| Part of a series on |
| War (outline) |
|---|
 |
Restraint in the military or armed groups, during war or insurgency, refers to "behaviour that indicates deliberate actions to limit the use of violence" with the aim of upholding the modern and professional principles of war, humanitarian rights, and minimizing political and military repercussions. [1] [2]
In the 17th century Hugo Grotius attempted to frame laws to act as a restraint on violence during war. However rather than law, fear of retaliation or pragmatism have had more impact. [3]
Throughout the Christian world I observed a lack of restraint in relation to war, such as even barbarous races should be ashamed of; I observed that men rush to arms for slight causes, or no cause at all, and that when arms have once been taken up there is no longer any respect for law, divine or human; it is as if, in accordance with a general decree, frenzy had openly been let loose for the committing of all crimes.
— Hugo Grotius, De jure belli ac pacis (The Law of War and Peace), trans. Francis Kelsey (Carnegie edition, 1925), Prol. sect. 28. [4]
Modern codification of restraints with regard to weapons and actions during war at an international level includes the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the 1929 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1950. [5] In 1977 Howard S. Levie says that a problem with the area of combat restraints is that "The problem in this area, as in many other areas, is not lack of law, it is lack of compliance with the law." [5] More recently, the United States Armed Forces Principles of Joint Operations lists 12 principles of which "restraint" is one. [2] Restraint became a part of the principles for the US military as early as 1990 when it was added to the principles of military operations other than war. [6]
Restraints on war arise from both political and military policies. [7] Connections between both these forms of policies can help increase the overall restraint. [7] This may refer to military-strategic restraint, say through disconnected military planning and inadequate political direction; [8] restraint from killing a non-combatant even at the expenses of incurring greater military casualties; [9] [10] restraint from excessive or disproportionate violence, use of indiscriminate weaponry, sexual violence, destruction of health infrastructure; [1] restraint during reprisals and retaliation. [5] Socialization and indoctrination of this restraint may be through training, hierarchy, doctrine, rules of engagement, constitutional law and force. [11] [12] The Australian Army's Royal Military College in Duntroon tests ethical compliance under extreme fatigue and stress, which in turn helps inculcate restraint under duress in real world situations. [11] Analysing patterns of violence and restraint help identify violence that is ordered as compared to excessive violence despite no orders for the same. [13] It would also help to identity causes of escalation and de-escalation. [9] Over time, the number of situations in which restraint is expected has increased. [1] Analysing periods of restraint as compared to violence can help identify the motivations behind restraint and in turn guide policy to predicting and controlling the violence. [14] Lack of restraint can cause a massacre, unrestrained war, unlimited war or total war. [15] [16]
From February 2010, ISAF in Afghanistan followed a policy of 'courageous restraint' during Operation Enduring Freedom. The policy advocated nonlethal force against non-combatants even in the most difficult of situations. [10]
Scholars and other commentators have labelled India's approach to retaliation, military strategy and other geo-political issues as 'strategic restraint'. [17] [18] However others argue against this label or signal a shift from it in recent years. [19] [20] [21]
Scholar James Ron put forward the idea of 'savage restraint' following a study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [22]
During the Palestinian uprising, Israeli troops used substantial violence to suppress Palestinian resistance to military occupation. At the same time, however, soldiers sought to maintain an aura of legality, limiting much of their violence to non-lethal, police-like methods, distorted though they were. Political and military elites knew the mission was to suppress the rebellion as quickly as possible, while simultaneously limiting Palestinian fatalities. [...] prompted Israeli leaders and their troops to develop innovative methods of non-lethal punishment which promoted Palestinian suffering, while avoiding overly blatant violations of formal procedure. Israeli army regulations governing the use of force were, thus, both constraining and enabling, limiting the intensity of violence, while permitting non-lethal distortion and elaboration. I termed the resulting repertoire of violence "savage restraint".
The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. Inhabited by mostly Palestinian refugees and their descendants, Gaza is one of the most densely populated territories in the world. Gaza is bordered by Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the east and north. The territory has been under Israeli occupation since 1967.
The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas, is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islamist political organisation with a military wing called the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. It has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip since 2007.
The organized International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 16 million volunteers, members, and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering.
Zionist political violence refers to acts of violence or terrorism committed by Zionists in support of establishing and maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine. These actions have been carried out by individuals, paramilitary groups, and the Israeli government, from the early 20th century to the present day, as part of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, borders, security, water rights, the permit regime, Palestinian freedom of movement, and the Palestinian right of return.
Hugo Grotius, also known as Hugo de Groot or Huig de Groot, was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, statesman, poet and playwright. A teenage prodigy, he was born in Delft and studied at Leiden University. He was imprisoned in Loevestein Castle for his involvement in the controversies over religious policy of the Dutch Republic, but escaped hidden in a chest of books that was regularly brought to him and was transported to Gorinchem. Grotius wrote most of his major works in exile in France.
The First Intifada, also known as the First Palestinian Intifada, was a sustained series of protests, acts of civil disobedience and riots carried out by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and Israel. It was motivated by collective Palestinian frustration over Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as it approached a twenty-year mark, having begun in the wake of the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. The uprising lasted from December 1987 until the Madrid Conference of 1991, though some date its conclusion to 1993, the year the Oslo Accords were signed.
A civilian is a person who is not a member of an armed force nor a person engaged in hostilities.
International humanitarian law (IHL), also referred to as the laws of armed conflict, is the law that regulates the conduct of war. It is a branch of international law that seeks to limit the effects of armed conflict by protecting persons who are not participating in hostilities and by restricting and regulating the means and methods of warfare available to combatants.
Palestinian political violence refers to actions carried out by Palestinians with the intent to achieve political objectives that can involve the use of force, some of which are considered acts of terrorism, and often carried out in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Common objectives of political violence by Palestinian groups include self-determination in and sovereignty over all of Palestine, or the recognition of a Palestinian state inside the 1967 borders. This includes the objective of ending the Israeli occupation. More limited goals include the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and recognition of the Palestinian right of return.
The Fatah–Hamas conflict is an ongoing political and strategic conflict between Fatah and Hamas, the two main Palestinian political parties in the Palestinian territories, leading to the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. The reconciliation process and unification of Hamas and Fatah administrations remains unfinalized and the situation is deemed a frozen conflict.
Targeted killing, or assassination is a tactic that the government of Israel has used during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the Iran–Israel proxy conflict, and other conflicts.
Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as in the Syrian Golan Heights, are illegal under international law. These settlements are in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and in breach of international declarations. In a 2024 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) relating to the Palestinian territories, the court reaffirmed the illegality of the settlements and called on Israel to end its occupation, cease its settlement activity, and evacuate all its settlers.
Targeted killing is a form of assassination carried out by governments outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield.
Lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) are a type of autonomous military system that can independently search for and engage targets based on programmed constraints and descriptions. LAWs are also known as lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), autonomous weapon systems (AWS), robotic weapons or killer robots. LAWs may operate in the air, on land, on water, underwater, or in space. The autonomy of systems as of 2018 was restricted in the sense that a human gives the final command to attack—though there are exceptions with certain "defensive" systems.
Palestinian stone-throwing refers to a Palestinian practice of throwing stones at people or property. It is a tactic with both a symbolic and military dimension when used against heavily-armed troops. Proponents, sympathizers, as well as some analysts have characterized stone throwing by Palestinians as a form of "limited", "restrained", "non-lethal" violence. Such stone-throwing can at times prove lethal: over a dozen Israelis, including women, children, and infants, have died as a result of stones being thrown at cars. Some Palestinians appear to regard it as symbolic and non-violent, given the disparity in power and equipment between the Israeli forces and the Palestinian stone-throwers. The state of Israel has passed laws to sentence throwers convicted of the charge to up to 10 years imprisonment even without proof of intent to harm. In some cases, Israelis have argued that it should be treated as a form of terrorism, or that, in terms of the psychology of those who hurl stones, even in defense or in protest, it is intrinsically aggressive.
The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has been under military occupation by Israel since 7 June 1967, when Israeli forces captured the territory, then ruled by Jordan, during the Six-Day War. The status of the West Bank as a militarily occupied territory has been affirmed by the International Court of Justice and, with the exception of East Jerusalem, by the Israeli Supreme Court. The West Bank, excepting East Jerusalem, is administered by the Israeli Civil Administration, a branch of the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Considered to be a classic example of an "intractable conflict", Israel's occupation is now the longest in modern history. Though its occupation is illegal, Israel has cited several reasons for retaining the West Bank within its ambit: historic rights stemming from the Balfour Declaration; security grounds, both internal and external; and the area's symbolic value for Jews.
In international humanitarian law and international criminal law, an indiscriminate attack is a military attack that fails to distinguish between legitimate military targets and protected persons. Indiscriminate attacks strike both legitimate military and protected objects alike, thus violating the principle of distinction between combatants and protected civilians. They differ from direct attacks against protected civilians and encompass cases in which the perpetrators are indifferent as to the nature of the target, cases in which the perpetrators use tactics or weapons that are inherently indiscriminate, and cases in which the attack is disproportionate, because it is likely to cause excessive protected civilian casualties and damages to protected objects.
Many scholars have argued that Palestinians have the right to resist under international law, including armed resistance. This right to resist is in a jus ad bellum sense only; the conduct of such resistance must be in accordance with laws of war. This implies that attacks on Israeli military targets could be allowed but attacks on Israeli civilians are prohibited. Whether it is Palestinians who have the right to resist against the Israeli occupation, or it is Israel that has the right to self-defense against Palestinian violence, is one of the most important questions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
[...] the disconnect between strategic purpose and military planning is both shaped by and reinforces military-strategic restraint in India's foreign policy [...]
The Roots of Restraint in War is an update of the 2004 Roots of Behaviour in War. Based on two years of research collaboration between the ICRC and six distinguished scholars [...]