-v2/">radio-controlled munitions</a>. <a href="https://www.airandspaceforces.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2010/March%202010/0310bombs.pdf">Heat-seeking and laser-guided precisions followed by the 1960s and were used by the U.S. in Vietnam</a>. By the 1990s, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2000.11456960">the era of “smart weapons”</a> was upon us, bringing with it questions of our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/65971.65973">ethical obligations</a>.</p>
<p>Contemporary LAWS have been framed as the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-12-20/why-troops-dont-trust-drones">“natural evolutionary path”</a> of warfare. We can draw parallels between single drones and smart weapons, although <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1039921.pdf">drone swarms represent a new kind of weapon</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Dozens of drones fly over a line of trees." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517700/original/file-20230327-22-n804jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517700/original/file-20230327-22-n804jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517700/original/file-20230327-22-n804jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517700/original/file-20230327-22-n804jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517700/original/file-20230327-22-n804jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517700/original/file-20230327-22-n804jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517700/original/file-20230327-22-n804jx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drone swarms are a new and lethal weapon of war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ability to co-ordinate their actions gives them the potential to overwhelm human forces. The degree of co-ordination, in fact, requires a higher level of autonomy. If the swarm is sufficiently large, a single human operator could not hope to maintain sufficient situational awareness to control it. </p>
<p>By ceding lethal decisions to LAWS, their accuracy and reliability become paramount concerns.</p>
<h2>Accuracy and accountability</h2>
<p>The potential for <a href="https://behorizon.org/killed-by-algorithms-do-autonomous-weapons-reduce-risks/">reduced human error is often used to recommend LAWS</a>. While an actuarial approach to AI ethics is hardly the best or only way to <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003143284">make moral decisions about AI</a>, reliable data is essential to judge the accuracy and improve the operations of LAWS. However, it is often lacking. </p>
<p>A review of U.S. drone strikes over a 15-year period <a href="https://hri.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/publications/out_of_the_shadows.pdf">suggested that only about 20 per cent of more than 700 strikes were acknowledged by the government, with an estimated 400 civilian casualties</a>. </p>
<p>In the early stages of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, reports suggested that <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/10/24/ukraine-russia-war-live-updates/10586619002/">Ukrainians destroyed about 85 per cent of the drones launched against them</a>. In the most recent attacks, they have destroyed <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/three-killed-russian-drone-strike-kyiv-region-officials-2023-03-22/">more than 75 per cent of the drones</a>.</p>
<p>These statistics might suggest drones aren’t particularly effective. But the minimal cost and large numbers of drones mean that even if a small proportion of the weapons are successful, the damage and casualties can be significant.</p>
<p>When assigning responsibility, we have to consider who manufactures these weapons. They are not always homegrown. Drones used by Russia in the Ukrainian conflict <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/business/russia-china-drones-ukraine-war.html">hail from China</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/12/iran-uses-boats-state-airline-smuggle-drones-into-russia">and Iran</a>. </p>
<p>Inside these drones, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/11/russian-military-drones-ukraine/">many parts come from western manufacturers</a>. Understanding responsibility and accountability in conflicts requires that we consider the international supply chains that enable LAWS. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1638125819863203845"}"></div></p>
<h2>Can LAWS be outlawed?</h2>
<p>Whether LAWS represent a <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/08/10/stopping-killer-robots/country-positions-banning-fully-autonomous-weapons-and">unique threat to human rights</a> that <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/03/1035381">must be banned</a> — like <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/anti-personnel-landmines-convention/">landmines</a> — or otherwise controlled by international laws, there is widespread agreement that we must re-evaluate existing approaches to regulation.</p>
<p>REAIM’s work is not alone in attempting to regulate LAWS. The United Nations, <a href="https://reachingcriticalwill.org/disarmament-fora/ccw/2022/laws/documents">multilateral proposals</a> and countries like <a href="https://media.defense.gov/2023/Jan/25/2003149928/-1/-1/0/DOD-DIRECTIVE-3000.09-AUTONOMY-IN-WEAPON-SYSTEMS.PDF">the U.S.</a> <a href="https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/ResearchPublications/201955E#a7">and Canada</a> have all developed, proposed or are reviewing the sufficiency of existing standards. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two soldiers dressed in battle fatigues look at a screen in an outdoor shelter." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517684/original/file-20230327-18-c3vwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517684/original/file-20230327-18-c3vwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517684/original/file-20230327-18-c3vwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517684/original/file-20230327-18-c3vwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517684/original/file-20230327-18-c3vwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517684/original/file-20230327-18-c3vwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517684/original/file-20230327-18-c3vwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ukrainian servicemen correct artillery fire by drone at the frontline near Kharkiv, Ukraine, in July 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These efforts face an array of practical issues. In many cases, the principles are framed as best practices and viewed as voluntary rather than being enforceable. States might also be <a href="https://www.ploughshares.ca/publications/no-canadian-leadership-on-autonomous-weapons">reluctant in order to ensure consistency with their allies</a>. </p>
<p>Treaties and regulations also create <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2012.11.003">social dilemmas</a> — just as they do when contemplating <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9139644">cyberweapons</a>, nations must decide whether they adhere to the rules while others develop superior capabilities.</p>
<p>Even if LAWS are <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/14/ai-drones-swarms-killer-robots-partial-ban-on-autonomous-weapons-would-make-everyone-safer/">wholly or partially banned</a>, there is still considerable room for interpretation and rationalization.</p>
<p>In July 2022, Russia said responsibility lies with their operators and that LAWS can <a href="https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/ccw/2022/gge/documents/Russia_July2022.pdf">“reduce the risk of intentional strikes against civilians and civilian facilities” and support “missions of maintaining or restoring international peace and security … [in] compliance with international law.”</a> These are hollow statements made by a hollow regime.</p>
<p>No matter how elegant the regulatory framework nor how straightforward the principles, adversarial nations are unlikely to abide by international agreements — especially knowing weapons like drones make it easier for soldiers psychologically removed from the realities of the battlefield to kill others.</p>
<p>As Russia’s war in Ukraine illustrates, by reframing conflicts, the use of LAWS can always be justified. Their ability to desensitize their users from the act of killing, however, must not be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201942/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Richard Schoenherr has previously received funding from Army Research Laboratory and has served as a visiting scholar at the United States Military Academy and has worked as a consultant for the Canadian Department of National Defence. </span></em></p>As Russia’s war in Ukraine illustrates, the use of lethal automated weapons, or LAWS, can always be justified. Their ability to desensitize their users from the act of killing, however, shouldn’t be.Jordan Richard Schoenherr, Assistant Professor, Psychology, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1974902023-03-16T21:10:01Z2023-03-16T21:10:01ZThere Will Be No More Night: Documentary raises ethical questions about using war footage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505704/original/file-20230121-24-oue55u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C9%2C1577%2C884&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Screenshot taken from 'There Will Be No More Night' by Éléonore Weber. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his book <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/416-war-and-cinema"><em>War and Cinema</em></a>, cultural theorist Paul Virilio noted that modern warfare depends on the “logistics of perception.” According to him, a new arena of conflict has emerged with the development of sophisticated imaging technology. Like better weaponry, the side with better cameras often gains superiority. </p>
<p>Virilio said new imaging technology “makes darkness transparent and gives to military contestants an image of what the night is no longer able to conceal.” With thermal and night-vision cameras, any moving presence glowing in darkness becomes susceptible to gunfire by combat helicopters hovering above conflict zones. </p>
<p>Éléonore Weber’s 2020 documentary, <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10917134/">There Will Be No More Night</a></em>, reflects on this phenomenon. It uses leaked military footage from U.S. and French helicopters during war missions in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-been-20-years-since-the-us-invaded-iraq-long-enough-for-my-undergraduate-students-to-see-it-as-a-relic-of-the-past-199460">It's been 20 years since the US invaded Iraq – long enough for my undergraduate students to see it as a relic of the past</a>
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<p>The unnerving sequence of night-vision footage shows airstrikes on civilians suspected of being militants by pilots with shaky conviction. The blurry, grainy images accompany radio-transmitted exchanges between aircraft and machine gun operators, confessions of a pilot who suffers from chronic hallucinations and a scripted monologue. </p>
<p>Weber creatively uses forensic sources to contemplate the technology of modern warfare, where military-grade surveillance and imaging almost serve as a proxy for guns.</p>
<p>As we approach the 20th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/iraq-war">U.S.-led invasion of Iraq</a>, it is important to reflect on the use of war footage in media and the ethical questions around the use of footage depicting human death.</p>
<h2>Highlighting human rights abuses</h2>
<p><em>There Will Be No More Night</em> underscores the fallacy that advanced imaging provides accuracy and error-proof precision to modern war. The documentary shows how sophisticated war machines are driven by the personal idiosyncrasies of drone operators who launch deadly missiles using systems that resemble <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/turning-video-gamers-into-the-ultimate-drone-pilots-1.1398870">video games</a>.</p>
<p>While Virilio traced aesthetic similarities between the videography of war and cinema, Weber’s documentary film uses war footage to highlight the camera’s impairing role in contemporary conflicts.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LSdQ8GGQtB8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for the documentary ‘There Will Be No More Night’ by Éléonore Weber.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The surveillance recordings document the offhanded killing of the people targeted. Weber includes the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/15/all-lies-how-the-us-military-covered-up-gunning-down-two-journalists-in-iraq">infamous Wikileaks footage</a> showing the airstrike that killed Iraqi Reuters photographer Saeed Chmagh and his colleagues in 2007. According to the pilots, Chmagh’s camera tripod resembled an RPG grenade launcher in the grainy footage. </p>
<p>In other instances, farmers carrying ploughs get mistaken for militants. Another harrowing scene depicts a person showered with bullets because he appeared unusually calm when cornered by a helicopter pilot. </p>
<p>Advanced imaging technologies in warfare seemingly operate on a peculiar logic, where framing inevitably leads to the manufacturing and annihilation of suspects. According to media theorist Harun Farocki, they generate “<a href="https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9781526107213.003.0004">operational images</a>” that do not merely represent but execute the functions of operations they belong to. </p>
<p>Weber’s creative use of forensic materials records a series of war violations. Scholars Patrick Brian Smith and Ryan Watson use the term “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437221088954">mediated forensics</a>” to describe the use of new media technologies and practices in human rights discourse. </p>
<p>Research-activist groups like <a href="https://forensic-architecture.org/">Forensic Architecture</a>, <a href="https://situ.nyc/research">SITU Research</a> and <a href="https://lab.witness.org/">WITNESS Media Lab</a> perform forensic analysis of raw media evidence to highlight human rights issues. They do so using techniques and technologies such as <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/photogrammetry">photogrammetry</a>, geolocation mapping, 3D-imaging and pattern analysis to infer unseen viewpoints from limited visual evidence.</p>
<h2>A question of ethics</h2>
<p><em>There Will Be No More Night</em> sidesteps such principled forensic analysis. Instead of dissecting raw media evidence and disclosing new perspectives around specific events, it simply reproduces images of brutal killings for a generalized, self-absorbed reflection on modern warfare. </p>
<p>Consequently, the film becomes emotionally distressing and ethically dubious. One cannot discard the uneasy concerns of witnessing 125 minutes of footage depicting brutal massacres from the cockpit.</p>
<p>The documentary also humanizes one pilot, Pierre V., as he reflects on his nightmares after controlling infrared and thermal cameras for several months. But nothing is heard from the other side; those who live under the perpetual threat of the weapons and cameras, and need to devise inventive ways to escape their thermal imagery. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oiW55_48GuU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Irish photographer Richard Mosse discusses his documentary ‘Heat Maps’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A related problem surfaces in the documentary project <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/richard-mosses-heat-maps-a-military-grade-camera-repurposed-on-the-migrant-trail"><em>Heat Maps</em></a> by Irish photographer Richard Mosse. He uses thermal video cameras to construct composite images of refugee camps in and around the Mediterranean. </p>
<p>But the visually arresting photographs further expose the subjects and deny them self-representation. Mosse also enjoys freedom of movement and has control over the photographed images of the subjects — rights the subjects themselves do not have. </p>
<p>Despite its acute critique of modern warfare, <em>There Will Be No More Night</em> could have devised measures to work around the reproduction of visuals of death. Its distanced approach, driven by a voice-over commentary, fails to account for divergent perspectives. </p>
<p>What appears jarringly absent in the film are the voices of those people who are continually mapped by the imaging technologies of modern warfare and the social and psychological effects the technologies have on them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Santasil Mallik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As we approach the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, it is important to reflect on the use of war footage in media and the ethical questions around the use of footage depicting human death.Santasil Mallik, PhD Student, Media Studies, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1970512023-01-24T19:19:19Z2023-01-24T19:19:19ZWar leaves a toxic legacy that lasts long after the guns go quiet. Can we stop it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506012/original/file-20230124-19-m7290m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=41%2C158%2C1655%2C961&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A child receives treatment after an alleged chemical attack in Syria in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">IDLIB MEDIA CENTER/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The number of armed conflicts currently raging around the world is <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2022/sgsm21216.doc.htm">the greatest</a> since the end of the Second World War. These wars can leave toxic environmental legacies and cause untold damage to human health.</p>
<p>One-quarter of the world’s population, or <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2022/sgsm21216.doc.htm">two billion people</a>, live in countries experiencing war. They include Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Myanmar, Sudan, Haiti and the Sahel region in Northern Africa.</p>
<p>Violent conflict causes substantial environmental damage – polluting air, water and soil, and damaging human health over the long-term. </p>
<p>Chemical weapons and toxins are still being used in current wars. The United Nations last month formally adopted <a href="https://www.un.org/en/ga/77/resolutions.shtml">principles to protect the environment</a> in armed conflict. Concrete action is now needed to implement them. </p>
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<img alt="Man walks past burning pile of refuse" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506008/original/file-20230124-17-b1gbk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506008/original/file-20230124-17-b1gbk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506008/original/file-20230124-17-b1gbk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506008/original/file-20230124-17-b1gbk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506008/original/file-20230124-17-b1gbk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506008/original/file-20230124-17-b1gbk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506008/original/file-20230124-17-b1gbk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Ukrainian firefighter at a chemical storage facility hit by a Russian missile in march 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roman Pilipey/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are toxic remnants of war?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.weaponslaw.org/glossary/toxic-remnants-of-war">Toxic remnants of war</a> are poisonous or hazardous substances resulting from military activities. They include:</p>
<ul>
<li>radioactive material </li>
<li>white phosphorus</li>
<li>mustard agents</li>
<li>halogens</li>
<li>heavy metals</li>
<li>dioxins and other human carcinogens.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-53648572">Atomic bombs</a> dropped on the Japanese cites of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 are thought to have killed more than 200,000 people immediately; more died from nuclear radiation in subsequent years. </p>
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<img alt="Photos showing healthy and defoliated forest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506016/original/file-20230124-25-ok5cmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506016/original/file-20230124-25-ok5cmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506016/original/file-20230124-25-ok5cmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506016/original/file-20230124-25-ok5cmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506016/original/file-20230124-25-ok5cmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506016/original/file-20230124-25-ok5cmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506016/original/file-20230124-25-ok5cmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Top photo shows a mangrove forest near Saigon before US forces sprayed it with the chemical defoliant Agent Orange in 1965. Bottom photo shows a nearby area after the attack.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some toxic remnants are a direct result of armed conflict. Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War contained dangerous dioxins that continue to damage people and the environment today. </p>
<p>The use of poisonous gases and other hazardous substances in warfare has a long history. Chlorine and mustard gas, for example, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2376985/">were used</a> in the First World War. </p>
<p>However, unlike many past wars, today’s armed conflicts increasingly take place in urban and industrialised areas, posing a significant risk to civilians and their environment.</p>
<p>And the use of chemical weapons continues. For example, a UN official <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/01/1132182">this month said</a> the Syrian government’s “absence of accountability” for using chemical weapons in the nation’s long-running civil war was “a threat to international peace and security and a danger to us all”. </p>
<h2>A threat to human health</h2>
<p>Toxic remnants of war can result in many adverse health effects in humans.</p>
<p>In Vietnam, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16543362/">research</a> suggests a greatly increased risk of birth defects among children of parents exposed to Agent Orange. In some locations, extremely high levels of dioxins have been found in soil, sediment and foods, as well as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/mp201418">human breast milk</a> and blood. </p>
<p>Research has also linked Agent Orange to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26495825/">human genome instability</a> (or genome mutations) in adults and children.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/agent-orange-exposed-how-u-s-chemical-warfare-in-vietnam-unleashed-a-slow-moving-disaster-84572">Agent Orange, exposed: How U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam unleashed a slow-moving disaster</a>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="woman comforts son on bed" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506015/original/file-20230124-16-oepyfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506015/original/file-20230124-16-oepyfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506015/original/file-20230124-16-oepyfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506015/original/file-20230124-16-oepyfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506015/original/file-20230124-16-oepyfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506015/original/file-20230124-16-oepyfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506015/original/file-20230124-16-oepyfu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The effects of Agent Orange are still felt by Vietnam’s people today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Vogel/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Gaza, elevated heavy metal loads have been identified in <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28768639/">mothers and newborns</a> exposed to military attacks. Also in Gaza, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22754469/">birth defects</a> have been associated with exposure to white phosphorus and other bombs containing toxic and carcinogenic metals. </p>
<p>In Croatia, <a href="https://europepmc.org/article/MED/20960595">higher metal blood concentrations</a> were found in those exposed to heavy fighting.</p>
<p>In Iraq, open burn pits used to dispose of war waste <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10661-014-4127-5">have exposed</a> civilians to poisonous smoke and fumes. And smoke from <a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/perspective-series/issue-no-24-conflict-pollution-and-toxic-remnants-war-global-problem">oil well fires</a> in the 1991 Gulf War, and more recently <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/syria-blames-rebels-for-setting-oil-wells-on-fire/">in Syria</a>, pose a toxic risk.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/atomic-disruption-how-russias-war-on-ukraine-has-rattled-the-nuclear-world-order-179939">Atomic disruption: how Russia's war on Ukraine has rattled the nuclear world order</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Flame and smoke spew from oil well" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506007/original/file-20230124-13-3wi6pr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506007/original/file-20230124-13-3wi6pr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506007/original/file-20230124-13-3wi6pr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506007/original/file-20230124-13-3wi6pr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506007/original/file-20230124-13-3wi6pr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506007/original/file-20230124-13-3wi6pr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506007/original/file-20230124-13-3wi6pr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kuwaiti oil wells set alight by fleeing Iraqi troops in 1991 – smoke from which is toxic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Greg Gibson/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A scourge on the environment</h2>
<p>In addition to human health effects, armed conflicts can cause widespread <a href="https://ceobs.org/how-does-war-damage-the-environment/">environmental damage</a>. </p>
<p>Sensitive landscapes can be destroyed by the movement of troops and vehicles. And explosives can release particles, debris and other matter that pollutes the air and soil. </p>
<p>War can also cause toxic pollution indirectly, such as when services and infrastructure are destroyed or break down. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna14138687">For example</a>, Israel’s bombardment of a power plant in Lebanon in 2006 sent 110,000 barrels of oil into the Mediterranean sea, killing fish and turtles and causing an environmental crisis.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.oecd.org/ukraine-hub/policy-responses/environmental-impacts-of-the-war-in-ukraine-and-prospects-for-a-green-reconstruction-9e86d691/">according to the OECD</a>, Russian military strikes on Ukraine refineries, chemical plants, energy facilities and industrial plants have sent toxic substances into air, water and soil. It says ammunition remains and damaged military vehicles also contain materials toxic to people and the environment.</p>
<p>The war in Ukraine is also raising fears of a radioactive incident at Chernobyl and other Ukrainian nuclear power plants. </p>
<p>Toxic remnants of war also interact with the effects of climate change. As ice in Greenland melts, for instance, pollutants from abandoned Cold War-era <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/glep/article/18/1/33/14902/Climate-Change-and-the-Politics-of-Military-Bases">military infrastructure</a> may enter waterways. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="dead fish on beach" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506019/original/file-20230124-12-pax3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506019/original/file-20230124-12-pax3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506019/original/file-20230124-12-pax3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506019/original/file-20230124-12-pax3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506019/original/file-20230124-12-pax3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506019/original/file-20230124-12-pax3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506019/original/file-20230124-12-pax3i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dead fish lie on a beach in Beirut in 2006. Israel’s bombing of a power plant in southern Lebanon sent oil gushing into the sea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Assaad Ahmad/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>So what now?</h2>
<p>Despite the known health and environmental effects, toxic weapons continue to be used in armed conflicts.</p>
<p>In December last year, the United Nations’ General Assembly <a href="https://www.un.org/en/ga/77/resolutions.shtml">adopted</a> <a href="https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/draft_articles/8_7_2022.pdf">principles</a> to protect the environment in relation to armed conflict. They outline how the environment should be protected before, during and after armed conflict. </p>
<p>The principles include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>designating and protecting important environmental areas during an armed conflict</p></li>
<li><p>obligations to remove or render harmless toxic remnants of war.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>But this protection isn’t binding in the same manner that a treaty or convention would be. Action is needed to ensure the principles are put into practice. </p>
<p>Governments, international organisations, armed groups, business enterprises and civil society all have a role to play.</p>
<p><a href="https://ceobs.org/states-adopt-new-legal-framework-on-the-environmental-impact-of-war/">According to</a> the Conflict and Environment Observatory, such action should include a formal <a href="https://ceobs.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/CEOBS_Briefing-Note_Friends-of-PERAC.pdf">implementation vehicle</a>, such as an engaged group of governments, to ensure the principles are adopted on the ground. </p>
<p>And increased public awareness of conflict pollution will also help create the momentum needed.</p>
<p>Without firm action, toxic remnants of war will continue to pose long term threats to communities and ecosystems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stacey Pizzino is affiliated with the Global Protection Cluster - Mine Action Area of Responsibility. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Durham is affiliated with is the Global Protection Cluster - Mine Action Area of Responsibility</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Waller is affiliated with the Global Protection Cluster - Mine Action Area of Responsibility.</span></em></p>Chemical weapons and toxins are still being used in current wars. Without action, ecosystems and people are at risk.Stacey Pizzino, PhD Candidate, The University of QueenslandJo Durham, Senior Lecturer in Disaster Risk Management and Health, Queensland University of TechnologyMichael Waller, Senior Lecturer Biostatistics, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1917642022-10-05T02:09:05Z2022-10-05T02:09:05Z‘Hybrid warfare’: Nord Stream attacks show how war is evolving<p>It’s not yet clear who carried out the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/qa-nord-stream-gas-sabotage-whos-being-blamed-why-2022-09-30/">attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines</a> in the Baltic Sea last week, although many Western nations are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/01/truss-nord-stream-gas-pipeline-russia-damage-sabotage">suspicious</a> it was an act of sabotage by Russia.</p>
<p>What is clear is that the ruptures have added to already heightened tensions and an impending energy crisis in the region.</p>
<p>While further investigations are required, if Russia was behind such sabotage, we can view it as an evolution of “hybrid warfare”, because it would highlight how the energy sector and critical infrastructure can be strategically targeted as an unconventional warfare method.</p>
<p>If the damage to Nord Stream is deemed to be a deliberate act of sabotage, there will likely be an escalation in the regional conflict.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nord-stream-leaks-where-will-europe-get-its-gas-from-now-191529">Nord Stream leaks: where will Europe get its gas from now?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is hybrid warfare?</h2>
<p><a href="https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/irc_97_900-1.pdf">Traditionally</a>, war was conducted on a battlefield, between two states in a defined territory. This is no longer the case. As technology has become more advanced, and the enemy more sophisticated, states have moved further away from this traditional warfare style. </p>
<p>Now warfare is conducted across multiple battle domains: air, land, sea, space and through cyberspace, and often simultaneously. </p>
<p><a href="https://jmss.org/article/view/73754">Hybrid warfare</a> refers to newer and more unconventional methods of fighting a war. It can occur across the political, economic and civil spheres, often blending several warfare tactics.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-hybrid-warfare-and-what-is-meant-by-the-grey-zone-118841">Explainer: what is 'hybrid warfare' and what is meant by the 'grey zone'?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Hybrid warfare blurs the lines between conventional and unconventional warfare, as well as the <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/ihls/7/1/article-p63_4.xml?language=en">distinction</a> between times of peace and war. As stated by <a href="https://ung.edu/institute-leadership-strategic-studies/_uploads/files/bachmann-gunneriusson-hybrid-wars-16-sep-2016-scientia-militaria.pdf">NATO</a>, hybrid warfare can include a variety of tactics such as terrorism, migration, piracy, corruption and ethnic conflict.</p>
<p>While hybrid warfare isn’t a new concept, advances in technology have allowed hybrid strategies to be executed in new ways, such as <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2670527">cyber attacks</a> and information warfare.</p>
<p>Many commentators are concerned Russia or other states with similar military capabilities could <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-threat-to-undersea-internet-cables/">attack underwater internet cables</a>.</p>
<p>It’s therefore understandable why some European politicians are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/28/nord-stream-blasts-hybrid-war-eu-russia-sabotage">claiming</a> that if such critical energy infrastructure has been sabotaged, this would herald a new stage of hybrid warfare.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1575327737916837889"}"></div></p>
<p>The recent development of new underwater technology, such as autonomous underwater drones, could also feasibly be utilised to achieve military goals. Such hybrid warfare strategies being employed in maritime zones will likely lead to further discussion on the applicability of the international law of the sea.</p>
<p>It’s important to note we’re not saying who we think caused the Nord Stream damage. We simply want to highlight that if a state or non-state actor were to be found responsible, such an incident could be considered an act of hybrid warfare.</p>
<h2>Energy as a weapon</h2>
<p>The extent of the damage to the Nord Stream pipelines, which carry natural gas from Russia to Europe, could exacerbate the already vulnerable situation of Europe’s energy crisis.</p>
<p>Controlling and targeting natural resources for military gain has occurred in several past conflicts. For example in Syria, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592318.2018.1433469">Islamic State controlled an oil refinery</a> and surrounding territory, thereby <a href="https://jmss.org/article/view/73754/55220">sustaining</a> their financial model.</p>
<p>Also, the resultant ecological impact of the damaged Nord Stream’s gas emissions is reminiscent of an incident in the first Gulf War when <a href="https://magazin.nzz.ch/nzz-am-sonntag/international/der-krieg-in-der-grauzone-ld.1705413">Saddam Hussain deliberately</a> destroyed oil fields and platforms to create an ecological hazard.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-vladimir-putin-uses-natural-gas-to-exert-russian-influence-and-punish-his-enemies-162413">How Vladimir Putin uses natural gas to exert Russian influence and punish his enemies</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A false flag operation?</h2>
<p>But the damage caused to Nord Stream isn’t within the boundaries of a territory where a conflict is occurring. It has happened in the international waters of the Baltic Sea, just outside the boundaries of the exclusive economic zones of Germany, Denmark, Poland and Sweden. It’s this feature of the incident that shows how hybrid warfare strategies have evolved – specifically how such tactics don’t need to remain in the conflict zone itself.</p>
<p>Indeed, the Nord Stream incident wasn’t an attack on Western or NATO states’ territories directly. As such, these are hallmarks of a “<a href="https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/09/nord-stream-leaks-underline-gray-zone-risks/377701/">grey zone</a>” act – coercive tactics which don’t meet the threshold of conventional military warfare.</p>
<p>If Russia is responsible, it could also be understood as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-false-flag-attacks-and-could-russia-make-one-work-in-the-information-age-177128">false flag operation</a>. A false flag attack is one in which the actor aims to <a href="https://magazin.nzz.ch/nzz-am-sonntag/international/der-krieg-in-der-grauzone-ld.1705413#back-register">pin blame for the incident on an adversary</a>, and to distort and weaken the opponent’s military cohesion. Such an operation would result in disinformation and could be used to trigger further military action. </p>
<p>It’s interesting to note that Putin has blamed the Nord Stream attacks <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-spy-chief-says-moscow-has-evidence-west-behind-sabotage-nord-stream-2022-09-30/">on the United States</a>, and the Russian ambassador to the United Nations said last week the US has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-has-much-gain-nord-stream-damage-russia-says-un-2022-09-30/">much to gain</a> from the explosions.</p>
<p>Such an approach would likely aim to weaken the West’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/09/15/vladimir-putins-war-is-failing-the-west-should-help-it-fail-faster">cohesion</a> and willingness to continue supporting humanitarian and military efforts in the region.</p>
<p>Whoever the perpetrator is, such actions send a clear signal to the rest of the world as to the power, reach and willingness to cause disruption beyond the traditional boundaries of a conflict zone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191764/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann received funding from the Australian Department of Defence for research regarding grey zone and information operations targeting Australia. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meredith Primrose Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If the Nord Stream attacks were an act of sabotage, this shows how energy infrastructure can be strategically targeted as an act of ‘hybrid warfare’.Meredith Primrose Jones, Researcher - Oceania Cyber Security Centre; Researcher - Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation, RMIT UniversitySascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann, Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub (University of Canberra) and Research Fellow (adjunct) - The Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University- NATO Fellow Asia-Pacific, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1907042022-09-16T12:19:36Z2022-09-16T12:19:36ZUkraine’s rapid advance against Russia shows mastery of 3 essential skills for success in modern warfare<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484686/original/file-20220914-22-hzlr2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C24%2C8194%2C5462&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An abandoned and disabled Russian tank. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photograph-taken-on-september-11-shows-a-ukranian-news-photo/1243164354?adppopup=true">Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ukrainian forces, aided by Western firepower, have upset traditional military logic once again.</p>
<p>Advancing deep into Ukrainian territory seized by Moscow earlier in its invasion, a counteroffensive launched in September 2022 has forced back the invading Russian army. In the process Kyiv has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-northeastern-offensive-has-retaken-3800-sq-km-week-2022-09-13/">recaptured over 2,000 square miles of land</a> in the country’s northeast and left Moscow’s prized units like the <a href="https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1569578858021810176">1st Tank Guards Army</a> in disarray.</p>
<p>The success of the counteroffensive has shown that what is known in military circles as “<a href="https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/November-December-2018/Blythe-Operational-Art/">operational art</a>” – the creative use of time, space and forces to achieve a position of advantage – can be more important than relative combat power and simply counting the tanks and artillery possessed by either side in conflict. </p>
<p>And while this latest operational turning point in Ukraine is not the end of the conflict, as <a href="https://www.csis.org/people/benjamin-jensen">a defense strategist</a> with more than 19 years of military experience, I see three key insights about <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/the-changing-character-of-combined-arms/">modern warfare</a> in the recent Ukrainian success.</p>
<h2>1. Deception is still possible in conflict</h2>
<p>Modern war takes place during an <a href="https://www.csis.org/events/sparking-revolution-open-source-intelligence">open-source intelligence revolution</a> in which commercial satellite photos and a constant stream of social media facts and fiction bombard politicians, soldiers and citizens. This <a href="https://theconversation.com/open-source-intelligence-how-digital-sleuths-are-making-their-mark-on-the-ukraine-war-179135">flood of information</a> makes hiding large military formations <a href="https://theconversation.com/technology-is-revolutionizing-how-intelligence-is-gathered-and-analyzed-and-opening-a-window-onto-russian-military-activity-around-ukraine-176446">increasingly difficult, if not impossible</a>. Yet, Ukrainians have shown the world that a globally connected information environment does not mean the art of deception is dead.</p>
<p>Ukraine’s military planners used old concepts optimized for a new era in designing its counteroffensive. They employed a variant of the 19th-century military concept of “<a href="https://www.warhistoryonline.com/napoleon/8-changes-napoleon-made-warfare.html?chrome=1">central position</a>.” This concept is associated with Napoleon, who when confronted with two armies, <a href="https://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/Napoleon_tactics.htm">positioned his forces between them to split the enemy</a>. This allowed the French leader to concentrate his forces in one location, even when they were outnumbered overall.</p>
<p>In the recent counteroffensive, Ukraine used a central position to confront two concentrations of Russian forces, one in the east around the city of Kharkiv and the Donbas region – which includes portions of Donetsk and Luhansk – and a second in the south along the Dnieper River and Kherson. These Russian forces collectively outnumbered Ukraine’s army and possessed greater numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and attack aircraft. </p>
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<p>While Ukraine was building up forces in Kherson in the south and using rocket artillery, sabotage and unconventional warfare to attack infrastructure to isolate Russian troops, it also maintained a large armored force in the east. This gave Ukraine the ability to fix Russian forces along one front while attacking on another.</p>
<p>Ukraine’s central position made Russia have to factor in the possibility of Ukrainian troops attacking in either direction.</p>
<p>Ukraine also employed a clever form of deception adopting elements of what is known as “<a href="https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/call/call_3-88_concept.htm">Magruder’s Principle</a>.” This maxim holds that it is easier to induce a target to maintain a pre-existing belief than introduce a new idea. </p>
<p>By conducting strikes that isolated Russian forces along the Dnieper River and making public statements that suggested Ukraine would attack Kherson, Ukraine reinforced Russian views that Kherson would be the initial main area of attack during the counteroffensive. This use of public statements and action to shape an adversary’s decision-making is also consistent with the old Soviet concept of “<a href="https://www.rit.edu/%7Ew-cmmc/literature/Thomas_2004.pdf">reflexive control</a>,” which uses misinformation to skew how the target perceives the world and conditions them to make self-defeating decisions. </p>
<p>As a result, Russia moved forces to the south to bolster its fighting positions in Kherson. Doing so likely hollowed out Moscow’s forces in the east and compromised its ability to deploy reserves. </p>
<p>Combined with Ukraine’s central position, this clever ruse meant that Kyiv set the conditions for the large-scale rout of Putin’s army in the east and future operations to retake Kherson.</p>
<h2>2. Precision strikes facilitate depth and produces cascading effects</h2>
<p>At a more tactical level, Ukraine has proven a master of using precision strikes to hamper the movement of Russian troops. Kyiv has employed <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/send-swarm">swarms of “loitering munitions”</a> – airborne drones that locate and then attack targets – alongside a mix of anti-tank guided missiles as well as traditional armored formations and artillery to pressure Russian ground forces. </p>
<p>This combination has freed up the country’s warplanes, special operations teams and long-range precision missiles to hunt Russian radars, command posts and supply depots. The net result is that Russian forces have had to confront <a href="https://adminpubs.tradoc.army.mil/pamphlets/TP525-3-1.pdf">multiple dilemmas</a> and have struggled to build up sufficient combat power to counterattack and halt the Ukrainian advance. </p>
<p>War is a complex system governed more by power laws than linear dynamics. That is to say, a smaller, mobile force – like the Ukrainians – can defeat larger armies. The <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA314276.pdf">depth and simultaneity</a> of the Ukrainian tactical approach in the counteroffensive produced <a href="https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/MCDP%201%20Warfighting.pdf">shock and dislocation</a>. Information operations compounded this effect by circulating images of retreating soldiers, thus making defection and surrender contagious. </p>
<h2>3. War remains a continuation of politics</h2>
<p>A political timeline drove the sequence and setting of Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive. Kyiv needed to disrupt the ability of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/kherson-referendum-plans-paused-due-security-situation-tass-cites-russian-2022-09-05/">Russia to hold an illegitimate referendum</a> in Kherson and occupied territory in the east – the same playbook Moscow used to seize Ukrainian territory in 2014 through the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-are-minsk-agreements-ukraine-conflict-2022-02-21/">Minsk agreement</a>.</p>
<p>Moscow wanted to use the referendum to justify annexing Ukrainian territory and show progress to a weary Russian public.</p>
<p>At the same time, Putin was likely trying to consolidate territorial gains before using the looming <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3613859-how-a-long-cold-winter-could-dampen-western-support-for-ukraine/">threat of winter to divide Western support</a> for Kyiv. In other words, at the strategic level even if the recent counteroffensive had not gained large amounts of territory or defeated entire Russian divisions it could have complicated Moscow’s ability to hold a referendum in occupied territory. Russian forces would be forced to defend the front as opposed to securing polling sites.</p>
<p>So while the operational and tactical gains produced by the counteroffensive are important, the underlying underlying objective Ukraine is pursuing at the strategic level remains political.</p>
<p>This political logic, despite the success of the counteroffensive, casts doubt on the prospects of the conflict ending with a decisive battlefield defeat of Russian forces in the near term. Even if Ukraine makes significant gains in the south and retakes Kherson, Moscow can still opt for a large-scale mobilization and continue the war until either Russian elites or its citizens turn on Putin and his inner circle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190704/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the views or positions of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.</span></em></p>A military strategist breaks down how a smaller Ukrainian army has successfully taken back swaths of land from the Russians in the country’s northeast.Benjamin Jensen, Professor of Strategic Studies, Marine Corps University; Scholar-in-Residence, American University, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1906122022-09-15T12:30:41Z2022-09-15T12:30:41ZRussia’s reliance on mercenaries in Ukraine points to the weakness of its military – and Putin’s strategy of deflecting blame<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484698/original/file-20220914-1785-zhul74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Russian soldiers patrol a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, on April 12, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/russian-soldiers-patrol-at-the-mariupol-drama-theatre-bombed-last-16-picture-id1239934899">Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ukrainian forces are gaining ground in the war against Russia. Since early September 2022, they have launched a massive counteroffensive in Ukraine’s northeast region of Kharkiv, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/world/europe/ukraine-maps.html">reclaiming large swaths of territory</a>. </p>
<p>The sudden offensive – likely the result of several factors, including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/us/politics/ukraine-russia-pentagon.html">effective war gaming</a> and <a href="https://ecfr.eu/article/lessons-for-the-west-russias-military-failures-in-ukraine/">Russian military</a> incompetence – has prompted <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/11/world/europe/ukraine-kharkiv-russian-retreat.html">optimism about Ukraine’s ability to push Russia</a> back from Ukrainian territory.</p>
<p>Russia is now <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3157239/ukraines-success-was-a-surprise-only-to-the-russians/">on the defensive</a> in Ukraine’s northeast. And one important dynamic in the lead-up to Ukraine’s counteroffensive was Russia’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/22/1118843617/a-kremlin-linked-mercenary-group-is-now-openly-recruiting-for-the-war-in-ukraine">growing reliance</a> on private military companies in the war. It’s clear that Russia is increasing its use of these groups, but it’s not known by exactly how much. </p>
<p>Like many other countries, including the U.S., Russia has used <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-corporate-soldiers-global-expansion-russias-private-military-companies">private military companies</a>, which are for-profit organizations that provide military services during war, for years. It has increasingly relied on these mercenaries to help fight wars and participate in counterterrorism efforts in places <a href="https://www.csis.org/npfp/russian-private-military-companies-syria-and-beyond">like Syria</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/25/russian-mercenaries-accused-over-use-of-mines-and-booby-traps-in-libya">Libya</a> and the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61311272">Central African Republic</a>. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=RrvwWKMAAAAJ&view_op=list_works">scholar</a> who researches private military companies, I think <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/17/ukraine-russia-wagner-group-mercenaries/">these groups’ increasing visibility in Ukraine</a> reveals the tenuous status of Russia’s military efforts, as well as Moscow’s shaky domestic political situation. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the use of these groups shows that Russia’s manpower shortages have become a liability in its war in Ukraine. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484699/original/file-20220914-19-itrzkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A middle aged man with salt and pepper facial hair looks at the camera with his hands on his hips." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484699/original/file-20220914-19-itrzkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484699/original/file-20220914-19-itrzkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484699/original/file-20220914-19-itrzkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484699/original/file-20220914-19-itrzkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484699/original/file-20220914-19-itrzkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484699/original/file-20220914-19-itrzkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484699/original/file-20220914-19-itrzkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marat Gabidullin, a former member of the private military company the Wagner Group, poses in 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/former-russian-mercenary-of-the-wagner-group-marat-gabidullin-poses-picture-id1240597504">Stephane De Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How private military companies work</h2>
<p>It’s not a new phenomenon for governments like Russia and the U.S. to use private military companies to help enhance their power during conflict.</p>
<p>These groups, generally speaking, are <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-modern-mercenary-9780190621087?cc=us&lang=en&">“conflict entrepreneurs”</a> seeking to profit during war by offering a variety of services to the highest bidders.</p>
<p>Governments are most often the ones contracting these groups to strengthen their war capabilities and assist in a multitude of military tasks, from providing intelligence to fighting in front-line operations. At times, private military companies are used because they are cheaper over the long term, not requiring governments to pay for soldiers’ retirements and health benefits, for example.</p>
<p>In other cases, governments like Russia contract private military companies because their armies either lack enough power to fight a war or because they see strategic value in doing so.</p>
<p>Yet, Russian private military companies – <a href="https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/210721_Jones_Russia%27s_Corporate_Soldiers.pdf?7fy3TGV3HqDtRKoe8vDq2J2GGVz7N586">groups like</a> the Wagner Group and similar organizations <a href="https://warsawinstitute.org/wagner-versus-patriot-fighting-mercenary-control/">like Patriot</a> – are somewhat of an anomaly in the larger private security market. </p>
<p>One key reason is that <a href="https://www.fpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/rfp4-borshchevskaya-final.pdf">private military companies are technically illegal</a> in Russia. They are only able to operate given their <a href="https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/210721_Jones_Russia%27s_Corporate_Soldiers.pdf?7fy3TGV3HqDtRKoe8vDq2J2GGVz7N586">direct connections to the Kremlin</a>.</p>
<p>For example, the Wagner Group – Russia’s most notorious private military company – is bankrolled by a wealthy Russian oligarch, <a href="https://www.state.gov/disarming-disinformation/wagner-group-yevgeniy-prigozhin-and-russias-disinformation-in-africa/">Yevgeny Prigozhin</a>, who has deep ties to the Kremlin. The Wagner Group’s main base in Russia is also <a href="https://www.csis.org/blogs/post-soviet-post/band-brothers-wagner-group-and-russian-state">shared with Russian special forces units</a>.</p>
<p>Russia’s use of the Wagner Group in Ukraine dates back to when Russia forcibly <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/03/17/crimea-six-years-after-illegal-annexation/">annexed Crimea</a> in 2014. While the Wagner Group formed around this time, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23296151.2020.1740528">the Russian private military industry</a> has been on the rise since the early 1990s.</p>
<p>Now, the group’s enhanced visibility in Russia’s “special military operation,” as Russian President Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-putin-authorises-military-operations-donbass-domestic-media-2022-02-24/">has called it</a>, signals an important shift in the Ukraine war. </p>
<h2>Filling a gap for Russian soldiers</h2>
<p>Russia’s armed forces have simply been less effective in combat than many expected – a byproduct of <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/what-the-experts-got-wrong-and-right-about-russian-military-power/">poor training</a>, <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-russian-militarys-ill-fated-force-design/">logistics and strategy</a>.</p>
<p>Many Russian soldiers have also been wounded or killed. Overall, “<a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3120707/usd-policy-dr-kahl-press-conference/">Russians have probably taken 70,000 or 80,000 casualties in less than six months,”</a> Colin Kahl, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/11/us/politics/russian-casualties-ukraine.html">said in</a> August 2022.</p>
<p>U.S. military and intelligence community assessments also note that in early August 2022, Russia was losing upward of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/11/us/politics/russian-casualties-ukraine.html">500 soldiers per day</a>. Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/08/25/9000-dead-soldiers-weigh-on-ukraines-ability-to-wage-war/?sh=134a129927aa">reported losing 100 to 200 soldiers per day</a> around this time.</p>
<p>Battlefield losses have put pressure on Putin, who recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/world/europe/putin-russia-military-expansion.html">ordered more military recruiting</a> in Russia. Russia is trying to add nearly 140,000 new troops to its existing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-signs-decree-increase-size-russian-armed-forces-2022-08-25/">900,000 active-duty troops</a> by the start of 2023. </p>
<p>In the meantime, Russia’s reliance on private military companies, which were <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/07/14/a-mercenaries-war">successful in capturing Ukrainian territory where other forces could not</a>, provides the Kremlin with a short-term and partial remedy to its personnel shortcomings.</p>
<h2>A cover for Moscow</h2>
<p>Moscow employing Wagner Group soldiers also appears to be a politically strategic move. </p>
<p>Private military group fighters, who are often paid better than the regular army, can “allow the Kremlin to assemble more soldiers without upsetting <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/07/14/a-mercenaries-war">the country’s domestic situation”</a>, meaning political order and support for Putin. It allows Putin to further the false narrative that this is not a war. This is important because the continued loss of Russian soldiers poses political risks to Putin – for example, when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/07/russia-ukraine-war-deaths-toll/">dead Russian soldiers come back in body bags from Ukraine</a>.</p>
<p>Putin wants to maintain positive public sentiment about the war and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/world/europe/russia-putin-ukraine-war-draft.html">to avoid a draft</a>, which would be very unpopular in Russia. The Kremlin has not elaborated on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/world/europe/russia-putin-ukraine-war-draft.html">how it plans</a> to increase its troops without a draft. </p>
<p>Research also shows that people are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2020/06/30/military-contractor-study/">generally less sensitive to contractor casualties than military personnel dying</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, relying on auxiliary forces like private military companies gives Moscow some potential cover as more independent reports show Russian soldiers have committed <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bellingcat-russia-putin-ukraine-60-minutes-2022-08-21/">human rights abuses</a> in Ukraine.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03050629.2014.932783">Research shows</a> that governments can use auxiliary forces like the Wagner Group to deflect responsibility <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022002715576748">for sexual violence</a> and other war atrocities that happen during conflict. </p>
<p>This is the exact playbook the Kremlin is using in the Central African Republic and Mali, <a href="https://acleddata.com/2022/08/30/wagner-group-operations-in-africa-civilian-targeting-trends-in-the-central-african-republic-and-mali/">where violence against civilians has soared</a> since <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/undermining-democracy-and-exploiting-clients-the-wagner-groups-nefarious-activities-in-africa/">Wagner forces arrived</a> to support Russia’s counterterrorism efforts in these countries in 2017 and 2021, respectively.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484700/original/file-20220914-14325-spyrev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white van drives over a dirt road and bridge. Under it a military vehicle is turned upside down, with its four wheels pointing up." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484700/original/file-20220914-14325-spyrev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484700/original/file-20220914-14325-spyrev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484700/original/file-20220914-14325-spyrev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484700/original/file-20220914-14325-spyrev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484700/original/file-20220914-14325-spyrev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484700/original/file-20220914-14325-spyrev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/484700/original/file-20220914-14325-spyrev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A van drives over a bridge, past a destroyed Russian military vehicle in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine on Sept. 13, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/van-moves-along-a-bridge-as-a-destroyed-russian-military-vehicle-is-picture-id1243215099">Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Caught in the crosshairs</h2>
<p>Ukraine <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/25/wagner-group-fighters-accused-murdering-civilians-ukraine-war-crimes-belarus">accused Wagner mercenaries of murdering civilians</a> in May 2022. German intelligence also intercepted radio communications <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/possible-evidence-of-russian-atrocities-german-intelligence-intercepts-radio-traffic-discussing-the-murder-of-civilians-in-bucha-a-0a191c96-634f-4d07-8c5c-c4a772315b0d">implicating the Wagner Group in the Bucha massacre</a> in late March 2022. </p>
<p>Wagner’s recent recruitment efforts, which now include dipping into <a href="https://en.zona.media/article/2022/08/10/prigozhin">prison populations</a> from dozens of Russian penal colonies, have heightened fears that war crimes will increase, including violence against civilians. </p>
<p>Observers <a href="https://twitter.com/maryilyushina/status/1570103416935923714">estimate some 7,000 to 10,000 convicts</a> have been recruited since June, and <a href="https://twitter.com/yarotrof/status/1570098854942445571">video recently surfaced</a> showing Prigozhin personally appealing to prisoners to join the Wagner ranks. Increasing numbers of criminals and people with limited training joining Wagner will almost certainly impact its operational effectiveness. </p>
<p>However, for the time being – and particularly given Ukraine’s recent counteroffensive – it appears that Russia will continue to rely on Wagner to supplement its armed forces. </p>
<p>This strategy has risks, including <a href="https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1548913656410226688">exacerbating grievances</a> across the Russian army where <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-surprise-victories-hurting-russian-soldiers-morale-experts-say-/6744702.html">morale continues to decline</a>. Such friction may be good for Ukraine’s war effort, but Russia’s continued reliance on private military companies could make the war worse for those civilians caught in the crosshairs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190612/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The views expressed are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of any U.S. government agency.</span></em></p>As Ukraine retakes parts of its northeastern region from Russia, the Kremlin continues to increasingly look to private military companies to fill in military power gaps.Christopher Michael Faulkner, Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs in the College of Distance Education, US Naval War CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1821162022-08-03T12:10:01Z2022-08-03T12:10:01ZFrom whistling arrows and trumpeting elephants to battle cries and eerie horns, ancient soldiers used sound to frighten and confuse their enemies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476981/original/file-20220801-82620-d81f5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1844%2C304%2C2539%2C1838&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Three soldiers (far right) carry karnyxes, long horns with frightening boar-headed mouths that produce eerie calls during battle.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-gundestrup-cauldron-decorated-silver-vessel-thought-to-news-photo/170980801">Prisma/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As if the tumultuous din of battle is not horrendous enough, over the ages humans have discovered plenty of ways to exploit sound in warfare. I found an astonishing variety of ancient acoustic weapons while <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ANJ77KkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">researching my book</a> “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691211084/greek-fire-poison-arrows-and-scorpion-bombs">Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs</a>: Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World.” Deploying sound in war has evolved over millennia, from natural animal sounds and music to today’s advanced sonic devices.</p>
<h2>Calling a jig in the midst of battle</h2>
<p>In antiquity, cavalry horses were trained to endure the <a href="https://thehistorianshut.com/2017/09/03/an-ancient-spartan-military-secret-musical-instruments/">piercing pipe music</a> that led armies to battle. But a clever reversal of this training could spell victory.</p>
<p>In the seventh century B.C., the Kardians of Thrace, who lived in what is now northwest Turkey, were renowned for their cavalry. For entertainment, the mounted soldiers taught their horses to dance to pipes played at drinking parties. Rearing up and pawing the air, the horses kept time to the lively music.</p>
<p>Captured as a boy from Bisaltia in northeastern Greece, a prisoner named Naris heard about the marvelous dancing horses in the Kardian barbershop where he worked. According to the story <a href="http://www.attalus.org/old/athenaeus12a.html">recounted by the ancient Greek writer Athenaeus</a>, Naris escaped, returned to Bisaltia, and prepared to make war on Kardia.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477195/original/file-20220802-4891-bn2ywu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="bronze sculpture of a rearing horse with a Greek warrior mounted on its back" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477195/original/file-20220802-4891-bn2ywu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477195/original/file-20220802-4891-bn2ywu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477195/original/file-20220802-4891-bn2ywu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477195/original/file-20220802-4891-bn2ywu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477195/original/file-20220802-4891-bn2ywu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477195/original/file-20220802-4891-bn2ywu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477195/original/file-20220802-4891-bn2ywu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The horses threw their riders when they recognized the tunes and started to dance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Budapest_Rearing_Horse_and_Mounted_Warrior,_right_side,_by_E.C.Rae.png">'Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior,' Leonardo da Vinci</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He had a secret weapon: a piper girl who had also escaped from Kardia. She taught the Bisaltian soldiers songs from Kardian banquets. Naris led his army out against the Kardian cavalry and signaled for his pipers to play. Pricking up their ears at the familiar tunes, the Kardian horses reared up to dance, throwing off their riders. In the chaos, the Bisaltians crushed the Kardians.</p>
<h2>When squeals terrorize living tanks</h2>
<p>Cavalrymen of classical antiquity accustomed their horses to the clash of bronze weapons. But in the fourth century B.C., when Alexander the Great’s successors <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/A+Companion+to+Greek+Warfare-p-9781119438854">brought war elephants from India</a>, the animals’ trumpeting threw horses into a frenzy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476978/original/file-20220801-14-mdcsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Soldiers in armor and snarling pigs confront elephants with horn-shaped trunks" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476978/original/file-20220801-14-mdcsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476978/original/file-20220801-14-mdcsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476978/original/file-20220801-14-mdcsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476978/original/file-20220801-14-mdcsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476978/original/file-20220801-14-mdcsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476978/original/file-20220801-14-mdcsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476978/original/file-20220801-14-mdcsca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander driving off elephants with pigs and musical instruments in a detail from a French illuminated manuscript from 1420.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=46717">'Le Livre et le vraye hystoire du bon roy Alixandre,' The British Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-animals-in-classical-thought-and-life-9780199589425">Alexander had learned from King Porus</a> during his 326 B.C. Indian campaign that elephants have <a href="https://seaworld.org/animals/all-about/elephants/senses/">sensitive hearing and poor eyesight</a>, which makes them averse to unexpected loud, discordant sounds. When Alexander’s scouts reported that elephants were approaching, Porus advised Alexander’s horsemen to grab up pigs and trumpets and ride out to meet them. The shrill sound of the pigs combined with blaring trumpets sent the elephants fleeing.</p>
<p>In 280 B.C., the Romans first <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/876/elephants-in-greek--roman-warfare/">encountered war elephants</a>, brought to Italy by Greek King Pyrrhus. The riders in the howdah seats upon their backs created an ear-splitting commotion with drums and clanging spears, causing the Romans and their horses to panic.</p>
<p>But Romans noticed that Pyrrhus’ elephants were unnerved by high-pitched squeals of swine. Like Alexander, the Romans deployed pigs to deflect Pyrrhus’ pachyderms, which contributed to his heavy losses. Later, in 202 B.C., blasts of Roman war trumpets <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Abook%3D15%3Achapter%3D12">panicked Carthaginian general Hannibal’s war elephants</a> in the Battle of Zama, ending the Second Punic War.</p>
<p>Some commanders tried to obtain an elephant or two to condition their horses in advance of battle. Perseus of Macedon prepared for a Roman attack with war elephants in 168 B.C. by having artisans build wooden models of elephants on wheels. Pipers hidden inside the huge mock-ups played harsh sounds, acclimating the Macedonian horses to the sight and sound of elephants. But Perseus’ preparations were for naught. Even though the mountainous terrain at the Battle of Pydna got the better of the Romans’ 20 elephants, <a href="https://www.livius.org/articles/battle/pydna-168-bce/">Rome was victorious</a>.</p>
<h2>War cries and wailing weapons</h2>
<p><a href="https://militaryhistorynow.com/2019/12/01/make-some-noise-military-historys-most-famous-battle-cries/">Bloodcurdling war cries</a> are a universal way of striking terror in foes. Maori war chants, the Japanese battle cry “Banzai!” (Long Live the Emperor) in World War II, the Ottomans’ “Vur Ha!” (Strike), the Spanish “Desperta Ferro!” (Awaken the Iron), and the “Rebel Yell” of Confederate soldiers <a href="https://www.history.com/news/8-legendary-battle-cries">are examples</a>. In antiquity, the sound of Greek warriors bellowing “Alala!” while banging swords on bronze shields was likened to hooting owls or a screeching flock of monstrous birds.</p>
<p>The Roman historian Tacitus described the hair-raising <a href="https://youtu.be/hMI-Vvse2vM">effects of the barritus</a>, the war cry of Germanic tribes. The Germans devised a simple technique for intensifying the barritus, which began as a low murmur. The chanting became a roar, then rose to a reverberating crescendo as the men held up their shields in front of their mouths to amplify the thunderous sound.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/auR-lJfzTeY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A musician plays a replica of a karnyx from almost 2,000 years ago.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another technological invention was the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581500072152">karnyx, the Celtic war trumpet</a>. Romans were awed by the eerie, spine-tingling sounds made by the long bronze tube with a wide bell shaped like the <a href="http://www.emaproject.eu/events/concerts/146-the-carnyx-from-tintignac.html">gaping jaws of a fierce dragon, boar or wolf</a>. The horn’s loud, lugubrious tones “<a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/5B*.html">suited the tumult of war</a>,” wrote Diodorus Siculus around 50 B.C. Later Roman troops used the karnyx themselves.</p>
<p>Another early military sound technology was an arrow that created a fearsome noise. “Whistling” or “screaming” arrows (shaojian) made by the horseback archers of the steppes were <a href="https://www.atarn.org/chinese/whistle/whistle.htm">described by the Chinese chronicler Sima Qian</a> in about 100 B.C. A small, perforated bone or wood sound chamber – the whistle – was attached to the shaft behind the arrowhead. In battle, the shrieking sound of thousands of whistling arrows terrified enemies and their horses. <a href="http://www.manchuarchery.org/content/whistling-arrows-and-whistle-arrows">Screaming arrows</a> have been recovered from <a href="https://siberiantimes.com/science/others/features/meet-a-lifelike-2000-year-old-hun-warrior-with-his-bow-and-whistling-arrows/">archaeological sites in central Asia</a>.</p>
<p>Numerous other technologies to produce booming detonations to disorient and frighten enemies were described in ancient Chinese war manuals. These <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691178141/the-gunpowder-age">explosive devices employed gunpowder</a>, invented in China around A.D. 850, reaching Europe about 1250.</p>
<h2>Sound weapons in the modern era</h2>
<p>Music was used during World War II to cause stress and anxiety: The <a href="https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-history/listen-to-the-tango-the-red-army-used-to-intimidate-the-nazis-at-stalingrad/">Soviet army played Argentine tangos</a> through loudspeakers all night to keep German soldiers awake. U.S. loudspeaker teams blasted deafening rock music (including The Doors, Alice Cooper and The Clash) day and night during the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40090809">U.S. siege of Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega</a> in 1989. In the 2000s, <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/extremely-loud">Americans again deployed aggravating, incessant music</a> in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Sound weapons have their uses off the battlefield, too. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/culture-monster-blog/story/2011-04-04/classical-music-still-effective-at-dispersing-loitering-teens">Shopping centers have borrowed the idea</a>, broadcasting classical symphonies and <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bring-science-home-high-frequency-hearing/">frequencies registered only by teenage ears</a> to keep young loiterers away. In 2022, parliamentary authorities in New Zealand <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60362529">bombarded anti-COVID-19 vaccine protesters</a> with recordings of Barry Manilow songs on repeat to break up the crowd.</p>
<p>Recent development of weaponized sound energy is more ominous, often intended for civilian crowd control. Military scientists in the United States, Israel, <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3028071/chinese-scientists-develop-handheld-sonic-weapon-crowd-control">China</a> and Russia have unveiled “nonlethal” high-decibel and pulsating high- and low-frequency armaments <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/04/when-music-is-violence">designed to assault the senses</a>. Examples include hand-held or tank-mounted magnetic acoustic devices, sonic-vibration cannons, and long-range acoustic devices, first used by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2004 and later by police against citizen protests in New York and Missouri.</p>
<p>Since 2016, American diplomats in Cuba, Russia, China and elsewhere have experienced “<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/havana-syndrome-investigation-60-minutes-2022-02-20/">Havana Syndrome</a>,” associated with mysterious neurological and brain injuries thought to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/experts-suggest-us-embassies-were-hit-with-high-power-microwaves-heres-how-the-weapons-work-151730">inflicted by unknown high-powered microwave</a> or targeted sonic energy systems. Sound wave transmitters are not only psychologically toxic but can cause pain and dizziness, burns, irreversible damage to inner ears and possibly neurological and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/qkve7q/the-new-sound-of-crowd-control">internal injuries</a>.</p>
<p>Since antiquity, human creativity in weaponizing devastating noise to confuse and overwhelm adversaries has progressed from intimidation to the infliction of physical injury.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the country where Barry Manilow music was used to break up a crowd.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrienne Mayor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since antiquity people have harnessed sound as a weapon, and the practice continues – in new high-tech ways – today.Adrienne Mayor, Research Scholar, Classics and History and Philosophy of Science, Stanford UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1854992022-06-24T01:36:37Z2022-06-24T01:36:37ZHow Operation Phoenix exported violence from Australia to Yugoslavia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470698/original/file-20220624-60671-h24970.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ill-fated nineteen: the only known photo of the Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood members who went to Yugoslavia in 1972.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datoteka:Bugojanska_skupina_skupina_feniks72.jpg#mw-jump-to-license">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty years ago this month, in June 1972, Yugoslavia’s Territorial Defence Force was desperately trying to contain and kill militants associated with the Australian-based <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Revolutionary_Brotherhood">Croatian Revolutionary Brotherhood</a>. </p>
<p>For the second time in ten years, foreign-based nationalists were attempting to incite a revolt against the country’s Communist Party government, headed by president Josip Tito. Their aim was to create a Croatia independent of the rest of Yugoslavia. </p>
<p>Believing that now was the time for a revolutionary uprising of Croatians, and having learnt from the smaller, unsuccessful attack in 1963, the militants devised a daring plan to strike deep into the heart of Yugoslavia. The fallout of the operation, which was launched under the code name <a href="https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=747209">Operation Phoenix</a>, would echo through the governments of both Yugoslavia and Australia. </p>
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<h2>Militants move in to Bosnia</h2>
<p>Nineteen men, many of them Croatian Australians and some of them from West Germany, had been preparing for months. Inspired by Fidel Castro’s tactics during Cuba’s revolution and observing the recent suppression of the “Croatian Spring” movement, they believed they could rally the Croatians of Yugoslavia against Tito. </p>
<p>On the night of the June 20 1972, the militants managed to evade detection by the authorities and enter Yugoslavia from Austria. They hijacked a truck and drove to Bugojno, a central Bosnian town with a large ethnically Croatian population. There, they attempted to recruit locals to their cause. </p>
<p>Receiving little sympathy from the resident population – some of whom reported them to the authorities – the militants began to attack Yugoslavian outposts and distribute propaganda. Aware that they had no way to escape the country, their aim was to give maximum visibility to their cause.</p>
<p>Alarmed and embarrassed by these developments, Yugoslavia mobilised thousands of men and placed central Bosnia under quarantine. Tito was personally involved in the operation. After a brutal firefight on June 25 in which most of the attackers were killed, the surviving members of the incursion fled into the hills. Only after four more weeks were all 19 men accounted for. Fifteen militants and 13 Yugoslavians had been killed in this bloody event. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Sebian-language letter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470695/original/file-20220624-50671-5dl19e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mobilisation: a report to President Tito on the Yugoslav response to the incident.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Petar Dragišić</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The four captives faced trial in Yugoslavia. Three were executed and the final member, the youngest, was sentenced to life imprisonment. He would later be released, and ultimately died fighting during the breakup of Yugoslavia almost 20 years later. </p>
<h2>Reverberations</h2>
<p>For Australia, the incident was unique. An organisation founded and headquartered in this country had attacked Yugoslavia in a stunning way. </p>
<p>Now, new research, and the increasingly accessibility of primary source documents in the former Yugoslavia, has highlighted the considerable impact of the attack in both countries. </p>
<p>The militants didn’t spark an uprising of Croatians against Yugoslavia, and the Yugoslavian government was no doubt reassured by their failure to attract local support. But the psychological impact of an attack deep into the country was considerable. Tito was enraged. His security detail feared that diaspora Croatian nationalists had the will and sophistication to attempt to assassinate the president. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Tito and Brezhnev" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470697/original/file-20220624-51933-og364j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vigilant: President Tito with his Soviet counterpart, Leonid Brezhnev, in November 1973.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%91%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B6%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B2_%D0%B8_%D0%A2%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE_%D0%B2_%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B5_19_%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%8F%D0%B1%D1%80%D1%8F_1973_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B0.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The prestige of Yugoslavia’s security services was eroded. To ensure an event like this was never repeated, Tito launched a “<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/tito-hunts-down-his-opponents/a-17970349">special war</a>” on émigré nationalists – a decade-long international campaign of targeted assassinations. Yugoslavia also increased pressure on countries like Australia to repress Croatian nationalist and extremist organisations in their territory. </p>
<p>In Australia, the attack wasn’t reported for weeks. When initial reports arrived from Yugoslavia, they were openly challenged by the Australian government, with Attorney-General Ivor Greenwood <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/101992948?searchTerm=%E2%80%9Cfactual%20basis%20for%20such%20allegations%E2%80%9D%20greenwood">declaring</a> he was “not aware of any factual basis for such allegations”. Distrustful of its Yugoslavian counterpart, the Australian government needed to be convinced that the improbable events had actually occurred. </p>
<p>When the full scale of the incident became known in the lead-up to Australia’s 1972 election, the government was caught flat-footed and deeply embarrassed. Police findings that at least some members of the group had been recruited and trained in Australia were widely reported in the press. </p>
<p>Australian security forces, more interested in countering communism than investigating machinations within migrant communities, didn’t have files on many of the Australian-based members of the brotherhood. They were unable to give William McMahon’s Coalition government a clear picture of what had happened and how such a plot came to be organised by Australians. </p>
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<p>The Commonwealth Police quickly launched a <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/102000844?searchTerm=Commonwealth%20Police%20raid%20croatian">series of raids</a> and reported to the government that approximately 300 Croatian Australians were of “particular concern”. The issue of how best to respond to these developments bedevilled a government that was reluctant to alienate migrant communities but didn’t want to give the impression such plotting was acceptable.</p>
<p>The Labor Party, long concerned about the risk posed by violent Croatian nationalism in Australia, seized on the incursion as evidence the McMahon government was unable to grapple with locally based terrorism. They would move aggressively against Croatian nationalist organisations when they came to power later that year, though this led to damaging typecasting of ordinary Croatian Australians and sometimes serious <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/held-captive-by-cold-war-politics/">impacts</a> on innocent individuals. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Australian prime minister William McMahon" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470693/original/file-20220624-51812-il7odj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flatfooted: Australian prime minister William McMahon, shown here in 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McMahon_1971.jpg">US National Archives/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Coupled with the September 1972 <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/102004643?searchTerm=Yugoslav%20Tourist%20Agency">bombings</a> of the Yugoslav General Trade and Tourist Agency in Sydney, the June attack in Yugoslavia weakened McMahon’s law and order record going into the 1972 election. Indeed, Labor MPs like Jim Cairns warned the government that any attempt to campaign on law and order had been undermined by their failure to tackle this issue. </p>
<p>While it is impossible to judge the role of a single issue in any campaign, and while neither party made the issue of Croatians central to their election pitch, the incursion had resonance. </p>
<p>Writing later, journalists Laurie Oakes and David Solomon <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1924193">observed</a> that the government’s inability to deal with Croatian nationalist violence meant “Labor could appear stronger on national security than the Coalition”. The narrowness of McMahon’s election loss made every weakness more important.</p>
<p>A forgotten episode of Australian national security history, the 1972 attack is more than just a footnote. The incident had real consequences for the political trajectories of both Australia and Yugoslavia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185499/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Mitchell Lee receives funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) Stipend Scholarship.</span></em></p>A largely forgotten incursion behind the Iron Curtain had reverberations in both countriesAlexander Mitchell Lee, PhD Candidate, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1814542022-04-26T12:35:06Z2022-04-26T12:35:06ZGoing underground: Ukraine’s subterranean fighters highlight the benefit – and long history – of tunnels in warfare<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459531/original/file-20220425-26-z10wv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C51%2C3431%2C2229&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ukrainian fighters entering a tunnel.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainian-soldiers-walk-through-a-tunnel-of-a-trench-on-the-news-photo/1239919477?adppopup=true">Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Faced with the prospect of sending Russian troops into subterranean combat, Vladimir Putin demurred. “There is no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground,” he <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-cancels-russian-plans-storm-mariupol-steel-plant-opts-blockade-instead-2022-04-21/">told his defense minister on April 21, 2022</a>, ordering him to cancel a planned storming of a steel plant in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.</p>
<p>While Putin’s back-up plan – to form a seal around trapped Ukrainian forces and wait it out – is no less brutal and there are reports that Russians <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-presidential-adviser-says-russian-forces-trying-storm-azovstal-plant-2022-04-24/">may still have mounted an offensive on the site</a>, Putin’s hesitancy to send his forces into a sprawling network of tunnels under the complex hints at a truth in warfare: Tunnels can be an effective tool in resisting an oppressor.</p>
<p>Indeed since the war began in February, reports have emerged of Ukrainian defenders <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10714221/Ukrainian-tunnel-fighters-Mariupol-hellish-stand-Stalingrad-esque-steel-plant.html">using underground tunnel networks</a> in efforts to deny Russian invaders control of major cities, as well as <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/preparing-odesas-catacombs-for-a-russian-assault">to provide sanctuary</a> <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-invasion-kyiv-underground-shelter-russia/31721685.html">for civilians</a>.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/ACSC/Display/Article/2480528/department-of-research/">expert in military history and theory</a>, I know there is sound thinking behind <a href="https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/190444/springer_-_tunneling_in_warfare.pdf">using tunnels as both a defensive and offensive tactic</a>. Such networks allow small units to move undetected by aerial sensors and emerge in unexpected locations to launch surprise attacks and then essentially disappear. For an invader who does not possess a thorough map of the subterranean passages, this can present a nightmare scenario, leading to massive personnel losses, plummeting morale and an inability to finish the conquest of their urban objective – all factors that may have factored in Putin’s <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mariupol-ukraine-putin-russia-plans-cancel/">decision not to send troops underground</a> in Mariupol.</p>
<h2>A history of military tunneling from ancient roots</h2>
<p>The use of tunnels and underground chambers in times of conflict is nothing new.</p>
<p>The use of tunnels has been a <a href="https://www.fpri.org/article/2015/04/fighting-under-the-earth-the-history-of-tunneling-in-warfare/">common aspect of warfare for millennia</a>. Ancient besieging forces used tunneling operations as a means to weaken otherwise well-fortified positions. This typically required engineers to construct long passages under walls or other obstacles. Collapsing the tunnel weakened the fortification. If well-timed, an assault conducted in the immediate aftermath of the breach might lead to a successful storming of the defended position. </p>
<p>One of the earliest examples of this technique is <a href="https://blog.britishmuseum.org/introducing-the-assyrians/">depicted on Assyrian carvings</a> that are thousands of years old. While some attackers climb ladders to storm the walls of an Egyptian city, others can be seen digging at the foundations of the walls. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An engraving shoes Assyrian fighters climbing ladders, engaged in combat and digging tunnels under a fortification." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459477/original/file-20220425-12-1manao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459477/original/file-20220425-12-1manao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459477/original/file-20220425-12-1manao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459477/original/file-20220425-12-1manao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459477/original/file-20220425-12-1manao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459477/original/file-20220425-12-1manao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459477/original/file-20220425-12-1manao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Assyrian engraving of the siege of an Egyptian fort.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blog.britishmuseum.org/introducing-the-assyrians/">The Trustees of the British Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.warhistoryonline.com/ancient-history/roman-sieges-used-mining-operations.html">Roman armies</a> relied heavily upon sophisticated engineering techniques such as putting arches into the tunnels they built during sieges. Roman defenders also perfected the <a href="https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2014/07/21/history-tunnel-warfare">art of digging counter-tunnels</a> to intercept those used by attackers before they presented a threat. Upon penetrating an enemy tunnel, they flooded it with caustic smoke to drive out the enemy or launched a surprise attack upon unsuspecting miners.</p>
<p>The success of tunneling under fortifications led European engineers in the Middle Ages to design ways to thwart the tactic. They built castles on bedrock foundations, making any attempt to dig beneath them much slower, and <a href="https://www.exploring-castles.com/castle_designs/medieval_castle_defence/">surrounded walls with moats</a> so that tunnels would need to be far deeper. </p>
<p>Although tunneling remained an important aspect of sieges through the 13th century, it was eventually replaced by the introduction of gunpowder artillery – which proved a more effective way to breach fortifications. </p>
<p>However, by the mid-19th century, advances in mining and tunnel construction led to a resurgence in subterranean approaches to warfare.</p>
<p>During the Crimean War in the 1850s, British and French attackers attempted to tunnel under Russian fortifications at the <a href="https://historyofyesterday.com/hell-on-earth-the-siege-of-sevastopol-d9c5b1a5f757">Battle of Sevastopol</a>. Ten years later, Ulysses S. Grant authorized an attempt to tunnel <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/calamity-crater">under Confederate defenses</a> at the siege of Petersburg, Virginia. In both cases, large caches of gunpowder were placed in chambers created by tunneling under key positions and detonated in coordination with an infantry assault. </p>
<h2>Tunneling in the age of airpower</h2>
<p>With warfare increasingly relying on aircraft in the 20th century, military strategists again turned to tunnels – undetectable from the skies and protected from falling bombs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white photo shows two soldiers in the First World War listening to a device while sat in a tunnel." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459556/original/file-20220425-13-obg0jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459556/original/file-20220425-13-obg0jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459556/original/file-20220425-13-obg0jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459556/original/file-20220425-13-obg0jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459556/original/file-20220425-13-obg0jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459556/original/file-20220425-13-obg0jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459556/original/file-20220425-13-obg0jq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Listening in under enemy lines during the First World War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/world-war-i-listening-in-a-tunnel-under-the-enemy-lines-in-news-photo/526496610?adppopup=true">adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty Images)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In World War I, tunneling was attempted as a means to launch surprise attacks on the Western Front, potentially bypassing the other side’s system of trenches and remaining undetected by aerial observers. In particular, the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1296207416304216">Ypres salient</a> in war-ravaged Belgium was the site of hundreds of tunnels dug by British and German miners, and the horrifying stories of combat under the earth provide one of the most terrifying vignettes of that awful war.</p>
<p>During World War II, Japanese troops in occupied areas in the Pacific <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/japanese-tunnels-of-baguio">constructed extensive tunnel networks</a> to make their forces virtually immune to aerial attack and naval bombardment from Allied forces. During amphibious assaults in places such as the Philippines and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/iwo-jima-world-war-ii-battle-photo-marines-japan-backstory-2018-2">Iwo Jima</a>, American and Allied forces had to contend with a warren of Japanese tunnel networks. Eventually they resorted to using high explosives to collapse tunnel entrances, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/15/world/iwo-jima-journal-a-pacific-isle-that-can-t-quite-rest-in-peace.html">trapping thousands</a> of Japanese troops inside. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/cu-chi-tunnels">Viet Cong tunnel networks</a>, particularly in the vicinity of Saigon, were an essential part of their guerrilla strategy and remain a popular tourist stop today. Some of the tunnels were large enough to house hospital and barracks facilities and strong enough to withstand anything short of nuclear bombardment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A drawing depicts men and women crawling along a tunnel structure in Vietnam" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459553/original/file-20220425-2721-wwyj5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459553/original/file-20220425-2721-wwyj5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459553/original/file-20220425-2721-wwyj5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459553/original/file-20220425-2721-wwyj5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459553/original/file-20220425-2721-wwyj5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459553/original/file-20220425-2721-wwyj5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459553/original/file-20220425-2721-wwyj5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Diagram of typical tunnel structure in Cu-Chi, Vietnam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/cu-chi-tunnels-vietman-asie-news-photo/947633266?adppopup=true">Didier Noirot/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The tunnels not only protected Vietnamese fighters from overwhelming American airpower, they also facilitated hit-and-run style attacks. Specialized “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/opinion/vietnam-war-tunnel-rat.html">tunnel rats</a>,” American soldiers who ventured into the tunnels armed only with a knife and pistol, became adept at navigating the tunnel networks. But they could not be trained in sufficient numbers to negate the value of the tunnel systems.</p>
<h2>Tunnels for terrorism</h2>
<p>In the 21st century, tunnels have been used to facilitate the activities of terror organizations. During the American-led invasion of Afghanistan, military operatives soon discovered that al-Qaida had fortified a series of tunnel networks connecting naturally occurring caves in the <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-111SPRT53709/html/CPRT-111SPRT53709.htm">Tora Bora</a> region.</p>
<p>Not only did they hide the movement of troops and supplies, they <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-111SPRT53709/html/CPRT-111SPRT53709.htm">proved impervious to virtually every weapon</a> in the U.S.-led coalition’s arsenal. The complexes included air filtration systems to prevent chemical contamination, as well as massive storerooms and sophisticated communications gear allowing al-Qaida leadership to maintain control over their followers.</p>
<p>And tunneling activity <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/06/04/1003387937/civilians-paid-a-steep-price-for-destroyed-tunnels-in-israeli-hamas-conflict">in and around Gaza</a> continues to provide a tool for Hamas to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/21/how-hamas-uses-its-tunnels-to-kill-and-capture-israeli-soldiers/">get fighters into Israeli territory</a>, while at the same time allowing Palestinians to circumvent Israel’s blockade of Gaza’s borders.</p>
<h2>Soviet tunnels and Ukraine</h2>
<p>Many of the tunnels being utilized today in Ukrainian efforts to defend the country were built in the Cold War-era, when the United States <a href="https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0601overfly/">routinely engaged in overflights</a> of Soviet territory.</p>
<p>To counteract the significant air and satellite advantage <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1293174/nato-russia-military-comparison/">held by the United States and NATO</a>, the Soviet military dug underground passages under major population centers. </p>
<p>These subterranean systems offered a certain amount of shelter for the civilian population in the event of a nuclear attack and allowed for the movement of military forces unobserved by the ever-present eyes in the sky. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>These same tunnels serve to connect much of the <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220413-mariupol-s-tunnel-warriors-seek-to-slow-russian-onslaught">industrial infrastructure</a> in Mariupol today – and have become a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mariupol-ukraine-putin-russia-plans-cancel/">major asset</a> for the outnumbered Ukrainian forces.</p>
<p>Other Ukrainian cities have similar systems, some dating back centuries. For example, Odesa, another key Black Sea port, has a <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44745/odesas-massive-maze-like-catacombs-could-be-bad-news-for-russian-invaders">catacomb network</a> stretching over 2,500 kilometers. It began as part of a limestone mining effort – and to date, there is <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44745/odesas-massive-maze-like-catacombs-could-be-bad-news-for-russian-invaders">no documented map</a> of the full extent of the tunnels. </p>
<p>In the event of a Russian assault on Odesa, the local knowledge of the underground passages might prove to be an extremely valuable asset for the defenders. The fact that more than 1,000 entrances to the catacombs have been identified should surely give Russian attackers pause before commencing any attack upon the city – just as the tunnels under a steelworks in Mariupol forced Putin to rethinks plans to storm the facility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul J. Springer is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His comments represent his own opinion and do not reflect the official policy of the United States Government, the U.S. Department of Defense, or the U.S. Air Force.</span></em></p>Ukrainian fighters are utilizing a maze of tunnels in Mariupol and other key cities. The use of the underground in conflict has a rich history.Paul J. Springer, Professor of Comparative Military Studies, Air UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.