AIR UNIVERSITY

AIR FORCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Chasing Success

Air Force Efforts to Reduce Civilian Harm

Sarah B. Sewall

Air University Press

Air Force Research Institute

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
ii

Project Editor

Dr. Ernest Allan Rockwell

Copy Editor

Carolyn Burns

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sewall, Sarah B.

Chasing success : Air Force efforts to reduce civilian 

harm / Sarah B. Sewall.

 pages cm

ISBN 978-1-58566-256-2

1. Air power—United States—Government policy. 

2. United States. Air Force—Rules and practice. 

3. Civilian war casualties—Prevention. 4. Civilian 

war casualties—Government policy—United States. 

5. Combatants and noncombatants (International 

law)—History. 6. War victims—Moral and ethical 

aspects. 7. Harm reduction—Government policy—

United States. 8. United States—Military policy—

Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title. II. Title: Air Force 

efforts to reduce civilian harm. 

UG633.S38 2015

358.4’03—dc23

 2015026952

Published by Air University Press in March 2016

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed 

or implied within are solely those of the authors and do 

not necessarily represent the official policy or position of 

the organizations with which they are associated or the 

views of the Air Force Research Institute, Air University, 

United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or any 

other US government agency. This publication is cleared 

for public release and unlimited distribution.

AIR FORCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

AIR UNIVERSITY PRESS

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AFRI

Air Force Research Institute
iii

Contents

Foreword v

Introduction vii

PART 1

AIRPOWER

 1 Rising Expectations of Airpower 3

 2 Airpower through the Cold War 23

 3 The Limits of Law 69

PART 2

IMPACT OF CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

 4 Air Campaigns of the 1990s 103

 5 Institutional Adaptation 147

 6 The Future of Civilian Casualty Prevention 175

 7 Success 191

 Abbreviations 195

 Bibliography 199

 Index 223

v

Foreword

Discussions concerning civilian casualties in warfare continue to 

elicit very emotional responses among the public at large. Dr. Sarah 

Sewall, in Chasing Success: Air Force Efforts to Reduce Civilian Harm, 

depicts the US Air Force’s efforts over the past twenty-plus years being at the vanguard of minimizing civilian harm in conflict while still 

effectively pursuing military objectives. When the Air Force Research 

Institute turned to Dr. Sewall to write this work, we understood that 

warfare is a messy business. At its core, when other elements of 

national power have failed to persuade and deter, warfare is about 

forcing one’s will upon an adversary, including applying controlled 

violence. History is rife with examples of civilizations falling after 

their armies in the field are defeated and their cities are sacked, looted, 

and burned. The nature of modern warfare extracted an increasingly 

high toll on civilians as weapons became more deadly. As early as our 

own Civil War, the American military has become increasingly aware 

of civilian casualties—as has the international community, following 

the close of World War II. Nazi Germany’s attacks on London utilizing 

terror weapons, such as the V-1 and V-2, and the Allied bombings of 

Dresden and Hiroshima demonstrated the totality of warfare in the 

modern era. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 attempted to define 

the basic rights of not just wartime prisoners but also to establish 

protection for civilians in and around a war zone.

Warfare has become increasingly more complex. Some organizations, like the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), are following 

the old historical examples in which they convert, enslave, or murder 

the civilian residents in conquered territories. In other conflicts, with 

the rise of insurgencies across the globe, standing militaries no longer 

meet on a battlefield where identifiable fronts and protected zones 

exist. In Iraq and Afghanistan, adversaries hiding within civilian 

populations have become the norm rather than the exception. 

Precision-guided munitions (PGM) have enabled more accurate 

delivery of kinetic effects, improving airpower’s effectiveness while 

reducing risk to friendly forces. PGMs have also enabled airpower to 

reduce collateral damage and civilian casualties through more precise 

targeting. Yet PGMs, and the humans who deliver them, are not infallible, nor is the targeting information obtained during wartime perfect. Thus, unintended effects can be reduced but never completely 

eliminated. An open dialogue on such controversial issues as civilian 
vi

casualties depicts the true strength of our Air Force and demonstrates 

the best attributes of a military operating inside a democratic society. 

It is in this spirit of open dialogue that we present Dr. Sewall’s work 

on a very timely and emotionally charged subject.

ALLEN G. PECK

Director

Air Force Research Institute
vii

Introduction

The United States Air Force (USAF) has led the way within the US 

armed forces and globally in its efforts to minimize harm to civilians 

during combat operations. Given the frequency with which newspapers document errant air strikes that have killed many noncombatants, this claim may seem counterintuitive. Yet when evaluated in 

historical and comparative perspective, modern US-led air campaigns cause surprisingly few civilian casualties.

This development—the increased ability to minimize civilian 

harm—was not inevitable. Yes, evolving technology made it physically possible to become more discriminate and precise in the use of 

force. However, the refinement and use of that technology reflected 

conscious choices. These choices were not undertaken for moral reasons, because Airmen already believed that they were acting in accordance with the law and with ethical requirements. Rather, the 

world’s changing normative views about the use of force, in tandem 

with the transparency and scrutiny accompanying every bomb, 

shaped the evolution of US airpower. These developments led to increasing political constraints upon how the military applied airpower 

and even raised questions about airpower’s continued salience in 

modern limited war.

Fundamentally, the USAF’s pathbreaking focus on preventing 

civilian harm reflected its institutional interest in sustaining airpower as a tool of choice in war and ensuring maximum freedom of 

operations during air campaigns. This exemplary transformation of 

processes, tools, and thinking offers important lessons for the US 

military and for the future of armed conflict.

Beginning in the 1990s, the USAF began making—in discrete but 

mutually reinforcing ways—conscious efforts to help the service 

more effectively minimize civilian casualties during air operations. In 

this book, I explain how discrete operational experiences—reflecting 

broader trends—prompted innovation. These innovations began initially during ongoing air operations but later catalyzed a deeper institutional change that shaped the future of airpower. Ironically, perhaps, these improvements in turn heightened expectations that 

civilians could be spared the horror of war. Thus, the USAF began 

chasing its own success. In this book, I seek to explain and trace this 

process.
viii

Fighting with integrity, and in particular minimizing civilian 

harm, offers benefits for a professional military force and the nation 

it represents. Respect for civilians reflects the United State’s moral 

identity and helps maintain its global reputation and legitimacy. 

Fighting well reinforces the military’s professionalism and ethical 

standards. Minimizing civilian harm also provides an essential psychological bulwark for individuals legally sanctioned to kill other human 

beings in armed conflict. A moral approach to warfare can (but is not 

guaranteed to) also yield tactical, operational, and strategic advantages. Yet an institutional commitment to avoiding noncombatant 

deaths also entails diverse costs, which suggests that, even when undertaken, it may remain fragile.

Skepticism about the need to expand protection of civilians reflects several misconceptions. One common misconception is that 

civilian protection inherently increases risk to American troops. My 

field research in Afghanistan demonstrated that this is not necessarily true; many win-win solutions exist, and more remain to be developed. The nature of airpower and the likelihood of US air superiority 

may allow airpower more such opportunities than can be found for 

land forces. Even where risks do shift, minor additional risk to combatants may greatly enhance the safety of those who play no role in 

armed conflict. Combatants’ willingness to help assure civilian safety 

is the essence of “fighting well,” according to political philosopher 

Michael Walzer.1 Nevertheless, even before engaging this claim, military forces can exploit avenues for protecting civilians without changing their own risk equations.

A second source of resistance to civilian protection revolves 

around the expectation itself. Some express a resigned fatalism toward civilian death in armed conflict. More commonly, though, the 

notion that they are not already doing everything possible to minimize civilian casualties offends military actors. They believe that they 

are doing everything they can (which is what US officials often assert), and they can recall specific efforts to avoid killing noncombatants. They assume this illustrates sufficiency of effort—exhausting 

the possibilities of protection.

Others argue that standard is purely a legal matter and that the 

strong US commitment to upholding international law axiomatically 

ensures adequate civilian protection. Yet the law of armed conflict is 

quite forgiving. While prohibiting belligerent parties from purposefully targeting civilians, international law accepts indirect or accidental 

introduction
ix

civilian harm in war under certain conditions. US warfighters are required to uphold the law, and they take solace in the fact that they do 

not intend to kill noncombatants even when combatants die. Largely 

satisfied with the standard of legal compliance, the military long eschewed a deeper examination of morally desirable or operationally 

possible capabilities and behaviors that might exceed the floor established by the law of armed conflict.

However, expectations of what it means to fight well, and therefore 

of airpower, have changed in recent decades. Today, even when armed 

forces make assiduous efforts to avoid inflicting harm, they are still 

criticized when civilian deaths result. This is especially true of US 

military forces, which have long been regarded as omnipotent. More 

stringent normative expectations—largely those of foreign nations 

and publics—have exerted a growing influence on the US conduct of 

war. This was often evidenced by the operational restrictions political 

and military leaders felt compelled to impose in the aftermath of civilian casualty incidents during military operations in the 1990s.

Developing tools and techniques to proactively avoid civilian 

harm offered the USAF a route to preserve its relevance and operational flexibility. The right thing and the smart thing became synonymous. Accordingly, the USAF developed new tactics, technologies, 

and concepts that saved countless noncombatant lives. Instead of asserting the legal sufficiency of its actions or arguing that it showed 

more care than did its adversaries, the USAF led the US military toward a deeper awareness and institutional commitment to avoid killing civilians.

Over the past two decades, I have worked closely with many actors 

who figure centrally in this story of US military adaptation. In the 

early 1990s, I served as the inaugural deputy assistant secretary for 

peacekeeping in the Department of Defense, helping the military 

adapt to post–Cold War requirements. More recently, I helped revise 

US counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine and led a team to create US 

doctrine for responding to mass atrocities. I initiated and directed 

the seminal 2010 Joint Civilian Casualty Study to evaluate the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, providing operational and long-term institutional recommendations for the US 

armed forces to reduce civilian harm.2

I also directed the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and serve 

on the board of a humanitarian relief organization. At Harvard, I 

think, teach, and write about the use of force, where my military students 

introduction
x

introduction

teach me in return. In addition, for years I led an intimate dialogue 

between human rights activists and active duty and retired military 

personnel about minimizing civilian harm during military operations.3 Based on these experiences, I have sought to accurately reflect 

and explain the perspectives of outsiders who voice humanitarian 

expectations about the use of force and those in uniform who strive 

to meet those expectations.

This book emerged from conversations with Gen John A. Shaud, 

USAF, retired, then the director of the Air Force Research Institute 

(AFRI), who encouraged me to help the USAF think critically about 

the topic of civilian harm. I am grateful for his vision and openness in 

welcoming a different voice into the airpower discussion. I am especially indebted to Dr. Dan Mortensen, the recently retired dean of 

AFRI. This writing hinged on his insightful questions, inexhaustible 

patience, and personal inspiration. Finally, I thank Dr. Chris Cain for 

his thorough and exacting comments and corrections.

This book examines how international expectations intersected 

with the USAF’s fight for autonomy and utility, explains how the 

USAF began to change, and asks how airpower—and the US military 

as a whole—might further deepen its efforts. I hope the book expands 

perspectives on assessing and directing the use of airpower and inspires further work to maximize both mission accomplishment and 

civilian protection. The recent evolution of US airpower offers inspiring, if incomplete, evidence that the conduct of war can become more 

humane while remaining effective. Technology, adversaries, and the 

goals of armed conflict will continue to evolve, but the central challenge of humanizing war will endure. This volume is just a first, tentative draft of a story that today’s USAF has yet to finish.

I have organized the book into two parts. Part one outlines the 

challenge that contemporary expectations about the American use of 

force pose for airpower. The first chapter describes the emerging 

norm of minimizing civilian casualties and the increased scrutiny of 

US airpower. The second chapter provides historical context for evaluating US military operations, reviewing the relationship between 

airpower and civilian casualties from airpower’s beginnings through 

the Cold War. This history alternates between tracing operational experience and showing how Americans reconciled airpower’s claims 

of precision with its record of inflicting civilian casualties. The third 

chapter looks in depth at the law of armed conflict, highlighting key 

controversies and showing why the law’s requirements (particularly 
xi

introduction

as understood by the US military) fall short of the contemporary expectations of minimizing civilian harm.

The second part of this book describes the USAF’s adaptation to 

modern expectations of civilian protection, tracing operational experiences during the 1990s and the consequent operational and institutional innovation. The fourth chapter details how civilian casualty 

incidents during Operation Desert Storm and Operation Allied Force 

led to operational restrictions on airpower and convinced the USAF 

to proactively shape its ability to minimize civilian harm. The fifth 

chapter chronicles those efforts and shows how they helped prepare 

airpower for success in COIN operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The sixth reviews additional challenges and the limitations of change 

to date. The seventh chapter concludes with an outline of what “chasing 

success” ultimately demands of the entire US military.

Notes

1. This is a central argument in Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral 

Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977).

2. Sarah Sewall and Larry Lewis, Joint Civilian Casualty Study (JCCS), Sponsor 

Review Version (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University and Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 2 August 2010). The core research team included Dr. Lawrence 

Lewis; Lt Col Randy White, US Army; and Maj Gen Geoffrey Lambert, US Army, 

retired. Cliff Tompkins and Lt Col Andy Lipina, USAF, from the Headquarters USAF 

Lessons Learned Directorate were key contributors.

3. I directed the National Security and Human Rights (NSHR) program at the 

Harvard Kennedy School of Government from 2001 to 2008. I convened more than 

a dozen two-day conferences involving over 100 members of the military, legal, and 

human rights communities to discuss military operations and humanitarian issues. 

Contributions from these discussions are referred to collectively as the NSHR Proceedings.

PART 1

Airpower 

The purpose of bombing is damage.

—John E. Burchard

Rockets, Guns and Targets

Chapter 1

Rising Expectations of Airpower

In June 2009 the United States Air Force’s (USAF) Office for Analyses, Assessments and Lessons Learned, known as “A9,” released a 

report entitled Kinetic Airpower and Civilian Casualties.

1

 It was the 

service’s response to a growing chorus of criticism blaming airpower 

for causing many civilian casualties (CIVCAS, in military parlance) 

in Afghanistan. The analysts at A9 decided it was time to get some 

facts on the table.

The A9 staff had studied US airpower in previous conflicts with an 

eye to improving capabilities for the future fight. These true believers 

had tolerated a lot of public grousing about airpower’s successes over 

the past decade. After the 1999 Operation Allied Force in Kosovo, 

critics disputed that aerial bombing had been responsible for the victory. The airpower-driven 2001 rout of the Taliban from Kabul renewed resentment about airpower’s starring role. The Army and Marine Corps claimed vindication after the 2003 combined arms “march 

to Baghdad,” and they stressed the need for staying power in the form 

of boots on the ground. Ensuing years of counterinsurgency (COIN) 

operations required the USAF (and the Navy) to suppress doctrinal 

passions for strategic effects and labor dutifully in support of ground 

forces.

However, by 2009 the complaints about airpower picked up again, 

now focused on civilian harm. The air staff was accustomed to human rights activists, the media, and international watchdogs like the 

United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights criticizing bombing for causing civilian casualties. In fact, the nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) had just issued 

a report entitled Off Target that mixed praise with pointed charges 

against USAF targeting practices. Now the internal criticism about 

airpower causing civilian deaths was heating up, A9 wrote, with 

“numerous articles and letters to key national and international 

leadership . . . published/sent in the past few weeks/days.”2

The tipping point appeared to be a comment from Brig Gen Michael 

Tucker, US Army, then serving as deputy commander of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). “If we got more boots on 

the ground,” he said “we would not have to rely as much on” air-
4 │ RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER

strikes.3 Perhaps it was oversensitivity, but airpower proponents saw 

General Tucker’s comment as blaming airpower for civilian harm in 

Afghanistan and as suggesting that more troops would reduce aerial 

bombing and therefore reduce civilian harm.4

 The USAF expected 

humanitarian criticism but not such critique from within the military—

and certainly not an argument for more ground forces.

The ironies were rich. The Army and Marine Corps had blazed 

their way to Baghdad, keeping safe by shooting anything that moved 

while asking airpower to pave their way. A ground commander had 

requested almost every USAF bomb dropped in Afghanistan. The 

subordination of Airmen to Soldiers or Marines was hard enough for 

a service that highly valued its independence and strategic contributions. However, if airpower was harming noncombatants in the tactical COIN fight, it was the ground commander’s call. Since the ground 

commander often called upon airpower to protect his Soldiers or 

Marines, it hardly seemed appropriate to blame the folks who came 

to their rescue. More important to the analysts at A9, the implications 

just did not ring true.

A9 set out to do “root cause analysis and data fireproofing,” but 

they had little data with which to work.5

 The military had not systematically collected information on civilian deaths. The A9 analysts had 

access to the ISAF airstrike mission reports (although they lacked 

records for special operations forces and for the helicopter gunships 

operated by ground forces). On civilian casualties, the best data they 

could find belonged to HRW.6

 A9 demonstrated its openness and 

commitment to improvement by requesting the group’s information. 

Using these two sources of data for civilian casualty “events” (incidents in which civilian casualties occurred) between January 2006 

and July 2008, A9 was able to match 25 of the events that HRW documented with 64 US airstrikes.7

While the analysis was limited, it painted a clear picture of correlation: as ground operations increased, so did the use of airpower—

along with numbers of civilian casualties. A9 examined historical 

data. In Iraq, too, airpower use increased along with ground operations.8

 In the Vietnam War, the rate of tactical air sorties tracked declines in troop levels.9

The findings were also consistent with the argument that ground 

forces had been making since Kosovo: the components of the US 

military are most powerful when combined. Airpower helps ground 

forces achieve their objectives while protecting Soldiers and Marines. 
RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER │ 5

Therefore, it was hardly surprising that when ground forces in Afghanistan were more active, airpower followed suit—as did civilian 

harm. The analysis suggested that civilian casualty levels should be 

seen as a function of ground force activity and air strikes.

A9 also sought to assess the scale and meaning of the civilian casualty 

incidents in Afghanistan. This was a more challenging proposition, 

given the scarcity and unevenness of data. HRW does not pretend to 

capture all incidents of civilian harm; it analyzes the cases it is able to 

fully document. Other collections of data were equally or more 

flawed.10 Looking for causal patterns, the A9 team tried sorting strikes 

by critical differences such as the type of ground control used, aircraft, weapons, and target. A9 was able to discern that attacks on 

structures were associated with a sizably higher percentage of civilian 

casualties, presumably because civilians sometimes shelter in structures and cannot be seen beneath roofs.

The principal purpose of the A9 analysis was a “worst-case [civilian 

casualties] airstrike rate of approximately 0.9%.”11 I consider it unlikely that only the 25 cross-referenced airstrikes had caused civilian 

harm over the entire two-and-a-half-year period in Afghanistan. 

Based on empirical research later in the Afghan conflict, I believe the 

available data on civilian casualty incidents was insufficient to allow 

for an accurate estimate during that period.

Nonetheless, even if the civilian casualty figures were low, one 

could double or triple the numbers, and they would still comprise an 

extremely small percentage of US air strikes. This standard, the percentage of total strikes, conjured up a different picture than that suggested in newspaper coverage of significant incidents. A big part of 

the problem, as A9 saw it, was that “Air induced CIVCAS incidents 

always make the headlines!”12

Scrutiny of Airpower

The A9 analysis offered an alternative narrative about civilian casualties, one that focused on the frequency of incidents as part of an 

overall pattern of military activity in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, other 

observers had a different perception of how and why civilian casualties mattered. In addition, while US airpower had been a powerful 

magnet for critics, fundamental changes in the nature of war, communication, and society were shifting the terrain, heightening both 
6 │ RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER

the scrutiny and expectations of airpower. I review these changes 

below.

Perceptions of Strategic Bombing

Airpower has always received special scrutiny.13 In part, this reflects the destructive legacy of its comparative advantage: attacks on 

strategic targets. In America’s deeper consciousness, airpower still 

carries the burden of civilian devastation during World War II. Like 

robbing banks because “that’s where the money is,” strategic bombing 

is generally conducted in urban areas because they are often components of a nation’s center of gravity. Almost by definition, then, strategic 

bombing connotes civilian deaths.

Dramatic modern images of bombing cities evoke the total devastation of World War II. The filmed “shock and awe” air campaign in 

Operation Desert Storm, indeed almost any visual depiction of aerial 

attacks in urban areas, conveys an impression of massive destruction 

even when the reality may be quite different.14

Discrete Events

Airpower is often the focus of humanitarian criticism simply because of the relative ease of observing it. Ground forces generally employ multiple simultaneous and overlapping fires, while airstrikes are 

discrete events, more readily traced, attributed, and analyzed. The 

mission reports used by A9 analysts are just one example of this 

transparency. Many aircraft feature onboard video cameras to record 

their strikes. Pilots provide detailed mission reports on their bombing runs, and the USAF conducts thorough safety investigations 

whenever a problem arises. The learning is swiftly cycled into mission 

preparations and throughout the force. This works to airpower’s advantage for refining and improving performance. The flip side is that 

outsiders also have more data regarding air strikes.

Magnified Civilian Impact

Furthermore, when airpower goes wrong, the results can be spectacularly horrific. Because the impact of a 500- or 1,000-pound bomb 

exceeds that of a single bullet or tank round, the resulting civilian 

harm can be enormous. Obviously, any weapon can cause mass 
RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER │ 7

casualties depending upon the frequency and context of its use; artillery shelling in populated areas is a common historical source of high 

collateral damage.15 However, per firing incident, the very destructive 

power of aerial bombing creates liabilities in terms of impact upon 

civilians. In Afghanistan, for example, A9 found that air strikes on 

structures generally produced the largest numbers of civilian casualties per strike. Incidents in which a single bomb kills a dozen family 

members are more likely to receive attention than the shooting of a 

vehicle driver at a checkpoint. The scale is different, the means more 

sensational, and the attribution may be easier.

Attribution

US responsibility for air-delivered bombs is easier to determine 

than is the patrimony of a shell or bullet. Re-creating the facts in a 

firefight is far more complex than finding an enormous bomb crater. 

Where a US-led coalition is effectively the only belligerent flying aircraft, as has been true in recent decades, the responsibility for physical 

damage is undisputed and national responsibility easily assigned.

The actual reasons why civilians were killed may be complex and 

remain opaque to outsiders. For example, airpower is often faulted 

for civilian deaths that result proximately from faulty intelligence or 

from an adversary’s refusal to allow civilians to leave a building.16

Nevertheless, if the mechanism of harm is clearly an aerial platform, 

outsiders can more easily determine the source of civilian harm, subjecting airpower to a much higher degree of scrutiny and forcing a 

greater level of responsibility for the consequences of individual 

actions.

Perceptions of Risk

Less tangible factors may also shape perceptions. In recent decades, US aircraft have not faced a real competitor in the sky, and 

Airmen have rarely been shot down or lost their lives during combat 

operations. Sometimes (as in the wars with Iraq) the threat was real, 

but the United States was able to neutralize enemy air capability early 

in the conflict. In other cases, adversaries were so militarily weak 

(e.g., Yugoslavia or Afghanistan) that their air forces offered no 

meaningful threat.

Adversary air defenses remained a threat to US aircraft, but Airmen could generally mitigate these threats. This was a very different 
8 │ RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER

reality than that facing US ground forces in the wars in Iraq or in 

Afghanistan. Perceptions of greater physical risk to ground forces—

based on US casualties in recent conflicts—may result in greater tolerance accorded civilian harm inflicted by Soldiers and Marines. Fair 

or not, the relatively lower casualty rates among aircrews likely increases the opprobrium when airpower causes civilian casualties.

Some analysts have even suggested that demographic trends 

within industrialized nations, in particular low birth rates, have reinforced sensitivities to the loss of human life overall. The claim originated as an explanation of alleged casualty aversion in the United 

States and Western Europe.17 However, in the United States it is unclear that any demographic sensitivity to national deaths extends to 

foreign civilians. Compared to the political discourse in Western 

Europe, the US public and government only rarely discuss the issue 

of civilian casualties. Given the inherent trade-offs between force 

protection and civilian protection, particularly in close combat, 

heightened sensitivity to US casualties might in fact dampen popular 

concern about the protection of foreign civilians.

Expectations of the US Military

Humanitarian criticism of US military operations is partly a result 

of those operations’ success. Success breeds expectations. Although 

civilian suffering increased dramatically during the world wars, the 

United States and its allies fought subsequent conflicts with relatively 

fewer noncombatant deaths.18 The scale of civilian casualties during 

World War II dwarfs that of Korea and Vietnam.19 The death tolls in 

Korea and Vietnam in turn make even the most expansive estimates 

of civilian casualties in Desert Storm seem modest.20

In particular, the air wars of past decades have set a new standard. 

In 1995, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Operation 

Deliberate Force caused tens of civilian casualties.21 The 1999 Kosovo 

air campaign killed about 500 civilians. Air operations to topple Libya’s 

Mu‘ammar Gadhafi in 2011 reportedly killed fewer than one hundred 

Libyan civilians.22 As advanced militaries showed that they could successfully employ force while causing fewer civilian deaths, observers 

came to expect such results. Because such outcomes are possible, they 

can reasonably be considered desirable.
RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER │ 9

Superiority

The United States’ overall strategic superiority after the end of the 

Cold War shapes assessments of its military performance, including 

how discriminately and precisely it should employ force. Observers 

presume that states with far greater power have greater control or 

choice in their actions. Perceived imbalances among combatants’ 

military power reduce tolerance for the “unintended consequences” 

imposed by the stronger force. Even as adversaries adopt illegal tactics, 

their relative weakness appears to insulate them from equivalent 

expectations about the precise and controlled use of force.

Technology

Specific technologies reinforce impressions of omnipotence. The 

United States may have done itself a disservice by so triumphantly 

touting its precision weapons. In 1991 US officials released images of 

“smart” weapons maneuvering to their targets during Operation 

Desert Storm. This created an indelible impression that the United 

States could fully control the effects of war.23 The lingering fascination 

and faith in smart bomb technology is particularly relevant for expectations of airpower.24 Today, senior air officials complain that the 

world expects the United States to use only precision munitions.25

However, more specifically, the expectation is that precise targeting 

will spare the innocent. Because the United States says it has just that 

ability, outsiders find it hard to believe that collateral damage is accidental.

Pledges

Pledges to avoid civilian harm also heighten expectations. In 1991 

Pres. George H. W. Bush emphasized that the world’s quarrel was 

with Saddam Hussein, not the Iraqi people, and said the United States 

was “doing everything possible” to minimize casualties during Operation Desert Storm.26 During the 1999 air campaign over Kosovo, 

Secretary of Defense William Cohen said, “We will do everything in 

our power to minimize the damage to innocent civilians, but they 

will occur in the future, they have occurred in the past. We will do 

our best to see that they’re at a minimum.”27 Military leaders also 

promised extraordinary efforts or “all possible measures” to avoid civilian casualties.28 In Afghanistan, too, Secretary of Defense Robert 
10 │ RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER

Gates stated, “The United States and coalition partners do everything 

we can to avoid civilian casualties.”29

When the dominant global military power, possessing the most advanced military technology, vows to do everything possible to avoid 

harming civilians while using force, high expectations logically result. 

Scrutiny of War

It is not just airpower, or the United States, that faces greater scrutiny today. The use of force generally receives far more attention and 

analysis than was true during the Cold War. There are more actors 

monitoring conflicts, it is easier to monitor and disseminate information about conflict, and the changing nature of conflict invites a humanitarian critique.

The Human Rights Movement

Human rights ideals have been a driving force in reshaping expectations of war, and they have drawn new actors into the assessment of 

armed conflict. The UN’s Declaration of Human Rights captured a 

post–World War II international consensus that the person, not just 

the state, had independent rights and standing in the world. This idea 

has been developed and codified in a growing body of international 

and national law.

Human rights are at the core of the “principle of distinction” in 

Western moral and legal reasoning about war. In 1977 moral philosopher Michael Walzer recast the need to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants during armed conflict as the need to preserve a civilian’s fundamental right to life.30 Human rights ideals were 

simultaneously animating revisions (the 1977 Additional Protocols 

to the Geneva Conventions) of the law governing the conduct of war.

Human rights advocacy has become institutionalized within governments and international institutions and through an abundance 

of nongovernmental organizations (NGO). Many of these organizations are now engaged in monitoring armed conflict, once largely a 

preserve of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).31

Founded in 1859 to assist wounded soldiers, the ICRC’s mandate has 

expanded along with the law of armed conflict to focus increasingly 

on civilian harm. Today the ICRC has plenty of company. UN bodies, 

international human rights advocacy organizations, and local NGOs 
RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER │ 11

now focus on the conduct of war—primarily in order to ensure the 

physical security of civilians caught in armed conflict.

Aligned with these groups are the humanitarian “doers”—actors 

who provide humanitarian assistance directly to the victims of conflict. This includes such organizations as Oxfam, Doctors without 

Borders, Save the Children, and other organizations around the 

world.32 Some groups (such as CARE, ICRC, and UN agencies) assist 

victims of war in addition to advocating civilian protection. Likeminded actors, most notably a group of predominantly European 

states and international lawyers, often work closely with human 

rights organizations to strengthen civilian protection.33

Broadly speaking, these groups subscribe to a particular perspective that one can summarize as the philosophy of international 

humanitarian law (IHL).34 The humanitarian perspective is absolutist 

at its core, committed to protecting the rights of each individual. Unlike the military, which begins from the premise that it must win the 

nation’s wars, humanitarians see the civilian as the point of departure 

for understanding war. Regardless of their positions on the legitimacy of force generally or the morality of a particular conflict, human rights groups see the civilian as their voiceless client.35 This community of organizations works to encourage militaries and governments 

to protect civilians and seeks to strengthen laws, expectations, and 

practices that promote this objective.

As evaluators and interpreters of military activity from the humanitarian angle, these actors articulate and help drive rising expectations surrounding civilian protection. They contribute to the development of law and the development of a broader public understanding 

of military operations. In the public debate, their perspective challenges, balances, or augments official government accounts of how 

wars are fought. Major American human rights and humanitarian 

organizations number only in the dozens, yet their impact is magnified because others—the press, public, civil society, other governments, etc.—rely upon them to understand or assess the use of force.

Goals of War

Changes in the reasons why the United States and its allies use 

armed force have also shaped evaluations of how force is applied. It 

has been almost 70 years since the world has seen total war. Subsequent US conflicts were limited wars, wars of choice, and humanitarian 
12 │ RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER

wars (or all three). These limited armed conflicts cast humanitarian 

consequences in sharper relief and raise questions about the limits of 

necessity itself.

If a war has limited objectives, logic suggests that its military 

means will likewise be constrained. This linkage can be controversial, 

as was the case during the Vietnam War.36 Some voices called the 

war’s methods indiscriminate, while others argued that constraints 

on force made military victory impossible. While escalation of the air 

war was a reality, it was difficult to make the case for “taking off the 

gloves” while seeking to disengage.

A separate factor shaping judgments of war is the emergence of 

humanitarian intervention. It is harder to justify killing innocents 

during a war fought for humanitarian purposes. NATO experienced 

this reality during Operation Unified Protector in Libya. The emergence of the global concept of “responsibility to protect” has attracted 

greater humanitarian interest in the use of force, albeit interest that is 

deeply sensitive to the contradictions of using force in the name of 

protection. The end of total war and its stark necessities now casts 

civilian harm in a harsher light.

Transparency of War

Modern telecommunications and other technologies magnify 

public sensitivity to the human consequences of war.37 War is more 

immediately and viscerally observed than in the past. Even as international news reporting shrinks and the United States insists on embedding journalists within its armed forces, technology has “democratized” reporting in the hands of citizens and adversaries. News is 

available nonstop and disseminated throughout the world nearly instantaneously. CNN broadcasted live from Baghdad in 1991; citizens 

in Belgrade blogged throughout the Kosovo bombing campaign; and 

Al Jazeera showed film of insurgents’ suicide bombings in Iraq. There 

is greater scope for both information and misinformation about war. 

As a result, the United States must devote significant effort to managing 

information regarding its forces’ conduct and that of its adversaries.

All these factors help explain why observers criticize military 

forces, especially US forces, and particularly the USAF, for harming 

noncombatants.38 However, what exactly are these expectations?
RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER │ 13

The New Norm

The contemporary norm is a variation on an ancient theme, one 

that raises the bar from doing “enough” to “doing everything possible” 

to minimize civilian harm during armed conflict.39

For centuries, civilian deaths were accepted as an inevitable, if unfortunate, corollary of war. Moral codes, religious traditions, military 

customs, and eventually international laws noted the distinction 

between combatants and noncombatants and expected military 

forces to avoid harm to civilians. Yet civilian deaths were accepted so 

long as combatants intended to avoid them and the action was a “military necessity.” In contrast to this view, the violence of terrorism—

intentional attacks on noncombatants—was deeply repugnant and 

illegal.

The US armed forces long considered civilian harm a legal issue 

and believed that compliance with the law of armed conflict (LOAC) 

meant that forces were doing enough to minimize noncombatant 

deaths.40 In chapter three, I discuss the law as a standard for judging 

the conduct of war and explore the relationship of legal and normative discourse about war.

Here, I consider the character of the modern norm and why—unlike

the LOAC—the norm is so challenging for the US armed forces. First, 

and most significantly, the norm judges results—not intent. Second, 

it applies an elastic—not a universal—standard that demands more 

of more capable parties. Third, the primacy of effects and elasticity of 

the standard leaves zero civilian casualties as the only unquestioned 

success. These three distinctions, detailed below, make the modern 

norm a vexing standard for any military, one that US service members 

experience as a “zero civilian casualties” norm.

Effects

In recent decades, the standards applied by outsiders to US military actions demonstrate that good intentions are no longer enough. 

A compelling example is the 1991 US bombing of the Amiriyah bunker 

in Baghdad, Iraq. The US military unintentionally killed hundreds of 

civilians taking shelter in a military facility.41 The United States 

targeted a military objective in good faith, and there was little debate 

about the legality of the strike. Yet the effects of the strike on civilians 

had enormous negative impact on the United States.
14 │ RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER

Modern observers of war focus on the effects of military action 

upon civilians rather than the intent or context of the action that is so 

vital for applying legal standards. Opprobrium and associated political 

costs attach to the fact of civilian harm, regardless of its justification.42

Governments can argue that they did not intend to cause the harm, 

that they could not reasonably have foreseen the harm, or even that 

an adversary made it impossible to avoid the harm.43 Yet these explanations carry little weight among humanitarian critics or international publics in the twenty-first century.

This is why civilian casualty figures remain so politically sensitive. 

In the 1980s, American NGOs began tallying noncombatant “body 

counts” during US military interventions. Even as the United States 

often challenged these numbers, it long resisted demands that the 

government account for foreign civilian deaths. By the mid-2000s, 

the US military in Iraq began compiling its own figures and used 

civilian casualty trends to assess the international forces’ COIN success. The US military continues to classify its own civilian casualty 

count, while watchdog organizations and global media have become 

increasingly adept at documenting civilian deaths given the transparency of war and communications technology.44

Even if the military and its critics could agree on the numbers of 

civilian casualties in a given strike or conflict, they would unlikely 

agree upon the meaning of those numbers. They may still dispute the 

legality of the strikes, their causes, whether they might have been 

avoided and at what cost, or the relationship of the deaths to military 

goals. In practice, governments and publics can regard attacks that 

cause great civilian harm as unacceptable for a myriad of reasons—

even when these attacks can legally be justified by the United States.45

The numbers themselves can have political impact.

Elasticity

The second respect in which the modern norm is more demanding, particularly of the United States, is its elasticity. Compliance with 

most norms cannot be reduced to “a static set of clear sharp-edged 

rules.”46 Violations are commonly judged in terms of relative degrees 

of severity. In the case of civilian casualties, this is true on two levels. 

First, it is evident in the broad and historically relative tightening of 

overall standards. Acceptance of absolute levels of civilian harm has 

decreased over time, even as the distinction between foreign and 
RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER │ 15

internal armed conflict has all but disappeared. States had once been 

partially insulated from criticism when using violence within their 

own borders, but especially after the Cold War, a government faced 

international condemnation for imposing civilian harm in either foreign 

lands or on its own territory. In both contexts, there is less forgiveness 

of civilian casualties.

It is not only the United States that faces different standards of 

judgment today. Russian attacks on Grozny, capital of the breakaway 

republic of Chechnya, prompted widespread public criticism from 

the United States and other foreign governments.47 The devastation 

was so great that it was not possible to count precisely the civilian 

casualties; the UN later referred to Grozny as the “most destroyed 

city on earth.”48 Likewise, the United States condemned Sri Lanka’s 

May 2009 use of artillery against rebel forces collocated with internally displaced persons because it caused “an unacceptably high level 

of civilian casualties.”49 These acts might have escaped significant 

criticism in decades past, but they were nearly universally regarded as 

deplorable.

The second respect in which normative standards are elastic pertains to an actor’s perceived relative ability to control the harm it inflicts. Expectations of omnipotence are never realistic, of course. 

Even American pilots cannot necessarily anticipate when a train will 

cross the bridge in their sights, and weapons still go awry, landing in 

crowded markets because they have malfunctioned.50 However, powerful militaries are expected to avoid civilian casualties more successfully, while the same level of harm may be more readily accepted or 

excused when it is inflicted by less capable or technologically backward armed groups.

Imagine if the United States had adopted Russia’s tactics against 

Grozny or Sri Lanka’s methods in its recent civil war. As much as 

those two governments were pilloried, the United States would have 

faced a more scathing backlash for adopting the same tactics. The 

world expects the most of the most capable forces.

Elastic expectations in turn embolden weaker parties to claim that 

they cannot be held to the highest standards. During the 2009 war in 

Gaza, Hamas leaders lobbed hundreds of unguided rockets into Israel, 

killing three Israelis. Vastly superior Israeli forces killed some 1,600 

Gazans. While the United Nations criticized both sides for LOAC 

violations, Hamas sought to defend its attacks on the grounds that it 

lacked true precision capability.51
16 │ RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER

Elastic compliance standards create a de facto “sliding scale” in 

which each party is judged according to perceptions of its ability to 

limit civilian harm. With the world’s nearly 200 states possessing 

vastly different military capabilities, a single objective standard would 

be far above or below the capabilities of many states. The norm’s elasticity solves this problem. However, as a result, the highest standards 

apply to the United States and other Western industrialized nations, 

who are expected to cause fewer civilian casualties simply because 

others believe that they can.

52

Compliance

A sliding scale formula still raises the ultimate question of compliance. States, international bodies, and NGOs that advocate minimizing civilian harm do not articulate how many casualties would be too 

many or specify how many would be acceptable for whom under 

what circumstances. Their criticisms indicate only that military forces 

should cause as few civilian casualties as possible (and possible is presumed to vary, in part by capability).

The critique’s lack of consistency and clarity is a source of great 

discomfort for military actors engaged in the use force. There is neither 

consensus nor specificity regarding how many civilian deaths is “a 

lot” or “too many.” How should one even contextualize the scale of 

civilian harm? Overall, by war? Per aircraft sortie? Per tons of weapons 

dropped? In relation to the number of combat troops deployed? 

Should the level of harm be a function of the population density in 

the conflict arena? Or should the assessment lie instead in the ratios 

of combatant deaths to noncombatant deaths? Each of these metrics 

has been applied or suggested by various analysts, activists, or scholars.53

Since the standard is unclear, “compliance” may seem impossible 

or the wrong notion altogether. Unsurprisingly, the US military experiences the normative expectation as one of causing zero civilian 

casualties.54 The United States insists that such an expectation is unrealistic. Yet while trying to respond to this norm, US officials sometimes suggest that the United States shares the zero-tolerance view. In 

2008 Gen David D. McKiernan, US Army, then the commanding US 

general in Afghanistan, stated, “Every death of a civilian in wartime 

is a terrible tragedy. . . . Even one death is too many.”55

US military forces are caught in a conundrum. They agree that as 

a moral question, civilians should not die in armed conflict. Practically, 
RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER │ 17

though, they doubt that it is possible to avoid all civilian harm. For a 

long time, the US military reconciled these competing realities 

through the LOAC, which provided a conditional, relational framework for judging and accepting civilian harm. However, today, the 

legal justification no longer addresses the contemporary norm.

Expectations this fuzzy or lofty might be dismissed for lack of 

rigor and specificity. However, as norms scholars have noted, “We 

only know what is appropriate by reference to the judgment of a community or a society. We recognize norm-breaking behavior because it 

generates disapproval or stigma and norm-conforming behavior 

either because it produces praise, or, in the case of a highly internalized norm, because it is so taken for granted that it provokes no reaction whatsoever.”56

In summary, the expectation that belligerents will minimize civilian 

harm reflects an assessment or impression of what they are capable of 

doing in war. The standard is not a formula that only x number of 

deaths may result from y use of force. The standard is not a percentage of the population or an algorithm derived from the war’s objectives. The standard is not zero casualties, but neither is it the casualties that might be justified under the LOAC. Rather, the standard is 

that the military force in question has, in fact, done the best it can. 

The burden—and the opportunity—for the military lies not in arguing why its actions were justified but rather in showing why its actions caused the least civilian harm possible.

Conclusion

The standards for judging the conduct of war have changed dramatically over the last two decades, and they have hit airpower hard. 

US airpower doctrine has never endorsed the direct targeting of civilians, and the US military was among the first to adopt a legal code of 

conduct.57 The US commitment to the LOAC has been used to justify 

civilian deaths where they occur. Nevertheless, this is clearly no longer 

enough.

A9 struggled with the question of standards regarding civilian 

casualties in its study. The math indicated that only a small proportion of US air strikes resulted in civilian casualties. However, the 

math raises more important questions. Was 1 percent or 3 percent of 

air strikes too much collateral damage? Compared to what? Would it 
18 │ RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER

be preferable to not act at all (perhaps ceding initiative or allowing 

US forces to be overrun)? Should ground troops instead rely on rotary 

gunships or on indirect fire? What do the numbers mean compared 

to how the USAF operated in Vietnam or how the Russian air force 

operated over the city of Grozny?

A9 did not pretend to address such questions, but it recognized 

something even more important: simply justifying airpower’s performance was an insufficient response to the critics. The key issue, the 

analysts concluded, was improving performance. “We need to go beyond addressing just the IO [information operations] impact of CIVCAS 

and be willing to put ourselves under the strongest microscope of 

scrutiny to ensure we consistently further our ability to contribute to 

the joint fight.”58 A9’s assessment was exactly right, and this has been 

the direction in which the USAF has been fitfully headed for the past 

two decades.

This is the story of how that change began. Airpower’s prominence 

in the conflicts of the 1990s made it the target of humanitarian criticism. The USAF was forced to confront the growing gap between the 

military’s understanding of the LOAC and the heightened public expectation that civilians should not die in war. These expectations 

combined with longstanding airpower tenets and institutional selfinterest to set in motion a promising chain of adaptation.

Viewed in historical perspective, the evolution seems revolutionary. Told of a particularly discriminate air mission during Operation 

Iraqi Freedom, a retired US general wrote facetiously, “Blood thirsty 

brutes in uniform are trying to avoid destroying an unknown building 30 meters from their assigned target? I am struck with the notion 

that the world has changed.”59 Today, airpower continues grappling 

with normative expectations and chasing success further into the future.

Notes

1. Cliff Tompkins, “Kinetic Airpower and Civilian Casualties” (PowerPoint presentation, HAF A9A, Rosslyn, VA, June 2009).

2. Ibid.

3. Jim Michaels, “Airstrikes in Afghanistan Increase 31%,” USA Today, 5 November 

2008, 1, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-11-05-afghanstrikes_N.htm.

4. See, for example, Charles Dunlap, “Lawfare Today . . . and Tomorrow,” in International Law and the Changing Character of War, International Law Studies 87, ed. 

Raul A. “Pete” Pedrozo and Daria P. Wollschlaeger (Newport, RI: US Naval War 

College, 2011), 318.

5. Tompkins, “Kinetic Air Power and Civilian Casualties.”
RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER │ 19

6. Human Rights Watch, Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in 

Iraq (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2003), http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/

usa1203.pdf.

7. Tompkins, “Kinetic Air Power and Civilian Casualties.”

8. Because even the military’s data on US SIGACTS (significant activities [meaning 

armed engagements of some form]) in Iraq was poor, A9 used the number of US service 

members killed in action as a proxy.

9. Tompkins, “Kinetic Air Power and Civilian Casualties.”

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid. 

12. Ibid.

13. While the use of US airpower centrally involves the US Navy, I have focused 

on tracing the processes of change within the USAF. 

14. Williamson Murray, “Not Enough Collateral Damage: Moral Ambiguities in 

the Gulf War,” in Civilians in the Path of War, ed. Mark Grimsley and Clifford J. Rogers 

(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002).

15. I use the example of Sri Lanka later in this chapter. For more information, see 

transcript of Ian Kelly, daily press briefing, US Department of State, 11 May 2009, http://

www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2009/05/123229.htm. Reports of some 20,000 civilian 

deaths in the final days of the campaign were dismissed as inflated, but the UN concurred 

that civilian casualties were extremely high and cause for concern.

16. Attributing causality is particularly difficult. This was a weakness of the Lancet

study, which based its analysis upon civilians’ reports of which munitions had caused 

damage to their homes. See, for example, Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, 

Jamal Khudhairi, and Gilbert Burnham, “Mortality before and after the 2003 Invasion 

of Iraq: Cluster Sample Survey,” Lancet.com, 29 October 2004, http://web.mit.edu/

humancostiraq/reports/lancet04.pdf.

17. Edward N. Luttwak, “Toward Post-Heroic Warfare,” Foreign Affairs 74, no. 3 

(May–June 1995): 109–22.

18. For a discussion of claims of the percentage of civilians killed in modern war, 

see Adam Roberts, “Lives and Statistics: Are 90% of War Victims Civilians?,” Survival

52, no. 3 (June–July 2010): 115–36; and Eric Hobsbawm, “Barbarism: A User’s 

Guide,” New Left Review 206 (July–August 1994): 44–54. 

19. Phillip S. Meilinger, “Air War and Humanitarian Concerns” (working paper, 

Humanitarian Challenges in Military Intervention Workshop, Project on the Means 

of Intervention, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, 

Washington, DC, 29–30 November 2001).

20. See, for example, John Tirman, The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in 

America’s Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

21. Robert C. Owen, ed., Deliberate Force: A Case Study in Effective Air Campaigning, Final Report of the Air University Balkans Air Campaign Study (Maxwell Air 

Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2000).

22. C. J. Chivers and Eric Schmitt, “In Strikes on Libya by NATO, an Unspoken Civilian Toll,” New York Times, 17 December 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/

world/africa/scores-of-unintended-casualties-in-nato-war-in-libya.html. 

23. W. Hays Parks, “Conventional Aerial Bombing and the Law of War,” Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute 108, no. 5 (May 1982): 98–117.
20 │ RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER

24. Jennifer Hazen, “Humanitarian Challenges in Military Intervention,” in National 

Security and Human Rights Conference Report (Humanitarian Challenges in Military 

Intervention Workshop, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy 

School, November 2001), 13.

25. The contention that can implies ought is contested as a legal matter; senior US 

military lawyers are adamant that the LOAC does not require use of precision weapons. 

Audiotape archives from the Project on the Means of Intervention Proceedings, National 

Security and Human Rights Program, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard 

Kennedy School of Government, Washington, DC, 1992–1996. These distinctions 

are explored in greater detail in chapter two.

26. Johanna Neuman, “Saddam Keeps Focus on Civilian Toll,” USA Today, 7 February 1991.

27. Quoted in Laura Myers, Associated Press, “Civilian Risks Escalate as Kosovo 

Targets Shifts,” SouthCoastToday, 18 April 1999, http://www.southcoasttoday.com/

apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990418/NEWS/304189979.

28. Gen H. Hugh Shelton, quoted in David Wood, “U.S. Approach a Disadvantage, Analysts Say; Risk Avoidance Style vs. Brutality Is the Problem,” New Orleans 

Times-Picayune, 28 March 1999. See also “Press Conference by Secretary General, 

Dr. Javier Solana and SACEUR, Gen. Wesley Clark” (transcript, NATO Headquarters, 

Brussels, Belgium, 25 March 1999), http://www.nato.int/kosovo/press/p990325a.htm.

29. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, quoted in Jim Garamone, “U.S. Regrets 

Any Loss of Innocent Lives in Afghanistan, Gates Says,” American Forces Press Service, 7 May 2009, http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54240. 

30. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977).

31. The ICRC has recognized duties to facilitate implementation of the Geneva 

Conventions. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics 

and Political Change,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (Autumn 1998), 902.

32. To the uninitiated, humanitarian relief groups may appear indistinguishable 

from pure human rights advocates. Humanitarian relief providers see a significant 

distinction in their focus on ameliorating the civilian impact of war, even as many in 

this category become more involved in the policy debate, including the debate about 

using force.

33. National Security and Human Rights (NSHR) Proceedings. See also discussion about law in chapter three.

34. Marco Sassòli, “Legitimate Targets of Attack under International Humanitarian 

Law” (background paper prepared for the Informal High-Level Expert Meeting on 

the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law, Program 

on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Harvard University, June 2004), 2, 

http://www.hpcrresearch.org/sites/default/files/publications/Session1.pdf. Note that 

the US military refers to the LOAC rather than the law of war (LOW) or IHL.

35. Within the humanitarian framework, war itself can be problematic because it 

demands trade-offs among ends and lives. Some human rights organizations categorically oppose the use of force, others refrain from taking a formal position on the 

legitimacy of intervention, and others support certain interventions, generally on 

human rights grounds.

36. In chapter 2, I discuss this issue in greater detail.
RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER │ 21

37. See, for example, Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and 

the Future of Combat (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), 441.

38. This discussion is not meant to suggest that there are no instrumental or 

political reasons for such criticism.

39. Norms have been defined as “collective understandings of the proper behavior 

of actors.” Jeffrey W. Legro, “Which Norms Matter? Revisiting the ‘Failure’ of Internationalism,” International Organization 51, no. 1 (Winter 1997), 33. Laws are also 

norms, but I will refer to them in this book exclusively as laws in order to distinguish 

law from the moral and social norms pertaining to minimizing civilian casualties. I 

will use the terms expectation and norm interchangeably to describe this “collective 

understanding.”

40. In chapter 3, I explore the content and role of law in armed conflict.

41. Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (New York: 

Houghton Mifflin, 1993), 275–77. I chronicle this example in chapter 4.

42. In Afghanistan in 2009, the United Nations, international and local NGOs, 

the Afghan government, and the international coalition compiled civilian casualty 

statistics. Ban Ki-moon, Report of the Secretary General pursuant to Paragraph 40 of 

Resolution 1917 (2010), UN Doc. S/2010/318 (June 2010) (Kabul, Afghanistan: 

United Nations,16 June 2010); and United Nations Human Rights Council, Report of 

the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Situation of Human 

Rights in Afghanistan and on the Achievements of Technical Assistance in the Field of 

Human Rights, UN Doc. A/HRC/16/67 (New York: United Nations, 19 January 

2010). For a review of the difficulty of counting civilian deaths, see Lucinda Fleeson, 

“The Civilian Casualty Conundrum,” American Journalism Review, April 2002, 

http://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=2491.

43. In the case of RTS, NATO attempted to argue that Serbia was at fault for forcing civilian employees to work in a facility that it had been warned would be attacked. See Amnesty International, NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: “Collateral 

Damage” or Unlawful Killings? Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied Force (London, UK: Amnesty International, June 2000), 45, https://www.

amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR70/018/2000/en/e7037dbb-df56-11dd-89a6-

e712e728ac9e/eur700182000en.pdf. The United States has also deflected criticism by 

arguing that the Taliban seeks to put civilians in harm’s way. See Steve Holland, “U.S. 

Blames Taliban for Afghan Civilian Casualties,” Reuters, 20 May 2007.

44. Even after the US-led international force in Afghanistan subsequently began 

using civilian casualty figures to evaluate its performance, the data remained classified. Aislinn Simpson, “British Army Officer Arrested over Military Secrets Leak,” 

Telegraph (UK), 4 February 2009.

45. The Amiriyah bunker incident is one example. 

46. Andrew Hurrell, “Norms and Ethics in International Relations,” in Handbook 

of International Relations, ed. Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and Beth A. Simmons 

(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2003), 143.

47. There were two different phases of the conflict and criticism during the same 

decade. Carlotta Gall, “Foreign Powers Step up Criticism,” The Moscow Times, 31 

December 1994. Emblematic of Russia’s approach during the second conflict was a 

missile attack against an alleged military target in a central market that caused some 

140 civilian casualties. The intended target was unclear. Human Rights Watch, “Evi-
22 │ RISING EXPECTATIONS OF AIRPOWER

dence of War Crimes in Chechnya” (press release, Human Rights Watch, 3 November 1999), http://www.hrw.org/news/1999/11/02/evidence-war-crimes-chechnya. 

48. “Scars Remain amid Chechen Revival,” BBC News, 3 March 2007, http://

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6414603.stm.

49. See Kelly, daily press briefing. Reports of some 20,000 civilian deaths in the 

final days of the campaign were dismissed as inflated, but the UN concurred that 

civilian casualties were extremely high and cause for concern. “Paper: 20,000 Killed 

in Sri Lanka Conflict,” CNN.com, 29 May 2009, http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/

asiapcf/05/29/srilanka.death.toll/index.html.

50. See, for example, John F. Burns, “A Nation at War: The Iraqi Capital: Iraq 

Blames U.S. for Market Blast That Killed Civilians in Baghdad,” New York Times, 29 

March 2003.

51. Associated Press, “Hamas Defends Rocket Attacks on Israel, Rejects UN 

Push for New Investigation,” Boston Globe, 28 January 2010, http://www.boston.

com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2010/01/28/hamas_defends_rocket_attacks_

on_israel_rejects_un_push_for_new_investigation/. Hamas is widely criticized for 

its indiscriminate attacks; Human Rights Watch found that Hamas’s denial of war 

crimes was legally and factually wrong. Human Rights Watch, “Gaza: Hamas Report 

Whitewashes War Crimes” (press release, Human Rights Watch, New York, 28 January 

2010), http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/01/28/gaza-hamas-report-whitewashes-warcrimes.

52. This elasticity seems to reflect the disparities of global power. A handful of 

states with more balanced military capabilities created LOAC treaties around the 

turn of the twentieth century.

53. See, for example, Carl Conetta, Operation Enduring Freedom: Why a Higher 

Rate of Civilian Bombing Casualties, Project on Defense Alternatives Briefing Report 

no. 13 (Cambridge, MA: Commonwealth Institute, 18 January 2002), http://www.

comw.org/pda/0201oef.html; and William M. Arkin, “Civilian Casualties and the 

Air War,” Washington Post, 21 October 2001.

54. USAF officers routinely express this view. NSHR Proceedings; Lt Gen David 

Deptula, USAF, interview by the author, Washington, DC, 21 December 2009; and 

Maj Gen Charles Dunlap, USAF, retired, interview by the author, Washington, DC, 4 

December 2009. NATO’s Operation Allied Force has been singled out as an example 

in which zero noncombatant casualties were expected. See Benjamin S. Lambeth, 

The Transformation of American Airpower (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 

2000), 205.

55. David McKiernan, “General McKiernan Expresses Sorrow for Civilian Noncombatant Casualties and Proposes Joint Approach to Future Enquiries” (press release PR#2008-456, NATO, Brussels, Belgium, 3 September 2008), http://www.nato.

int/isaf/docu/pressreleases/2008/09-september/pr080903-456.html. 

56. Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics,” 891–2.

57. This was the Civil War–era Lieber Code. For the absorbing history, see John 

Fabian Witt, Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History (New York: Free 

Press, 2012).

58. Tompkins, “Kinetic Air Power and Civilian Casualties.”

59. Gen Charles Horner, USAF, e-mail to the author. 
Chapter 2

Airpower through the Cold War

Theory, Practice, and Rationalization of Civilian Harm

In this chapter, I place contemporary expectations about civilian 

casualties in context by reviewing the early US theory and practice of 

airpower through the Cold War period. I explain the persistent tension between stated US goals of strategic bombing and the ways in 

which air campaigns actually affected civilians. I show how the US 

public and military intellectually reconciled the humanitarian tensions between airpower theory and practice. I conclude by showing 

that tactical constraints on the air war in Vietnam foreshadowed airpower’s future, despite the political and military backlash they immediately provoked.

Additionally, I outline the synergistic changes in technology and 

strategic bombing concepts that began to emerge after the Vietnam 

War. Consistent with enduring principles of airpower, these developments laid the groundwork for future United States Air Force (USAF) 

adaptation to reduce civilian casualties.

Airpower as Destruction

For most of the twentieth century, the “American way of war” reflected a curious dualism.1

 Americans believed in the precise and humane use of force. US airpower officials routinely described carefully 

calibrated attacks against military targets. Yet the US style of war 

making created an enormous gap between the conception/description 

of US warfare and the actual US practice of war. Political constraints 

sometimes sought to narrow this gap by limiting the means of war, 

but US military institutions prepared to use overwhelming and destructive firepower to deter or counter adversaries.

Russell Weigley described the US approach to war as one of substituting technology and mass for manpower. The United States sought 

to harness its industrial might so that it could achieve military victory 

through destruction and sheer attrition.2

 The approach proved its 

value during “total war” in World War II, and the US commitment to 
24 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

investing in technology to leverage destructive power has never 

waned.

Since the total wars of the mid-twentieth century, US leaders have 

regularly imposed limitations upon US conduct of war. Nonetheless, 

US military operations have often killed significant numbers of civilians. Until very recently, the goal of US doctrine, training, and weapons 

development continued to apply overwhelming kinetic power at the 

tactical and operational levels. Consequently, a gap remained between 

the US view of its conduct of war and its actual effects—even in limited war. Such a gap was not unique to the United States, but America 

was extreme both in its fervent faith that it fought humanely and in 

its simultaneous doctrinal and technological commitment and ability 

to inflict destruction.3

 In addition, the United States’ frequent use of 

force regularly exposed the gap between belief and effect.

Americans developed several closely related ways to reconcile the 

gap between collective identity and military practice. These included 

emphasizing the importance of intent in war, embracing the concept 

of collateral damage (and distinguishing it from “atrocity”), relying 

upon the law to justify civilian harm, and arguing that decisive and 

overwhelming force reduces the overall death toll in war. In this 

chapter, I explore the divergence of theory and practice as it pertains 

to airpower—and principally strategic bombing—and show how the 

United States has consoled itself about its own morality while imposing grave harm upon civilians.

From Tactical to Strategic Bombing

Early Years of Airpower

Despite the Wright brothers’ ingenuity, the United States was slow 

to develop aircraft. By 1916 it had committed the First Aero Squadron (flying Curtiss JN-2s, or Jennys) to help hunt Pancho Villa in the 

American Southwest. When World War I broke out, Americans 

lacked capable aircraft and qualified pilots. Beginning in 1916, US 

volunteers trained under the French Aviation Service and served in 

the Lafayette Escadrille. Concerted efforts at home swiftly built the 

US Air Service. By 1918 the first US squadrons arrived for duty in 

France.
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 25

US commanders used aircraft primarily in a tactical role: flying in 

support of ground troops. Pilots attacked enemy aircraft and balloons, bombed and strafed ahead and behind enemy lines, and conducted reconnaissance. The war featured discernable uniforms, battle 

formations, and lines of advance. Aircraft remained close to their targets, and pilots used their own vision for targeting. While this targeting was imprecise, civilians were largely absent from the slow-moving 

battlefield. Aircraft played a celebrated role, helping halt a German 

advance at Château-Thierry and supporting campaigns at Saint-Mihiel 

and Meuse-Argonne.

Civilians were not exempt from the effects of airpower, however. 

Germany used zeppelins and planes to bomb British cities and killed 

more than 1,000 civilians; the British did the same to urban areas in 

Germany.4

 While limited and crude, aerial bombing of cities “provided a glimpse of the potential for air power that was simultaneously 

intoxicating and terrifying.”5

Bombing Theory

As strategists began to imagine airpower’s transformative uses, 

there were portents of greater danger for civilians. Many early airpower advocates believed that because air bombardment could directly undermine a nation’s will to fight (via attacks on its population 

and cities), airpower offered a more efficient route to victory. Compared to the stalemated ground combat of World War I, airpower’s 

destructive powers suggested an alluring decisiveness.

Watching Italy’s aircraft attack Libya in 1916, Italian Giulio Douhet 

became convinced that airpower would become the determinate 

method of war. Airpower could use the “third dimension” to directly 

target enemy population centers, since civilian morale was the center 

of gravity in total war.6

 Douhet launched a fervent advocacy campaign, arguing that aerial bombing promised success “more easily, 

faster, and more economically, and with less bloodshed by directly 

attacking that resistance at its weakest point.”7

 By this logic, strategic 

targeting was humane because it would end war quickly.8

 Douhet’s 

theory was revolutionary not simply because the Italians at the time 

favored their infantry forces but also because the theory “failed to 

observe early principles of distinction and humanity that exempted a 

civilian population from attack.”9
26 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

A 1917 British memorandum (colloquially known as the Smuts 

Report), justifying an independent British air force, foresaw that 

“aerial operations with their devastation of enemy lands and destructions of industrial and populous centres on a vast scale may become 

the principal operations of war.”10 The British, having just felt the terror of indiscriminate zeppelin and airplane attacks, were convinced 

of airpower’s effects on national (civilian) morale and expected their 

nascent air force to exploit this power.11 British chief of Air Staff Sir 

Hugh Trenchard’s affinity for area bombing was evinced during 

World War II as morale bombing only thinly veiled as attacks on industrial targets.12 Indeed, the belief that bombing civilian populations 

can deliver strategic effects persists today.13

In the United States, air commander and World War I hero Brig 

Gen William “Billy” Mitchell shared Douhet’s conviction in the value 

and efficiency of targeting vulnerable economies, infrastructure, and 

civilian morale.14 Mitchell also believed that the capability to bomb 

from the sky would end wars quickly.15 He, too, saw airpower’s devastation (including its effects upon civilian lives and lifestyles) as the 

key to its success.16 In fact, Mitchell had urged the bombing of German cities during the war, but Secretary of War Newton D. Baker had 

overruled Mitchell, prohibiting “promiscuous bombing upon industry, commerce or population, in enemy countries disassociated from 

obvious military needs.”17

Despite Mitchell’s views, the official US position on airpower was 

circumspect regarding its potential to cause civilian harm. The United 

States had condemned the British for promiscuous bombing during 

World War I.18 In a 1919 statement, Secretary Baker established the 

parameters for the future development of US airpower by ruling out 

bombing civilians on “the most elemental ethical and humanitarian 

grounds.”19 Official guidance suggested that Americans would differentiate themselves in this arena.

International concern about the humanitarian impact of the airplane prompted renewed legal efforts to restrain aerial bombing.20 In 

the early 1920s, a Commission of Jurists proposed new rules for air 

warfare to preclude purposefully terrorizing the civilian population, 

damaging civilian property, or injuring noncombatants.21 A reluctance to forego potential military advantage led nations to reject the 

1923 Hague Draft rules, but the sentiment to protect civilians from 

airpower had been clearly registered.22
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 27

US Air Strategy

Public (and often personal) moral sensibilities would figure prominently in the development of US targeting strategies. US public opinion in particular opposed aerial attacks on civilians, a fact to which 

United States Army Air Force (USAAF) leaders remained sensitive.23

Robert Pape suggests that American liberalism more generally 

pushed US doctrine away from targeting noncombatants.24

US airpower proponents balanced their enthusiasm for the new 

tool of war with a host of other factors as well. In particular, declining 

defense budgets demanded efficiencies such as those promised by 

bombing specific targets rather than destroying broad swaths of geography.25 In a 1941 book, two US generals would convey this point 

without sentimentality: “Human beings are not priority targets except in special situations. Bombers in far larger numbers than are 

available today will be required for wiping out people in sufficient 

numbers by aerial bombardment to break the will of a whole nation.”26

Economics indicated humanity.

The isolationism of the interwar period and the division of responsibilities between the Navy and the Army also pushed US airpower in 

a more discriminating direction.27 Lacking the appetite for a strategic 

offensive orientation, in 1931 US leaders gave the Army responsibility for coastal defense. This particular “defensive” mission provided 

the most plausible justification for a long-range bomber capability, 

which was essential if airpower were to play a strategic role in the 

future.28 In turn, the mission of attacking ships required greater precision than that used for area bombing.29 The relative precision 

needed for coastal defense, supported by technology like the Norden 

bombsight, could support a strategic role for bombers.30 Air advocates therefore used the sea defense role to justify precision and a 

long-range bomber, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, to a skeptical 

Congress, while nursing the notion of using airpower for strategic 

effects in a future offensive role.31

While officers in the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) had initially considered the viability of conducting direct strikes against 

civilian populations, they settled during the 1930s on a doctrine of 

what they described as precision bombing. Known as “industrial fabric” 

or “industrial web” theory, the approach focused, as a matter of efficiency, on attacking discrete industrial and infrastructure targets.32

ACTS theorists believed that taking out the key nodes of energy, 
28 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

production, and distribution would disrupt the enemy’s overall material 

and psychological war effort.33 Self-defending bombers flying in daylight would target specific elements of the enemy’s economy: oil, steel, 

electrical power, and transportation. As Robert Pape summarized, 

“In contrast to the British, American air strategy aimed not at killing 

large numbers of civilians directly but at causing general social collapse through the precision bombing of key industrial nodes.”34

The airpower community understood the likely effects of these 

raids when industrial nodes were located in cities, but advocates emphasized that noncombatant deaths were not the goal of the bombing.35

Nonetheless, the United States believed that its “precision” approach 

to bombing was fundamentally different from that of other nations 

and indeed fundamentally different from how belligerents were to 

employ airpower in the early years of World War II.

As the war unfolded, both the executive branch and Congress criticized fascist states—particularly the Japanese in 1937 and 1938 and 

the Italians in 1938—for bombing civilians.36 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt 

in 1939 called on belligerents to commit to prohibit “ruthless” aerial 

bombing of undefended civilian populations that had “profoundly 

shocked the conscious of humanity.”37 By warning against sinking to 

“this form of inhuman barbarism,” he thereby implied that any future 

US bombing would be neither inhumane nor barbaric.38

World War II

Americans ultimately found their claims of distinction to be largely 

illusory.39 Even as Roosevelt criticized the fascists, his military forces 

were drawing up plans to bomb targets in cities. Accepting that many 

would condemn these attacks, planners considered them necessary 

because of the value of the industrial targets located in urban centers. 

The US air campaigns relied upon the belief that attacking military or 

economic targets and killing civilians incidentally was fundamentally 

different from purposefully targeting civilians.40 The centrality of intent, rather than effects, in US thinking about airpower—and the use 

of force generally—persists today.

Although US air planners would disparage the British Royal Air 

Force (RAF) for abandoning precision during the war, the US airpower story followed a similar arc. Mindful of both limited air assets 

and the vulnerability of its own cities, the RAF began constrained 

daylight “precision bombing” in World War II but faced high losses 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 29

with limited results.41 In summer 1941 the RAF Bomber Command 

realized that only one-fifth of RAF bombers got within five miles of 

their targets.42 By 1942 the RAF had switched over to nighttime area 

attacks on cities in a search for greater effects. The RAF also defined 

“military objectives” broadly, seeking to attack as many (not as few) 

targets as possible “in order to maximize the effects on morale.”43

Later that year, the United States entered the war committed to 

high altitude, daylight “precision” bombing. The USAAF took professional pride in its practice of using self-defending bombers to conduct daytime raids, which were more accurate than the RAF’s nighttime raids at that time.44 Americans, and in particular Eighth Air 

Force commander Gen Carl A. Spaatz, argued that attacks on strategic 

targets would be more effective than urban area bombing.45 Yet a 

combination of operational realities yielded high losses and unsatisfying effects, weakening the initial US commitment to unescorted 

daytime precision raids.46 By late summer and fall 1943, in both the 

European and Asian theaters of war, the USAAF had abandoned daytime raids and adopted a bombing strategy that appeared much like 

the RAF practice of urban area bombing.

Regardless of nationality, airpower doctrine confronted uncomfortable realities. Governments had fully mobilized populations for 

war, and industrialization ensured that even those citizens not in uniform often participated in making war-related products. Enemies 

viewed civilians working in arms factories as legitimate targets.47

Belligerents also regarded the enemy as responsible for erasing the 

distinction between these civilians and military targets. More importantly from the perspective of overall civilian casualties, many 

industrial objectives were located in urban areas. At the same time, 

capabilities and technology patently failed to support the military’s 

intentions to destroy only economic targets. For example, during the 

1943 Eighth Air Force raids against the Schweinfurt ball bearing factories, only one of every 10 bombs landed within 500 feet of its target.48

If visual identification was hardly precise, bombing through cloud 

cover was more challenging. The only available radar technology “allowed the Eighth to locate a city through clouds, but not a specific 

plant or precision objective.”49

All these factors thwarted US Airmen’s desire to be discriminate 

and undermined the president’s political dictate that Americans show 

they were not “barbaric.” While US air strikes were nominally directed 

against specific military targets, rather than general urban areas, they 
30 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

could hardly be considered precise by modern sensibilities. As one 

USAF lawyer summarized, “Although there may not have been any 

specific intention to bomb indiscriminately, it was an acceptable outcome.”50 The official post-war Strategic Bombing Survey exposed what 

W. Hays Parks called the Eighth Air Force’s “spin” on its operations: 

“In many cases bombs dropped by instruments in ‘precision’ raids fell 

over a wide area comparable to that covered normally in an ‘area’ 

raid. If the specific target was, for example, a marshalling yard located 

in a German city, as often happened, such a raid had the practical 

effect of an area raid against that city, but on the basis of the declared 

intention of the attackers it would go into the air force records as a 

precision attack on the transportation system.”51 The USAAF relied 

primarily upon its own good intent to maintain its commitment to 

the principle of distinction between combatants and noncombatants.52

Even as the United States adopted less discriminate tactics, it 

maintained that it was targeting military objectives. By late 1943 the 

United States was using fighter escorts to protect its bombers in Europe 

and had increased its operational tempo—in large measure by bombing through cloud cover instead of waiting for clear days that allowed 

visual sighting with bomb sights. These so-called “blind” raids reduced bombing accuracy to the levels of RAF bombing in 1941.53

In spring 1945, the USAAF adopted changes in strategy with even 

greater consequences for civilians. Leaders did not take these changes 

lightly, but such changes stretched US claims to precision and distinction beyond recognition. A string of successes following the invasion of Normandy had led the Allies to anticipate a rapid collapse of 

the Third Reich, but V-2 rockets and a surprise German counteroffensive in December 1944 suddenly suggested otherwise. Essentially 

out of ground troops for Europe, the Americans and British turned to 

airpower to ease the Soviet advance westward and regain the initiative. The two nations continued prioritizing oil facilities but now adopted a new secondary objective: bombing German cities due west of 

the advancing Soviet line.54 The goal was to increase the chaos behind 

the German line, consciously exploiting the presence of huge numbers 

of German civilian refugees.55 The Eighth Air Force commander, 

Jimmy Doolittle, argued against the directive to raid city centers as 

contrary to US doctrine.56

A massive US attack on Berlin on 3 February 1945 best exemplified the shift in US strategy. Americans specifically designated the 

city center as the target and aimed to affect morale.57 The Dresden 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 31

raid remains the most ignominious of the February attacks, although 

the US contribution was relatively modest, limited to attacking marshaling yards after RAF raids already had turned the city into an inferno.58 Dresden’s legacy looms large because a host of circumstances 

magnified its impact, causing the deaths of some 25,000–30,000 people—

most of whom were civilians.59 The raid engendered unusually negative 

press coverage and prompted concerned—if sometimes disingenuous—

questions from Allied political leaders.60 The firebombing had erased 

meaningful distinctions between nodes of industry and noncombatants living in urban centers.

US aerial operations in the Far East similarly mocked preferred 

strategic targeting theories. A newly installed 20th Air Force commander, Gen Curtis LeMay, was under great pressure to deliver results in early 1945. His predecessor had failed to master the cloud 

cover that constrained US attacks against Japan or the jet stream 

winds that impeded formation flying as a compensating tactic. 

LeMay’s solution was to adopt low-level incendiary bombing. He described his new methods as “radical” efforts to achieve results.61

The March 1945 Tokyo bombing alone killed more than 100,000 

people and burned 16 square miles. For a short while, it was deemed 

“the greatest disaster ever visited upon any city.”62 However, the raid 

was considered “a rousing success” by key military commanders and 

emboldened four additional raids that, along with the Tokyo bombing, inflicted over 40 percent as much destruction as had been 

achieved against all German cities over the duration of the war.63

LeMay admitted that the Japanese system of dispersal of industry 

among private homes left a “pretty thin veneer” between military targets 

and civilians.64 There was no point in “slaughtering civilians,” he explained, but the “entire populations got into the act and worked to 

make those airplanes or munitions.”65 Furthermore, destruction was 

what mattered. “We knew we were going to kill a lot of women and 

kids when we burned that town. Had to be done. . . . But, to worry 

about the morality of what we were doing? Nuts!”66 Historians have 

suggested that oversight of the raid by civilian authorities, who might 

have worried about the morality of US actions, was simply absent.67

US Airmen did not perceive their bombing as slaughtering civilians. The internal USAAF history acknowledged that nighttime incendiary raids were a “radical departure from traditional doctrine,” 

but justified them as destroying “feeder industries” and again stressing 
32 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

good intent. Firebombing was “not conceived as terror raids against 

the civilian population.”68

The perceived necessities of war had upended US airpower doctrine, making its effects virtually indistinguishable from what Roosevelt 

might once have deemed inhumane barbarism.69 The underlying US 

philosophy of air targeting differed from the British view. American 

Airmen would still “reflexively” revert to attacking specific military 

targets when weather permitted, and they never sought to perfect 

techniques for firebombing, as did the British.70 Still, by “late 1944 

and 1945 there was little practical difference between British and US 

bombing,” except that British bombing appears to have become more 

accurate.71

Even as the USAAF adopted previously unimaginable tactics, it 

continued to elide realities. While firebombing cities, US officials still 

insisted publicly that they were not targeting civilian populations. 

Shortly after the United States joined in the Dresden attacks, Secretary 

of War Henry L. Stimson explained that the United States was striking 

military targets and reiterated US opposition to “‘terror bombings’ 

against civilian populations.” After the burning of Tokyo, a spokesman reassured the public that the USAAF remained committed to 

pinpoint precision bombing.72

This cognitive dissonance extended to the use of atomic weapons 

against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Pres. Harry S. 

Truman explained that the United States was bombing “Hiroshima, a 

military base . . . because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.”73 During the war, there was 

little public doubt or second-guessing about tactical decisions that 

killed huge numbers of civilians.74 Nevertheless, the atomic bomb, it 

turned out, would uniquely focus American attention on a massive 

civilian death toll.

Reconciling Civilian Harm after World War II: Intent

During World War II, the USAF had emphasized its intentions 

(bombing industrial targets) rather than the results of its actions 

(firebombing that inflicted a massive death toll). In his extensive 

study of the postwar debate, Sahr Conway-Lanz found that Americans eventually came to accept an analogous distinction as they 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 33

struggled to reconcile their role in the mass killing of civilians with 

perceptions of themselves as “a humane people.”75

Only after the Allied victory did political space open up for debate 

about the conduct of the war. Some Americans evinced a disregard 

for the lost civilian life, particularly in the context of military necessity and when weighed against losing additional American lives. Others 

bemoaned the seeming loss of ethical limitations on warfare. “The 

fences are gone,” wrote one important figure, David Lilienthal, Atomic 

Energy Commission chairman.76 Many US citizens criticized the acts, 

especially the use of atomic bombs, which had helped tear down 

those ethical fences. One argument even suggested a moral equivalence of genocide and atomic weapons.77

Strategic bombing’s association with mass killings proved a particular challenge for the USAF, which became an independent service 

in 1947. Strategic bombing—conventional and nuclear—was its raison 

d’être.

78 Airpower advocates therefore sought to rehabilitate the idea 

of strategic bombing after the postwar wave of remorse about its effects on civilians. The USAF continued to emphasize its commitment 

to precision and the distinction between intentions and effects, even 

where operational realities continued to erode the practical effect of 

the commitment.

The Navy, on the other hand, harnessed the human costs of strategic 

bombing to its 1949 critique of the USAF’s Convair B-36 Peacemaker 

intercontinental bomber.79 The Army chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, Gen Omar N. Bradley, sought to reassure the public about strategic 

bombing generally, disavowing the “wanton destruction of cities or 

people” and explaining that “we Americans will seek to achieve maximum effectiveness against the enemy’s armed forces, with minimum 

harm to the nonparticipating civilian populace.”80 By the late 1950s, 

military optimism on the possibilities of discriminate targeting would 

extend even to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.81

During the early years of the Cold War, the United States relied 

principally upon a small number of nuclear weapons to deter a perceived growing Soviet threat.82 While US defense spending and capabilities would expand with the Korean War, nuclear weapons remained the mainstay of the US defense posture. Given their 

destructive power, nuclear weapons posed practical challenges for 

the promise of minimizing harm to civilians. In reality, sensitivity to 

noncombatant immunity “had little impact on military planning.”83

US war plans directed strategic attacks on industrial facilities that 
34 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

would wipe out entire cities.84 Late 1940s war plans directed using 

conventional and nuclear weapons to attack “Soviet war-making 

capacity and will;” specific targets for atomic weapons included cities, 

urban areas, and population centers.85

Publicly, it was difficult to convey a distinction between targeting 

military objectives and noncombatants themselves. Authorities insisted that an early 1950 draft Department of Defense report on unconventional (nuclear) weapons change the phrase “city or other 

civilian target” to “major elements of the enemy’s economy supporting his military effort.”86 Yet the military maintained its faith in a 

nominal distinction between targeting areas or objects and targeting 

civilians themselves and the distinction between intent and outcome. 

However thin the veneer of distinction became in Dresden, in Tokyo, 

or in the Single Integrated [Nuclear] Operational Plan, this veneer of 

distinction remained important to the USAF in particular.87

Reliance on intent also helped the American public resolve its ambivalence about World War II and mass civilian casualties. Americans “made intent the dividing line between justifiable and unjustifiable action.”88 Conway-Lanz frames the issue as one of narrowly 

defining “atrocity.” He concludes, “Only the calculated killing of people uninvolved in the fighting of wars remained generally condemned 

as inhumane and indefensible.”89 In essence, Americans narrowed the 

definition of unacceptable behavior in such a manner that US military policy could, by definition, avoid it.

This intellectual recalibration continues to shape American public 

views regarding war. The belief that the United States did not intend 

to target, let alone harm, civilians offered psychological consolation 

at home. Nevertheless, good intentions eventually became insufficient to excuse military actions that predictably caused civilian harm.

“Limited” Conventional War: Korea 

The Korean War was a limited war—a different kind of beast than 

World War II. Airpower struggled for a strategy, pulled into providing close air support (and later, interdiction of enemy ground forces) 

for US and United Nations (UN) forces, while seeking a strategic role 

in inducing a political settlement. Early on, US airpower was tightly 

constrained, although it became markedly more destructive after the 

Chinese intervened months into the war.
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 35

The war’s “limits” did not extend to civilians, who suffered enormously. While unreliable, most estimates suggest that over a million 

civilians died on each side of the conflict.90 US officials described precise aerial bombing against military targets and rejected enemy 

charges that air forces were targeting civilians. Yet once again, these 

official statements masked a harsher reality. Commanders eventually 

used US airpower to attack cities, dams, and even refugees.91

In response to North Korea’s June 1950 attack across its southern 

border, the United States led a UN force to repel the invaders from 

South Korea. Pres. Harry S. Truman imposed limits on the geography 

of attacks and constrained the types of targets that could be bombed. 

Aerial attacks in the first months were limited to traditional military 

targets such as tanks, military columns, depots, and air bases.92

Truman’s primary goal in limiting the use of force was not humanitarian per se but to avoid provoking Korea’s neighbors—particularly 

the Soviet Union and China.

The United States maintained rules—written and verbal—dictating 

the need to spare civilians in bombing attacks, but the rules proved 

difficult to follow.93 North Korean troops often intermingled with 

civilians, and it could be challenging for air forces to identify military 

targets with certainty. Structures were nondescript and served multiple purposes; civilians were constantly on the move, fleeing the 

fighting. But despite the rules regarding civilian protection, US 

strategy incorporated firebombing of cities and destroying dams and 

irrigation systems.94 In at least one glaring instance, US troops were 

directed to fire on refugees, flatly contravening claims to spare civilians.95

In these instances, US public communications sought to reframe the 

actions, deflect communist allegations of UN barbarism, and avoid 

provoking a widening of the war.96 Americans were largely unaware 

of the extent of civilian carnage.97

By summer, UN forces were in a southern retreat toward Pusan, 

and tens of thousands of civilians began moving along with them. 

Refugees clogged roads, interfering with military movements. The 

Army became concerned about enemy infiltration, as ground forces 

struggled to control civilian movements. The UN decided to bar refugees from crossing battle lines. However, UN ground forces had relatively few troops and lacked nonlethal means for crowd control. At 

the Army’s behest, the USAF began “straf[ing] all [approaching] civilian refugee parties.”98 Only in 1999 did this blatantly illegal practice 

burst into American consciousness through the story of No Gun Ri.99
36 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

The July 1950 No Gun Ri episode resulted in the deaths of between 

100 and 400 South Korean civilians.100 US forces had stopped hundreds of villagers at an American roadblock where they were repeatedly bombed by US planes and subsequently attacked with small 

arms fire. The incident was emblematic of a broader enduring reality: 

the distinction between official policy—in this case a directive barring refugees from crossing battle lines—and the logical means of 

enforcing such a rule.

Strategic bombing posed a greater direct threat to noncombatants, 

and again the USAF created tensions between an official policy of 

avoiding civilian harm and its tactics of firebombing and destroying 

dams. The July 1950 campaign against North Korea was “conceived 

much along the lines of the major offensives of World War II” with 

industrial sites being the nominal targets but morale remaining a primary objective.101 In an ironic reversal of roles in the prior war, US 

allies expressed concern about the effects of American actions upon 

civilians.102 Gen Douglas MacArthur, who had been sensitive to civilian protection during World War II, provided them his personal reassurance.103

By late 1950, however, Chinese intervention had reversed the fortunes of the UN force, and MacArthur abandoned prior constraints 

on strategic bombing while intensifying the overall effort. American 

aircraft began incendiary raids on cities that had been captured by 

the enemy. MacArthur vowed to turn North Korean–held territory 

into a desert.104 The definition of a military target expanded dramatically. One commander summarized the new reality: “Every installation, facility, and village in North Korea now becomes a military and 

tactical target.”105 As orders redefined military targets to include virtually all structures, the distinction between a military and civilian 

target diminished dramatically. MacArthur’s January 1951 air attacks 

on Pyongyang, conducted without any advance warning, burned 35 

percent of the city.106 Still, his requests to attack hydroelectric plants 

were refused.

After MacArthur’s dismissal and the halting of the communist offensive in spring 1951, the USAF struggled to calibrate its “destruction” campaign in the face of sensitive armistice negotiations.107 This 

latter phase of the war emphasized attacks on cities and hydroelectric 

plants, sometimes prompting international criticism. By 1953 the 

USAF began planning for nuclear options, while seeking yet-unapproved 

strategic targets to influence enemy decision making.108 Ultimately, 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 37

planners settled on attacks on dams, targeting North Korea’s irrigation system for its main agricultural areas. The attacks would appear 

to be aimed at railway lines (“interdiction” attacks), but they were 

privately intended to destroy the region’s rice crop.109

Conrad Crane captures the dilemma: “Ironically, as the raids were 

directed more and more at achieving a political settlement, the less 

this could be admitted in public as justification for them.”110 Nevertheless, the UN command’s semantics had long masked the realities.111 The United States continued to use the distinction between its 

intent and results, as well as claims about precise targeting and effects, to reassure the world about the morality of US military conduct.112

Military Framing of Civilian Casualties: Collateral Damage 

Reliance on the primacy of intent in assessing aerial bombing gave 

way over the 1950s to defining civilian harm as “collateral damage.” 

During World War II and the Korean War, the United States focused 

on its good intentions—its desire to avoid targeting civilians directly—

to sustain perceptions of itself as a moral actor. During the Cold War 

and beyond, the negative, if unintended, results of bombing came to 

be called collateral damage. The concept of collateral damage was 

swiftly married to a legal and ethical understanding of the circumstances in which this harm was acceptable.

Phrases such as “collateral devastation” and “collateral effects of the 

damage” first emerged during efforts to model nuclear blast effects in 

the 1950s and early 1960s.113 One analyst argues that the concept reflects a government effort to develop additional targeting options despite recognition of nuclear war’s unimaginable destructiveness.114 The 

term collateral damage gravitated to scholarly use in the 1960s, where 

it referred to both nuclear and conventional damage, often including 

civilian deaths.115 Some have criticized the words as Orwellian and 

obfuscating;116 David Grossman argues that the antiseptic term reduces perceived responsibility for death and shields societies from 

the human consequences of their choices.117

Air Force doctrine and law. According to the Air Force Historical 

Office, the first doctrinal reference to collateral damage was in the 

1964 publication Air Force Manual (AFMAN) 1-1, Aerospace Doctrine: 

United States Air Force Basic Doctrine.

118 The mention was only cursory: 

“Low-observable and precision weapon technologies make conventional 
38 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

weapons more usable because these technologies reduce the risk of 

friendly losses, minimize collateral damage, and improve weapons 

delivery efficiency.”119 The sentence sounds startlingly modern, even 

though the section concerns the relationship of conventional weapons 

thresholds to nuclear deterrence.120

This term describing the “extra” effects of force became incorporated into DOD’s legal and ethical teachings about the use of force. 

The intentional killing of civilians is prohibited by the LOAC, but the 

“extra” effects of lawful targeting are understood differently. For 

example, the 1980 Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Armed 

Conflict explained that “it is not unlawful to cause incidental injury 

or death to civilians or damage to civilian property during an attack 

on a legitimate military objective.”121 Collateral damage could describe civilian deaths that were not inherently illegal. Pursuant to David 

Grossman’s point about antiseptic language masking the impact of 

military action, the Air Force sometimes defined the term in such 

abstract terms that it appeared to exclude civilian deaths.122

Decades later, as airpower became closely scrutinized, the issue of 

intent reemerged and filtered into the definition of collateral damage. 

While precise language varied, it often followed this Air Force targeting manual definition: “unintentional or incidental injury or damage 

to persons or objects that would not be lawful military targets in the 

circumstances ruling at the time.”123 DOD still uses this language in 

its current dictionary of military terms.124 One historian regards the 

reincorporation of intent as a conscious effort to accommodate 

greater public expectations regarding minimizing civilian casualties.125

By differentiating between intended and incidental harm, doctrine 

clarified that one could intend not to cause harm but nonetheless do 

so, lawfully: “Intentional direct attacks on civilians are prohibited. 

However, this is distinctly different from the incidental injury that 

may be caused to civilians or civilian objects as a result of an attack on 

a valid military target (collateral damage).”126 Collateral damage became central to legal teachings designed both to show what use of 

force was not allowed (intentional direct targeting and disproportionate use of force)127 as well as what was lawful (collateral damage).128

But the term originally emerged not as an ethical or legal concern but 

simply as a description of targeting effects. 

Collateral damage as an organizational frame. For the USAF, the 

early concept of “extra” damage in the nuclear realm simply migrated 

into conventional military thinking, a function of what scholar Lynn 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 39

Eden describes as “organizational frames.” She has shown how socially constructed organizational knowledge (frames) shapes an institution’s perceived reality and its future choices. In other words, the 

way that institutions define problems shapes solutions as well as the 

identification of future problems.129 In this sense, the bureaucratic 

origins of the term had significant consequences for how civilian 

casualties in conventional war subsequently were addressed.130

Transposing problem identification and solutions from the nuclear 

realm to conventional war was to prove limiting for the USAF. This is 

primarily because the major strategic choices available in the abstract 

realm of nuclear war planning are targeting choices.131 In conventional conflict, however, there are many potential routes to preventing civilian casualties beyond targeting choice. Funneling the question of civilian protection into a targeting frame collapsed a host of 

related choices, actions, and responses that contribute to civilian 

casualties into a single subprocess. It created an impression that 

proper targeting was sufficient to address the problem of unintended 

consequences. It effectively precluded consideration of issues such as 

using alternative capabilities (including nonlethal tools), the interaction of maneuver and fire, the trade-offs between air and ground 

capabilities, and the relative value of targets.

The collateral damage issue devolved into a technical problem belonging largely to the targeteers, modelers, and weaponeers. Moreover, because civilian casualties were subsumed under the category of 

targeting, civilian casualties per se were not a subject of analysis, 

learning, or material solutions. Civilian protection did not garner independent attention as the services sought to anticipate, resource, 

and prepare for future operational challenges (what is often referred 

to as the doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and 

education, personnel, and facilities [DOTMLPF] process).132 Collateral 

damage, not civilian casualties, became the military consideration.

While the framing of civilian casualties as collateral damage naturally flowed from the USAF’s approach to nuclear weapons modeling, 

the framing also suited the institutional interests of the USAF. First, it 

cast negative effects as inevitable, if unintended. Second, the concept 

of collateral damage emphasized the acceptability of those consequences rather than stressing affirmative responsibilities to avoid 

them. Finally, it kept the USAF focused on intent and the targeting 

process instead of broader issues of strategy, capabilities, or operational culture.
40 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

Overall, the Cold War concept of “collateral damage” helped the 

USAF come to grips with—and justify—bombing’s negative effects 

upon civilians in the face of American faith in its high moral purpose 

and sensitivity to human rights. The concept’s relationship to the 

LOAC enhanced its legitimacy for strategists and operators. Furthermore, a desire to emphasize the primacy of intent in the conduct of 

war may help explain the US perspective toward the law itself. (The 

character and perversities of the law of war are discussed in greater 

detail in the next chapter.) The refinement of collateral damage as a 

legal, and therefore doctrinal, element at a time when US air capabilities were exceedingly blunt helped reconcile the gap between the 

intent and the effects of the American way of war.

Vietnam: Constrained yet Massive Use of Force

While aerial bombing in Korea was operationally constrained, it 

nonetheless proved massively harmful to the civilian population. In 

broad strokes, one could say the same of the US air campaigns in 

Vietnam.133 The evolution of air campaigns in Vietnam mirrored the 

increasing intensity and expansion of targeting evinced in Korea. Yet 

even as the gradualism of Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson’s Operation Rolling Thunder gave way to Pres. Richard Nixon’s more robust Operation Linebacker, the evolution of tactics, targeting processes, and 

technology made Vietnam markedly different from its predecessors. 

Careful planning and more precise attack capabilities allowed US 

forces to limit unintended consequences through its targeting process, rather than having to circumscribe the use of airpower as a strategic capability.

Given Vietnam’s contemporary association with “free-fire zones,” 

napalm, and the secret bombings of neutral countries, it may seem 

counterintuitive to ascribe restraint to the air war in Vietnam. Certainly compared to what we expect of US airpower today, or even 

what the world witnessed during the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, 

aerial bombing in Vietnam was brutal. However, even if estimates of 

civilian casualties from the two phases of aerial bombing were low 

(52,000 killed during Rolling Thunder, 13,000 during Linebacker), 

they compared favorably to previous air campaigns.134 In fact, the 

conduct of the air war in Vietnam created important precedents for 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 41

civilian protection, as indicated by a military backlash against the political constraints on the air war.

The two main phases of strategic bombing of North Vietnam had 

distinct purposes. The Rolling Thunder campaign (1965–68) sought 

to incrementally increase damage to Vietnamese industry. While 

planners conceived it initially to undermine the North’s support for 

the southern Vietcong guerillas, US officials quickly began to suspect 

that the bombing would not achieve these goals.135 The strategy of 

gradualism allowed the North to remain one step ahead of the bombing by dispersing industry and building up its air defenses.136 Nonetheless, bombing continued as a signal of US resolve and a means of 

pressing Northern leaders to negotiate an end to the conflict.137

The United States simultaneously ramped up its ground presence 

and, by late 1965, pursued a strategy of grinding attrition in the 

South. Arguing that the North Vietnamese would eventually run out 

of foot soldiers, Gen William Westmoreland, US Army, focused on 

finding and defeating the enemy, employing heavy bombers for tactical support.138 Ground forces conducted search and destroy missions 

in which civilians were evacuated from contested territory in order to 

deny sanctuary to the enemy. Evacuated areas, presumed devoid of 

friendly civilians, were declared free fire zones in which bombing 

could occur unimpeded. Military commanders focused on the enemy body count, with unfortunate implications for Vietnamese civilians.139 Nevertheless, even while supported by airpower, ground operations failed to deliver results in the South.

In 1972 newly elected President Nixon adopted a strategy of “Vietnamization,” turning the ground war over to South Vietnamese forces. 

Nixon’s Linebacker I and II air campaigns aimed to compensate for 

the withdrawal of US ground forces by attacking the North’s conventional military capabilities.140 Nixon appears to have intended to expand the bombing campaign, and some airpower advocates hail this 

phase of the air war as more robust and less tightly controlled by civilian authorities—and therefore more palatable from a doctrinal perspective.141 Yet even as target lists and bombing intensity increased, air 

tactics continued to reflect concern about civilian casualties.142

Constraints

The strategies and tactics of the air campaigns in Vietnam were 

more sensitive to noncombatants than those in prior wars.143 This was 
42 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

primarily a function of strategic concerns about escalation or diplomatic signaling rather than humanitarian sensitivity; President Johnson’s 

central goal was to avoid provoking Russia or China.144 However, 

political leaders did filter humanitarian concerns through a political 

lens. President Nixon in particular was “keenly aware of the domestic 

political criticism to which he would be subjected if large numbers of 

civilians were killed.”145 Concern about political fallout appeared distinct 

from concerns about the morality of aerial bombing, but at this juncture 

in US history, politics was a conduit for humanitarian concerns.146

US leaders remained convinced of airpower’s ability to undermine 

civilian morale and coerce adversary leadership, which became especially crucial for negotiating an end to the war. While the United 

States targeted specific military objectives within populated areas 

rather than directly attacking the population, debate revolved around 

the specifics of which military objectives should be targeted and how 

to carry out the attacks.147

The air war in Vietnam featured a host of predominantly tactical 

restrictions in order to minimize civilian harm. Commanders instructed pilots to adjust their tactics even where this might impose 

additional risks to aircraft and crews.148 Some restrictions proved just 

temporary, a function of the gradualism of the Rolling Thunder campaign. For example, political leaders initially imposed limits on 

bombing in or near populated areas. White House approval was required for bombing within 30 miles of Hanoi—and rarely granted for 

targets within 10 miles. Some indisputably military targets like surface-to-air missiles in cities remained off limits if they were silent, 

despite the threat they posed. Pilots could strike these targets only if 

the enemy were actually firing them.149 The restrictions left much of 

North Vietnam’s industrial economy and many military supply and 

lines of communication targets off limits. 

By the end of 1967, though, Johnson had lifted many political restrictions, allowing attacks on most industrial and transportation targets in North Vietnamese cities and the new Chinese buffer zone.150

Robert Pape argues that the damage was nonetheless limited, consistent with the absence of any US intention to kill civilians.151 Yet as in 

Korea and World War II, seeking to destroy the industrial base had 

terrible implications for the civilian population.

Still, the frame of collateral damage—and the supporting deliberation that it demanded—required military actors to weigh civilian 

harm against military advantage in targeting choice. The target ap-
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 43

proval process evolved to include estimates of civilian harm, which 

factored into decision making.152 While the major concern about 

noncombatant casualties may have been strategic, casualties nonetheless became a currency in which negative impact was measured. 

Indeed, Ward Thomas argues that “almost as much weight was given 

to avoiding civilian casualties as to military effectiveness, and sometimes more.”153 Some categories of targets that had been attacked in 

Korea were permanently placed off-limits—including dikes, despite 

vivid North Vietnamese propaganda to the contrary. In 1968 Secretary of the Air Force Harold Brown complained about “the present 

scrupulous concern for collateral civilian damage and casualties.”154

Guenter Lewy’s detailed study of US rules of engagement (ROE) in 

Vietnam found that, while the rules respected the distinction between 

combatants and noncombatants, the ROE were not adequately followed or enforced.155 Lewy nonetheless credited the USAF with efforts to learn from civilian casualty incidents in theater, adapting instructions as they identified causes of civilian harm.156

In 1972 the United States resumed strategic bombing with the 

Linebacker I and II campaigns to halt the North’s conventional offensive and pressure the North Vietnamese to negotiate. While some 

portray these bombing campaigns as less constrained than Rolling 

Thunder, this perception may stem largely from bombing’s intense 

pace, rather than the types of targets or rules governing the attacks.157

Indeed, additional requirements to use precision-guided munitions 

in heavily populated areas were added to the Linebacker efforts, and 

B-52 navigators were instructed to drop bombs only if they were 100 

percent sure of the aim point.158 The bombing’s intensity nonetheless 

devastated Hanoi and provoked vitriolic press coverage.159

Judgments

To argue that constraints on the air war were meaningful is not to 

suggest that airpower was safe for civilians. Although the figures are 

suspect, the total number of South Vietnamese civilian deaths is believed to be between 195,000 and 430,000, and the number of North 

Vietnamese is 65,000.160 Estimates place the casualties caused by the 

Rolling Thunder air campaign alone at 52,000 over three years and 

the subsequent Linebacker campaigns at approximately 13,000.161

These numbers would have been far higher but for North Vietnam’s 

evacuation of cities and provision of civilian shelters in urban areas.162
44 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

Constraint coexisted with massive destruction in Vietnam. Robert 

Pape argued that the relatively low numbers of civilian deaths and the 

patterns of violence from strategic bombing clearly indicate US restraint in its use of airpower.163 However, Guenter Lewy concluded 

that the style of US warfare remained simply too destructive to support the more restrictive ROEs. “Even if these rules had been applied 

more firmly,” he wrote, “there can be little doubt that the American 

reliance on heavy weapons and the lavish use of firepower would 

have exacted a heavy toll in [civilian] lives.”164

The overall US strategy of attrition, coupled with reliance upon 

airpower to deliver political results that the ground war failed to produce, ensured massive destruction and civilian loss of life. More 

pointedly, the sheer scale of firepower applied—US aircraft dropped 

more than the 2.7 million tons of bombs that Allied forces had expended during World War II—virtually guaranteed significant civilian deaths from airpower, whether from strategic bombing or close 

air support.165 Moreover, despite the use of precision weapons toward 

the end of the war, munitions like napalm and Agent Orange caused 

sensational forms of civilian harm.

Airpower’s dualism of constraint and destruction was reflected in 

the antiwar movement’s rhetoric and the frustration of the US security establishment. Airpower first came under significant criticism in 

1966, when the cloak of reassuring US rhetoric was pierced by New 

York Times correspondent Harrison Salisbury’s first-person description of bombing’s effects on Hanoi.166 The nature and extent of airpower’s impact remained in dispute throughout the war, but the antiwar movement harnessed impressions of airpower’s devastation to a 

broader critique of US engagement in Vietnam. Bernard Fall described the use of US airpower as unrestrained, deeming this the 

most fateful decision of the war.167

Even as war protesters criticized US war fighting, the USAF remained frustrated by the limits it experienced. The political Left’s 

portrayals of airpower as an indiscriminate cause of civilian deaths 

clashed with the views of many Airmen and military personnel who 

repeatedly sought to have bombing constraints lifted. The perception 

that bombing was being constrained to the point of ineffectiveness 

suggests that the constraints on air operations in Vietnam were 

meaningful, even as the overall strategy made significant civilian 

harm inevitable.
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 45

From the humanitarian perspective, US strategic bombing in Vietnam represented progress. The dominant political logic was no longer 

an effort to justify area bombing, as had been the case in World War 

II and Korea. The military faced more restrictive “red lines”—formally 

factored in civilian casualties when planning attacks—and was under 

instruction to adopt precautions to minimize civilian harm. These 

measures yielded imperfect results, but they were meaningful steps 

toward greater considerations of the civilian in war.

Backlash

America’s loss in Vietnam soured many Americans on the concept 

of constrained military activity. Leaders in military and conservative 

circles condemned what they deemed the “half-hearted” application 

of force doomed by political niceties. Vietnam prompted a political 

backlash regarding how leaders should use force, rekindling an idealized American vision of unrestrained military power. As a result, 

consideration of the foreign civilian—and the associated constraints 

on the use of force—was largely absent from the post-Vietnam political 

discourse about war.

The preferred alternative approach was to fight “wholeheartedly” 

with the “clear intention of winning”—a view encapsulated in what 

ultimately became known as the Weinberger-Powell doctrine.168 First 

articulated in 1984 by Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, the 

doctrine was expanded and updated seven years later by Army general 

Colin Powell.169 Its logic echoed the views of Helmuth von Moltke, 

Giulio Douhet, and Billy Mitchell: winning quickly, with overwhelming and decisive force, would be the greatest kindness in war.170 These 

tenets remained unofficial and were honored more often in the 

breach.171 The doctrine functioned more as political slogan than as a 

meaningful guide to military operations. Yet it underscored the enduring appeal of utilitarianism and helps explain why civilian casualties did not become a prominent concern of the services or of US 

war-fighting concepts.

Instead, military lawyers assumed stewardship of the civilian on 

the battlefield. This developed in response to an Army unit’s infamous 

1968 murder of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. Although 

the Army called the event an aberration, the service nonetheless instituted routine training on the LOAC. Lawyers were assigned responsibility for ensuring that troops understood the need to avoid 
46 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

civilian harm pursuant to the principles of the laws of war. Ironically, 

this innovation pushed the issue of civilian casualties toward the eddies of military activity rather than into the mainstream. Lawyers, 

rather than military commanders, “owned” the problem. Highlighting the issue as a legal problem rather than an operational priority 

effectively marginalized the concern.172

At the operational level, whatever lessons had been learned in 

Vietnam with respect to minimizing noncombatant casualties were 

swept into the dustbin along with counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine. The US military chose to focus instead on a total war scenario 

in which it did not need to worry about constraints on the use of 

force. The USAF adapted its conventional long-range strike capability 

for its role in the more fully integrated ground-air operations envisioned by AirLand Battle doctrine.173

The military’s focus on total war with the Soviet Union further 

explains why military awareness of collateral damage receded into 

the shadows after the Vietnam War. During the 1980s, NATO concentrated on the defense of Europe, seeking to build conventional 

capabilities and doctrine to hold off numerically superior Warsaw 

Pact forces. While a war in Europe would have devastated civilian 

populations, the United States believed the defending government 

had primary responsibility for protecting its own civilians.174 Minimizing civilian harm was a luxury that the United States could ill afford as it struggled to keep a conventional conflict from escalating to 

nuclear war. The United States remained committed to the LOAC, 

but there is little evidence that the United States considered preventing civilian harm an operational aspect of war for which it should 

plan.

From Destruction toward Effects

In the 1990s the USAF became more responsive to the operational 

demands of minimizing civilian harm, a process traced in later chapters. 

USAF adaptation was partly a function of the external environment—

principally the changing norm described in chapter 1. The longstanding 

tenets of airpower also facilitated this adaptation, and the modern 

realization of two factors in particular—precision and strategic 

effects—proved critical.
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 47

While the application of airpower principles has constantly 

evolved, the core principles of airpower have remained constant. Aircraft offer enormous operational responsiveness in a wide range of 

roles: strategic bombing, close air support, intelligence gathering, 

transporting forces and equipment, and fighting adversary aircraft.175

Compared to ground forces, airpower enjoys comparative advantages 

in flexibility, speed, and reach.176

Airpower’s ability to play a role independent of land power is another article of faith within the community.177 However, application 

of airpower is considered an art, and Airmen are convinced that only 

they fully appreciate airpower’s full comparative advantages.178 Effective use of airpower is believed to require centralized command, even 

in operations such as COIN, which are doctrinally decentralized and 

in which tactical uses of airpower fall under the ground commander’s 

control.179

Perhaps the central tenet of “airmindedness,” though, is the belief 

that airpower offers a unique ability to achieve strategic impact. The 

promise of efficiently delivering decisive strategic results remains the 

heart of airpower’s appeal, and precision further enhances the value 

of strategic bombing. Although the actual ability to apply force with 

precision has varied greatly, the tenet of precision has been a constant 

feature of US airpower.

The USAF’s current ability to minimize civilian casualties stems in 

large part from capabilities and ideas that were only just emerging in 

the 1980s. Two developments in particular—true precision and 

effects-based operational thinking—paved the way for reducing civilian 

harm, as future operations confirmed that constraints on airpower 

had become an enduring fixture of the American way of war.

Precision

While modern observers associate precision with “smart weapons,” 

these are only one manifestation of airpower’s longstanding quest for 

precision. Many factors shape the ability to bomb with accuracy. The 

way that targets are defined; the intelligence supporting the targeting 

process; and the tactics, techniques, and procedures of delivering 

weapons also shape an air crew’s ability to deliver a bomb on target. 

Faith in the transformative impact of the Norden bombsight illustrates the varied routes toward enhancing precision. The earliest 
48 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

“breakthroughs” also underscore how the operative definition of precision is relative and has changed dramatically over time.180

The overarching motivation for precision was, and remains, 

efficiency—the ability to achieve desired results with less effort or 

expenditure of resources. Precision epitomizes the economy of force, 

because less can achieve more. By exponentially increasing the destructive power of munitions, precision allowed more bombs to be 

loaded onto the same platform—vastly increasing the potential lethal 

effects of each sortie. As the Defense Science Board explained, “A ton 

of PGMs [precision-guided munitions] typically replaced 12–20 tons 

of unguided munitions on a tonnage per target kill basis.”181 Precision 

also expanded airpower’s flexibility because even smaller targets 

could be struck with greater confidence that targets would be destroyed as intended and that fewer surrounding objects or people 

would be harmed in the process.

Thus, precision offers many additional advantages beyond efficiency. It increases airpower’s flexibility as a tool of military power, 

justifies new weapons systems, better protects pilots (by requiring 

fewer sorties and allowing weapons release at greater standoff distances), achieves a wider range of strategic effects, and reduces civilian casualties. Precision thereby advanced other institutional objectives as well, such as making airpower a more appealing tool of choice 

for national command authorities.182 Moreover, because precision 

provides greater military control over the level of destruction levied 

on the battlefield, precision thereby reduces the need for civilian 

authorities to restrict commanders’ freedom of action in order to 

control political or strategic effects. Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF, 

retired, observes that from a commander’s perspective, precision 

“can enable you to act without restrictions.”183

The USAF first began using guided bomb units (GBU) toward the 

end of the Vietnam War. Precision laser-guided and electro-optically 

guided munitions allowed Airmen to protect themselves better in the 

face of more restrictive ROEs, and these new munitions’ dramatically 

improved accuracy enabled the USAF to conduct strikes that had 

previously been prohibited. The history of US efforts to destroy North 

Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa bridge illustrates the dramatic impact of precision. Prior to the use of GBUs, US Airmen had flown 873 air sorties 

and lost 11 aircraft to heavy air defenses protecting the bridge.184 In 

May 1972 the USAF successfully employed laser-guided weapons 

against seven bridges, including Thanh Hoa.185 During the Vietnam 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 49

War, precision weapons were hailed as a force protection capability 

and means of achieving greater operational freedom.186

In the following decades, “the U.S. Air Force was slow to address 

the doctrinal implications of this new level of bombing accuracy.”187

The service failed initially to capitalize on the new technology, declining to equip the bulk of its new combat aircraft with GBU delivery 

capability.188 Thankfully, the USAF did continue pushing the munitions technology itself, improving guidance systems and shape (collapsing fins for easier storage) to further capitalize on accuracy and 

efficiency in delivery. Improving technologies for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance also helped airpower achieve desired 

effects with less physical damage.

Enhanced precision was not directed toward minimizing the application of violence. Greater precision was fully consistent with the 

US objective of bringing maximum conventional force to bear against 

its primary strategic rival. “The only reason we had developed bigger 

bombs was to compensate for inaccuracy in delivery,” Lieutenant 

General Deptula explained.189 Greater precision actually increased 

the lethality of US airpower—such that it became more plausible to 

imagine an effective conventional response to a Soviet attack against 

Western Europe. Still the conventional underdog in that prospective 

contest, NATO remained concerned about maximizing its destructive power against Warsaw Pact forces. This might help explain why 

precision’s full benefits were not fully realized during the Cold War. 

By mid-1980 GBUs had gained autopilot, a laser scanner, and greater 

maneuverability. A few years later, the USAF developed a hard-target 

penetrating PGM, the BLU-109B or 2,000-pound bomb, a combination of “awesome lethality, overwhelming leverage, and surgical precision.”190 Yet as late as 1990, only a small number of USAF aircraft 

were equipped to carry PGMs.191

While precision was not born of concern for civilian protection, it 

nonetheless enabled development of a new approach to targeting that 

had important implications for civilians caught in conflict. These new 

capabilities allowed planners to focus on achieving specific effects 

rather than maximizing destruction, which would in turn reshape 

airpower strategies.
50 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

Effects-Based Targeting

Disputes about how best to achieve game-changing impact from 

strategic aerial bombing remained a central intellectual preoccupation of airpower advocates, and strategic bombing to affect enemy 

morale continued to hold great allure, despite controversy about its 

record.192 Theorists and planners have had competing views about the 

value of industrial targeting, morale targeting, and counterforce targeting.193 In the 1980s precision began to change the contours of their 

debate.

During the 1980s a group of young Airmen, led by Col John Warden 

III, was tasked with helping reenvision the USAF’s role as a decisive 

strategic force.194 Their thinking harkened back to early industrial 

web theories, but Warden contributed a particular approach to targeting and sought to make attacks faster, synergistic, and more efficient.195

Warden began with careful assessment of the enemy’s sources of 

strength, judging fielded military forces to comprise the outer ring of 

adversary power, while enemy leadership was the innermost ring—

the most important center of gravity. While he acknowledged Carl 

von Clausewitz’s point that the civilian population was also a center 

of gravity, Warden specifically ruled out attacks on the population.196

Given the growing prominence of international law—the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions had strengthened 

civilian protection—and the human rights movement, no serious 

strategist could contemplate doing otherwise.

Warden sought to harness precision and economy of force principles 

to targeting strategies. His strategies would reject destruction in lieu 

of focusing on effects. The result would be more selective use of force 

and reduced collateral damage—including civilian harm. This thinking permeated different iterations of the air campaign plans for 1991 

Operation Desert Storm.197

The USAF eventually embraced many elements of this approach, 

dubbed effects-based operations (EBO).198 Still considered an “emerging arena” as late as 2003, EBO theorizes that attacking specific links, 

nodes, or objects can achieve desired outcomes—though such attacks 

may sometimes require coordination with other attacks. Effectsbased actions or operations are those designed to produce distinct 

effects while avoiding unintended or undesired effects. This conceptual model requires that Airmen think through the full range of first- 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 51

and second-degree outcomes, choose those that will best achieve objectives, and find ways to mitigate those that will impede achieving 

them.199

An effects-based approach articulates tactics to achieve national 

objectives.200 EBO is driven by the desired effects (e.g., to ensure that 

enemy forces do not enter the city) rather than a task-based or targetbased approach (e.g., to destroy all enemy forces). “You think about 

your objectives and you work backwards,” Lieutenant General Deptula 

explained. “It’s a completely different answer than that of annihilation 

or attrition. The best result of course is to get your adversary to act in 

accordance with your goals without really knowing that that’s what 

he’s doing.”201

Reflecting the premise that “the ultimate aim in war is not just to 

overthrow the enemy’s military power, but to compel them to do 

one’s will,” the Air Force sees effects-based targeting as a more direct 

and less destructive route to achieving such political outcomes.202

Less destruction seems unequivocally good, yet EBO also invites a 

shift away from attacking traditional military targets, raising a different 

set of concerns about the nature of targets that can be attacked.203

When the targets are traditionally military targets, the benefits of an 

EBO approach are evident. Instead of physically destroying an entire 

electrical grid, planners might destroy or even just disable a few key 

nodes, nonetheless rendering the relevant part of the system inoperative. 

Seemingly validated by the US-led coalition’s 1991 victory in Iraq, 

EBO gradually became the dominant framework for USAF thinking 

about air operations.204 It was consistent with the Weinberger-Powell 

doctrine in that it sought decisive impact at the outset (i.e., it was not 

gradualism). Swift and overwhelming attack on strategic targets 

would enable victory.205 However, EBO differed from the traditional 

American approach of annihilation and overwhelming firepower 

because it focused on effects—not destruction per se. In this respect, 

EBO had great potential to enhance civilian protection.

The transition from destruction to effects as a focus of US aerial 

bombing reflected the synergistic evolution of the USAF’s belief in 

precision and its emphasis on strategic effects. This combination 

explains why strategic bombing in the twenty-first century looks 

nothing like the bombing of Tokyo and only faintly echoes Linebacker II. The United States still has the capacity to create indiscriminate damage, but this is no longer how the country chooses to 

use its power. US aerial bombing today focuses not on maximizing 
52 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

destruction but instead on precisely attacking targets selected to 

achieve particular effects while minimizing civilian harm.

Conclusion

The conventional view of aerial bombing in 1948 was very straightforward: “The purpose of bombing is damage.”206 During the Vietnam War, the damage was constrained, but destruction remained the 

objective of airpower. After Vietnam, advances in precision made it 

possible to envision new purposes for bombing. Today, the USAF 

notes that destruction through attrition is “rarely the key objective in 

modern war” and touts airpower’s ability to offer to contribute to precise, coordinated power that forces enemies to comply with US 

national will.207

Douhet and Mitchell had once envisioned the strategic bombing 

of populations as the key for undermining morale and ending wars 

quickly. Doctrinally, the USAF rejected the notion of directly targeting civilians, preferring to bomb industry, infrastructure, and other 

specific targets—even when located within cities. However, the limits 

of technology through World War II and Korea deprived the US “precision bombing doctrine” of practical meaning. 

A willful focus on military intentions (rather than judging their 

operational effects) was America’s way of reconciling the most morally problematic aspects of US military power. Even as the United 

States adopted the framing of collateral damage, factoring in civilian 

casualties as effects, the emphasis upon intent remained strong. Collateral damage was defined in terms of the LOAC, suggesting that 

compliance with law was the proper standard for judging civilian casualties.

It followed, then, that if good intentions exonerated actions and if 

collateral damage were lawful, civilian casualties were not a pressing 

problem to solve. There was little incentive to take additional action—

such as adjusting operational practices or developing new capabilities—

to reduce civilian harm. Throughout the Cold War, US military doctrine made virtually no mention—other than noting the laws of 

war—regarding how to plan, organize, train, or equip forces to avoid 

harming civilians during military operations.208

Nevertheless, toward the end of the Cold War, precision and EBO 

suggested a different route to ameliorate longstanding tensions 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 53

between the public goals of strategic bombing and the actual effects 

of US air campaigns. Precision and effects-based operational 

thinking might allow reduced civilian harm. Indeed, these tools 

prepared the USAF to respond when operational constraints on 

airpower resurfaced during the 1990s—this time specifically because of sensitivity to civilian deaths. The story of USAF adaptation picks up in chapter 4, after a detour into international law.

In chapter 3, I revisit the issue of standards of performance for the 

USAF regarding civilian protection. I explore the difference between 

the norm—expectations regarding civilian protection—and the standards of the LOAC. The military and the humanitarian communities 

approach these issues from competing perspectives. They see the law 

in different lights and sometimes confuse the requirements of law 

and higher normative expectations regarding minimizing civilian 

harm. Their differences help explain why outsiders criticize actions 

that the US military deems consistent with ROE and international 

law and why the military’s legal defense of civilian casualties is unlikely to satisfy critics.

Notes

1. According to Dr. Antulio J. Echeverria, currently of the Strategic Studies Institute and a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, the term refers to “fundamental ideas 

and expectations, albeit modified in practice, that the U.S. military profession and 

U.S. political leadership have, or have had, about war, and their respective roles in it. 

These ideas and expectations, in turn, contribute to the assumptions that inform 

political and military decision makers in matters of strategic planning, budgeting, 

and concept and doctrine development.” Antulio J. Echeverria, Toward an American 

Way of War (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2004), 1.

2. Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977). The approach was captured in the Vietnam War–era slogan “Expend shells not men.” For 

more information, see Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 268. Contemporary analysts have updated this theme by describing “new” American ways of war that depart from overwhelming force and 

utilitarianism but continue to focus on technology and information while minimizing exposure of US service members. For more information, see Ronald R. Fogleman, 

USAF Chief of Staff, “Air Power and the American Way of War” (paper presented at 

the Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium, Orlando, FL, 15 February 1996); 

and Max Boot, “The New American Way of War,” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 4 (July/August 

2003): 42–4. At the same time, Boot and others have chronicled competing parallel 

histories of US engagement in small wars that emphasize the human element. Max 
54 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace (New York: Basic Books, 2002); and Brian McAllister 

Linn, The Echo of Battle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).

3. Some refer to this as exceptionalism. See, for example, Michael Ignatieff, ed., 

American Exceptionalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); Charles 

Lockhart, The Roots of American Exceptionalism: History, Institutions, and Culture 

(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997); and 

Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed 

the World (New York: Knopf, 2001). During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, President Bush 

and others reiterated that the United States was “doing everything possible” to minimize casualties and to avoid civilian sites, “despite the fact that Saddam is now relocating some military functions . . . in civilian areas such as schools.” Johanna Neuman, 

“Saddam Keeps Focus on Civilian Toll,” USA Today, 7 February 1991.

4. Conrad C. Crane, Bombs, Cities, and Civilians: American Airpower Strategy in 

World War II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 14. Crane cites a captured 

zeppelin commander who insisted that Germany had not “set out to kill women and 

children. We have higher military aims. . . . Such things happen accidentally in war.”

5. Ward Thomas, The Ethics of Destruction: Norms and Force in International Relations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 106.

6. Phillip S. Meilinger, “Air War and Humanitarian Concerns” (working paper, 

Humanitarian Challenges in Military Intervention Workshop, Project on the Means 

of Intervention, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, 

Washington, DC, 29–30 November 2001), 42; and Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Airpower (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 264. 

See also Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, trans. Dino Ferrari (New York: 

Coward-McCann, 1942).

7. Quoted in Jefferson D. Reynolds, “Collateral Damage on the 21st Century Battlefield: Enemy Exploitation of the Law of Armed Conflict, and the Struggle for a Moral 

High Ground,” Air Force Law Review 56 (2005), 11.

8. The related argument that overwhelming destruction offers the most humane 

approach to war by ending it swiftly or deterring it altogether has been continuously 

recycled, emerging in subtler form in the contemporary debate.

9. Reynolds, “Collateral Damage on the 21st Century Battlefield,” 11.

10. Jan C. Smuts, The Second Report of the Prime Minister’s Committee on Air 

Organisation and Home Defence against Air Raids, 17 August 1917. 

11. The subsequent head of British air operations, Sir Hugh Trenchard, believed 

that “the moral effect of bombing stands undoubtedly to the material effect in a proportion of 20 to 1.” See Hugh Trenchard, dispatch, 1 January 1919, reprinted in H. A. 

Jones, The War in the Air, vol. 6, Being the Story of the Part Played in the Great War by 

the Royal Air Force (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1937), 136.

12. The British air force was the first “to put the Douhet model into practice.” 

Pape explores why Douhet-style thinking resonated in Great Britain. Robert A. Pape, 

Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University 

Press, 1996), 60–2.

13. The persistence of this view, in the face of so much historical evidence to the 

contrary, remains puzzling. See the critique of morale targeting claims in Pape, 

Bombing to Win. For the United States, precision munitions allow strategic targeting 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 55

that undermines morale without widespread civilian deaths. Such strategic targeting 

nonetheless threatens to undermine legal distinctions between civilian and military 

targets. This issue is explored in chapter 3.

14. Mitchell’s ideas grew closer to Douhet’s in the 1930s; both men faced official 

sanction for their unorthodox views of airpower. Crane, Bombs, Cities, and Civilians, 

15–18.

15. Alfred F. Hurley, Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power (Bloomington: Indiana 

University Press, 1975), 93.

16. After World War II, his arguments would be used to help liberate airpower 

from its home within the Army and create an independent USAF.

17. Stephen L. McFarland, America’s Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 1910–1945

(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press), 81.

18. Both Pres. Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of War Newton Baker were critical 

of British actions. Thomas, Ethics of Destruction, 112.

19. McFarland, America’s Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 81.

20. Previously, the 1899 Hague Convention had temporarily banned launching 

projectiles and explosives from balloons (the reigning technology of the time) or 

other methods. The 1907 Hague Conference sought to extend the ban, but the advent 

of airpower left key states (Germany, France, and Italy) unwilling to do so. Tami 

Davis Biddle, “Air Power,” in The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western 

World, ed. Michael Howard, George J. Andreopoulos, and Mark R. Shulman (New 

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 141–2.

21. Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War, 3rd ed. 

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 139–53.

22. Biddle calls the effort “a legal and political failure.” Biddle, “Air Power,” 148.

23. Ronald Schaffer describes Army Air Force leaders, courting popular opinion 

in their efforts to create an independent air force, as seeking “to convince the public 

that AAF bombing methods did not violate ethical principles widely held at home.” 

Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 37.

24. Pape, Bombing to Win, 65–6.

25. Ibid., 66; and McFarland, America’s Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 82.

26. Henry H. Arnold and Ira C. Eaker, Winged Warfare (New York: Harpers & 

Brothers, 1941), 134.

27. McFarland suggests that the “traditional American reverence for marksmanship” also supported distinction in US airpower. McFarland, America’s Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 82.

28. Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 2002), 143–4.

29. Ibid., 161; and Robert T. Finney, History of the Air Corps Tactical School: 

1920–1940 (Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Historical Division, Air University Press; 

Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, 1998), 33, http://www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA432954. Citations are from the Center for Air Force History 

edition.

30. Essentially an analog computer, the Norden Mark 15 bombsight allowed pilots 

to calculate a weapon’s trajectory, greatly increasing the accuracy of bombing. The 

Navy initially developed the technology, declining to share it with the Army Air 

Force. In practice, its impact was less revolutionary than anticipated. Maurer Maurer, 
56 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919–1939 (Washington, DC: United States Air Force, 

1987), 387–88.

31. For overviews of this process, see Michael S. Sherry, Rise of American Airpower (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987).

32. McFarland, America’s Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 91–92; and Pape, Bombing to Win, 62.

33. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 141. The British had developed their own version of industrial fabric theory—from which the ACTS school 

borrowed—but Hugh Trenchard, the “father” of the RAF, preferred to focus on morale 

effects (which required less precision). McFarland, America’s Pursuit of Precision 

Bombing, 79.

34. Pape, Bombing to Win, 62.

35. “The [US] planners speculated that civilians would suffer from these attacks 

and that bombing would undermine civilian morale, but the mass killing of noncombatants would not be a direct aim of the precision attacks.” Sahr Conway-Lanz, 

Collateral Damage (New York: Routledge, 2006), 10.

36. William W. Ralph, “Improvised Destruction: Arnold, LeMay, and the Firebombing of Japan,” War in History 13, no. 4 (2006), 498.

37. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Appeal to Russia and Finland to Stop Bombing Civilians,” 1 December 1939, online in American Presidency Project, ed. Gerhard Peters 

and John T. Woolley, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15845. Conrad 

Crane calls Roosevelt’s plea “largely a political ploy” and documents the president’s 

more complicated personal views on morale bombing. Crane, Bombs, Cities, and 

Civilians, 32.

38. Roosevelt, “Appeal to Russia and Finland.”

39. For a thorough history, see Schaffer, Wings of Judgment.

40. Nonetheless, the United States developed a contingency plan for striking 

residential areas in order to conclude the war quickly. The ACTS had taught that attacking capitals and centers of population remained a possibility, governed by political 

considerations. Biddle, “Air Power,” 150–1.

41. The RAF abandoned daytime precision raids after determining that they 

were “terribly costly and not very effective.” Schaffer, Wings of Judgment, 36.

42. Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air War against Germany 1939–1945, vol. 4, Annexes and Appendices (London, UK: H. M. Stationery 

Office, 1961), 143–8. 

43. Thomas, Ethics of Destruction, 112.

44. Phillip S. Meilinger, “Airpower and Collateral Damage: Theory, Practice and 

Prospects,” draft chapter in The Perfect War (forthcoming), 9, http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-EMEAC-2013-02.html.

45. Schaffer, Wings of Judgment, 37.

46. Michael Sherry suggests that operational realities are also used as rationalization by allied forces. Sherry, Rise of American Power, 173–6. 

47. Debate persists regarding when civilian personnel working in particular capacities are legitimate targets and when they retain their protected status as civilians, 

solely factored into proportionality analysis for attacks on military objectives. I further 

discuss the debate regarding which activities constitute direct participation in hostilities and which facilities or objects qualify as military objectives in chapter 3. 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 57

48. “Norden M-9 Bombsight Printable Fact Sheet,” National Museum of the US 

Air Force, 16 August 2010, http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet

.asp?id=8056.

49. Richard G. Davis, “American Bombardment Policy against Germany, 1942–

1945,” Royal Air Force Air Power Review 6, no. 3 (Autumn 2003), 49–62. Davis argues 

that air records reveal a more extensive practice of American city area bombing than 

traditionally understood (see 59, n. 17).

50. Jefferson D. Reynolds, “Collateral Damage on the 21st Century Battlefield,” 11.

51. Department of War, US Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), vol. 2, Over-All 

Report (European War) (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1945), 72, 

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015049492716.

52. Richard Davis argues that the Americans and British distinguished their level 

of effort to avoid civilian harm depending upon the nationality of the civilians. 

“American Bombardment Policy,” 58.

53. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 228–9.

54. These included Berlin, Magdeburg, Chemnitz, Leipzig, and Dresden.

55. Directives noted the need to “cause great confusion in civilian evacuation 

from the East and hamper [military] reinforcements” or, as Biddle summarizes, to 

use civilian refugees as a tool against the German army. Tami Davis Biddle, “Dresden 

1945: Reality, History, and Memory,” Journal of Military History 72, no. 2 (April 

2008), 431.

56. McFarland, America’s Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 184.

57. I would like to thank Tami Davis Biddle for emphasizing this point. For 

example, see Biddle, “Dresden 1945,” 434.

58. Among the February raids, Dresden ranked only 10th in the percentage use 

of incendiaries compared to high explosives, and this raid caused fewer civilian 

deaths than the bombing of Hamburg in July 1943. Ibid., 414.

59. Crane, Bombs, Cities, and Civilians, 114. More were believed killed in the 

Hamburg raid.

60. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked whether the bombing 

should continue and implied that it aimed solely to increase terror, thereby angering 

British air force leaders, whom he had urged to undertake the raids. Churchill note 

of 28 March 1945, reprinted in Charles Webster and Noble Frankland, The Strategic 

Air Offensive against Germany, 1939–1945, vol. 3, Victory (London, UK: H. M. 

Stationery Office, 1961), 112. A concerned US Secretary of War Henry Stimson requested an investigation of the raids, frustrating Lt Gen Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the US Army Air Corps, who warned against going “soft.” 

Stimson dropped the issue after being reassured that Dresden was an important 

communications center. “Report of Air Attacks on Targets in Dresden,” File 519.523-6, 

Air Force Historical Research Center of the United States Air Force, Air University, 

Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, March 1945 (hereinafter AFHRC). Nonetheless, new 

US press policy instructed spokespersons to specify military targets in future raids 

that were aimed at city centers. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 259.

61. Ralph, “Improvised Destruction,” 512.

62. Department of War, US Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), Field Report Covering Air Raid Protection and Allied Subjects in Tokyo, Japan (Washington, DC: Civilian 

Defense Division, 1947), 63. 
58 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

63. Ralph, “Improvised Destruction,” 513.

64. LeMay stated, “All you had to do was visit one of those targets after we’d 

roasted it, and see the ruins of a multitude of tiny houses, with a drill press sticking 

up through the wreckage of every home.” Quoted in Lynn Eden, Whole World on 

Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell 

University Press, 2004), 47, n.18.

65. Ibid. 

66. Curtis Emerson LeMay and MacKinley Kantor, Mission with LeMay: My 

Story (New York: Doubleday, 1965), 383–4.

67. Only Secretary of War Henry Stimson evinced concern, although the USAAF 

reassured him that it was doing the best it could to reduce civilian damage. Conrad, 

Bombs, Cities, and Civilians, 134–5.

68. “Analysis of Incendiary Phase of Operations,” in AFHRC, 6. 

69. Some observers have challenged the claims of military necessity, particularly 

given the overall trajectory of the war. See, for example, the argument of moral philosopher Michael Walzer in Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical 

Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 255–63.

70. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 245.

71. Thomas, Ethics of Destruction, 134. Nonetheless, the USAAF still sought to 

“maintain its image as a ‘precision’ or ‘pin point’ force” through comparisons to the 

RAF. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 258. In the summer of 1944, RAF 

bombers attacked specific targets in preparation for the D-day landings. W. Hays 

Parks, “‘Precision’ and ‘Area’ Bombing: Who Did Which, and When?,” Journal of 

Strategic Studies 18, no. 1 (1995), 147–51.

72. Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, 12.

73. Harry S. Truman, “97. Radio Report to the American People on the Potsdam Conference” (Public Papers of the Presidents, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, Independence, MO, 9 August 1945), http://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/?pid=104.

74. Indeed, polling suggested that most Americans approved of the strategic 

bombing campaigns. For more information, see George E. Hopkins, “Bombing and 

the American Conscience during World War II,” Historian 28, no. 3 (1966): 451–73. 

Most media was silent or supportive. Alternative sources of information might have 

tempered American views, but the contrast between apparent wartime support and 

a critical interwar view of bombing was stark. Some observers have noted additional 

differences in US perspectives toward European versus Japanese civilians and combatants. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, 270; and Crane, Bombs, Cities, 

and Civilians, 120–1.

75. Historian Sahr Conway-Lanz has exhaustively documented the decade-long 

debate that ultimately produced what he calls the “reinterpretation” of noncombatant 

immunity. Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, 2.

76. David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. 2, The Atomic 

Energy Years, 1945–1950 (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 271.

77. Lewis Mumford, “Atom Bomb: Miracle or Catastrophe?,” Air Affairs 2, no. 3 

(July 1948): 326–45; and A. J. Muste, Not by Might: Christianity, the Way to Human 

Decency (New York: Harper, 1947), 5–7, 15–17, 149–50.

78. The term “strategic” is used primarily to differentiate attacks from those 

aimed directly at an adversary’s military forces. For example, Michael Sherry defines 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 59

“strategic” air war as an attack on “an enemy’s capacity and will to sustain military 

operations, rather than on those operations.” Sherry, Rise of American Power, 12n. 

According to Robert Pape, strategic attacks aim to force enemy capitulation without 

destroying enemy forces or occupying terrain. Pape, Bombing to Win, 321.

79. Arthur W. Radford, commander of the Pacific Fleet, warned that mass area 

bombings of urban areas were “politically and economically senseless” and questioned whether Americans would support such a strategy. Strategic air warfare, Rear 

Adm Ralph A. Ofstie testified, “is militarily unsound and of limited effect, is morally 

wrong, and is decidedly harmful to the stability of a postwar world.” House Committee 

on Armed Services, The National Defense Program – Unification and Strategy: Hearings

81st Congress, 1st sess., 1949. The Navy’s view evolved after the service acquired a 

strategic capability. 

80. Omar N. Bradley, The Collected Writings of General Omar N. Bradley, vol. 4, 

Testimony, 1946–1949 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1967), 17.

81. Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, 43, 76–7.

82. For an overview of US nuclear strategy, see David Rosenberg, “The Origins 

of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945–1960,” International Security

7, no. 4 (Spring 1983): 3–71.

83. Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, 79.

84. David Rosenberg, “Nuclear War Planning,” in The Laws of War: Constraints 

on Warfare in the Western World, ed. Michael Howard, George J. Andreopoulos, and 

Mark R. Shulman (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 169. Rosenberg 

points out that “full execution of the 1961 Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) 

would have killed 285 million people in the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of 

China.” 

85. Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, 79.

86. Ibid., 78.

87. Rosenberg, “Overkill,” 64–69.

88. Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, 20.

89. Ibid.

90. Conrad C. Crane, American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950–1953 (Lawrence: 

University Press of Kansas, 2000), 9.

91. Ibid.; and Charles Hanley, Sang-Hun Choe, and Martha Mendoza, The Bridge 

at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War (New York: Henry Holt, 

2001).

92. Gen Douglas A. MacArthur was willing to accept collateral damage as a result of striking military targets but interpreted Truman’s guidance as forbidding the 

firebombing initially proposed by Maj Gen Emmet “Rosy” O’Donnell. Conrad 

Crane, “Raiding the Beggar’s Pantry: The Search for Airpower Strategy in the Korean 

War,” Journal of Military History 63, no. 4 (October 1999), 889.

93. According to Conway-Lanz, these rules “provided some real protection for 

Korean noncombatants.” Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, 92.

94. See Crane, American Airpower Strategy; and John Tirman, The Deaths of Others: 

The Fate of Civilians in America’s Wars (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

95. Charles J. Hanley and Martha Mendoza, “‘Shoot Refugees’ Letter Went Undisclosed,” USA Today, 13 April 2007, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04

-13-korea-refugees_n.htm.
60 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

96. In addition to concerns about precision bombing, US officials emphasized 

efforts to warn Korean civilians by dropping leaflets and plans for relief and reconstruction of the country.

97. Hanley, No Gun Ri, 162.

98. Col Turner C. Rogers, operations chief, Fifth Air Force, to Maj Gen Earle E. 

Partridge, commander, Fifth Air Force, memorandum, 25 July 1950. Rogers observed that the actions might cause embarrassment and that the Army should be able 

to develop alternatives to air bombardment. He recommended that the USAF cease 

cooperation, but such attacks continued.

99. Hanley, No Gun Ri, 275. Intrepid reporting finally made it to the Associated 

Press worldwide news wires on September 29, prompting an official US Army investigation of the incident.

100. Tirman, Deaths of Others, 288.

101. Thomas, Ethics of Destruction, 149.

102. Crane, Korea, 42–6.

103. Sahr Conway-Lanz, “The Ethics of Bombing Civilians after World War II: 

The Persistence of Norms against Targeting Civilians in the Korean War,” Asia-Pacific 

Journal 12, iss. 37, no. 1, 15 September 2014, http://www.japanfocus.org/-Sahr-Conway

_Lanz/4180.

104. Crane, Korea, 47.

105. George E. Stratemeyer, The Three Wars of Lt. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer: 

His Korean War Diary, ed. William T. Y’Blood (Washington, DC: Air Force History 

and Museums Program, 1999), 258. Only the city of Rashin and hydroelectric plants 

were exempted from his orders.

106. Crane, Korea, 63. MacArthur neglected to inform even the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

107. Destruction became the operative concept guiding US strategy. Staff Study 

for Deputy for Operations, Far East Air Forces, “The Application of FEAF Effort in 

Korea,” 12 April 1952, in FEAF Historical Division, FEAF Operations Policy, Korea, 

Mid-1952, March 1955 file K720.01 1952 (addendum), AFHRC. Conrad Crane observes that the command’s recommendation—that the modified strategy be described not as a major change but simply as a “shift in emphasis”—was designed to 

prevent the Army from objecting and to avoid public controversy. Crane, Korea, 117.

108. Crane, Korea, 155, 159.

109. Crane, “Raiding the Beggar’s Pantry,” 917.

110. Crane, Korea, 160.

111. Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, 107.

112. Ibid., 83.

113. Conway-Lanz found that the terms “collateral devastation” and “collateral 

effects of damage” originated in discussions about nuclear weapons during the 1950s. 

“Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath, Document 236, 7 December 1962” in Foreign 

Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. 11, Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath, 

ed., John P. Glennon, Ronald D. Landa, and Charles S. Sampson (Washington, DC: 

Department of Defense, 1998), 10; see Eden, Whole World on Fire, for an exhaustive 

survey of US efforts to assess and model nuclear weapons effects.

114. Silvanus T. Gilbert III, “What Will Douhet Think of Next?: An Analysis of 

the Impact of Stealth Technology on the Evolution of Strategic Bombing Doctrine” 

(MA thesis, Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL, 1992), 30.
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 61

115. See, for example, Morton H. Halperin, Limited War in the Nuclear Age (New 

York: Wiley and Sons, 1963), 108; and George. H. Quester, Deterrence before Hiroshima: 

The Airpower Background of Modern Strategy (New York: Wiley, 1966), 23, 26, 63.

116. This is a common complaint of human rights groups, which also criticize 

antiseptic military parlance such as “servicing a target.” An example was one German 

organization for the preservation of language in 1999 awarding collateral damage the 

distinction of “bad expression of the year.” Andru E. Wall, ed., Legal and Ethical Lessons of NATO’s Kosovo Campaign, International Law Studies 78 (Newport, RI: Naval 

War College, 2003), 184.

117. Grossman describes these as adaptations to enable killing, which is fundamentally difficult to undertake. David A. Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological 

Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (New York: Little, Brown, 2009).

118. Michael R. Rouland, CIV USAF AF/HOH, Air Force Historical Research 

Office, to the author, e-mail, 23 August 2010. Mr. Rouland cited Air Force Manual 

(AFMAN) 1-1, United States Air Force Basic Doctrine, August 1964.

119. Ibid., 179.

120. The architects of US nuclear weapons doctrine continued to discusses collateral damage in the context of planning factors for nuclear targeting and employment. Joint Publication (JP) 3-12.1, Doctrine of Joint Theater Nuclear Operations, 9 

February 1996. 

121. Air Force Pamphlet (AFPAM) 110-34, Commander’s Handbook on the Laws 

of Armed Conflict, 25 July 1980, 3-3.

122. A subsequent AFMAN’s definition of collateral damage neglected to mention people, defining it as “damage to surrounding resources, either military or nonmilitary, as a result of actions or strikes directed specifically against enemy forces or 

military facilities.” Air Force Manual (AFMAN) 11-1, Air Force Glossary of Standardized 

Terms, 29 September 1989.

123. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 3-60, Targeting, 28 July 2011.

124. This definition is not unique to the USAF. The current DOD definition of 

collateral damage is “unintentional or incidental injury or damage to persons or objects that would not be lawful military targets in the circumstances ruling at the 

time.” Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 08 November 2010, as amended through 15 August 2014.

125. Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, 220–1.

126. AFDD 3-60, Targeting, 28 July 2011. 

127. The Judeo-Christian tradition of ethical reasoning and the customary law of 

armed conflict both incorporate the principle of proportionality in the use of force. 

In 1977, a formulation of this principle became an element of positive law, although 

it remains difficult to define precisely. This is Article 51 (5) (b) of the 1977 Geneva 

Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949. See Roberts and 

Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War, 448–9.

128. Legal issues are discussed in detail in the following chapter.

129. Eden, Whole World on Fire, 50.

130. I describe this in chapter 5.

131. Many aspects of conventional military operations, such as maneuver and coordination of different first force components, do not apply to nuclear weapons use.
62 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

132. US Army Field Manual (FM) 6-01.1, Knowledge Management Operations, 

July 2012.

133. Mark Clodfelter argues that in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam air leaders’ 

commitments to avoiding civilian harm faded in the face of indecisive results, such 

that they “reluctantly ordered direct strikes on war-making capability and civilian 

morale.” Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North 

Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1989), 127.

134. Pape, Bombing to Win, 190, 208. Also see, for example, W. Hays Parks’ comparison of Linebacker II with other bombing raids. W. Hays Parks, “Air War and the 

Law of War,” Air Force Law Review 32 (1990), 154.

135. Then-Ambassador Maxwell Taylor began to voice these concerns immediately. For more information, see Mike Gravel, Noam Chomsky, and Howard Zinn, 

eds., The Pentagon Papers, vol. 3, The Defense Department History of United States 

Decisionmaking in Vietnam (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 316.

136. Thomas C. Hone, “Strategic Bombardment Constrained: Korea and Vietnam,” in Case Studies in Strategic Bombardment, ed. R. Cargill Hall (Washington, 

DC: Air Force History and Museum Programs, 1998), 498.

137. For a detailed discussion of the strategies employed during Rolling Thunder, 

see Pape, Bombing to Win, 174–95.

138. Guenter Lewy, American in Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 

1978), 57–64, 77–84.

139. See discussion in Nick Turse, Kill Anything That Moves (New York: Henry 

Holt and Company, 2013), 42–51.

140. Nixon’s Linebacker campaigns succeeded, Robert Pape argues, because the 

Vietnamese had shifted from a guerilla war to a conventional war strategy that was 

vulnerable to air interdiction. See discussion in Pape, Bombing to Win, 195–202.

141. Nixon railed, “I don’t want any more of this crap about the fact we couldn’t 

hit this target or that one.” Clodfelter, Limits of Air Power, 190. At the same time, 

Clodfelter notes, Nixon did not want indiscriminate raids to harm détente or increase communist support for North Vietnam. Parks contrasts Linebacker with the 

gradualism and hesitation of Rolling Thunder. He implies that the reduction of geographic restrictions on targeting, devolution of greater authority to military commanders, and end of the “paranoiac fixation” regarding civilian casualties make Linebacker a success. W. Hays Parks, “Linebacker and the Law of War,” Air University 

Review 34, no. 2 (January/February 1983), 5–8.

142. Clodfelter, Limits of Air Power, 190.

143. Thomas, Ethics of Destruction, 152.

144. Robert McNamara, secretary of defense, to Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, memorandum, October 1966.

145. Pape, Bombing to Win, 208.

146. This is a striking contrast between American public attitudes toward civilian 

deaths during the Vietnam War and the public’s views decades later during humanitarian interventions and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In chapters 4 and 5, I 

show that public pressure on US forces to reduce civilian casualties was largely external. 

As of this writing, the use of drones to conduct targeted killing seems to have revived 

an American debate about the use of force and civilian deaths.
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 63

147. Civilian leaders initially rejected the USAF’s original proposal to destroy 

North Vietnam’s industrial base, a strategy that Robert Pape dubbed the “genteel 

Douhet” approach. The supporting rational for imposing widespread destruction in 

what would include urban areas was undermining the population’s morale. Pape, 

Bombing to Win, 180–1.

148. White House instructions on a 1966 raid on Hanoi and Haiphong petroleum targets included the need to instruct pilots on avoiding civilian casualties, 

awaiting good weather, selecting an axis of attack that avoided populated areas, and 

limiting the suppression of ground to air threats to those sites outside populated areas. 

W. Hays Parks, “Rolling Thunder and Law of War,” Air University Review 33, no. 2 

(January/February), 12.

149. Ibid., 9–11.

150. Pape, Bombing to Win, 188.

151. Ibid., 190.

152. Parks, “Linebacker,” 11–2. 

153. Thomas, Ethics of Destruction, 153.

154. Parks, “Rolling Thunder,” 19.

155. Lewy, America in Vietnam, 268.

156. Ibid., 233–4.

157. See, for example, Parks, “Linebacker”; U. S. Grant Sharp, Strategy for Defeat: 

Vietnam in Retrospect (San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1978); and Thomas, Ethics of 

Destruction, 154.

158. Parks argues that the laser and electro-optically guided weapons had a “pronounced effect” on the war. “Linebacker,” 11, 13; and Clodfelter, Limits of Air Power, 191.

159. Pape argues that the campaigns’ primary impact was not on morale but 

rather on North Vietnam’s conventional war strategy—which was more vulnerable 

to bombing than its earlier guerilla war. Pape, Bombing to Win, 176. The Washington 

Post editorial of 28 December called the bombing “the most savage and senseless act 

of war.” Editorial, “Terror Bombing in the Name of Peace,” Washington Post, 28 December 1972, A20. 

160. The time frame for these estimates is from 1965 to 1974. For a review of 

estimates of civilian casualties, including total Vietnamese casualties, see Charles 

Hirschman, Samuel Preston, and Vu Manh Loi, “Vietnamese Casualties during the 

American War: A New Estimate,” Population and Development Review 21, no. 4 (December 1995), 790.

161. Pape, Bombing to Win, 190, 208.

162. Ibid., 190.

163. Compared to historical figures and overall Vietnamese casualties, Pape regarded Rolling Thunder’s civilian deaths as “exceedingly low” and Linebacker campaign figures as “small numbers.” Pape, Bombing to Win, 190, 208.

164. Lewy, America in Vietnam, 268.

165. Hirschman, Preston, and Vu, “Vietnamese Casualties,” 790.

166. “Contrary to the impression given by the U.S. communiqués, on-the-spot 

inspection indicates that American bombing has been inflicting considerable civilian 

casualties in Hanoi and its environ for some time past.” Harrison E. Salisbury, “Visitor 

to Hanoi Inspects Damage Attributed to American Raids,” New York Times, 26 December 1966, 1.
64 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

167. Fall described the United States as choosing “to wage unlimited aerial warfare inside the country at the price of literally pounding the place to bits.” Bernard 

Fall, “Vietnam Blitz,” New Republic, 9 October 1965, 17–21.

168. Indeed, while Powell specifically meant to avoid another Vietnam-like war 

and formally countenanced the role of peace operations in US military strategy, military and conservative figures used the doctrine to dismiss humanitarian intervention 

and “operations other than war” during the 1990s. For additional information, see 

Kenneth J. Campbell, “Once Burned, Twice Cautious: Explaining the WeinbergerPowell Doctrine,” Armed Forces and Society 24, no. 3 (Spring 1998): 357–74; and 

Jeffrey Record, “Back to the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine?” Strategic Studies Quarterly

1, no. 1 (Fall 2007): 83, http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2007/Fall/Fall%2007%20PDF.pdf.

169. Caspar W. Weinberger (remarks prepared for delivery, National Press Club, 

Washington, DC, 28 November 1984); and later in Caspar W. Weinberger, “U.S. Defense Strategy,” Foreign Affairs 64, no. 4 (Spring 1986): 686–7. Powell’s key additions 

were acknowledging the place of peace operations and humanitarian intervention 

(“a given”), insisting on an exit strategy, and assessing the risks and costs involved in 

the use of force and achievement of the objectives. Colin L. Powell, “U.S. Forces: 

Challenges Ahead,” Foreign Affairs 71, no. 5 (Winter 1992), 37, 39.

170. Prussian general Helmuth von Moltke’s words have been translated with 

some variation, but each version conveys his view that wars should be prosecuted 

vigorously and concluded swiftly. He does acknowledge, however, that some (undefined) limits on warfare should exist. “The greatest good deed in war is the speedy 

ending of the war, and every means to that end, so long as it is not reprehensible, must 

remain open” (emphasis in the original). Helmuth Karl Bernard von Moltke, chief of 

the Prussian general staff, to Prof. Johann Kaspar Bluntschli, jurist of international 

law, letter, 11 December 1880, in Die Zerstörung der deutschen Politik: Dokumente 1871-

1933 [The Destruction of German Politics: Documents 1871-1933], ed. Harry Pross, 

trans. Richard S. Levy (Frankfurt, West Germany: Fischer Bücherei, 1959), 29–31, 

http://www.h-net.org/~german/gtext/kaiserreich/moltke.html.

171. The original Weinberger doctrine tenets, later echoed by Powell, included 

the requirements to defend US and allied vital national interests, use overwhelming 

means, achieve clear objectives, continually reassess means and objectives, gain public support, and use force as a last resort. For context, see Walter LaFeber, “The Rise 

and Fall of Colin Powell and the Powell Doctrine,” Political Science Quarterly 124, no. 

1 (Spring 2009): 71–93.

172. I further consider the implications in chapter 3.

173. John L. Romjue, ”The Evolution of the Airland Battle Concept,” Air University 

Review 35, no. 4 (May/June 1984), http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles

/aureview/1984/may-jun/romjue.html.

174. This attitude stemmed from the US view of customary international law, 

which held that the primary responsibility for preventing civilian casualties rested 

with the defender and the individual civilian. Parks, “Air War,” 153.

175. Michael B. Donley and Norton A. Schwartz, United States Air Force Posture 

Statement 2010 (Washington, DC: Department of the Air Force, 9 February 2010), 

http://www.posturestatement.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-100223-010.pdf.

176. Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower, 263. “The inherent flexibility of air power is its greatest asset.” See also War Department Field Manual 100-20, 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 65

Command and Employment of Air Power, 21 July 1943, 55; and Air Force Manual 

(AFMAN) 1-1, Air Force Basic Doctrine, cited in Air Force Doctrine Document 

(AFDD) 2, Organization and Employment of Aerospace Power, 17 February 2000.

177. This thinking was articulated in 1942: “Land power and air power are coequal and interdependent forces; neither is an auxiliary of the other.” United States 

Army Field Manual (FM) 100-2, Command and Employment of Air Power (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1942), 1. A more modern variation is that “it 

is possible to directly affect adversary sources of strength and will to fight by creating 

shock and destroying enemy cohesion without close combat.” Air Force Doctrine 

Document 1, USAF Basic Doctrine, 17 November 2003, 17–18.

178. “Control of available air power must be centralized and command must be 

exercised through the air force commander if this inherent flexibility and ability to 

deliver a decisive blow are to be fully exploited.” War Department Field Manual 100-20. 

The desire for USAF control of airpower was evident in the case of Gen Chuck 

Horner’s desire for independence in Desert Storm and Lt Gen Michael C. Short’s 

disputes with Gen Wesley Clark in the Kosovo campaign, as I describe in chapter 4.

179. A USAF publication on irregular warfare notes that “regardless of the size, 

composition, or command structure established for conducting an IW campaign, 

commanders should still adhere to the tenet of centralized control and decentralized 

execution.” Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2-3, Irregular Warfare, 15 March 

2013, 11.

180. The Norden bombsight, like many technologies that followed, was initially 

oversold. Promoters claimed it would be able to drop a “bomb into a pickle barrel,” 

although this was never the case. It was resilient, however. The same basic system 

“soldiered on” for decades and was even resurrected to provide a cheap and reliable 

means of dropping acoustic sensors on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. McFarland, America’s 

Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 206.

181. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and 

Logistics, Report of the Defense Science Board on Tactical Air Warfare (Washington 

DC, Department of Defense, November 1993), 17, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a275347.pdf.

182. Parks argues that precision has always helped “justify using the U.S. Air 

Force in the field.” W. Hayes Parks, former special assistant to the US Army’s Judge 

Advocate General, interview with author, Washington, DC, 21 December 2009.

183. Lt Gen David A. Deptula, USAF, retired, interview with the author, Washington, DC, 21 December 2009.

184. John T. Correll, “The Emergence of Smart Bombs,” Air Force Magazine 93, no. 

10 (March 2010), http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2010

/March %202010/0310bombs.aspx. 

185. Thanh Hoa had been dubbed the bridge that would never go down. The attacks also dropped the Paul Doumer Bridge, another target that had thwarted US 

attacks for five years. Richard G. Davis, Decisive Force: Strategic Bombing in the Gulf 

War (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1996), 2.

186. “The whole notion of precision arose in context of protecting the aviator, 

not stopping civilian casualties.” Maj Gen Charles Dunlap, USAF, retired, interview 

with the author, Washington, DC, 4 December 2009.
66 │ AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR

187. Richard G. Davis, “Strategic Bombardment in the Gulf War,” in R. Cargill 

Hall, ed., Case Studies in Strategic Bombardment, Air Force History and Museums 

Program, 1998, 529.

188. Ibid.

189. “Now with precision, we’ve evolved to the point where we don’t need to 

cause as much damage.” Deptula, interview.

190. Davis, Decisive Force, 3.

191. In 1990 fewer than 150 fighter-bombers could carry PGMs, although the 

precision-capable Strike Eagle was deployed by the end of that year. Ibid., 529–30.

192. For example, 2011 Air Force basic doctrine asserted that “it is possible [for 

airpower] to directly affect adversary sources of strength and will to fight by creating 

shock and destroying enemy cohesion without close combat.” AFDD 1, Air Force 

Basic Doctrine, 17–8. See also Clodfelter, Limits of Air Power.

193. For a history of the USAF targeting debate, see Pape, Bombing to Win; or 

Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower.

194. Richard G. Davis describes senior USAF leaders’ concern that airpower had 

become too tied to tactical support for ground forces as part of the AirLand Battle 

concept. Warden’s work was initiated to counter this trend and develop “independent 

uses and functions” for airpower. Davis, Decisive Force, 9.

195. In 1986 Warden had already codified his ideas on independent air operations and drew on these concepts in his initial planning for Operation Desert Storm. 

His work was published as John A. Warden III, The Air Campaign: Planning for 

Combat (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1988).

196. Ibid., 9, 134.

197. For a thorough account of the campaign planning, see Richard T. Reynolds, 

Heart of the Storm: The Genesis of the Air Campaign against Iraq (Maxwell AFB, AL: 

Air University Press, 1995).

198. The doctrine is dated 3 April 2007. For a historical overview of EBO, see 

Edward C. Mann III, Gary Endersby, and Thomas R. Searle, Thinking Effects: EffectsBased Methodology for Joint Operations, CADRE Paper no. 15 (Maxwell AFB, AL: 

Air University Press, October 2002).

199. The most detailed current doctrine is Air Force Doctrine Annex 3-0, Operations 

and Planning, The Effects-Based Approach to Operations (EBOA), 9 November 2012.

200. Robyn S. Read and Air University, Transformation: Effects-Based Planning 

and Operations, CADRE MDA Quick-Look 2003–07 (Maxwell AFB, AL: College of 

Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education, Air University; Airpower Research 

Institute, Air University, 2003).

201. Deptula, interview.

202. Air Force Doctrine Annex 3-0, 21.

203. Ironically, EBO’s push toward targeting nontraditional targets with discriminate means has raised questions about LOAC compliance, an issue I examine in 

chapter 3. 

204. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2, Organization and Employment of 

Aerospace Power, 7 April 2007, included a “completely new discussion on the effectsbased approach to military operations.” EBO was never fully embraced by the joint 

community. For discussion of the associated controversies, see P. Mason Carpenter 
AIRPOWER THROUGH THE COLD WAR │ 67

and William F. Andrews, “Effects-Based Operations Combat Proven,” Joint Force 

Quarterly 52, no. 1 (2009): 78–81. 

205. Lambeth cites “its demonstrated capacity to neutralize an enemy’s army 

with a minimum of casualties on both sides.” Lambeth, Transformation of American 

Airpower, 320.

206. John E. Burchard, Rockets, Guns and Targets: Rockets, Target Information, 

Erosion Information, and Hypervelocity Guns Developed during World War II by the 

Office of Scientific Research and Development (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 

1948), 240.

207. AFDD 1, 40. The doctrine nonetheless notes that airpower can deliver largescale destruction if necessary, 17. 

208. As late as 2003, the military noted that “while several joint pubs mention 

the issue of limiting collateral damage, there is not focused discussion on the topic in 

joint doctrine.” US Joint Forces Command, Joint Warfighting Center (JWFC) Doctrine Pam 2, Doctrinal Implications of Low Collateral Damage Capabilities, 27 January 

2003, 15.

Chapter 3

The Limits of Law

The law of armed conflict (LOAC) regulates the modern US use of 

force, but law’s impact today is more limited than either the military 

or its humanitarian critics might like to acknowledge. The LOAC, 

also called international humanitarian law (IHL), does not require 

the degree of restraint and civilian protection that human rights actors often claim. Nor does the law provide the normative justification 

for how the United States uses force that military actors assert.1

 Put 

simply, compliance with law is not the central humanitarian issue for 

the US military in modern armed conflict today. The norm of minimizing civilian harm has overtaken law.

In this chapter, I explore two key reasons for the law’s limits. First, 

the law rarely provides a definitive standard of behavior on the most 

controversial aspects of the US use of force. As I will explain, one can 

discern the LOAC’s clarity on vexing questions only at its outer edges. 

Thus, law infrequently provides a bright line; more often, it suggests 

a direction, a sensibility, and a process for weighing and arguing 

about battlefield actions. In a domestic context, the law’s meaning 

would be articulated and refined through court decisions about specific questions, but the limitations of international adjudication have 

failed to clarify many important LOAC provisions.2

 While flexibility 

helps ensure the law’s relevance to states and armed actors with dramatically different capabilities and goals, it creates challenges for 

reaching collective judgments about compliance. The LOAC, like the 

US constitution, remains an invitation to struggle.

The second reason for the law’s limited impact is the rise of normative expectations, as explained in chapter 1. The nonlegal expectation 

that US forces will minimize civilian harm imposes a higher standard 

upon the conduct of combat operations. The norm judges only effects 

(not intent), and the dead and wounded can be starkly quantified. 

The US military has been slow to recognize the divergence of legal 

and normative standards. Faith in the law’s power to justify civilian 

harm lingered long after the United States had in practice abandoned 

the legal “floor” and begun adapting to the more demanding norm, at 

least in the limited wars the country has fought since the end of the 

Cold War. In chapters 4 and 5, I will detail the process by which the 
70 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

military came to recognize the importance of the norm as a standard 

that exists independently of the LOAC. Today, the level of effort to 

minimize civilian harm that characterizes US air operations generally exceeds the requirements of the LOAC—certainly as the United 

States understands the law. The civilian casualty norm has now overtaken the LOAC in influencing US military actions.

In this chapter, I discuss the range of interpretations and uses of 

law in contemporary debate about armed conflict. I review the 

LOAC’s sources, principles, and roles in military operations. I then 

outline generic differences in the military (or “inside”) and humanitarian (“outside”) approaches to the LOAC and show how these approaches shape understanding of a legal provision that is particularly 

important for airpower—the definition of “military objectives.” I end 

with an analysis of the role of law in expert and public discourse. The 

use of law as a framework for assessing how US use of force affects 

civilians is problematic both because the disagreements about law are 

rarely acknowledged and because the US military is grappling with 

standards that far exceed what it believes the law requires.

The Law of Armed Conflict

It is said that international law lies at the vanishing point of jurisprudence.3

 The LOAC, in turn, must lie at the vanishing point of international law. Its principles are clear. However, its provisions are 

often disputed and rarely adjudicated, and enforcement or tangible 

sanction is rarer still.4

The LOAC is a collection of rules created by state action and state 

agreement that prescribes desired behavior. The LOAC provides a 

universal standard for the conduct of war. The LOAC’s sources are 

varied. The original source of law was customary behavior. State 

practice that over time becomes consistent is regarded as customary 

law.5

 State judgments about practice (referred to as opinio juris) also 

contribute to building customary law. The LOAC is also codified in 

treaties and other legal instruments—called “black letter” law. No 

single source is most authoritative. Yet because the central LOAC 

treaties are more readily identified and dissected than disparate state 

practice and comment, black letter law is the LOAC source most often debated in the public sphere. The LOAC’s main texts are the 

Hague IV Regulation of 1907 and the four Geneva Conventions of 
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 71

1949 (with their 1977 Additional Protocols).6 These instruments 

establish rules regarding types of weapons and their use, protection 

of noncombatants, and other aspects of warfare.

The LOAC serves several purposes. Conceptually, the law’s primary goal is balancing necessity with humanity, providing a counterweight to kriegsraison (the position that morality permits whatever 

actions are required to win a war).7

 Pursuant to that balancing, civilian 

harm is lawful under certain circumstances. Therefore, the law also 

provides a justification or explanation when the use of force produces 

civilian suffering.

Thereby, compliance with the law can provide critical reassurance 

to both American society and its military forces. It enables Americans to reconcile a fierce approach to war with a conception of themselves as moral actors. The United States pioneered the LOAC during 

the American Civil War through what came to be known as the Lieber 

Code.8

 Originally issued as General Order No. 100, Pres. Abraham 

Lincoln’s instructions to the Union Army outlined rules for its conduct in wartime. After the Vietnam War, in response to gross law of 

war violations at My Lai, the United States made the LOAC part of 

basic military training—eventually making it central to operational 

decision making.9

 Military lawyers now advise operational commanders at multiple levels of the battlespace.

The “legalization” of armed conflict provides service members 

with confidence in their actions. Faith that one has acted lawfully is 

extremely important in helping individuals retain their moral integrity—

even when civilian harm results from their actions.10 Lawfulness also 

offers a public legitimization; legal justification figures prominently 

in the official US response to allegations of civilian deaths.11 Thus, 

LOAC compliance provides a form of reassurance that is both internal 

(within the military) and external (for the nation or the world).

The law’s core principles are intuitive. They include military necessity (the use of force must be a requirement to “win”); distinction (the 

requirement to target only combatants); and proportionality (the 

need to ensure an appropriate relationship between noncombatant 

harm and the military benefits of force).12 While the principles are 

easy to grasp, they defy precise, quantifiable definitions. The 1977 

Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions introduced new language 

and definitions.13 The interpretive challenge is like peeling an onion—

another layer of complexity always waits. This is due, in part, to the 

fact that the law itself embodies tensions.
72 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

The principal tension in the LOAC is that between humanity and 

necessity. Since the law governs war as a permissible activity, the law 

is not intended to make war impossible to fight or win. The LOAC 

effectively prioritizes sovereignty (the right of states to make war) 

over noncombatant protection (individual human rights).14 If human 

rights concerns dominated the conduct of war, IHL constraints might 

preclude victory.

The law is also highly contextual and relational. It focuses more on 

the processes of balancing and judging than on the post-facto outcomes and effects. This provides the war fighter great latitude. Since the 

law emerged from customary conduct, combatants retained significant 

authority in determining how to balance necessity and humanity.

The principle of proportionality provides an illustration of these 

phenomena. Determining the proportionality of a military act requires weighing civilian costs and military benefits when taking military action.15 Treaty law does not use the specific term “proportionality” 

but implicitly discusses it in the context of the independent principle 

of discrimination. The 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions prohibits indiscriminate actions that would violate the longstanding customary principle of proportionality. The relevant provision is in Article 51, which is concerned with protection of the civilian 

populations. Article 51 5 (b) defines as indiscriminate “an attack 

which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury 

to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, 

which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”16

Many difficulties attend this formulation of the principle of proportionality.17 The most fundamental is that because evaluators may 

weigh each of the two “goods”—military advantage and civilian 

harm—differently, the provision cannot provide a clear formula for 

determining when civilian deaths are excessive in relation to the anticipated military value of an action.18 This central problem of underlying values exists even if the parties have similar understandings of 

other key aspects of the principle, such as what constitutes excessive, 

the definition of concrete and direct military advantage, what level of 

certainty in anticipation is required, and so forth. Where law involves 

a process of weighing relative principles and actors value those 

principles differently, the rules will often fail to resolve a particular 

controversy.
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 73

Disputes about the meaning of law influence overall assessments 

of US performance in military operations. Thus, the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) and human rights nongovernmental 

organization (NGO) Amnesty International (AI) reached starkly 

divergent assessments of Operation Allied Force, the 1999 NATO 

operation regarding Kosovo. NATO argued that there was no “armed 

conflict in the history of modern warfare where there has been more 

discipline and care taken to comply with the laws of war.”19 AI concluded that NATO had committed serious violations of the laws of 

war leading to the unlawful killings of civilians. Indeed, AI even 

charged that NATO had committed a war crime.20

Institutional interests certainly shape the arguments of each organization, but the competing assessments of the Kosovo campaign are 

also rooted in perspectives on the LOAC itself. There are several ways 

one might parse competing perspectives toward the LOAC: one can 

differentiate between military and humanitarian views, discern differences between the attitudes of status-quo states and “progressive” 

states, or see the distinctions primarily between those “inside” the use 

of force and those “outside.”21 It may be easiest for our purposes to 

differentiate between a perspective that emphasizes humanity and civilian 

protection and one that prioritizes military necessity.22

However, before diving into this comparative exercise, it is important to clarify a central point about how the principle of humanity 

and human rights concerns have influenced both legal and broader 

normative and political standards of war. The legal standards have 

been slowly shifting toward humanity, as evidenced in language of 

the Additional Protocols.

23 The impulse for these changes is the same 

impulse that has reshaped normative expectations with regard to 

minimizing civilian casualties—the principles of humanity. Nevertheless, normative expectations to minimize civilian casualties also 

are manifest outside of the law, unhinged from the principle of necessity (a point to which I shall return later in this chapter). Many of the 

same actors that push to minimize civilian casualties as a moral 

imperative also work to make international law more protective of 

noncombatants. 

Competing Perspectives

For our purposes, the community of international law experts can 

be divided into two general categories: those who prioritize the principles 
74 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

of humanity within the LOAC and those who prioritize the principle 

of necessity. While generalization about such complex issues risks 

oversimplification, these two “ideal type” perspectives highlight key 

differences of opinion regarding international law’s protection of 

noncombatants.

Promoting Humanity

The first perspective (of the humanitarians, progressives, or outsiders) promotes the philosophy of IHL—enhancing protection of 

noncombatants.24 This perspective holds that the military reading of 

the LOAC “at times tilts away from the protection of civilians toward 

broad and lenient readings of what is permissible and reasonable under the law.”25 Since most humanitarian lawyers lack security or military backgrounds, they can find a more equal footing with military 

lawyers on the field of black letter law. Accordingly, humanitarian 

lawyers focus less on applying state practice than upon debating the 

meaning of codified laws and related written commentaries.

Groups such as AI and Human Rights Watch (HRW) couple onthe-ground investigations of armed conflict with public relations and 

advocacy work. They work to publicly pressure governments during 

the course of armed conflict, and, in the longer term, they seek to 

influence development of the law. Some humanitarian groups use the 

law as a yardstick not only for evaluation but also as a form of legal 

“discovery” of the facts. HRW staffers, for example, argue that military actors give professional colleagues “quite a bit of latitude when 

facts are ambiguous or scant.”26 The outsider’s responsibility, they argue, is to challenge this latitude, asking for a justification of government actions where “enough facts suggest a violation of the law.”27

HRW sees its role as one of forcing “social scrutiny of IHL compliance” by placing the burden of proof upon military actors.28

In its approach to potential LOAC violations, the International 

Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) plays a different role—one that 

is closer to that of an “insider.” Charged by the Geneva Conventions 

to preserve and shepherd IHL across the globe, the organization 

works confidentially with armed forces to shape their behaviors 

through a frank dialogue. The ICRC forgoes “naming and shaming” 

military actors in exchange for preserving quiet insider influence, in 

what is sometimes a controversial bargain.29 At the same time, the 

ICRC adopts an outsider perspective in seeking to advance its “IHL 
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 75

philosophy” through its role in interpreting law and convening conferences about the meaning and future direction of the law. This aspect of ICRC work strikes some as advocacy, and it can be seen as 

conflicting with the organization’s responsibility to preserve extant 

laws.30

Military lawyers sometimes regard legal analyses by humanitarian 

actors as biased. First, the analyses naturally highlight alleged violations rather than the degree to which LOAC is followed. Second, 

many NGOs focus their critique on precisely the states that, by virtue 

of national ethics or desires for legitimacy, are already largely compliant with the law. Some NGOs document LOAC violations by states or 

nonstate actors that lack interest in LOAC compliance. Still, these 

groups believe that they must focus their limited effort where it is 

most likely to have impact.31 Furthermore, HRW argues that the 

powerful and law-compliant states will most heavily influence the 

law’s evolution and therefore merit special attention. In addition, the 

most technologically advanced states can demonstrate state-of-theart law compliance and therefore set important precedents.32 However, this intense focus on critiquing the behavior of states at the vanguard of legal and normative compliance can appear unwarranted or 

biased.

Preserving Necessity 

US military lawyers have a different outlook on the role of law. 

They recognize that law regulates conflict, yet allows belligerents to 

fight ferociously. Legal constraint cannot come at the expense of victory because the law is meant to be consistent with effective war fighting. Given the US historical experience, this view appears to be shared 

by civilian political leaders who direct the use of force.33 As historian 

John Fabian Witt summarizes, “From the Revolution forward, the 

United States’ long history of leadership in creating laws of war stands 

cheek by jowl with a destructive style of war that has come to be 

known among military historians as the ‘American way of war.’”34

In a contemporary context, military lawyers seek to sustain a 

workable balance between necessity and humanity. They fear that 

overemphasis on humanity could vitiate the practice of war. Mindful 

that words are easily debated, while state practice provides firm precedent, military lawyers often emphasize what states do rather than 

relying primarily on interpretations of treaty texts. Skepticism about 
76 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

the humanitarians’ engagement with law extends to the vocabulary of 

law itself. Lawyers within the armed forces sometimes reject the term 

IHL, believing that IHL is widely understood to include human rights 

law that is not properly part of the LOAC.35

Military lawyers have what might be called a “conservative” or 

“minimalist” view of the LOAC.36 While humanitarians focus on 

what cannot be done, military lawyers emphasize possibilities. For 

military lawyers, the law serves as a “floor” guiding military options. 

US military lawyers see their role as helping commanders understand 

the wide flexibility of the LOAC.37 During the Kosovo air campaign, 

military and political authorities feared launching attacks that might 

cause civilian harm; lawyers found themselves emphasizing that the 

law permits collateral damage.38 Thus, compared to normative concerns, the law can provide a relatively permissive standard for military conduct.

In seminars and discussions, as part of the opinion juris process 

shaping custom, military lawyers work to “preserve” the balance between necessity and humanity in the LOAC. Some express skepticism 

about how humanitarian interlocutors aim to interpret and shape the 

law. Groups like AI and HRW, writes one military lawyer, “have the 

not-so-hidden agenda of promoting rules that would make the legal 

conduct of war impossible, in order to end warfare itself—at least by 

law-abiding states.”39 Military lawyers must continually defend the 

law’s balance against those who relentlessly seek to push the principle 

of humanity.

Not all militaries share the conservative US approach. Even some 

of America’s closest allies, the progressive states within the NATO alliance, disagree on key points.40 More broadly, US skepticism of the 

1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention places the 

United States at odds with mainstream views of international law.41

US military lawyers therefore can find themselves in the minority on 

key points of law. Since the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva 

Conventions, the United States has declined to sign or ratify many 

international agreements to create new humanitarian institutions 

and treaties.42 The differences in approach to the law and distance 

from recent LOAC treaties can create tensions during coalition operations. Examples include frequent disputes about targeting of dualuse objects during the Kosovo campaign and complications when 

coalition members disagree about the legality of specific weapons 
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 77

(e.g., many NATO members have rejected the use of cluster munitions, which the United States still employs).

Each legal community’s positions include some roughly analogous 

weaknesses. Military attorneys are uncomfortable with broad definitions of civilian harm (for assessing proportionality), which parallels 

the human rights community’s unease with broad definitions of military advantage. Each community would define the other’s core concern (necessity or humanity) as concretely and objectively as possible, 

while preferring a broader, more subjective definition of its issue of 

primary interest. They both seek maximum interpretive freedom in 

the arena they most value.

Both perspectives are inconsistent in their respective emphases 

upon the intent of action versus the effects of action. For example, the 

human rights critique finds intent critically important in identifying 

morale bombing. Yet humanitarians reject the military’s claims about 

the importance of a commander’s intent in defining military objectives. It is problematic to cherry-pick the context in which intent matters. Likewise, it is inconsistent for the military to insist upon the 

importance of intent except where not doing so might yield greater 

targeting freedom. The US military argues that capabilities to reduce 

civilian casualties enable proportional targeting of dual-use objects. 

Yet it rejects civilian effects as a metric by which others might judge 

US airpower.

Applying the Law to US Military Operations

Today when outsiders criticize US military activities on legal 

grounds, they generally typically focus on three main issues: 1) an 

attack’s proportional benefits and harms, 2) the precautions taken to 

reduce civilian harm, and 3) the lawfulness of target choice.43

Questions related to proportionality and feasible precautions arise 

directly from the fact of civilian injury or death. Critics are unlikely 

to raise questions regarding these LOAC principles unless civilians 

have been harmed in a specific attack.

Our prior consideration of the main difficulties in assessing proportionality revealed that judgments will be clearest at the furthest 

margins—where a strike is grossly damaging and of marginal utility 

or where the military utility is evident and collateral damage is negligible. Moreover, because US airpower has, on the whole, become 
78 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

more accurate and accordingly causes fewer civilian deaths, proportionality arguments have become less prominent in the public debate. 

As a result, where civilian harm occurs today, critics are likely to focus on the question of feasible precautions.

Belligerents are required by law to take “all feasible precautions” to 

avoid causing civilian harm.44 The basic point, echoed throughout the 

LOAC, is that combatants should make reasonable efforts to respect 

the principle of discrimination. Yet any retrospective analysis of a civilian casualty incident is likely to be able to identify additional steps 

that might have been taken to avoid or reduce civilian harm. The contentious question generally is whether additional steps would have 

been “feasible.” Military actors often argue that civilian armchair 

quarterbacks lack the expertise and experience to accurately assess 

the question. Insiders and outsiders may fundamentally disagree 

about the level of risk a combatant could feasibly assume or viable 

operational alternatives.

In addition, the standards themselves can become blurred. Sometimes human rights actors dress normative claims in legal analysis, as 

when they assert that the military is required to adopt all possible 

precautions.45 Such views may be fueled by the US military’s repeated 

emphasis on doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties, by 

which it means that it exceeds requirements of the law.46 The potential to conflate legal requirements for civilian protection with decisions taken for other reasons further complicates the already challenging work of applying legal standards to the conduct of war.

Disputes about law also extend to areas far outside the influence of 

the strengthened norm of civilian protection. The best example is the 

contemporary controversy regarding defining military objectives. 

Outsiders see law as constraining military choices to a narrow range 

of targets; insiders instead view law as facilitating targeting choices 

that the United States has long favored in air war. While outsiders 

emphasize the need for a target to be directly connected to the enemy’s war fighting capabilities, the US military holds that attacks on a 

wide array of targets that would only indirectly affect civilian lives 

and morale are lawful. Ironically, the United States’ progress in limiting civilian casualties during airstrikes has only reinforced its interest 

in pursuing a broad array of military objectives.
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 79

The Case of Military Objectives

Air campaign planners and targeteers are consumed with the 

question of which objects to target and why. They work from a doctrinal philosophy or set of assumptions about military effects, often 

supported by empirical historical evidence.47 Targeting choice is considered part of the operational art of war, informed by military science.

Defining what is a military objective is the initial threshold for targeting choice, the question to be answered before considering proportionality or the feasible precautions in launching the attack. The 

determination of a military objective is reached independently of 

risks of civilian harm. The definition of a military object has particular significance for airpower and the debate about strategic targeting. 

The debate about military objectives has been shaped by changes in 

warfare, technology, and conceptions of how to attain victory. In the 

nineteenth century, combatants sought to destroy military forces and 

equipment in set battles. Victory lay in defeating military capability. 

During the world wars, however, combatants targeted virtually all aspects of industrialized society: the means of economic production, 

transportation networks, energy sources, and so forth. They sought 

tangible effects on the enemy’s ability to fight, and they also hoped to 

destroy the morale of the adversary’s population at large. The ensuing 

physical destruction was immense.

American air planners continue to believe that strategic, including 

psychological, effects offer an efficient alternative to tactical attacks 

on fielded forces. The allure of strategic targeting has only increased 

as technological advances allow more focused destruction. Airpower 

advocates see the possibility of achieving decisive effects with minimal civilian impact as the most humane strategy. Ironically, though, 

airpower’s ability to attack a wide range of strategic targets without 

causing massive destruction has intensified legal debate about the 

definition of military objectives.

The Geneva Convention’s Additional Protocol I defines military 

objectives more broadly than simply troops and tanks.48 Military objectives are objects that, by their nature, location, purpose, or use, 

make “an effective contribution to military action” and whose destruction or neutralization in the circumstances ruling at the time 

“offers a definite military advantage.”49 Objectives must meet the criteria 

outlined in both the first and second clauses (or “prongs”). Civilian 

objects, in turn, are all those things that are not military objectives.50
80 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

The central issue for US airpower is how far beyond self-evidently 

military targets (e.g., forces and equipment) the definition of a military objective extends. W. Hays Parks objects to what he regards as 

the law’s insistence that “any destruction have a nexus to a ‘military’ 

rather than strategic, psychological, or other possible advantage.”51

The question directly engages the viability of targeting objects that 

support political will and civilian morale. In general, the US military 

assumes an expansive interpretation of military objectives.52 This interpretation proves especially controversial in the context of US strategic 

air targeting. It is unclear that the US government would accept a reciprocal application of this interpretation if, for example, adversaries 

were to justify attacks on Wall Street in the name of undermining US 

economic strength or morale.

For targeteers, the spectrum of military objectives runs from military forces and fielded military equipment (what the United States 

Air Force [USAF] would consider tactical targets) to objects with a 

less direct relationship to military force.53 Generally speaking, the less 

direct the contribution to military action, the greater the controversy 

about its status as a lawful military objective. Specific aspects of the 

debate include the potential (versus actual) military use of an object, 

the legality of targeting an object that simply “sustains” war fighting, 

and whether targeting is motivated by law or is simply justified by a 

lawful rationale.

Attacking “dual use” facilities that inherently serve both military 

and civilian purposes, for example, electricity or transportation grids, 

is not inherently illegal.54 However, controversies arise if parties dispute the military advantage provided by destroying those objects, 

since the second legal condition for attacking dual use facilities is that 

their destruction offers a definite military advantage. This can be particularly difficult to discern if the conflict is short and the attack is on 

war-sustaining infrastructure or if the claimed advantage relates to 

morale or psychological will to resist.

Almost by definition, dual-use objects can be expected to affect 

civilians. Thus, a distinct principle of international law—proportionality—

comes into play. Combatants must weigh the anticipated civilian 

harm against the attack’s expected military advantage. In air attacks 

on dual use objects, the civilian harm generally raises more humanitarian objections than the legal status of the target itself.55
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 81

Potential Use

A purely civilian object in peacetime may become a military objective in war. Factual dispute may arise regarding the question of 

whether infrastructure is dual use or a civilian object is a military 

objective. In this regard, a key question is whether an object’s current

or potential use makes an effective contribution to military action under 

the definition’s first prong.

Humanitarians often argue that an object’s military contributions 

must be actual or reasonably expected—not simply possible. In their 

view, US military lawyers are either wrong as a matter of law about 

the law’s flexibility or they are overly credulous of operators’ claims 

that civilian objects might have a military purpose.56 HRW argues 

that “some hypothetical military use” of a civilian object is insufficient as a matter of law to render it a military objective.57 One commonly disputed case is NATO attacks on civilian media during air 

operations in Serbia. AI charged that the United States attacked targets 

based only on Serbia’s potential future use of civilian media outlets for 

military purposes.58 In Operation Iraqi Freedom, the United States 

similarly argued that the Iraqi regime had been known to broadcast 

songs on television stations as a means of communicating with military forces and therefore that the stations were legitimate military 

objectives. HRW objected on the basis that it was not clear that the 

broadcasts were actually being used to direct the armed forces.59

The US Operational Law Handbook, which is issued annually by 

the International and Operational Law Department of the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, states that classifying an 

object as a military objective “is dependent upon its value to an enemy 

nation’s war fighting or war sustaining effort (including its ability to be 

converted to a more direct connection), and not solely to its overt or 

present connection or use” (emphasis added).60

The American armed forces’ allowance for potential contributions 

to military action is at odds with the humanitarian insistence that the 

contributions be evident.61 Outside critics believe that conjectured 

future contributions often fail to meet the legal standard. While it is 

“difficult to define a standard of reasonable probability,” one NGO 

argued, “it must certainly stop short of the mere objective possibility 

of use.”62 The ICRC likewise argues that the determinant criteria must 

be fulfilled in the circumstances ruling at the time, because otherwise 

“every object could in abstracto, under possible future developments, 
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e.g., if used by enemy troops, become a military objective.”63 However, from the US military’s perspective, this is an overly restrictive 

interpretation of the law.

War-Sustaining 

A related controversy revolves around the requisite directness of 

an object’s “effective contribution to military action” in order for that 

object to be considered a military objective.64 The US definition 

pointedly departs from the language in Protocol Additional (I) to the 

Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (AP I). The US considers 

military objectives to include those that may effectively contribute to 

the enemy’s war-fighting or war-sustaining capability. The Army’s annually updated law handbook states, “A decision as to classification of 

an object as a military objective and allocation of resources for its 

attack depends upon its value to an enemy nation’s war fighting or 

war sustaining effort (including its ability to be converted to a more 

direct connection), and not solely to its overt or present connection 

or use.”65 Joint Publication 3-60, Joint Targeting, reinforces this approach by defining civilian objects as “all civilian property and activities other than those used to support or sustain the adversary’s 

warfighting capability” (emphasis added).66

How does a war-sustaining contribution differ from a contribution to military action? Some outsiders see them as fundamentally 

different categories. Critics of the US view argue, “It seems that the 

category of objects with a ‘war sustaining capability’ is broader than 

and includes objects making an ‘effective contribution to military action.’ ”67 An ICRC expert concludes that the US position “means to 

abandon the limitation to military objectives and to admit attacks on 

political, financial (e.g., the main export industry, the stock market, 

or taxation authorities) and psychological targets, as long as they include the possibility or the decision (which are two different things) 

of the enemy to continue war. Those who suggest a large interpretation of the concept of military objectives mention that targeting of 

bank accounts, financial institutions, shops, and entertainment sites 

may prove in the long run more destructive than attacks on dual-use 

targets.”68 He argues that AP I effectively excluded “indirect contributions and possible advantages. Without this restriction, the limitation 

to ‘military’ objectives could be too easily undermined” (emphasis in 

original).69
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 83

Indeed, the United States advanced this broader interpretation 

during the Kosovo War as it explored attacking the factories and 

other economic interests of Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic’s key political allies.70 Planners believed that harming Milosevic’s 

allies’ private economic interests would translate into political pressure on Milosevic to end the war. A plain reading of the AP I does not 

allow targeting the economic interests of civilians where those interests do not contribute to adversary military action. However, where 

the United States was able to posit a link to war sustainment, the letter of the law could be met—despite the fact that Kosovo was not 

perceived as a lengthy total war in which industrial production was a 

critical factor.

American military lawyers would dispute the characterization of 

this interpretation as broad. Many regard the US position as simply 

the longstanding American view, backed by the historical record of 

US attacks on war-sustaining objects. The Operational Law Handbook provides little consolation for humanitarian critics.71 The United 

States accepts a more attenuated connection between object and contribution than that supported by humanitarian organizations and 

many states.72

Dual Motivations 

A related concern is how easily belligerents can skirt the intent of 

AP I simply by asserting a lawful reason for attack—even if that reason is not the principal motivation. This reflects a historical pattern 

of targeting rationalization that we earlier traced through World War 

II, Korea, and Vietnam. The United States often attacked legitimate 

military objectives in the hope that their destruction would yield additive or alternative results (e.g., degradation of citizens’ morale). It 

requires only a small additional step to attach a legitimate rationale to 

an air strike of dubious legality. For this reason, one critic maintains 

that the law prompts “belligerents to give hypocritical justifications 

for their attacks.”73

Outsiders’ suspicion about targeting motivations sometimes reflected misunderstanding. This appears to have been the case regarding attacks upon Serbian bridges in 1999.74 In other instances, though, 

belligerents offered mixed motivations for target choice, which sowed 

doubts and vastly complicated legal analysis for outsiders. For example, NATO leaders suggested that attacks on Serbian media facilities 
84 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

were intended to disrupt the regime’s dissemination of political propaganda. Humanitarian groups charged that the attacks were LOAC 

violations. NATO officials then insisted that the facilities’ communications had been integrated into government command and control 

capabilities, stating that “Yugoslavia military radio relay stations are 

often combined with TV transmitters but we attack the military target. If there is damage to the TV transmitters, it is a secondary effect 

but it is not the primary intention to do that.”75 AI nonetheless maintained that the facilities were civilian objects. There was both a factual 

dispute and a deficit of trust with regard to the primary motivation 

for the strike.

The United States and other allies see no reason to refrain from 

attacking lawful targets that might also yield psychological or political benefits. “Otherwise lawful targeting which secures a coercive 

dividend is legally unobjectionable,” said a NATO military lawyer.76

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia 

agreed in this instance that disrupting propaganda was an incidental 

aim of NATO’s primary targeting goal, but the tribunal also noted 

that seeking to end propaganda would probably not have been lawful 

as a primary objective.77

Outsiders can only judge external statements and actions. When 

political and military leaders describe their goals differently or when 

rationales change, legitimate questions surface. Arguments by government legal advisors (for example, that a nation’s will to resist is a 

military objective) sometimes intensify doubts about national motivations.78 Transparent belligerent intent is critical but not always possible—sometimes even for security reasons. Thus, there are several 

layers of controversy associated with this topic. Fundamentally, the 

United States hopes for psychological or political impact from attacks 

that are otherwise lawful, whereas humanitarian critics suggest that 

secondary motives may discredit the legality of primary motivations.

We have seen how insider and outsider perspectives on the issue of 

defining military objectives diverge on various grounds. This summary has only touched upon debate regarding the first prong of the 

criteria for military objectives; however, disagreements attend the 

second prong as well.79 The discussion shows how the underlying 

goals and values of actors, traced earlier in this chapter, become manifest in understanding law and where and why the interpretations 

clash.
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 85

The discussion also illustrates an emerging irony regarding the law 

and civilian protection. As will be shown in chapter 4, normative 

concerns regarding civilian casualties increasingly drive US behavior, 

although the United States continues to hew to its more permissive 

interpretation of the LOAC. Yet even when the United States is able to 

avoid harming any civilians in a particular strike, tensions between 

views of the law may persist. On the question of military objectives in 

particular, the US ability to reduce civilian harm may actually exacerbate disagreements about the law. From the military’s perspective, 

humanitarian interpretations of military objectives can have perverse 

effects on civilians.

Civilian Harm versus the LOAC

Changing military capabilities can upend the law’s humanitarian 

priorities. Advanced USAF capabilities and concepts, as described in 

chapter 2, have reignited debate about strategic targeting in at least 

two respects. The first is the breadth of targeting, familiar from the 

above discussion about military objectives; the second respect is the 

relationship of temporary effects to military advantage and contributions. Overall, precision and effects-based operations suggest new 

targeting possibilities that will cause few civilian deaths and contribute to ending conflict. However, new possibilities sometimes run 

afoul of a humanitarian logic demanding destruction that is directly 

connected to the enemy’s military action.

Some airpower advocates argue that a strict interpretation of the 

law undermines its humanitarian intent by removing key targets 

from attack even where their destruction would not cause civilian 

harm. Precision capabilities enable the United States to target a wider 

range of objects without causing or with reduced collateral damage.80

As explained in our historical survey and in the legal discussion 

above, the United States has taken a broader view of military objectives, targeting war-sustaining infrastructure and hoping that attacks 

on targets would have secondary effects on morale and national psychology. If the United States believed that significant civilian deaths 

still would result from the broader view of military objectives (i.e., if 

bombing in urban areas would cause levels of civilian harms seen in 

WWII, Korea, or even Vietnam), it is unlikely that the USAF would 

seek to pursue these targets. This would reflect sensitivity to civilian 
86 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

harm, not a changed view of the law. However, since the USAF can 

now strike urban targets with reduced civilian harm, Airmen see a 

double benefit in the expansive view: a quicker route to victory that 

also protects civilians.

The Kosovo air war provided examples of this thinking. As mentioned earlier, the NATO alliance sought to bomb the economic interests of cronies of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in the belief that they might pressure him to stop the violence. The idea of 

attacking economic infrastructure was not new; the novelty lay in 

prioritizing attacks on facilities (copper smelter, iron works) that 

were owned by political supporters of the Serbian leader.81 This offered an innovative and less destructive approach to prosecuting the 

air war. The attacks were not limited to tank plinking but also avoided 

the large numbers of civilian casualties associated with bombing of 

other infrastructure. Yet a narrow definition of military objectives 

conceivably would have prevented the United States from using such 

options. The US military is confounded by humanitarians’ criticism 

that, in the name of IHL, would block military efforts to reduce overall civilian deaths.

Airpower’s efforts to reduce harm may upend the LOAC in a second 

respect. By rejecting the destruction of objects in favor of attaining 

more tailored and less definite effects, air planners undercut their arguments regarding the military advantage or necessity of such attacks. Thus, where the United States seeks to mitigate damage to military targets, it may unwittingly undermine its case for attacking them 

at all. If the damage to a military objective is only temporary or only 

slight, the attack can be more easily challenged on the grounds that it 

fails to provide a definite military advantage—the second prong of 

the military objectives definition.

This is exactly the direction in which the United States is heading 

in rejecting destruction in favor of seeking tailored effects. For 

example, the United States has adapted a nonkinetic weapon that 

uses carbon fiber filaments to temporarily incapacitate electrical 

power transformer stations rather than permanently destroying 

them.82 Outsiders could seize upon the temporary nature of the damage 

to question the military benefits accrued. This is not purely hypothetical. 

HRW’s critique of the bombing of a Serbian television station included the argument that NATO had anticipated only temporary 

benefits from the strike.83 In that case, broadcast redundancy was the 

reason for temporary effects. Because the effects were not anticipated 
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 87

to be permanent, AI questioned the military value of the strike, in 

this case regarding proportionality, but by the same logic could have 

challenged the attack’s ability to provide a definite military advantage.84 The argument shows that limiting the degree of damage to a 

target—a humanitarian goal—may provide an opening for critics to 

question the strike’s legality.

It is tempting to want to apply rules differently to the United States. 

After all, Americans regard themselves as the good guys who do not 

seek to kill civilians and who employ unequalled capabilities to reduce noncombatant harm. However, the LOAC does not apply only 

to the United States. It is a universal system of rules. It is theoretically 

possible to parse its standards more finely, calibrating them for states 

with different characters, causes, or capabilities. For example, one 

could say in a particular type of war, these specific targets would be 

military objectives, or if a state had x capabilities, it would be able to 

deem y type of target a military objective. As a practical or political 

matter, such nuance is infeasible. Even starting down that route might 

prove a slippery slope, compromising the law’s bedrock principle of 

distinction. In addition, few foreign militaries can approximate the 

United States’ capacity to attack objects without harming persons. 

Because LOAC rules must extend to all, not just those nations at the 

forefront of collateral damage mitigation, their potentially perverse 

effects are the price of maintaining a legal regime for diverse actors. 

The humanitarian community is attuned to this need but perhaps less 

aware of how its push for ever-higher LOAC standards might undermine the global legal regime.85

Democratization of Law

While in this chapter I have emphasized differences in perspectives on the LOAC, those differences lie along a spectrum. At the core 

of the professional LOAC community lies a small fraternity that intensively debates the law’s meaning and application. Familiarity 

among individuals from diverse perspectives helps deflate suspicions 

and misunderstanding and sands the rougher edges of disagreement 

down toward their smaller nubs. Where lawyers are free of their institutional affiliations, they can more easily acknowledge imprecision 

and subtleties in applying law.86 “The most capable IHL practitioners, 

regardless of whether they work for the U.S. or the ICRC, agree on a 
88 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

great deal of the law,” said one well-respected military lawyer. “Within 

this group, disagreements tend to be on nuanced or arcane points.”87

This guild of experts no longer dominates the public discourse, however, as IHL concepts disseminate more widely throughout international 

society—where most people are not lawyers and norms hold greater 

currency than nuances of law.

IHL principles and language allow the civilian outsider to analyze 

war and engage with military actors. The spread of IHL beyond legal 

circles and into the mainstream of policy, press, and public discussion 

reflects the growing human rights movement and the role played by 

NGOs that monitor the conduct of armed conflict. Engaging the military through law has significant appeal for nonmilitary actors. First, 

it provides a point of entry into the evaluation of military activity for 

actors that lack any formal authority over belligerents. The LOAC 

provides a framework for the human rights critique and a universally 

recognized lexicon—unlike the operational syntax of a military campaign. LOAC principles are accessible, even if the specific meaning of 

legal provisions can be arcane. Thus, the law structures a debate in 

which outside actors can participate. To its adherents, legal argument 

may appear more powerful than policy or religious or ethical exhortation. Law describes a required, not just desired, standard of behavior 

for all bound by it. Reference to law can therefore strengthen a moral 

argument or political claim.

As LOAC concepts permeate the public consciousness, they create 

greater awareness of the costs and challenges of war and increase 

pressure on national forces to “fight well.” However, this mainstreaming of LOAC concepts also risks contaminating careful legal analysis 

with legal posturing and normative opinion. This democratization of 

the LOAC adds greater uncertainty to the meaning of legal standards. 

As observers increasingly use legal concepts and language, they often 

do so without acquiring deep legal expertise. Humanitarians have 

promoted mainstreaming IHL in order to boost the law’s relevance 

and impact.88 This expands the number of people employing legal 

concepts that have been explained in simplified form to be readily 

understood. Activists and advocacy groups may inadvertently or 

strategically misrepresent the law as they evaluate military action. 

For example, AI wrote of an attacker’s “responsibility under international humanitarian law to take all possible precautions to avoid 

harming civilians.” The United States disagrees with this claim as a 

matter of law.89 When such disputed legal positions are reflected as 
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 89

factual in press coverage, and then absorbed in popular imagination, 

defining the law itself becomes a political struggle.90

An additional challenge in public discourse about law is the conflation of legal and normative argument.91 This conflation has two 

dimensions. The just war tradition of moral reasoning employs many 

of the same concepts and words as the law; yet it is not a legal standard. It is easy to confuse the two modes of argument. Even US 

political leaders sometimes use language that seems to imply that 

ethics are the equivalent of legal requirements. Additionally, many 

outsiders who use legal analysis to evaluate military activities also

promote minimizing civilian harm and protecting human rights as 

an absolute goal. Humanitarian advocates sometimes fail to distinguish between the role of legal analysis, on the one hand, and the role 

of an advocate for civilian protection that exceeds any legal requirements on the other.

These advocates may regard the interweaving of legal and normative argument as strengthening the humanitarian interpretation of 

the law, but it can create misleading impressions about the legality of 

states’ actions. Some humanitarian advocates privately acknowledge 

the distinction between a legal floor and higher ethical standard of 

behavior in war. In a closed session, one NGO representative told US 

service members, “There are lots of things the United States could be 

doing that arguably would be legal. But morally, it’s better not to do 

them, especially if they’re simply not necessary.”92

Advocates sometimes fudge the distinction between law and morality 

so they can demand the greatest degree of humanitarian protection. 

In its report on the Kosovo operation, for example, AI argued, “The 

most powerful military alliance in the world cannot afford but to set 

the highest standard of protection in this regard.”93 While much of 

the AI report analyzes NATO’s compliance with the LOAC, this particular judgment has nothing to do with legal requirements for military 

action.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also seemed to 

confuse the law with morality. During the air war in Kosovo, she suggested that military actors must be certain that civilians would not be 

harmed before using force.94 “If it is not possible to ascertain whether 

civilian buses are on bridges,” she asked, “should those bridges be 

blown?”95 The suggestion that states forego the use of force if they 

cannot ensure the safety of civilians reflects a laudable normative 

concern but does not accurately represent the LOAC.
90 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

The law does not require fighting with a handicap. The military 

may pursue lawful advantage in order to reduce the length and costs 

of the conflict, including the costs to belligerent forces—a sore spot 

with humanitarians who claim that the law requires forces to assume 

more risks for civilians.96 Reducing civilian harm is a singular goal, 

one decoupled from the law’s balance with military necessity. No 

party is required to forego military advantage simply because it is 

likely to prevail, or could afford to wait, or might suffer fewer casualties in the end. The LOAC recognizes that victory, not minimizing 

civilian harm, is the purpose of war. Indeed, the law is largely consistent with the American view that short, sharp wars are, on balance, 

more humane.

Both the military and its critics would do well to acknowledge and 

respect the distinction between the norm of minimizing civilian casualties and the standards of the law. Humanitarians may wish to 

make normative or pragmatic arguments that do not rely on contested claims and may in fact be more compelling for military logic.97

Humanitarians do not strengthen the law by conflating legal and 

nonlegal standards; instead, they undermine the law’s legitimacy by 

suggesting it is something that it is not. The democratization of the 

LOAC may unwittingly dilute law’s utility as a standard for guiding or 

evaluating military actions.

As normative standards have gained power to shape US military 

actions (as the next chapter shows), the armed forces learned that 

they could not hide behind claims of lawfulness in explaining civilian 

deaths. Military forces can act lawfully and still fail to satisfy their 

humanitarian critics, particularly when those actions cause civilian 

harm. The US military, with its permissive view of the law, can defend 

its actions as lawful even where civilian harm results. However, where 

the underlying objection is civilian casualties—a normative objection—

the military’s legal defense simply misses the point. The USAF learned 

this the hard way during the 1990s.

Conclusion 

The law has become less useful for understanding how airpower 

affects civilians. The LOAC continues to play a role in justifying US 

military activities internally and externally. It remains the primary 

frame and lever for critics of US military action. But the law is not a 
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 91

trump card in either military or humanitarian hands. Nor is it the 

most powerful standard regarding the protection of civilians in armed 

conflict. Emphasis upon legal compliance may even be counterproductive in promoting US protection of noncombatants in war.

While outsiders have long hoped that regulating war through law 

might lead to its abolition, the United States has seen law as a means 

to legitimate and facilitate its “short, sharp wars.”98 In keeping with a 

dominant strand in American military thought, the creator of the 

first US military code believed that “the more vigorously wars are 

pursued, the better it is for humanity.”99 Consequently, the United 

States has inculcated the basics of the LOAC into air operations such 

that they are routine and nearly invisible.

Today, though, the USAF has nearly left the law behind as it pertains to civilian protection. Technology and longstanding USAF tenets of efficiency have combined to create new tools and concepts for 

a different style of war. Precision targeting combined with effectsbased operational logic made it possible to create less destruction and 

kill fewer civilians while pursuing campaign objectives.

During the 1990s, these capabilities combined with political pressure 

to reduce civilian deaths as described in the following chapters. The 

USAF’s main humanitarian project became reducing civilian casualties. While it continued to use the law to explain its actions, the USAF 

became more responsive to concerns about civilian harm—a norm 

that exists outside of the LOAC and is generally more demanding 

than the LOAC. Ironically, the law’s relevance for airpower is greatest 

where the US ability to reduce civilian casualties has reinvigorated 

debate—as in the broader interpretations of military objectives and 

how reduced destruction changes calculations of military utility.

Despite the impact of higher normative expectations, humanitarians continue to evaluate US military operations through a legal lens. 

This is limiting for several reasons. First, military leaders and nonmilitary outsiders will continue to insist on their understanding of 

what the law requires. Institutional imperatives preclude compromise 

on questions of law. For humanitarians and military alike, too much 

is at stake in reevaluating their longstanding views. As a result, the 

legalization of the critique of US actions freights the exchange with a 

defense of respective legal positions.

Second, the democratization of IHL has brought legal concepts 

and language into the mainstream, where they readily mix and fuse 

with normative arguments. This frustrates military actors, who take 
92 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

LOAC compliance seriously and expect credit for exceeding legal requirements in their use of force. At the same time, it precludes 

humanitarians from leveraging the power of the normative expectations. When normative expectations are cast as legal requirements, they can be beaten back with the military’s understanding 

of the LOAC.

Finally, a debate about law impedes more constructive discussions 

about protecting civilians and obscures the power of norms (rather 

than law) to shape military behaviors. Both the military and humanitarian communities can hide behind law. It is more productive for 

outsiders to engage military actors in dialogue about operational 

choices, practical effects, and future capabilities than to focus on 

fault-finding in a legal context.

Law is not the primary factor shaping the conduct of war. The next 

chapter shows how normative—not legal—concerns have translated 

into very real constraints upon military action, providing a de facto 

enforcement mechanism for normative change. Outsiders should 

credit the USAF for responding to these nonlegal expectations and 

recognize the power that norms can hold for shaping the future of 

armed conflict.

Notes

1. I am concerned here with the LOAC’s provisions pertaining to the use of force 

during combat, as distinguished from LOAC provisions concerning treatment of 

prisoners, occupation responsibilities, neutrality, or other matters.

2 After the Nuremburg Tribunals, juridical silence followed for a half-century—

while nations enforced law within their ranks and battlefield practices evolved. Beginning in the 1990s, ad hoc tribunals and now the permanent International Criminal Court began offering limited additional clarity about war crimes. For enforcement, 

self-help in the form of reprisals was long the primary means of ensuring reciprocal 

state compliance. See John Fabian Witt, Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American 

History (New York: Free Press, 2012).

3. Thomas Erskine Holland, The Elements of Jurisprudence, 13th ed. (1985, repr., 

Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1924), 392. 

4. Powerful countries may face legal judgment, but no independent enforcement 

power exists for international law—a fact that contributes mightily to skepticism 

about the law itself. Enforcement of the law hinges on individual states, whose views 

or actions may be expressed through regional or international bodies. For example, 

the International Court of Justice ruled against the United States in 1984 in the case 

related to US support for the Contra guerillas and the mining of Nicaragua’s harbor. 

The United States was able to block UN Security Council (UNSC) enforcement of 

the judgment. See Harold G. Maier, “Appraisals of the ICJ’s Decision: Nicaragua V. 
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 93

United States (Merits),” American Society of International Law  81, no. 1 (January 

1987): 77–183. In other instances, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for 

the Former Yugoslavia, support from the UNSC and actions by states to seize or relinquish suspects allowed the successful enforcement of international law.

5. See discussion in Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, eds., Documents on the 

Laws of War, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 7–10.

6. The United States is not a party to the Additional Protocols but regards some 

of its provisions as customary law. See Michael J. Matheson, “Remarks on the United 

States Position on the Relation of Customary International Law to the 1977 Protocols 

Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions,” reprinted in “The Sixth Annual American Red Cross Washington College of Law Conference on International Humanitarian Law: A Workshop on Customary International Law and the 1977 Protocols Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions,” ed. Martin P. Dupuis, John Heywood, and 

Michele Y. F. Sarko, American University Journal of International Law and Policy 2, 

no. 2 (Fall 1987): 419–27. 

7. For discussion of the concept in a contemporary context, see Scott Horton, 

“Kriegsraison or Military Necessity? The Bush Administration’s Wilhelmine Attitude 

towards the Conduct of War,” Fordham International Law Journal 30, no. 3 (2006): 576.

8. Named after its author Francis Lieber, a German-American legal scholar with 

experience in combat, the code sought to distill “the laws of war for the age of democratic nations and mass armies.” Witt, Lincoln’s Code, 231.

9. By 1983 the role of operational lawyers was greatly expanded, and they have 

continued to be deployed at lower echelons in the field. Steven Keeva, “Lawyers in 

the War Room,” American Bar Association Journal 77, no. 12 (December 1991), 55.

10. See, for example, Shannon E. French, “When Teaching the Ethics of War Is 

Not Academic,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 21 March 2003.

11. American government officials stress the legitimacy of US actions (as in the 

case of the 1991 Amiriyah bunker bombing explored in chapter 4) and emphasize 

the illegality of adversary tactics (e.g., Victoria Clarke, press briefing, US Department of Defense, 29 March 2003).

12. Roberts and Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War, 9–10.

13. The United States objected to several aspects of the Protocol Additional (I) to 

the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, also known as AP I; 

some are discussed below. For a detailed US military perspective, see William Hays 

Parks, “Air War and the Law of War,” Air Force Law Review 32, no. 1 (1990): 112–45. 

Among Parks’s objections to AP I is what he sees as the shift of responsibility for the 

protection of the civilian population away from the host nation and “almost exclusively onto the attacker,” 112. Parks regards AP I as a humanitarian deceit aimed at 

“off-setting any military advantage a superior enemy force might have—particularly 

an air power,” 218.

14. Walzer reconciles this rights dilemma as privileging the defense of collective 

rights over individual rights. See Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: 

Basic Books, 1977), 136.

15. Roberts and Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War. For a discussion of the jus 

ad bellum and jus in bello meanings of proportionality, see pages 9–10. The condition 

that proportionality judgments be based upon information reasonably available to 
94 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

the commander at the time is known as the “Rendulic Rule,” stemming from post–

WWII war crimes trials.

16. AP I, Art. 51.; and Roberts and Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War, 449.

17. For a discussion of the limits of proportionality, see Janina Dill, Applying the 

Principle of Proportionality in Combat Operations, policy briefing (Oxford Institute 

for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict, December 2010).

18. Michael Schmitt notes, “Dissimilar value genres—military and humanitarian—

are being weighed against each other.” Michael N. Schmitt, “The Principle of Discrimination in 21st Century Warfare,” Yale Human Rights and Development Law 

Journal 2 (1999), 143, 176.

19. Quoted in Amnesty International, NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: 

“Collateral Damage” or Unlawful Killings?; Violations of the Laws of War by NATO 

During Operation Allied Force (London: Amnesty International, 2000), 13.

20. Amnesty International, NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: “Collateral 

Damage” or Unlawful Killings?, 24. 

21. Such an approach is suggested in Dinah Pokempner, Marc Garlasco, and 

Bonnie Docherty, “Off Target on the Iraq Campaign: A Response to Professor 

Schmitt,” Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 6 (2003), 113.

22. This is the dichotomy described in Michael N. Schmitt, “Military Necessity 

and Humanity in International Humanitarian Law: Preserving the Delicate Balance,” 

Virginia Journal of International Law 50, no. 4 (2010), 795.

23. Michael Schmitt sees the law’s balance slowly shifting away from military 

necessity and toward humanity. I agree with this assessment. I see the trend as both 

a function of the global evolution of human rights norms and as a function of who is 

involved in shaping and interpreting the law.

24. Marco Sassòli, “Legitimate Targets of Attack under International Humanitarian Law” (background paper prepared for the Informal High-Level Expert Meeting 

on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law, Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Harvard University, June 

2004), 2, http://www.hpcrresearch.org/sites/default/files/publications/Session1.pdf.

25. While Pokempner et al. are refuting claims by a specific former military lawyer, their views can be generalized to apply to the US military as a whole. Pokemper 

et al., “Off Target on the Iraq Campaign,” 113.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Controversy arose when the United States ignored ICRC warnings of torture 

in secret prisons. See International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC Report on the 

Treatment of Fourteen “High Value Detainees” in CIA Custody (Washington, DC: 

ICRC, February 2007), http://www.nybooks.com/media/doc/2010/04/22/icrc-report.pdf (accessed January 21, 2012). 

30. Military lawyers in discussions with the author; see also W. Hays Parks’s detailed critique of ICRC efforts to promote a “radical shift” from the customary practices in the LOAC in Parks, “Air War and the Law of War,” quote on page 157.

31. Audiotape archives from the Project on the Means of Intervention Proceedings, National Security and Human Rights Program, Carr Center for Human Rights 
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 95

Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Washington, DC, 1992–1996. This 

source will hereafter be referred to as NSHR Proceedings.

32. Pokempner et al., “Off Target on the Iraq Campaign,” 113–14.

33. The United States has often loosened prior constraints on the use of force if 

those constraints appeared to preclude military success (e.g., urban area bombing 

toward the end of WWII or the expansion of permissible targets during 2011 Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya). However, it is important to note that where this has 

occurred, the restrictions had been regarded not as legal requirements but as political constraints (i.e., more restrictive than required by the LOAC at that time). Therefore, even when constraints were eased, American officials and lawyers still regarded 

US military actions as lawful.

34. Witt, Lincoln’s Code, 5–6. Francis Lieber, author of the civil-war code of conduct believed that “when war is begun, the best and most humane thing is to carry it 

on as intensely as possible so as to be through with it as soon as possible,” quoted in 

Witt, Lincoln’s Code, 235.

35. NSHR Proceedings. The concern is not without foundation. As Roberts and 

Guelff explain, the term IHL “can also encompass relevant parts of the international 

law of human rights.” The authors go on to note that the term IHL “could be seen as 

implying that the laws of war have an exclusively humanitarian purpose, when their 

evolution has in fact reflected various practical concerns of states and their armed 

forces on grounds other than those which may be considered humanitarian.” Roberts 

and Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War, 2.

36. W. Hays Parks’s entire article could be said to embody this view. Parks, “Air 

War and the Law of War.”

37. This example appears to affirm that the norm of minimizing civilian casualties is powerful.

38. One JAG officer explained that air commanders sometimes sought to minimize collateral damage during air operations. “That would have made pilots unnecessarily vulnerable,” the colonel explained. “We had to tell them that they can take a 

more liberal approach.” Steven Keeva, “Lawyers in the War Room,” 57. “LOAC does 

not specifically direct a part to take more risk,” a US Air Force deputy judge advocate 

general said. Maj Gen Charles Dunlap, interview with the author, Washington, DC, 

4 December 2009.

39. Frederic L. Borch, “Targeting after Kosovo: Has the Law Changed for Strike 

Planners?,” Naval War College Review 56, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 64–81; and on the origins of the ICRC and the humanitarian agenda of abolishing war, see also Witt, Lincoln’s Code, 341.

40. It should be noted that state positions can be wrong, as evidenced by Iraq’s 

claim that its 1990 invasion of Kuwait was lawful or by Pres. George W. Bush’s claims 

regarding the legality of certain “coercive interrogation” techniques. While there is 

little formal adjudication of international law, minority views generally lack standing 

equal to those of the majority (unless those minority views are supported by a history of customary practice).

41. A prime example is the legitimacy of attacking “war-sustaining” targets, 

which is discussed below.
96 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

42. These would include the 2003 Rome Statute of the International Criminal 

Court creating the International Criminal Court, the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, and the 

2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.

43. This list exempts the issue of detainee treatment, which has been covered at 

length elsewhere: for example, Rigel Rodley and Matt Pollard, The Treatment of Prisoners 

under International Law, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); and 

Emily Crawford, The Treatment of Combatants under the Law of Armed Conflict

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

44. See Article 57 of AP I. Roberts and Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War,

452–3. 

45. AI, for example, insists that an attacker has a “responsibility under international 

humanitarian law to take all possible precautions to avoid harming civilians.” 

Amnesty International, “Amnesty International Concerns Relating to NATO Bombings,” 

news release, EUR 70/69/99, 18 May 1999, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/

EUR70/069/1999/es/a0255094-fca7-44a3-b147-461723c5f4a5/eur700691999en.pdf.

46. See, for example, Jim Garamone, “U.S. Regrets Any Loss of Innocent Lives in 

Afghanistan, Gates Says,” American Forces Press Service, 7 May 2009; and Johanna 

Neuman, “Saddam Keeps Focus on Civilian Toll,” USA Today, 7 February 1991.

47. This is especially true regarding discussions of airpower and coercion or dual 

use targeting.

48. The United States regards some of the Protocol as a codification of customary 

law. See Matheson, “Remarks on the United States Position.”

49. AP I, Art. 52.2.

50. Where there is doubt, an object normally used for civilian purposes (e.g., a 

school) “shall be presumed not to be so used.” AP I, Art. 52 (3).

51. Parks, “Air War and the Law of War,” 141.

52. Sassòli, “Legitimate Targets of Attack under International Humanitarian 

Law,” 6.

53. AP I itself does not mention military forces. However, the commentary to AP 

I states that “members of the armed forces are military objectives.” International 

Committee of the Red Cross Commentary 1987, to AP I, Art. 52, sec. 2017, http://

www.icrc.org/ihl.

54. Some criticize this term as creating an impression that the targets should be 

protected because of their importance to civilians. See W. Hays Parks, “Asymmetries 

and the Identification of Legitimate Military Objectives,” in International Humanitarian Law Facing New Challenges, eds. Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg and Volker 

Epping (Berlin, Germany: Springer, 2007), 65–116.

55. The destruction of infrastructure during Operation Desert Storm was criticized for this reason. Human Rights Watch (HRW), Needless Deaths in the Gulf War

(New York: HRW, 1991), 8–10, 169–90. Questions about the military necessity or 

benefit of such attacks are independent from the issue of whether a target is a lawful 

military objective.

56. See HRW lawyers’ critique of arguments advanced by a leading US military 

law expert. Pokempner et al., “Off Target on the Iraq Campaign,” 113.

57. Ibid.,122.
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 97

58. There was an independent debate about whether media broadcasts of political 

propaganda met the criteria of military objective. See the debate about “war sustaining” 

objects in this chapter. 

59. HRW, Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq (New 

York: HRW, 2003), 49.

60. US Department of the Army, Operational Law Handbook 2014 (Charlottesville, VA: Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, August 2014), 23.

61. Ibid. The US Army’s operational law manual states that “while the criterion 

of purpose is concerned with the intended, suspected, or possible future use of an 

object, the potential military use of a civilian object, such as a civilian airport, may 

make it a military objective because of its future intended or potential military use.”

62. University Centre for International Humanitarian Law Geneva, Targeting 

Military Objectives (proceedings from an expert meeting, Centre de Conférences de 

Varembé in Geneva, Switzerland, 12 May 2005), 7.

63. Sassòli, “Legitimate Targets of Attack under International Humanitarian Law,” 3.

64. Article 52(2) in the AP I also requires that the destruction, capture, or neutralization of the objective offers a “definite military advantage.” Roberts and Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War, 450.

65. US Army, Operational Law Handbook, 23. The logic yields interesting arguments. For example, the Navy’s law handbook in 1995 instructed: “economic targets 

of the enemy that indirectly but effectively support and sustain the enemy’s warfighting capability may also be attacked,” citing the example of raw cotton, which 

Union forces targeted during the American Civil War because it was a source of 

revenue for the South. US Navy, NWP 1-14M, The Commander’s Handbook on the 

Law of Navy Operations, July 1995, para. 8.1.1.

66. Joint Publication (JP) 3-60, Joint Targeting, 31 January 2013, appendix A, 

para. 4.a.

67. University Centre for International Humanitarian Law Geneva, Targeting 

Military Objectives, 24.

68. Sassòli, “Legitimate Targets of Attack under International Humanitarian 

Law,” 6.

69. Ibid., 3.

70. William Arkin and Robert Windrem, “The Other Kosovo War,” InfoSec News, 

30 Aug 2001, http://www.msnbc.com/news/607032.asp; and Julian H. Tolbert, 

“Crony Attack Strategic Attack’s Silver Bullet?” (MA thesis, School of Advanced Air 

and Space Studies, Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL, 2006).

71. Operational Law Handbook, 23.

72. It is worth considering the reciprocity of the logic. Would the United States 

consider it lawful for belligerents today to attack private US economic targets that 

were not directly related to military activities?

73. Sassòli uses several examples from the Kosovo air campaign to illustrate his 

point. Attacking power stations in order to induce regime change, while justifying 

the attacks as being against dual use facilities is one example; another illustration 

focuses on attacking private industry in order to undermine regime supporters while 

claiming that the strikes aimed to keep cigarettes from enhancing the military effort. 

Sassòli, “Legitimate Targets of Attack under International Humanitarian Law,” 5.
98 │ THE LIMITS OF LAW

74. Critics charged that NATO attacked bridges on the grounds that military 

forces might use them in the future, whereas the coalition’s primary motivation had 

been to destroy military communications (fiber-optic cables) that had been installed 

in the bridges. “Human rights organizations did not accept the military value of the 

bridge alone and did not understand that the purpose of the strike was to disrupt 

command and control.” Burch, “Targeting after Kosovo.”

75. Amnesty International, NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: “Collateral 

Damage” or Unlawful Killings?, 44.

76. NSHR Proceedings.

77. International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing 

Campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (New York: United Nations, 13 

June 2000), para. 47, http://www.icty.org/x/file/Press/nato061300.pdf.

78. See Parks, “Asymmetries and the Identification of Legitimate Military Objectives,” 97.

79. The United States considers the question holistically. The value of each attack 

is not seen tactically but must be “linked to the full context of war strategy.” Parks, 

“Asymmetries and the Identification of Legitimate Military Objectives,” 90. European human rights lawyer Francoise Hampson insists that even a broad view of an 

attack as a whole must be finite or it would erase the distinctions between jus in bello

and jus ad bellum analysis. See comment in Francoise Hampson, “Means and Methods 

of Warfare in the Conflict in the Gulf,” in The Gulf War 1990–91 in International and 

English Law, ed. Peter Rowe (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1993), 94.

80. In fact, some observers have argued that becoming so discriminate and precise undercuts the psychological impact and full benefit of strategic bombing. Williamson 

Murray, “Not Enough Collateral Damage: Moral Ambiguities in the Gulf War,” in 

Civilians in the Path of War, eds. Mark Grimsley and Clifford J. Rogers (Lincoln: 

University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 251–70. 

81. Arkin and Windrem, “The Other Kosovo War”; and Julian H. Tolbert, “Crony 

Attack.” Tolbert asserts, “Crony attack attempts to negatively affect the key supporters 

and advisors of the adversary leader to effect policy change in our favor,” 4. Examples 

cited are the Bor copper smelter and the Smederevo iron works—both bombed by 

B-2 bombers on 15 May 1999.

82. HRW, Off Target, 46.

83. AI also considered Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) a civilian object that 

should have been immune from attack. Amnesty International, NATO/Federal Republic 

of Yugoslavia: “Collateral Damage” or Unlawful Killings?, 44. It should be noted that 

humanitarian arguments sometimes conflict. Whereas AI has argued that foreseeably 

temporary destruction undermines military benefits and therefore makes it more 

difficult for an attack to meet the proportionality test, HRW has argued that when 

attacking dual use infrastructure the United States should seek only to incapacitate 

capabilities temporarily rather than destroy them in order to minimize civilian impact. See HRW, Off Target, 42.

84. HRW, Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign (New York: HRW, February 

2000), 43, 44.
THE LIMITS OF LAW │ 99

85. See Sarah Sewall, “Limits of Law: Promoting Humanity in Armed Conflict,” 

in Law and War, ed. Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas, and Martha Merrill Umphrey 

(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014), 23–47.

86. An example of institutional imperatives at play is HRW’s titling its report on 

Operation Iraqi Freedom Off Target; the message does not capture the conclusion of 

the report itself. HRW, Off Target.

87. Anonymous military lawyer, interview with the author, Newport, RI, 24 September 2012.

88. See, for example, Françoise Bouchet-Saulnier, The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), xv–xxvii.

89. See Borch, Targeting after Kosovo; and Parks, “Air War and the Law of War.”

90. This is a source of discomfort for humanitarian IHL experts as well. See 

Pokempner et al., “Off Target on the Iraq Campaign,”112.

91. An example of the tensions between careful analysis and attention-grabbing 

public impact can be found in the titles of HRW reports that are more sensational 

than the analysis within (e.g., Off Target).

92. NSHR Proceedings.

93. Amnesty International, NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: “Collateral 

Damage” or Unlawful Killings?, 25.

94. Steve Boggan, “War in the Balkans: NATO Is Warned on War Crimes,” Independent (UK), 5 May 1999, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/war-in-the-balkansnato-warned-on-war-crimes-1091503.html.

95. Ibid. 

96. The ICTY’s ruling that the NATO flight deck was not unlawful reaffirmed the 

statist perspective. ICTY, Final Report, para. 56.

97. The case for assuming additional risk and minimizing civilian harm during 

counterinsurgency operations is fundamentally pragmatic, based on assumptions 

about the requirements of operational success when fighting insurgents.

98. Witt, Lincoln’s Code, 184, 279.

99. Quoted in Witt, Lincoln’s Code, 235.

PART 2

Impact of Civilian Casualties

Every bomb is a political bomb.

—Gen Michael E. Ryan, USAF, retired

Chapter 4

Air Campaigns of the 1990s

Civilian Casualties Lead to Operational Restrictions

As airpower took center stage during US military operations during the 1990s, it faced unprecedented scrutiny and criticism for causing noncombatant casualties. The heightened scrutiny of airpower 

was somewhat ironic. By 1990 improved technology had combined 

with the longstanding airpower tenet of “economy of force” to increase dramatically US airpower’s accuracy and ability to discriminate among targets. Yet as explained in chapter 1, heightened normative expectations combined with other factors such as the transparency 

of war to make civilian deaths a key criterion by which the world 

judged the American way of war. Despite airpower’s progress, the expectations were higher still.

This chapter traces how US leaders began to internalize the more 

stringent expectations of minimizing civilian harm. Chapters 2 and 3 

showed that while American political and military leaders sought to 

avoid intentionally targeting civilians during war, they also relied 

upon an interpretation of the law of armed conflict (LOAC) that easily 

accommodated collateral damage. However, the 1990s operations in 

the Middle East and the Balkans revealed that civilian casualties 

could be highly costly for political or operational reasons. As a result, 

US planners became more sensitive to civilian harm in the design of 

air campaigns. More notably, when significant civilian casualty incidents occurred, US leaders routinely responded by imposing further 

operational restrictions on airpower.

Over the course of the decade, the United States Air Force (USAF) 

concluded that civilian casualties led to operational constraints. This 

realization ultimately prompted institutional change within the service—not simply adaptation during air operations. The USAF noted 

the new realities in professional military education curricula and in 

doctrine.1

 It also began developing and prioritizing capabilities and 

tools specifically designed to minimize civilian harm—one of which 

proved crucial during Operation Allied Force. These USAF innovations are detailed in the next chapter.

This chapter reviews key events during military interventions 

of the 1990s in order to illustrate how heightened expectations of 
104 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

civilian protection shaped understandings and restrictions on US 

airpower.

Operation Desert Storm

Operation Desert Storm was Pres. George H. W. Bush’s successful 

coalition effort to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Formally launched 

on 17 January 1991, the war featured 42 days of air campaign followed by 100 hours of ground war. The conflict was dramatic—with 

the visual debut of precision weapons and CNN’s coverage of “shock 

and awe” air strikes in Baghdad—but brief, concluding on 28 February 1991. The US-led coalition of states eventually numbered 34 

members, including several Arab states whose support was particularly crucial for political reasons.2

Operation Desert Storm was the first massive combined-arms 

operation after Vietnam. Air planners enjoyed the autonomy to craft 

an air campaign that they felt they had lost during Vietnam.3

 This was 

an opportunity to reconceptualize how airpower could be applied 

and to validate Gen Henry “Hap” Arnold’s claim that airpower could 

be “a war-winning weapon in its own right.”4

The initial plan was reminiscent of industrial web targeting but 

with the twist of inflicting overwhelming paralysis at the outset. Before ground forces crossed the berm, air and naval power were deployed against air defenses and then immediately against strategic 

targets. Using his model of concentric rings of national power, USAF 

planner Col John Warden identified within each ring the targets most 

critical to the regime, striking at the heart of Saddam Hussein’s power 

suddenly and overwhelmingly—not incrementally and halfheartedly. 

The initial plan’s name, “Instant Thunder,” was intended to contrast 

starkly with the name assigned a gradual escalation campaign in 

Vietnam.5

President Bush did provide an element of early guidance for the 

conduct of the war. He directed that civilian casualties be minimized 

in order to demonstrate that the international community’s quarrel 

was with Iraqi president Saddam Hussein rather than the people of 

Iraq.6

 In fall 1990, then, the USAF reviewed air weapons system malfunction and human error data, studying the potential risk of civilian 

casualties in Baghdad.7
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 105

Air planners sought to reassure the National Command Authorities that they could meet the president’s intent with their plans for the 

air campaign. Colonel Warden claimed that the earlier study illustrated that “pre-mission planning to avoid misdesignation of targets 

(the principal driver of noncombatant casualties) and the employment of suitable aircraft and weapons systems” could minimize civilian harm.8

 This emphasis on preplanned targeting to address the 

challenge of civilian casualties thus became a dominant theme of 

future air campaigns.9

Based on its study of past weapons data, the USAF incorporated 

civilian protection into its targeting choices and rules of engagement 

(ROE). As the official history concluded, “coalition planners followed 

stringent procedures to select and attack targets.”10 These stringent 

procedures focused on immediate civilian harm, not the potential 

second-order effects of air strikes. Yet the targeting strategy prominently featured attacks on dual use infrastructure, the destruction of 

which would produce unanticipated long-term effects on Iraqi citizens. At the time of Desert Storm, air planners’ focus on civilian protection in target choice was conceived more narrowly: minimizing 

direct civilian deaths resulting from the initial strikes.

In addition to targeting choice, planners instituted a variety of 

procedural and other precautions, improving upon earlier precautionary tactics of the Vietnam War. According to a Department of 

Defense report, “Attack routes were planned to minimize the results 

of errant ordnance; the norm was to use PGMs [precision guided 

munitions], rather than less-accurate gravity weapons, in built-up or 

populated areas. Attack procedures specified that if the pilot could 

not positively identify his target or was not confident the weapon 

would guide properly (because of clouds for example), he could not 

deliver that weapon.”11

However, as the official Desert Storm history pointed out, civilian 

casualty reduction steps were taken “to the degree possible and consistent with allowable risk to aircraft and aircrews.”12 This means that 

the USAF did not reduce its emphasis on force protection. Adding 

civilian protection measures without diminishing force protection is 

fully consistent with the US view of LOAC, which regards military 

necessity as including force protection. Indeed, one key Desert Storm 

air war commander regarded additional civilian protection measures 

as also antithetical to effective war fighting.13
106 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

The president’s direction about minimizing civilian harm and the 

nascent development of policy and procedures ultimately had limited 

impact on air operations beyond the greater precision with which 

airpower now could be applied. Planners seemed to interpret the 

guidance and rules as requiring compliance with the “floor” of the 

LOAC and working within the context of infrastructure targeting 

strategies and force protection priorities. The approach represented 

an incremental emphasis on existing tools and concepts rather than a 

significant alteration or intensification of extant process.

When civilian casualties inevitably occurred and international 

criticism ensued, the United States responded by deflecting blame 

and stressing the coalition’s good intentions.14 The war plan included 

“intensive efforts to show the Iraqis and the world that the responsibility for civilian casualties rested squarely on Saddam Hussein’s 

shoulders and that the coalition would have no choice in the matter.”15 President Bush and others reiterated that the United States was 

doing everything possible to minimize casualties and was trying to 

avoid civilian sites “despite the fact that Saddam is now relocating 

some military functions . . . in civilian areas such as schools.”16 US 

officials also blamed Hussein for not protecting his citizens, for violating the laws of war, and for shooting surface-to-air missiles that 

they suggested may have caused civilian deaths.17 US military leaders 

further explained that weapons sometimes malfunction, implying 

that most casualties were the result of technical errors. In response to 

an appeal to halt the assault, President Bush wrote, “As to the use of 

lethal force, we have been very careful in the planning of this liberation effort. I think you will agree that up until now, the performance 

of the Allied Air Forces has been magnificent in the accuracy of its 

attack and in achieving our goal of limiting casualties to innocent 

civilians.”18

US officials argued that the “apparently low number [of civilian 

casualties] clearly reflects Coalition efforts to minimize civilian casualties.”19 When queried, though, US officials denied having any information about Iraqi civilian deaths.20 One military official specifically 

stated, “We are not in the body count business.”21 US leaders were 

caught in a contradiction. They sought to justify coalition actions as 

laudable because they caused few civilian casualties, even though 

they rejected numbers as a metric and refused even to compile them.

For a month this approach appeared to suffice. There was limited 

domestic American criticism of the war, and allies largely reiterated 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 107

the US public commentary in response to civilian casualty allegations.22 As one airpower chronicler put it, “The popular image of the 

Desert Storm air war remains one in which the effects of allied air 

power often seemed barely short of technological magic.”23 However, 

despite the magic of precision, the US effort ultimately was forced to 

confront the issue of civilian casualties.

Bombing the Amiriyah Bunker

The realities of war’s impact on civilians broke through on 13 February 1991.24 The air strike on a military bunker in Baghdad proved 

to be a watershed for the USAF—one with a “spectacularly bad effect.”25 The Washington Post melodramatically called it “the day illusions [about a bloodless war] shattered.”26 The event is worth examining in detail because it was the most significant US-caused collateral 

damage incident since the Vietnam War, and its political and operational impacts illustrate the power of normative expectations about 

civilian casualties.27 The Amiriyah bunker incident also shows that 

the civilian protection norm is more demanding than the legal standards emphasized by the United States.

The bombing was neither reckless nor careless, yet its consequences were severe. The decision to target the shelter was made only 

after extensive study and deliberation, and it was clearly believed to 

be a traditional military target—not an esoteric military objective. 

Ultimately, the decision to strike the shelter located in a middle-class 

suburb of Amiriyah, which Allied forces called Al Firdos C3 bunker, 

hinged on the quality of the intelligence. Central Intelligence Agency 

analysts believed it was a war command bunker that Iraqi secret police had occupied.28 Outside the bunker hung a sign reading “Department of Civilian Defense–Public Shelter Number 25” in English and 

Arabic. Air planners initially resisted putting it on the target list because they considered the evidence of its military utility to be insufficient. Gradually, additional intelligence information accumulated, 

and planners eventually moved the target onto the master air attack 

plan.29 A key intelligence officer concluded that there was no evidence 

that civilians were taking shelter inside.30

On 13 February, pilots in two Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk stealth 

ground-attack aircraft dropped GBU-27 Paveway III bunker-busting 

bombs on the structure. An immediate surge in emergency radio 

traffic in Baghdad indicated what had gone wrong. USAF Lt Col David 
108 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

Deptula called Brig Gen Buster Glosson, US Central Air Force 

(USCENTAF) director of campaign plans, to explain that civilians 

had been in the bunker and that the carnage would be on CNN 

shortly.31 Glosson told Deptula, “Listen, on the basis of the information we had available there was absolutely no reason not to target that 

bunker.” Glosson also called the air wing commander, instructing 

him to make sure that the pilots did not feel personally guilty.32

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), Colin Powell, 

went to the White House with the evidence used to select the target. 

“Mr. President,” he said, “we don’t have a case that you could take to 

the Supreme Court, yet we passed the commonsense test. We are 

convinced that this was a military target. We don’t understand why 

those civilians were in there. . . . We stand as strongly behind the decision after the fact as we did before the fact.”33

Due to modern communications, the carnage quickly gained local, 

then global, attention. “By midmorning five thousand Iraqis stood 

outside the shelter, watching. . . . For the first time in the war, Western 

television cameras filmed without censorship.”34 A journalist described the horrifying scene: “For hours rescuers lugged victims out 

into the morning light, sometimes vomiting from the stench or collapsing in anguish beneath their unbearable loads.”35 Iraqi minister of 

foreign affairs Tariq Aziz initially claimed that 400 civilians had been 

killed, although the government would later give the number of 204 

deaths to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.36

International Reaction

The news dominated international headlines and airwaves for 

days, although the international response to the civilian deaths varied. 

Governments that had opposed the war predictably seized upon the 

incident to attack the United States. There were massive demonstrations in Jordan. Libya called the event an appalling crime committed 

by America. Sudan’s foreign ministry called it a “hideous, bloody 

massacre” that aimed “to destroy the Iraqi people.”37

US officials publicly defended the attack. They marshaled the evidence used to justify the strike and called the bunker a legitimate 

military target.38 White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater blamed 

Saddam Hussein for using human shields. He stated, “America treats 

human life as our most precious value. That is why, even during this 

military conflict in which the lives of our servicemen and women are 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 109

at risk, we will not target civilian facilities.”39 Allies within the US-led 

coalition largely followed the US lead in publicly blaming Hussein for 

the deaths.40

Yet US leaders were worried. Regardless of whether it might have 

been possible to know the truth about the bunker, the facts of Amiriyah 

were simply inconsistent with President Bush’s promise to spare civilians. The world expected the coalition to attack the regime, not the 

people, especially given the tools at its disposal. Not only was the US 

technologically superior, it had touted its precision capabilities and 

publicly released video of precision-guided munitions traveling directly down building airshafts.41 Yet in one air strike, the United States 

killed a greater number of Iraqi civilians than the number of US combatants lost during the entire war.

The incident plainly illustrated the vast difference between a legal 

strike and a violation of the civilian protection norm. One observer 

noted, “The American claim that [the bunker] had been a legitimate 

military target . . . became irrelevant once it was revealed that three 

hundred women and children from families of the military elite had 

sheltered there and had been incinerated.”42

Restricting Operational Freedom

While the Pentagon and US Central Command (USCENTCOM) 

publicly “circled the wagons” after Amiriyah, according to two seasoned observers, “privately it was a different matter.”43 In addition to 

the horror of the unintended deaths, the bombing placed at risk everything the Bush administration had worked toward in its war effort. 

President Bush had invested enormous personal effort to obtain international political support.44 The West had gained the blessing of many 

Arab leaders to use force against another Muslim state. International 

support yielded United Nations (UN) authorization, nearly ideal basing infrastructure, and generous financial support, as well as military 

coalition partners. President Bush had made political unity his signature.

With the massive civilian carnage, Secretary of Defense Dick 

Cheney and his deputy believed a political threshold had been 

crossed.45 The official USAF lessons learned analysis described the 

Amiriyah incident as a “dangerous story,” because of its potential impact upon support for the war not just domestically but among Arab 

and Western European countries of the coalition.46 National Security 
110 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

Advisor Brent Scowcroft and his deputy, Robert Gates, “worried not 

only about American public opinion but also about sentiments 

abroad. Solidarity within the coalition—as well as support from the 

Soviets, the Chinese, and the Arab world—would be important if 

sanctions were to be maintained against Iraq after the shooting 

stopped.”47

The theater commander, Gen Norman Schwarzkopf, US Army, 

immediately “recognized that the coalition had major press and political problems.”48 USAF leaders became concerned about their continued ability to use airpower and began considering tactics that 

might help prevent a similar incident.49 Brigadier General Glosson 

concluded that “things would never again be the same.”50

It was General Powell who swiftly “moved to reign in the air campaign.”51 Well-schooled in the political and bureaucratic ways of 

Washington, he was sensitive to his civilian bosses’ reaction to 

Amiriyah.52 Powell feared that “another massacre like Al-Firdos 

would destroy the allies ‘moral standing.’”53 He explained to Schwarzkopf 

that targeting decisions had “policy and political overtones,” and he 

warned that the allies could not “take a chance on something like this 

happening again.”54 Specifically, he believed that if more such incidents occurred, the Desert Storm coalition would be undone.55 International reactions to civilian casualties made the war effort itself appear at risk. Powell recalculated the US interests.

After Amiriyah, Powell questioned whether each target’s destruction was required for prosecuting the war.56 As he described it, the 

questioning was not intended to “second-guess every mission, but as 

a safeguard against imprudence.”57 In light of Powell’s post-Vietnam 

efforts to promote military freedom of action, his reaction to Amiriyah 

was a great irony. Powell was violating core precepts of his own “doctrine,” which demanded autonomy for field commanders and the decisive application of force. General Schwarzkopf, commander of the 

coalition forces, complained that while CJCS Powell was a political 

genius, he lacked “the stomach for war.”58

The day after the Amiriyah bombing, Brigadier General Glosson’s 

aide noted in his journal, “CINC [Schwarzkopf] has big concern over 

cities. Receiving pressure from Chairman not to hit urban areas in 

Baghdad or urban targets anywhere. Urban targets now being approved in Washington.”59 Suddenly, Glosson had to justify every mission beforehand, initially verbally and later through a formal written 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 111

process.60 Tighter control, some might argue micromanagement, was 

the underlying response to the civilian deaths.

Air commanders sought to maintain their operational freedom. 

When Brigadier General Glosson recounted the new restrictions, Lieutenant Colonel Deptula proposed redefining “downtown Baghdad. . . . 

How about making it just the central business district?” he suggested.61

Additionally, General Chuck Horner, USAF, maintained that if a target 

had been very important, he could have obtained permission to 

strike it.62

Nonetheless, civilian protection concerns resulted in a ban on urban air operations for five days, which then transformed into a presumption against any strikes in Baghdad through the end of the air 

campaign. Bunkers that could be used as shelters and bridges were 

now completely off limits.63 As a result, only five additional targets 

were hit in Baghdad over the next two weeks until the campaign’s 

end.64 “To the Air Force,” write Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, 

“it seemed as if the political fallout from the Al Firdos raid had accomplished what the Iraqi air defenses could not: downtown Baghdad was to be attacked sparingly, if at all.”65 The official lessons learned 

report concluded, “The strategic consequences of this attack were 

considerable. To all intents and purposes the civilian losses ended the 

strategic air war campaign against targets in Baghdad.”66

The Amiriyah incident changed the calculus of US political and 

military leaders of the military costs and benefits of continued air 

strikes.67 Political and military leaders became concerned about the 

political fallout of the bombing and what it would mean for the war 

effort. Powell in particular worried that the carefully crafted coalition 

might crumble even this far into the effort. The costs of potentially 

losing such carefully accrued material and political benefits now outweighed the added benefit of striking additional strategic targets. 

In fact, US operational leaders were wrong about political sensitivity 

at home. The Amiriyah bombing had little effect upon American public 

opinion, in part because US citizens largely believed what their government had told them about the incident. Accordingly, 80 percent of 

Americans blamed the Iraqi government for the civilian deaths. Only 

13 percent said the United States should take greater precautions to 

avoid civilian casualties.68 The responses reveal a high degree of trust 

in government statements and military actions. Domestic concerns 

about civilian deaths were not problematic for the conduct of the war. 

The civilian protection norm ultimately mattered to US leaders for 
112 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

other reasons. Coalition partners, political allies, neutral governments, and global opinion indirectly affected the United States’ ability 

to continue prosecuting the conflict or to achieve other foreign policy 

goals. The same set of concerns would reemerge in force during the 

last air campaign of the decade.

Iraq: No-Fly Zones and Desert Fox

From the end of Desert Storm until the invasion of Iraq in 2003, 

the United States, along with the United Kingdom and other nations, 

maintained “no-fly zones” in the south and north of Iraq. The northern 

effort began with Operation Provide Comfort, a relief and protection 

operation to help Iraqi Kurds fleeing government forces. In January 

1997 the effort transitioned to a pure no-fly zone called Operation 

Northern Watch.69 Operation Southern Watch commenced in 1992 

to prevent the Iraqi government from persecuting Shiite citizens who 

had rebelled against the government.70 Both no-fly zones were also 

intended to help enforce extant UN resolutions regarding Iraq.

Maintaining the no-fly zones for over a decade proved operationally challenging. Avoiding civilian harm remained a significant concern throughout the course of the operations. Iraq placed its antiaircraft batteries near civilians and protected sites in an effort to induce 

the coalition to cause civilian casualties. Pilots were allowed to strike 

Iraqi antiaircraft threats only under strict ROE designed to avoid escalation and civilian harm.71 The ensuing “cat and mouse” game increased institutional sensitivity to collateral damage and expanded 

familiarity with weapons choice and effects.72 While some air proponents complained that aircrews were losing their high-intensity combat readiness, the operations provided experience that would prove 

extremely useful.

The air operations generally stayed below the political radar. Apart 

from a friendly fire incident in April 1994, the coalition avoided aircraft losses. Iraq sporadically reported civilian casualties, and the 

United States occasionally admitted that its bombs had hit civilian 

areas—even if US forces could not confirm deaths.73 Overall, suspicions of Iraqi propaganda and limited press access diluted the impact 

of claims regarding civilian casualties.

In 1998 the United States and United Kingdom launched an additional four-day air campaign called Operation Desert Fox. This was a 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 113

short but intense aerial bombing effort designed to degrade Iraqi 

capabilities to produce weapons of mass destruction. The campaign 

both followed and intensified the breakdown in the UN inspection 

regime against Iraq. Iraqi officials said that as many as 70 civilians 

had been killed.74 Perhaps because the effort was so brief, there was 

little traction for these claims either politically or operationally.

No-fly zones and the associated attacks in Iraq continued. However, humanitarian attention instead focused on the suffering caused 

by international sanctions. The civilian death toll from this “nonlethal” tool of foreign policy was staggering, and losses were exacerbated by the Iraqi government’s cynicism and selfishness, as well as 

physical damage to infrastructure inflicted during the first Persian 

Gulf War. Sanctions were estimated to have caused hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths.75 Successive UN humanitarian coordinators for 

Iraq expressed concerned about the impact of sanctions on civilians. 

In 1999 coordinator Hans von Sponeck also turned his attention to 

compiling records of Iraqi civilian deaths from the air strikes.76 The 

United Kingdom and United States charged that he was exceeding his 

mandate as he reported that over 100 civilians had been killed.77 Yet 

compared to sanctions, civilian casualties from the bombing were almost invisible.

Airmen had endeavored, with significant success, to avoid civilian 

casualties while enforcing the no-fly zones, going so far as to experiment with a nonexplosive bomb (discussed in chapter 5). They 

viewed their ability to minimize collateral damage and avoid escalation as an unsung success, receiving little recognition or reward from 

Washington. Avoiding civilian casualties was a “nonbarking dog”—

an achievement that was invisible until it suddenly failed. USAF leaders 

were frustrated that the operations consumed massive human and 

material resources yet garnered so little credit.78

Operation Deliberate Force

While the Persian Gulf remained a busy theater of air war for over 

a decade, the Balkans diverted global attention from the Middle East 

and prompted two separate US/NATO aerial bombing campaigns in 

the mid-1990s and then in 1999. Shortly after the fall of the Soviet 

Union, the state of Yugoslavia began to dissolve into widespread 

armed conflict among Serb, Croat, and Bosniak factions. The Bosnian 

Serb Army’s genocide against Muslim Bosniaks—and particularly the 
114 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

brutal siege of Sarajevo—came to define the conflict, although all factions committed atrocities. The UN provided largely ineffectual 

peacekeeping forces, and UN leaders evinced discomfort in employing the NATO airpower dedicated to support the UN effort. In July 

1995 the Bosnian Serb Army massacred some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim 

males in the town of Srebrenica, while UN peacekeepers on the 

ground failed to intervene (their requests for airpower having been 

denied by higher-ups).79 The ensuing outrage prompted increased 

UN willingness and new ROE to employ offensive airpower to help 

resolve the conflict.80

Operation Deliberate Force, the US-led NATO air campaign, 

aimed to compel a negotiated settlement to the conflict in the former 

Republic of Yugoslavia.81 For 12 days between 30 August and 20 September 1995, NATO aircraft bombed Bosnian Serb military forces 

and equipment. Concerns about civilian casualties helped explain the 

UN’s initial reluctance to employ airpower; civilian protection measures during Operation Deliberate Force were therefore central to the 

air strategy.

While coalition forces in Iraqi no-fly zones sought to reduce civilian harm during their enforcement efforts, planners viewed limiting 

collateral damage as a prerequisite for NATO’s use of airpower in Bosnia. This was not an official requirement formally imposed upon Gen 

Michael Ryan, USAF, commander, Allied Air Forces Southern Europe, 

and leader of the air campaign. General Ryan regarded the need to 

minimize civilian harm as self-evident.82 The conflict would be fought 

by consensus (as NATO required), and bombs would be dropped in 

NATO’s backyard. An authoritative study of the operation concluded 

that if “NATO and UN leaders expected enough collateral damage to 

give the Serbs a political lever, they probably would not have approved initiation of Deliberate Force, or if such damage had begun, 

they probably could not have sustained the operation politically for 

long.”83 Minimizing civilian harm was understood to be the condition 

that made it possible to use force at all.84

As the Combined Force Air Component commander (CFACC), 

General Ryan internalized this understanding.85 He “personally chose 

and approved each target and placed certain restraints on delivery 

means and methods.”86 He refused to delegate decisions because he 

felt that he should be held accountable for the political implications 

of targeting.87 His detailed management style “met with some resistance from theater Airmen.”88
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 115

The campaign applied force incrementally, up a tiered ladder of 

targets, rather than in a swift decisive blow. However, target choice 

itself was not controversial. Colin Grey put it succinctly: “The focus 

on the campaign was ‘distinctly military.’”89 Most of the targets within 

the progressively demanding “three tiers” were indisputably military 

objects: Serb artillery and mortars used to shell “safe areas,” air defense systems, weapons depots, and munitions storage sites. Communications systems and a limited number of bridges and roads 

could have been considered dual use objects, but these were clearly 

connected to Bosnian Serb military activity, and their targeting was 

not a topic of humanitarian criticism.90

During Deliberate Force “everything from rules of engagement to 

aircraft, weapons, and tactics selections was driven to some degree by 

concerns about collateral damage.”91 Because many targets were in 

close proximity to civilians, General Ryan placed great emphasis 

upon tactical mitigation of the risk of civilian casualties. These targets 

“were not struck unless planners could come up with a combination 

of weapons and tactics that virtually precluded an errant weapon 

from causing unintended harm.”92 Operation Deliberate Force employed a far higher percentage of precision weapons than were used 

in Operation Desert Storm (69 percent compared to 8 percent). Many 

additional precautions were prerequisites for dropping ordnance, 

and these precautions often increased the level of risk that pilots were 

forced to assume.93

While the operation featured the gradual and constrained use of 

force, it achieved its objectives at what NATO judged to be low 

costs. Two French aviators were shot down and captured. Fewer 

than 30 civilians were killed.94 The bombing helped lead to a negotiated end to the conflict, and Operation Deliberate Force was perceived as a significant success. This vindication of airpower, despite 

severe operational constraints, was a harbinger of the next Balkan 

air campaign.95

Operation Allied Force

From 24 March to 11 June 1999, NATO conducted Operation Allied Force (OAF) to pressure Yugoslavian president Milosevic to halt 

human rights abuses in Kosovo.96 Despite its avowedly humanitarian 

goals, the operation was controversial from the outset. From an international perspective, the operation was illegal. The UN Security 
116 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

Council had not authorized it, nor was it an exercise of self-defense as 

allowed under the UN Charter. Within the United States, the intervention was perceived as a “war of choice” rather than one of necessity. The lack of widespread domestic and international political support, coupled with its humanitarian rationale, only heightened 

sensitivities to how the war was fought. The international concerns 

highlighted the importance of avoiding civilian harm (to be consistent 

with humanitarian objectives), while domestic concerns underscored 

the importance of limiting the risks and costs of US participation.

For both political and military reasons, then, airpower was again 

the tool of choice and NATO again provided the coalition architecture for the operation. The United States contributed most of the 

military assets and capabilities.97 However, the operation featured 

“infrastructure, transit and basing access, host-nation force contributions, and most importantly, political and diplomatic support provided by the allies and other members of the coalition.”98 Based on 

the experience of Operation Deliberate Force, planners initially anticipated that the aerial bombing would focus on military targets and 

last just a handful of days; however, both assumptions proved very 

wrong. As NATO expanded its military efforts over the course of the 

air campaign, it was forced to seek wider support—largely overflight 

rights—from additional states.

Coalition members sometimes had different views of the conflict, 

divergent approaches toward the use of force, and competing understandings of the civilian protection norm and international humanitarian law more broadly.99 As in Deliberate Force, targeting choice 

was nominally delegated to the NATO secretary general but in practice required consensus among NATO members. The length of the 

campaign and the controversy about nontraditional targets made this 

process unwieldy. During NATO deliberations, the power of members’ 

views reflected the significance of their role in the conflict. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sought to maintain coalition unity 

through daily diplomatic conference calls with the foreign ministers 

of the other “Quintet” countries (the United Kingdom, Germany, 

France, and Italy).100

The United States, the central coalition actor, recognized from the 

outset that civilian deaths could prove to be NATO’s Achilles’ heel. 

Because the operation was cast as a humanitarian intervention, coalition members were particularly sensitive to the irony of killing civilians 

in the name of protecting them. Political legitimacy was especially cru-
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 117

cial given the operation’s disputed legal authority. Civilian casualties 

would only further antagonize states already critical of the intervention’s legal status. From the outset, then, US and NATO leaders 

underscored the coalition’s commitment to civilian protection. US 

secretary of defense William Cohen vowed, “We will do everything in 

our power to minimize the damage to innocent civilians.”101 Other 

leaders promised “extraordinary efforts” or “all possible measures” to 

avoid civilian casualties.102

Yet NATO’s sensitivity to civilian protection was qualified by a 

competing political priority.103 Protecting aircraft was also a chief 

“measure of merit” or criterion for the air campaign.104 NATO Supreme 

Allied Commander (SACEUR) Gen Wesley K. Clark’s logic was 

straightforward: if NATO members lost forces, they might then end 

their support for the war. He also saw force protection as a political 

necessity—particularly an American political necessity—that was 

somewhat in tension with civilian protection.105

Targeting: From Tactical to Strategic 

NATO’s initial strategy of gradualism was an effort to reconcile the 

tensions between protecting forces and protecting civilians. The 

strategy also sought to balance attacks on tactical or traditional military targets (derided as “tank plinking”) with attacks on strategic targets that might yield more decisive effects. As General Clark later 

wrote, political leaders were holding the Airmen back, “because they 

wanted something more limited, more diplomatique.”106 NATO hoped 

that minimal bombing would suffice, as had been true during Operation Deliberate Force. Unfortunately, as chroniclers of the conflict 

wrote, NATO had no backup plan.107 When the initial list of air defense targets was exhausted three days into the war, the coalition expanded the war to a second, broader set of targets—principally military forces and infrastructure in the south. However, this effort also 

proved inconclusive.108

In late April, NATO leaders pledged to increase military pressure; 

however, they refused to grant broad discretion to military commanders to hit strategic targets. These targets were more controversial for several reasons: the political symbolism of their location in 

Belgrade (not Kosovo), NATO debate about their legality as military 

objectives, and the potential for civilian harm.109 Kosovo Forces Air 
118 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

Component commander Lt Gen Michael C. Short in particular 

sought to attack the “head of the snake” and forego the tank plinking, 

but NATO’s political leaders wanted to avoid killing civilians—even 

as they ratcheted up the military effort.

This complicated an already complex process of selecting and phasing attacks on targets.110 During Desert Storm, the US military had directed the targeting process without detailed political guidance—until the Amiriyah incident prompted greater scrutiny. During OAF, in 

contrast, each of the nearly 2,000 fixed targets was independently evaluated pursuant to both the law of war and “the law of coalition politics,”

which at its core was the desire to avoid civilian casualties. More than 

half of these targets required political approval at the highest levels.111

US president Bill Clinton became personally involved. He met with his 

secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and national 

security advisor “several times a week to go over the high-profile targets in an attempt to maximize damage to Milosevic’s aggression while 

minimizing civilian casualties.”112 This targeting review process occurred 

in parallel with the NATO process.113

Lawyers were deeply involved, working to clarify and harmonize 

the disparate concerns of coalition participants and ensuring that 

strikes could be defended publicly.114 In just the first few weeks, up to 

half of the proposed strike missions were aborted due to weather and 

“the refusal of some allies to approve certain target requests.”115 Disputes about targets and acceptable levels of civilian harm frequently 

emerged among allies, most prominently regarding the legality of targeting media facilities but also for other dual-use infrastructure.116

NATO’s military lawyers remained uncertain about the legality of destroying the electrical grid.117 Even where concerns may have been 

political (e.g., one state’s desire not to unduly punish Belgrade), national objections were often cast as a matter of law.118 Perhaps this was 

because the law was believed to provide greater authority.119 As noted 

in chapter 3, the United States held an expansive view of the law. Yet 

US officials were also able to argue that proposed attacks would not 

necessarily cause extensive civilian casualties.120

The target approval process underscored the fact that the permissive US view of LOAC—and the underlying assumption that this 

constituted compliance with the civilian protection norm—remained 

a minority opinion even within the alliance.121 The distinction in perspectives eventually forced the United States to develop a separate 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 119

approval process for targets that the United States was willing to 

strike independently.122

In addition to the constraints of the target approval process, the 

ROE for the operation were restrictive. They were similar to those 

used during Deliberate Force, a peace operation in which adversaries 

had deployed minimal air defenses. Now these constraints applied to 

a major combat operation against a robust air defense network. The 

US vice director for strategic plans and policy, Maj Gen Charles F. 

Wald, called these constraints the strictest he had seen.123

Civilian Casualty Sensitivity and the Coalition

As the air campaign continued through April without apparent 

success, civilian harm became a growing concern. Preventing civilian 

harm in a campaign of this magnitude was impossible.124 This was 

particularly true given the urban terrain and the Yugoslavian forces’ 

use of deception, human shields, and other tactics.125 The transparency of the war magnified the effects of civilian casualties on political 

and military actors. Yugoslavian government officials, international 

reporters, and citizens freely roamed the battlespace, recording events 

on videotape and blogging on the Internet. The Kosovo air campaign 

was the rare conflict in which one could count civilian casualty incidents (30) and deaths (500) almost exactly and in near–real time.126

Moreover, most deaths (two-thirds of the total) were the result of just 

12 incidents. The discrete and highly visible nature of the incidents 

enhanced their impact upon the coalition’s conduct.

Military communications and video technology also enhanced 

real-time oversight from higher military and political levels, and with 

this came restrictions and second-guessing about decisions that previously had been judged only in hindsight.127 It was not just pilots that 

felt the chain of command looking over their shoulders. The air war 

commander, Lieutenant General Short, felt micromanaged by his 

boss, General Clark.128 Clark, in turn, felt national capitals and the 

press watching his every move.129 As Clark put it, “each incident of 

accidental harm to civilians sent ‘shock waves up and down through 

NATO.’”130

NATO allies repeatedly called for additional care during air strikes, 

voicing concerns during NATO deliberations and through outside consultations such as the daily Quintet calls.131 There were two “flavors” of 
120 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

concern—the generic sensitivity to how the alliance or a nation would 

be perceived by the world and the more specific concerns of individual 

states regarding their domestic politics and publics. Sensitivity to 

international opinion was a “constant and a background factor” in 

shaping NATO’s views; in other words, it did not rise and fall during 

the course of the campaign.132 States making arguments for or against 

targets would often reference this generic sensitivity to civilian casualties, but in the words of a participant, the generic argument was 

“open to manipulation.”133

However, domestic public opinion inside NATO states also loomed 

large, particularly given public protests against civilian casualties that 

were held in several capitals. When the civilian protection sensibility 

might impact a government’s political options or even future, it became a more urgent factor shaping alliance deliberations. European 

heads of state occasionally warned that their governments would fall 

if attacks on certain targets were carried out.134

Civilian casualties threatened the operation because Clark believed that the United States could not fight the war alone.135 As James 

C. O’Brien, special presidential envoy for the Balkans during the 

Clinton administration, told me, “Allied concerns were intense and 

ongoing and so had more direct impact on decisions about particular 

targets. This was especially true with regard to allies whose logistical 

support was needed for the campaign.”136 Unsurprisingly, this included Quintet members Italy, which contributed bases, and France, 

which was important for overflight rights, and other Eastern European nations that eventually allowed bombing runs over their territories.137 NATO was concerned, in turn, that “if the Italian and German 

governments would have been forced out of the coalition . . . the use of 

their bases [would have been] lost.”138

Inside the alliance, tensions among NATO members surfaced in 

the press, sometimes directly from the statements of foreign leaders 

themselves.139 A representative account described intensifying internal coalition demands to avoid civilian casualties, concluding, “As the 

toll rises—and, as the bombing intensifies, it almost certainly will—

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization faces a moral and political 

conundrum.”140

US leaders became concerned that NATO civilian casualty concerns could prevent a military victory by splintering the coalition itself.141 On more than one occasion, Clark warned Washington not to 

pursue a particular target because “the Allies may walk away from 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 121

this thing.”142 Clark later noted, “We always maintained that no single 

target or set of targets was more important than NATO cohesion. 

This was the most crucial decision of the campaign.”143

Civilian Casualty Incidents and Tactical Restrictions 

In addition to exercising veto power over bombing in Belgrade, 

the allies raised specific concerns after each high-profile incident in 

which civilians died.144 As a result, US leaders occasionally altered 

decision-making processes and military tactics in order to reduce 

civilian harm further—by pausing bombing, forcing pilots to assume 

more risk by flying lower, and temporarily banning cluster munitions. The additional restrictions were meant to assuage other NATO 

nations’ concerns about civilian protection in order to maintain the 

coalition and win the war. As one participant summarized the dynamic, 

“concern over public [reaction] was an internal constraint, allied reaction an external constraint. The latter was less vulnerable to interpretation or dismissal.”145

Flight Deck

One of the most dramatic changes entailed forcing pilots to fly at 

lower altitudes, thereby assuming greater risk. Lieutenant General 

Short had imposed a 15,000-foot flight deck on pilots, requiring aircraft to fly above the height of small arms and shoulder-launched 

FIM-92 Stinger missiles.146 The flight deck did not eliminate the 

threat from surface-to-air missiles, but Yugoslavian forces had shut 

down their antiaircraft systems early in the conflict to avoid detection 

and potential destruction.

While increasing force protection, the flight deck challenged pilots’ ability to see what they were bombing. Flying at 15,000 feet made 

it more difficult to visually identify targets or confirm the presence of 

civilians at risk. As Lieutenant General Short acknowledged, “Under 

the limitations I had placed on the crew, it was inevitable that we were 

going to drop a bad bomb.”147

In fact, there were several bad bombs. On 12 April a NATO plane 

attacked the Grdelica Bridge in Serbia just as a civilian passenger 

train was crossing, returning to restrike after the initial pass. Roughly 

a dozen civilians died. Two days later at Djakovica, Kosovo, NATO 

aircraft fired on a convoy composed largely of tractors and wagons, 
122 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

killing over 70 Albanian refugees. The pilot appeared to have mistaken the group for a military convoy.148

Critics charged that NATO was mistakenly killing civilians because they preferred protecting pilots. Public and coalition pressure 

mounted to stop striking categories of targets (i.e., bridges) or improve visual confirmation.149 Lieutenant General Short continued to 

insist that the flight deck was necessary to protect aircraft. Experts 

emphasized that 15,000 feet was the optimal height from which to 

release PGMs.150 However, there was no doubt that the height complicated visual confirmation of targets. The USAF did not want to 

place entire categories of targets off limits.

Thus, shortly after the Djakovica bombing, Short’s deputy, Brig 

Gen Daniel P. Leaf, proposed an adjustment to address civilian protection.151 He suggested lowering the flight deck to 8,000 feet, with 

the option to fly even lower to verify targets.152 Suddenly, what had 

been out of the question became part of the special instructions to 

pilots. Civilian casualties led to significant ROE adjustment.153

Munitions

Particular weapons proved controversial—beyond the general 

question of their precision. During the Kosovo campaign, fewer than 

30 percent of the munitions were precision weapons, a lower percentage 

than that used during Operation Deliberate Force four years earlier.154 The Kosovo campaign featured a new generation of GPSguided munitions—prominently including the Joint Direct Attack 

Munition—that could nonetheless result in horrific mistakes when 

its coordinates were wrong (see next section).

The main concerns within and outside NATO revolved around the 

use of depleted uranium and cluster munitions.155 Depleted uranium, 

valued for its ability to penetrate armor, became a divisive issue 

largely after the conclusion of Operation Allied Force.156 The delayed 

reaction reflected the nature of the threat, alleged to be the toxic remnants of its use.157 Concern about environmental and health risks 

from depleted uranium weapons persists today.158 Cluster weapons, 

on the other hand, emerged as a humanitarian risk during the war. 

The 7 May cluster bombing of the Niš airfield, located on the edge of 

the city, hit a market and other populated areas, killing 14 civilians 

and injuring 28. The attack was so widely condemned that “after the 

incident in Niš, the White House quietly issued a directive to the 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 123

Pentagon to restrict cluster bomb use” by US forces for the balance 

of the campaign.159

Chinese Embassy

One politically sensitive air strike prompted General Clark to temporarily halt all bombing in the Serbian capital and illustrated the 

interplay between the concrete effects of civilian casualties and operational restrictions. On 7 May, NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and killed three Chinese nationals.160 Analysts had 

mistakenly identified the wrong building. President Clinton called 

the event “the worst political setback of the conflict.” Clinton was 

“dumbfounded and deeply upset by the mistake and immediately 

called [Chinese president] Jiang Zemin to apologize. He wouldn’t 

take the call, so I publicly and repeatedly apologized.”161 The chill on 

US-China relations lingered long after the incident.162 Thus, as in the 

case of the Amiriyah bombing during Desert Storm, civilian casualty 

incidents could require the direct intercession of the US president 

and affect major strategic interests. When civilian casualties were 

nationals of important states or allies, they heightened the concrete 

costs of civilian casualties.

Sensing the resulting loss of momentum in the air war, however, 

General Clark decided within days to resume attacking Belgrade but 

with even greater caution.163 Then on 13 May, a NATO airstrike killed 

87 civilians who had been locked in a building. “Public pressure after 

the strike . . . was intense,” Clark recounted. “The NATO ambassadors 

were concerned; their governments were being subjected to widespread public criticism. ‘You must be more careful,’ [the chairman of 

NATO’s military committee] said. ‘Please don’t allow such incidents 

to occur.’”164 The event was part of a reactive pattern—a civilian casualty 

incident, followed by criticism from allies and their wider publics, 

which prompted operational adjustments to seek to avoid future incidents.

Civilian Casualty Sensitivity

While airpower advocates considered Kosovo a triumph for strategic 

bombing, many nonetheless were troubled by the gradualism and 

initial ineffectiveness of the campaign. Some suggested that General 

Clark, an Army commander, could not be expected to understand 

how to employ airpower. Yet service affiliation was not the critical 
124 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

factor shaping the SACEUR’s decision making. Clark was responding 

to pressures that would have shaped a USAF officer’s thoughts as 

well—just as they had shaped General Ryan’s decisions during Operation Deliberate Force four years earlier.

Political and strategic pressures, not parochial interests or professional bias, were determinate. The short-term responses to civilian 

casualty incidents, as evidenced by Brigadier General Leaf ’s proposal 

to Lieutenant General Short, illustrated the critical role of civilian 

harm in shaping tactics as well as the overall operation.

Concern about civilian deaths was not simply a function of respect 

for the law, nor was it the result of misreading LOAC (as has been alleged regarding the air war in Vietnam).165 Civilian deaths, not the 

nominal legality of a particular target, mattered most during the 

course of the Kosovo air campaign. This is not to argue that legal disputes were unimportant. However, the operational commander was 

concerned about coalition partners and political support for the operation. These partners and allies in turn responded to public outrage—

both internationally and in their states—that was directly linked to 

civilian deaths. The alleged legality, character, or importance of the 

target seemed quite irrelevant in this chain of concerns.

Divergent reactions to attacks against similar targets illustrate that 

the sensitivity to noncombatant deaths, not the target choice, was the 

critical source of public concern. On 23 April, a NATO air strike 

killed 16 Serb office workers in a radio and television station.166 International condemnation was widespread, based both on legal concerns (legitimacy of the target and the proportionality of the attack) 

and upon the fact of civilian deaths.167 Yet the reaction when noncombatants were killed stood in stark contrast to NATO attacks on 

other media facilities in which no civilians were killed. Those attacks 

were virtually ignored in the media.168

Overall, the roughly 500 civilian deaths during the Kosovo campaign were few compared to the estimated 3,000 Iraqi noncombatants killed during the shorter Operation Desert Storm.169 However, 

Kosovo was in Europe, with its citizens recording the violence in real 

time. Moreover, standards seemed to have changed. As retired Lt Gen 

David Deptula, USAF, saw it, civilian protection pressures that were 

evident in Desert Storm later culminated in Operation Allied Force.170

The thresholds of tolerance appeared to have dropped. In Desert 

Storm, the strike on Amiriyah that killed more than 200 civilians 

provoked widespread condemnation. However, during the Kosovo 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 125

air campaign, incidents that killed even a handful of noncombatants sparked international outrage.171

In the face of such pressures, the USAF’s ability to mitigate collateral damage became an enabler of the use of force at both the strategic and tactical levels. The use of carbon filament warheads during 

OAF illustrates how valuable low-collateral-damage options had become. The French initially vehemently opposed attacks on electrical 

grids.172 After planners proposed using nonlethal attacks with temporary effects, the French eventually relented. The step proved to be 

particularly significant, because once NATO had crossed the psychological Rubicon of targeting electricity, it was easier to transition to 

conventional strikes after temporary effects were deemed ineffective.

Over the 1990s, the USAF had come to appreciate the political salience of civilian casualties and began developing new tools and processes to minimize civilian impact (described in the next chapter). 

One US innovation proved particularly crucial as an enabler of operational freedom during OAF. The Collateral Damage Estimate Tool 

(CDET) could model information related to a planned strike, taking 

into account munitions choice, tactics, and other adjustable parameters. The model predicted the full range of effects, including the 

strike’s estimated impact on noncombatants.

The number of estimated civilian deaths was supposed to be one 

element of the overall target analysis, but because alliance members 

were so sensitive to civilian harm, CDET played a critical role in coalition target approval. The estimate determined the level of political 

scrutiny that a target would receive. If an air strike was predicted to 

result in 20 or more civilian deaths, it automatically required approval 

at the highest levels of the US government.173 This threshold for approval was an impediment to certain types of air strikes. A low estimate, on the other hand, could help overcome reluctance to proposed 

strikes.

As the war continued, NATO juggled two competing impulses. It 

increased tactical restrictions on how targets could be attacked. It simultaneously widened the categories of acceptable dual use targets, 

attacking infrastructure, media, and private businesses. The Kosovo 

campaign illustrated that the real issue of sensitivity was not legality 

but effects upon civilians. If the actual standard had been legal compliance, it might have been more difficult to justify the attacks. Because popular expectations primarily concerned effects upon civil-
126 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

ians rather than the nature of the target itself, these controversial 

strategic targets became easier to justify.

As the United States became frustrated with the ineffectiveness of 

NATO attacks on military equipment, it pushed to broaden attacks 

on strategic targets.174 However, some states worried about the lawfulness of suggested attacks.175 Where the numbers of civilian casualties predicted were low, CDET helped overcome legal or political 

objections.

The civilian casualty number assumed a life of its own, and it eventually drove the entire targeting process.176 A US military lawyer centrally involved in OAF target approval wrote, “Whether it was the 

nature of the [Kosovo] conflict, an outgrowth of the ever increasing 

visibility of the results of military actions, over sensitivity by political 

authorities, the desire to make a decision based on some objective 

‘number’ (no matter how unscientifically reached or misunderstood) 

rather than a subjective ‘value,’ or a combination of the above, the 

collateral damage estimate quickly became central to much of the targeting process.”177

Many NATO members valued CDET because it helped reassure 

them that civilian harm could be limited. The USAF also appreciated 

the tool’s role in helping obtain approval for strikes. As much as Airmen chafed at any intrusion upon their strategic art, civilian casualties had become just that. CDET facilitated efforts to maintain operational freedom in the face of expectations regarding noncombatant 

harm. As one analyst wrote, “The use of this methodology . . . to 

minimize unwanted collateral damage often proved decisive in persuading NATO’s civilian leaders to approve attacks on many of the 

most politically sensitive targets.”178

By late May the air war appeared to have reached its political limits. 

Many USAF commanders had concluded that NATO would be unable to find and destroy more dispersed Yugoslavian troops and 

equipment without incurring more unintended casualties.179 The coalition took the sobering step of planning a ground force invasion. 

Most observers believe that this sign of resolve, coupled with the 

Croatian ground offensive that month, were critical factors prompting Milosevic’s capitulation to NATO.180

The Kosovo case illustrates how civilian protection concerns 

shaped the overall air campaign and translated into additional operational constraints after civilian casualty incidents. “Never before in 

human history,” opined NATO spokesman Jamie Shea, “have so many 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 127

people made such an enormous effort to minimize the harm to civilians.”181 Concerns about noncombatants appeared to have reversed 

normal war-making processes. The strategy did not drive targeting 

choice; the civilian protection norm drove the strategy. Pilots felt that 

they were being asked to win a war without causing any civilian harm. 

When “zero noncombatant casualties becomes not only the goal of 

strategy but also the expectation,” a USAF analyst wrote, Kosovo is 

the result.182

The 2000s: The Decade of Counterinsurgency

and Civilian Casualties

Airpower had been through a crucible of criticism and constraints, 

and as a result, the USAF had begun the process of not just operational adaptation but also institutional change. CDET was one manifestation of that change; the USAF also developed new munitions and 

capabilities specifically designed to minimize collateral damage. 

These institutional innovations, which continued throughout the 

next decade, are detailed in the following chapter.

On the operational side, airpower benefited from this new attitude 

and these new capabilities when the United States attacked Afghanistan in 2001 and when it launched its war against Iraq in 2003. There 

was very little strategic bombing in Afghanistan; instead US aircrews 

quickly found themselves supporting Afghan insurgents and US special forces (SF) in an irregular warfare campaign (and then, much 

later, in a counterinsurgency effort). Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) 

featured strategic bombing at the outset, with painstaking monitoring of targets in Baghdad and use of discriminate weapons systems.183

Unclassified surveillance video documented an aircrew’s extensive 

efforts to confirm the absence of civilians during an attack on a communications antenna, a degree of effort that fueled higher-level concerns that the aircraft itself would become vulnerable to attack.184

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on OIF provided a useful 

measure of how far the USAF had come in its strategic targeting. The 

report praised US decisions to spare infrastructure and to target carefully. The main critique of airpower was the repeated strikes against 

leadership targets, which failed to kill Iraqi leaders but instead killed 

civilians. HRW faulted the methodology of relying on cell phone location data to identify targets, i.e., the intelligence used for targeting, 
128 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

rather than the target choice or execution of the strikes.185 Yet HRW 

expressed little complaint about issues that had dominated its critiques of prior air wars: the destruction of electrical systems, the use 

of air-delivered cluster weapons, or the failure to visually confirm the 

absence of civilians nearby prior to the release of weapons. The dogs 

that failed to bark spoke volumes.

Airpower sensibilities had changed significantly since the Cold 

War, and this created a sharp contrast with the ground force perspective. For the USAF, civilian casualties were no longer just a question 

of adherence to the LOAC; they had become a central issue of operational concern. Sensitivity to civilian harm was now a routine aspect 

of war planning and operations. Airmen expected to produce collateral damage estimates, they knew to select the least destructive weapons 

that could achieve the desired military effects, and they anticipated 

that the targeting process might become more complicated when civilian 

casualties were anticipated. Civilian protection had indeed become 

more “like the weather” in Airmen’s minds.

However, land power had not been forced through an analogous 

crucible regarding the operational impact of civilian casualties on its 

freedom of action or effectiveness. Ground forces also remained 

more vulnerable to immediate fires, including threats from actors 

that appeared to be civilian in nature. This meant that infantry Soldiers were forced to assume greater risks when averting unintentional 

harm during combat operations. The combination of airpower’s 

changing institutional mind set and ground forces’ greater physical 

exposure created frictions as the two components began working together in combat.

Airpower’s primary sustained mission during the wars in Iraq and 

Afghanistan was close air support. For the first time since Operation 

Desert Storm, the USAF performed the critical function of supporting deployed ground forces. This was a different ball game from strategic 

targeting. In addition to honing attacks while taking collateral damage into account, aircrews now faced another competing imperative: 

protecting US personnel on the ground. This was not a pressure they 

had experienced during most of the 1990s when they were enforcing 

no-fly zones or conducting the Balkan air campaigns. With US forces 

on the ground, aircrews feared that their hesitation or miscalculations might jeopardize the lives of American Soldiers.186 The calculus 

for using force became more complex with this additional and often 

urgent concern.
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 129

Initial air-ground interactions in Afghanistan offered a glimpse of 

the extent to which pilots had internalized civilian protection by dint 

of their experience and training and how this could create tensions 

with ground forces. Early in the war, a small special forces A-team, 

typically supported by a USAF joint tactical air controller, coordinated most fixed-wing air strikes.187 However, the operating environment was dramatically different for pilots that had trained to minimize civilian harm in a conventional fight in urban areas. From the 

air, mud huts and sedans and taxis seemed to indicate civilians. Some 

pilots were reluctant to release weapons without obtaining greater 

certainty about potential collateral damage.

Frustrated with pilots’ questions, SF Soldiers on the ground began 

to play a “terminology game” with the aircrews to entice them to drop 

their weapons.188 One SF team leader told his men to call civilian villages and mud huts a military compound, barracks, or a command 

and control facility.189 If the enemy used civilian vehicles, he would 

call them a military convoy or troop transport. Even when he saw 

that convoys included women and children, the team leader explained 

that “the guidance I gave my team and the guidance from [headquarters] 

is that they are combatants.”190

Airmen sometimes felt they were being asked to reverse the direction in which they had been traveling since the 1990s and instead apply 

force in keeping with the traditional Weinberger-Powell doctrine. 

Some pilots observed that their service ethos was at odds with that of a 

ground commander whose dominant frame of reference remained 

Operation Desert Storm.191 These tensions persisted as insurgencies 

developed, quickly in Iraq and more gradually in Afghanistan.

Guerilla warfare is an ancient asymmetric approach to war. Insurgents can deprive US forces of many advantages upon which they rely 

in conventional conflict. Traditional US military strengths such as 

advanced technology, a detailed assessment of the enemy order of 

battle, commitment to ethical and legal standards, and sheer destructive power can be vitiated, or even become liabilities, in counterinsurgency (COIN) struggles. Guerilla tactics increase the physical 

and psychological risks to COIN forces. Because guerillas disguise 

themselves as and shelter among civilians, counterinsurgents have 

great difficulty distinguishing adversary from noncombatant. There 

are rarely front lines or rear areas in which to take respite. The insurgents’ use of improvised explosive devices and the early US response 
130 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

to the threat exemplified the challenge facing US forces in Iraq, and 

later, in Afghanistan.

These realities on the ground further stressed the air-ground partnership. However ambiguous a situation might appear from the air, 

ground forces could not afford to be ambivalent about seeming portents.192 Infantry troops felt exposed, if not directly threatened, once 

they moved “outside the wire,” leaving their heavily secured base areas. 

American air forces faced no equivalent threats once they had established air superiority.

The divergence in perspectives was all the wider because the US 

military lacked any doctrine for fighting COIN. After Vietnam, the 

armed forces had decided that COIN was not a mission for which it 

would prepare (only SF had any training for irregular warfare). Thus 

there was no doctrine, education, or training to prepare the joint 

force for what it faced in Afghanistan and Iraq after toppling the 

national political leadership. 

The gap between air and ground forces’ operational experiences 

during the 1990s, coupled with their starkly different risk profiles in 

COIN operations as well as the absence of COIN doctrine, complicated the air-ground interface in Afghanistan and Iraq. When aircraft 

operated as close air support, the commander on the ground literally 

called the shots. His desire to neutralize potential threats to his forces, 

though, could conflict with the awareness of civilian harm that had 

become more engrained in Airmen.

Airpower essentially had to wait for ground forces to catch up to 

its awareness of the impact of civilian casualties. It was not until well 

into the Iraq war, and even later in Afghanistan, that a new COIN 

doctrine began to permeate the Army and Marine Corps (USMC). 

Even then training lagged behind, and committed leadership remained vital for inculcating a counterintuitive approach to combat. 

Only after ground forces better understood the long-term operational impact of civilian harm were they able to adapt their employment of airpower.

Change came first to Iraq, the fight that US policy makers prioritized. Gen David H. Petraeus, US Army, took command of the coalition operation in 2006, having just directed the revision of US Army 

and USMC COIN doctrine to emphasize the protection of civilians.193

This new approach (along with exogenous factors) helped drive down 

civilian casualties in Baghdad and improved various other aspects of 

security. Indeed, the dramatic decrease in civilian casualties became 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 131

one of the key indicators General Petraeus used to convince a skeptical 

Congress that the war effort was succeeding.194

If the deployed force in Iraq was finally adapting, these changes 

had not penetrated to the supporting service organizations. In a stunning example of how resistant the force-providing Army and USMC 

remained to COIN, few of the changes that Petraeus implemented in 

Iraq were gravitating to Afghanistan. Civilian casualties had become 

a growing irritant in the relationship between the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) coalition and the Afghan 

government. By 2009 the issue was an oozing political sore. The 4 

May aerial bombing in Farah, which killed dozens of Afghan civilians, proved to be a tipping point. Although it was just one in a recurring series of civilian casualty incidents, the Farah strike came to 

dominate not just the bilateral dialogue but also the Washington debate about continuation of the war. Amid pressures to draw down 

forces, many US observers argued that the “economy of force” operation in Afghanistan was already overreliant on airpower and causing 

unnecessary civilian deaths.195

Consequently, Gen Stanley McChrystal, US Army, promised Congress that he would make civilian casualty reduction a priority when 

he assumed command of ISAF. Arriving in June 2009, McChrystal 

almost immediately issued a tactical directive to educate ground 

forces regarding the appropriate use of airpower. The directive clarified the circumstances in which ground commanders could direct 

aerial bombing. While air strikes could still be used to protect US 

lives, the directive clarified and restricted some options in situations 

short of self-defense. It also directed that aircrews assume a larger 

role in communicating about collateral damage mitigation before attacks were authorized. General McChrystal sought to ensure that the 

ground commander would benefit from the information garnered 

from platforms above the fight and from the Airman’s relative insulation from the immediate pressure of events on the ground.196 However, some ground commanders saw the requirements as infringing 

upon their authority to control air assets.

With the new directive and General McChrystal’s constant reinforcement of the rules, ISAF was able to significantly reduce the 

number of civilian casualties caused by fixed wing aircraft over the 

following year. Ironically, though, airpower continued to bear the 

brunt of public and Afghan blame for civilian deaths. It is ironic that 

airpower—and its most prominent proponent, the USAF—continued 
132 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

to attract such criticism given the USAF’s intellectual, operational, 

and (as we shall see in the next chapter) material leadership in minimizing civilian harm.

However, few observers differentiated among the diverse actors 

and platforms that launched weapons from the air. Neither Afghans 

nor the general public distinguished the pedigrees of air-to-surface 

fires. Fixed-wing naval forces were involved in the fight alongside 

USAF aircraft. However, Army and USMC forces frequently relied on 

their own organic helicopters for close combat support. These forces 

use different procedures than those for fixed-wing aircraft.197 SF units 

used both fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft for their independent operations. Finally, other government agencies sometimes launched airto-surface attacks in the theater. These capabilities are easily confused 

with one another, and civilian casualties—regardless of their source—

were often mistakenly attributed to the USAF.198

Moreover, few outside observers seemed to appreciate that the 

ground commander was calling the shots. Notwithstanding General 

McChrystal’s efforts to better incorporate the air perspective in decisions about aerial bombing, it was still the ground commander who 

decided how to use airpower in support of his forces and operational 

scheme. Airmen found this problematic. From their perspective, 

ground forces often expected airpower to help extricate them from 

ill-considered fixes, yet airpower took the hit when civilians died as a 

result. The notion that airpower itself was the problem, or that relying 

more heavily on ground forces would better protect civilians, struck 

many airpower advocates as counterintuitive. Frustration with popular misperceptions about airpower ultimately prompted the USAF’s 

Office for Analyses, Assessments and Lessons Learned to conduct its 

first study of civilian harm.199

Conclusion 

The USAF’s recent history has been characterized by a consistent, 

even growing, challenge to maximize operational effectiveness while 

minimizing civilian harm. The USAF led the way in responding to 

these pressures, even as it confronted new variations of civilian casualty challenges during COIN operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The number of noncombatant dead might be over 200, as in the 

Amiriyah bunker incident, or as few as three in the Chinese embassy 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 133

episode, or it might be a dozen deaths repeated each week in airstrikes in Afghanistan. However, the international community, 

national leaders, and local citizens no longer accepted that these 

deaths were simply collateral damage. Outside observers did not 

evaluate civilian effects in terms of their value relative to military advantage, as LOAC demands. Instead, the civilian deaths galvanized 

international opinion. Even if air campaigns succeeded in minimizing civilian harm by historical standards, USAF leaders feared growing restrictions on their use of force.

Normative expectations shaped the conduct of air operations, and 

the operational USAF adapted on the fly. It sought to reduce civilian 

harm in targeting choice and tactics in order to ensure the continued 

viability of aerial bombing as a tool of choice for US policy makers. 

The next chapter details how the USAF also began longer-term institutional adaptation—developing new capabilities and tools to address collateral damage concerns in future operations. The CDET 

that became available for use in Kosovo in 1999 was one such innovation; new weapons and supporting capabilities also emerged to address the changing operational environment.

Had airpower not faced heightened normative expectations in the 

1990s, civilian casualty mitigation likely would have continued to improve as an unintended side effect of other USAF objectives. However, the intensity and operational impact of normative and political 

concerns instead prompted the service to undertake dedicated institutional efforts to reduce civilian harm during that decade. The combination of wartime innovation and institutional change placed the 

USAF at the forefront of collateral damage mitigation efforts within 

the US military.

Notes

1. The most notable developments were in the targeting arena. The USAF belatedly 

released Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 3-60, Targeting, on 8 June 2006, and 

the service developed certification courses related to collateral damage assessment.

2. US Department of Defense (DOD), Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final 

Report to Congress (Washington, DC: DOD, 1991), 62–6.

3. “Each service was given the opportunity to apply its own ethos to the war, with few 

constraints from on high.” Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The General’s War: 

The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (Boston: Little Brown, 1995), xi.
134 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

4. Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (New York: 

Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993), 292. Gen Hap Arnold commanded the Army Air 

Forces during WWII.

5. Richard T. Reynolds, Heart of the Storm: The Genesis of the Air Campaign 

against Iraq (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1995), 29.

6. Bob Woodward, The Commanders: The Pentagon and the First Gulf War, 1989–

1991 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), 341; and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air 

Power Survey, vol. 1, Planning and Command and Control (Washington, DC: US 

Dept. of the Air Force, 1993), 377. This source is hereafter referenced as GWAPS. 

President Bush often repeated his desire to differentiate attacks against the regime 

and Iraqi citizens.

7. Cohen, GWAPS, vol. 1, 378.

8. Ibid.

9. This approach served the USAF well in conflicts that featured preplanned attacks on fixed targets; airpower faced different challenges in attacking mobile targets. 

This is discussed further in chapter 5.

10. DOD, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 228.

11. Ibid., 240.

12. Ibid., appendix O, O-10.

13. Audiotape archives from the Project on the Means of Intervention Proceedings, National Security and Human Rights Program, Carr Center for Human Rights 

Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Washington, DC, 1992–1996. This 

source will hereafter be referenced as NSHR Proceedings.

14. This is a consistent theme of military press briefings during the war. See, for 

example, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater’s press briefings on 11 February 

1991. For more detail, see Philip M. Taylor, War and the Media: Propaganda and 

Persuasion in the Gulf War (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1992).

15. Reynolds, Heart of the Storm, 103.

16. Johanna Neuman, “Saddam Keeps Focus on Civilian Toll,” USA Today, 7 February 1991.

17. For example, Gen Richard “Butch” Neal, USMC, said, “I am outraged that 

civilians were put in harm’s way, and I lay the blame for that on the Iraqi leadership.” 

Quoted in Edward Cody, “U.S. Briefers on Attack Concede No Quarter; Insisting 

Target Was Military, Generals Find Image of Dead Civilians Permeates Sessions,” 

Washington Post, 14 February 1991. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said 

Saddam Hussein was willing to “sacrifice civilian lives and property that further his 

war aims.” Quoted in Gerald F. Seib, “In Harm’s Way: U.S. Attack on Bunker Puts into 

Sharp Focus Civilian-Casualty Issue,” Wall Street Journal, 14 February 1991.

18. Pres. George H. W. Bush to Bernard Cardinal Law, head of the archdiocese of 

Boston, letter, 22 January 1991, published in George H. W. Bush, All the Best, George 

Bush (New York: A Lisa Drew Book/Scribner, 1999), 505–7. 

19. DOD, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, 88, 228. 

20. “U.S. Trying to Reduce Focus on Body Counts,” St. Petersburg Times, 12 February 1991.

21. Maj Gen Robert B. Johnston, USCENTCOM, daily briefing, 2 February 1991.

22. Domestic concerns were generally muted. One Washington Post headline 

summed up the public view: “Will Sight of Iraq’s Civilian Casualties Hurt Allies’ 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 135

Cause? Innocents’ Deaths Historically Viewed as Unavoidable,” Washington Post, 14 

February 1991. Some accounts were treated skeptically by the press and public; see 

Al Kamen, “Iraqi Factory’s Product: Germ Warfare or Milk?,” Washington Post, 8 

February 1991. A 13 February British air strike in Fallujah that killed 200 civilians 

disappeared from US public view after the United Kingdom immediately acknowledged responsibility. See R. Jeffrey Smith and Evelyn Richards, “Numerous U.S. 

Bombs Probably Missed Targets; Not All Munitions Used in Gulf are Smart,” Washington Post, 22 February 1991.

23. Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Airpower (Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell University Press, 2000), 142.

24. The indirect civilian impact of bombing infrastructure remained underappreciated at the time. Gen Norman Schwarzkopf, US Army, said “We never had any 

intention of destroying 100 percent of all the Iraqi electrical power” because it would 

cause civilians to “suffer unduly.” Barton Gellman, “Allied Air War Struck 

Broadly in Iraq,” Washington Post, 23 June 1991. However, generators were destroyed, 

with lasting humanitarian impact. See Thomas E. Griffith, Strategic Attack of National Electrical Systems (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, October 1994); and 

William M. Arkin, Damian Durrant, and Marianne Cherni, On Impact: Modern 

Warfare and the Environment, a Case Study of the Gulf War (Washington, DC: Greenpeace, May 1991; updated 23 July 1991).

25. Maj Gen Charles J. Dunlap, retired, USAF, former USAF Deputy Judge Advocate General, interview with the author, Washington, DC, 4 December 2009.

26. Haynes Johnson, “The Day Illusions Shattered,” Washington Post, 15 February 1991.

27. In January 1991, the United States bombed a factory that Iraq insisted produced baby formula, while the United States claimed—erroneously—that it was a 

chemical weapons facility. The controversy did not center on civilian casualties but on 

target choice. William Arkin, “Was It a Baby Milk Factory?,” Fog of War (blog), 1998, 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/fogofwar/vignettes/v4.htm.

28. Atkinson, Crusade, 267.

29. Ibid., 267–76.

30. Gordon and Trainor, General’s War, 324–25.

31. Atkinson, Crusade, 286.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid., 287.

34. Ibid., 286.

35. Ibid., 285.

36. Ibid., 286.

37. Robert D. McFadden, “Iraqis Cry for Revenge as Bombing Victims Buried,” 

New York Times, 15 February 1991. Jordan, Tunisia, and other Arab states also 

strongly criticized the action and expressed “extreme outrage and alarm.” See, for 

example, “Bomb Deaths in Baghdad Stir Outrage among Arabs: Allies Blame Hussein 

for Peril to Civilians,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 February 1991.

38. Lt Gen Richard “Butch” I. Neal, deputy commander of USCENTCOM, continued to insist that the facility was a military bunker. See Atkinson, Crusade, 287.
136 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

39. Marlin Fitzwater, press secretary, White House, press statement, Washington 

DC, 13 February 1991. Targeting civilian facilities would have violated the LOAC 

unless the facilities were being used for military purposes.

40. “Bomb Deaths in Baghdad Stir Outrage among Arabs.”

41. As Phil Meilinger wrote, “‘air-shaft accuracy’ had become so routine that everyone expected it.” Phillip S. Meilinger, “Precision Aerospace Power, Discrimination, 

and the Future of War,” Aerospace Power Journal 15, no. 3(Fall 2001): 12–20.

42. Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond (New York: Picador Publications, 2000), 192.

43. Gordon and Trainor, General’s War, 325.

44. Susan Rosegrant, The Gulf Crisis: Building Coalition for War, Harvard Business School case C16-94-1264.0 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School, 1994). 

45. Atkinson, Crusade, 289.

46. This is why the USCENTCOM public affairs briefer was frequently on the 

phone with Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, General Powell, and Assistant Secretary 

of Defense Pete Williams. Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey, vol. 3, Logistics 

and Support (Washington, DC: US Department of the Air Force, 1993), 147, 149.

47. Atkinson, Crusade, 289.

48. Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey, vol. 2, Operations and Effects and 

Effectiveness (Washington, DC: US Department of the Air Force, 1993), 220.

49. Atkinson, Crusade, 288.

50. Ibid.

51. Gordon and Trainor, General’s War, 326. Powell took the initiative before he 

was pressed to act. Atkinson, Crusade, 288.

52. Ibid. Powell had served in key Pentagon staff jobs and then as the national 

security advisor to Pres. Ronald Reagan. As an Army officer, Powell was also generally skeptical of airpower’s utility as a strategic weapon rather than a tactical force 

supporting ground movement. 

53. Ibid., 288.

54. Ibid., 289.

55. Gordon and Trainor, General’s War, 326–27. Powell’s sensitivity to maintaining the coalition also influenced his views regarding air strikes against retreating 

Iraqi forces and the length of the war itself.

56. Atkinson, Crusade, 289. In this respect, Powell was doing what humanitarians 

suggest—narrowly defining military necessity to entail only the minimum force necessary for victory.

57. Ibid. 

58. Gordon and Trainor, General’s War, 327.

59. Ibid., 326.

60. He had previously provided only general descriptions of target categories to 

his superiors. General Schwarzkopf told Glosson, “I need to go over every target in 

Baghdad each day so that I can explain exactly why we’re striking it and what we 

expect to gain—where it’s located, what’s in the surrounding area, everything.” 

Quoted in Atkinson, Crusade, 290.

61. Lt Gen David Deptula, retired USAF, interview with the author, Washington, 

DC, 26 January 2010.

62. Ibid.
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 137

63. Ward Thomas, The Ethics of Destruction: Norms and Force in International 

Relations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 88. 

64. Cohen, GWAPS, vol. 2, 222.

65. Gordon and Trainor, General’s War, 326.

66. Cohen, GWAPS, vol. 2, 206.

67. Atkinson, Crusade, 289–90.

68. Eric V. Larson, Misfortunes of War: Press and Public Reactions to Civilian 

Deaths in Wartime (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006), 51–55. There was no change 

in the level of public support for the decision to go to war. It remained at almost 80 

percent. See also Atkinson, Crusade, 289.

69. The relief operation was called Operation Provide Comfort. France ended its 

participation in 1996. See Alfred B. Prados and Kenneth Katzman, Iraq: Former and 

Recent Military Confrontations with the United States (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2002).

70. Operation Southern Watch transitioned in June 2002 to the more offensively 

oriented Operation Southern Focus. For more information on Operation Southern 

Watch, see Daniel L. Byman and Matthew C. Waxman, Confronting Iraq: U.S. Policy 

and the Use of Force since the Gulf War (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 

2001), 48–55.

71. Alfred B. Prados and Kenneth Katzman, Iraq-U.S. Confrontation (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 20 February 2002), 5.

72. This was the operation in which Lieutenant General Deptula ordered that 

concrete be substituted for explosives in a bomb, as described in chapter 5.

73. The Iraqi government periodically reported civilian casualty events and 

guided reporters to purported victims. “Iraq Reports Attacks Outside No-Fly Zones,”

BBC News, 17 August 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/423368.stm.

74. Dana Priest and Bradley Graham, “Airstrikes Took a Toll on Saddam, U.S. 

Says,” Washington Post, 9 January 1999.

75. UNICEF estimated that up to 500,000 children alone had died from the effects of sanctions by 1999. See “Iraqis Blame Sanctions for Child Deaths,” BBC News, 

12 August 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/418625.stm. 

76. Hans von Sponeck, “After the Journey—A UN Man’s Open Letter to Tony 

Blair,” New Statesman, 23 September 2010, http://www.newstatesman.com/middleeast/2010/09/iraq-humanitarian-sanctions.

77. Gar Smith, “The Silence of the Bombs,”Alternet, 8 October 2002, http://www.

alternet.org/story/14263/the_silence_of_the_bombs. When UN Coordinator Hans 

von Sponeck resigned in 2000, he focused on opposition to the sanctions, although 

he continued to criticize the no-fly zones. “UN Sanctions Rebel Resigns,” BBC News, 

14 February 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/642189.stm.

78. NSHR Proceedings. 

79. See Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide

(New York: Perseus Books, 2002).

80. NSHR Proceedings.

81. David L. Dittmer and Stephen P. Dawkins, Deliberate Force: NATO’s First Extended Air Operation; the View from AFSOUTH, CNA occasional paper (Alexandria, 

VA: Center for Naval Analyses, 1998). 
138 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

82. Perceiving acute public sensitivity to NATO military and Serb civilian casualties, the NATO air commander, US Air Force Lieutenant General Michael Ryan, imposed strict rules of engagement and close, personal control over air operations.” 

Robert C. Owen, “Operation Deliberate Force: A Case Study on Humanitarian Constraints in Aerospace Warfare” (working paper, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, 

Harvard University, 2001), 64, http://carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu/files/carrcenter/

files/owen2001.pdf.

83. Robert C. Owen, “The Balkans Air Campaign Study: Part 2,” Airpower Journal

11, no. 3 (Fall 1997), 21, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj97/

fal97/owen.pdf.

84. The Secretary of the Air Force subsequently explained that the operation was 

“politically fragile. With the first report of civilian casualties, the entire operation 

would have been put at risk, but that report never came.” Sheila E. Widnall, secretary 

of the Air Force, “The Air Force in the New World Order,” to the Orlando Air Force 

Association Symposium, speech, 16 February 1996, http://www.afa.org/aef%5Cpub%5Col1

.asp (accessed 22 April 2010).

85. Robert D. Pollock, “Roads Not Taken: Theoretical Approaches to Operation 

Deliberate Force,” in Deliberate Force: A Case Study in Effective Air Campaigning, 

Final Report of the Air University Balkans Air Campaign Study, ed. Robert C. Owen 

(Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, January 2000), 432–33.

86. Ibid., 434, note 7.

87. Ronald M. Reed, “Chariots of Fire: Rules of Engagement in Operation Deliberate Force,” in Deliberate Force: A Case Study in Effective Air Campaigning, Final 

Report of the Air University Balkans Air Campaign Study, ed. Robert C. Owen 

(Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, January 2000), 410.

88. Pollock, “Roads Not Taken,” 434.

89. Colin S. Gray, Airpower for Strategic Effect (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air Force Research Institute, Air University Press, 2012), 217.

90. See Owen, “Operation Deliberate Force,” 61–62. Target choice in itself was 

not controversial. This was a key difference with Operation Allied Force, discussed 

later in this chapter.

91. Pollock, “Roads Not Taken,” 431–32.

92. Owen, “Operation Deliberate Force,” 64.

93. “For example, because smart bombs that went ‘stupid’ generally struck long 

or short of their targets, Ryan directed that bridge attack runs be made along the rivers 

they crossed, even though this tactic theoretically placed the crews at risk to antiaircraft weapons arrayed along the banks. At one barracks facility, Ryan allowed the 

bombing of an outer row of munitions bunkers, but not an inner row, to minimize 

the risk of damage to potentially inhabited buildings.” He also insisted on use of the 

“smallest weapons capable of taking out targets rather than the largest available 

weapons their aircraft could carry.” Ibid., 64. This meant that “A-10 fighters flew into 

the threat envelops of Serbian MANPADs [man-portable air-defense system] and 

light AA [antiaircraft batteries] in order to use cannons, rather than bombs, to cut 

down a microwave relay tower and to destroy the contents of a warehouse, both of 

which were located near civilian dwellings. While normal procedure called for attacking aircraft to minimize their exposure to enemy defensive systems by dropping 

all of their weapons in single passes, General Ryan required many aircraft over Bosnia 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 139

to make multiple passes, dropping only one weapon at a time, and only after the dust 

from previous weapons had cleared.” Ibid., 65.

94. Richard L. Sargent, “Deliberate Force Targeting,” in Deliberate Force: A Case 

Study in Effective Air Campaigning, Final Report of the Air University Balkans Air 

Campaign Study, ed. Robert C. Owen (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, January 2000), 278. This would mean about one civilian casualty for every 30–40 weapons. 

The number is small, but the number of munitions deployed was also relatively 

small. Thus, compared to other conflicts, this is a high ratio of civilian deaths. See 

Owen, “Operation Deliberate Force,” 63. Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen Merrill 

McPeak subsequently revealed that there had been about 20 cases of collateral damage, 

although it was unclear whether he meant civilian deaths, injuries, or damage to 

property. “The Art of War,” Online NewsHour, 16 June 1999, http://www.pbs.org/

newshour/bb/europe/jan-june99/lessons_6-16.html.

95. One analyst concluded that “NATO’s successful blending of precision air 

power and humanitarian credibility led its leaders to expect a reprise of Deliberate 

Force in their confrontation with Serb misrule in Kosovo. The Alliance’s confidence 

that Kosovo would replay Bosnia extended to restricting military planners to preparing for a two- or three-day war only, with air attacks restricted to military installations unlikely to produce collateral civilian casualties.” Owen, “Operation Deliberate 

Force,” 68–69.

96. See Michael W. Lamb, Sr., Operation Allied Force: Gold Nuggets for Future 

Campaigns, Maxwell Paper 27 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2002).

97. Statement of Andrew F. Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic 

and Budgetary Assessments, in Senate, Testimony before the Subcommittee on Airland, 111th Cong., 1st sess., 26 March 2009, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG111shrg52749/html/CHRG-111shrg52749.htm. The United Kingdom, France, Italy, 

Denmark, the Netherlands, Turkey, Belgium, Spain, and Canada also contributed air 

assets.

98. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and General Henry H. Shelton, “Joint 

Statement on the Kosovo After Action Review,” testimony before the Senate Armed 

Services Committee, Washington, DC, 14 October 1999, quoted in Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower, 218.

99. Gen Wesley Clark describes multiple disputes and differences throughout his 

memoirs, including the French belief in targeting that left incentives for political settlement and the German belief in correlating reduced military pressure with apparent negotiating progress. Wesley Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the 

Future of Combat (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), 236, 351. Madeleine Albright, 

former US secretary of state, telephone interview with the author, 27 September 

2010. See also Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War 

to Save Kosovo (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2001).

100. Secretary Albright felt that it had been so difficult to obtain NATO member 

consent for the operation that she had to personally seek to sustain that consensus 

throughout the war. Albright, interview.

101. Laura Myers, “Civilian Risks Escalate as Kosovo Targets Shift,” Associated Press, 

18 April 1999, http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/19990418/News/304189979.

102. Gen H. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, quoted 

in David Wood, “U.S. Approach a Disadvantage, Analysts Say; Risk Avoidance Style 
140 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

vs. Brutality Is the Problem,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, 28 March 1999. See also 

“Press Conference by Secretary General, Dr. Javier Solana and SACEUR, Gen. Wesley 

Clark,” NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, 25 March 1999.

103. Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, 122.

104. Clark, Waging Modern War, 183.

105. NATO ultimately lost two aircraft, although both pilots were rescued. See, 

for example, “Serb Discusses 1999 Downing of Stealth,” USA Today, 26 October 

2005, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-10-26-serb-stealth_x.htm. Human 

Rights Watch (HRW), Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign: The Crisis in 

Kosovo (New York: HRW, 1 February 2000), http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/02/01/

civilian-deaths-nato-air-campaign-0.

106. Michael Ignatieff, “The Virtual Commander: How NATO Invented a New 

Kind of War,” New Yorker, 2 August 1999.

107. Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, 103.

108. Clark, Waging Modern War, 118–99.

109. Ibid.

110. In theory, targets flow from strategy. Gradualism in itself says nothing about 

character of targeting choice. General Jumper, former USAF commander, called Operation Allied Force a “campaign-by-target-list management,” comments at an Air 

Force Association Eak Institute colloquy, “Operation Allied Force: Strategy, Execution, Implications” (Ronald Reagan International Trade Center, Washington, DC, 16 

August 1999), quoted in Lambeth, Transformation of American Air Power, 222.

111. General Accounting Office (now Government Accountability Office) 

(GAO), Kosovo Air Operations: Need to Maintain Alliance Cohesion Resulted in Doctrinal Departures, GAO-101-784 (Washington, DC: GAO, 2001), 8.

112. Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 854–55.

113. Tony Montgomery, “Legal Advisors and Time-Sensitive Targets,” in Legal 

and Ethic Lessons of NATO’s Kosovo Campaign, International Law Studies 78, ed. 

Andru E. Wall (Newport, RI: Naval War College, 2002), 213.

114. This legal record ultimately became important for responding to inquiries 

from the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) about 

the legality of NATO operations. ICTY, Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign against the Federal Republic 

of Yugoslavia (The Hague: ICTY, 13 June 2000), http://www.icty.org/x/file/Press/

nato061300.pdf.

115. Thomas Lippman and Bradley Graham, “Yugoslavs Fire on U.S. Troops; 3 

Missing,” Washington Post, 1 April 1999.

116. James E. Baker, “When Lawyers Advise Presidents in Wartime: Kosovo and 

the Law of Armed Conflict,” Naval War College Review 15, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 11–24. 

Theo Farrell emphasizes legal disputes related to the definition of civilian objects. He 

rightly points out that the disputes were less a matter of a state’s formal position regarding Additional Protocol 1 and more a matter of how expansively one could interpret customary law regarding military utility. See Theo Farrell, “World Culture 

and Military Power,” Security Studies 14, no. 3 (July–September 2005): 482–83.

117. Farrell, “World Culture and Military Power,” 484.

118. Albright, interview.
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 141

119. US lawyers flatly rejected many of the arguments. “The military doesn’t 

want those restrictions put on them; they’re not legal restrictions, they’re political.” 

W. Hays Parks, “Commentary,” in Legal and Ethical Lessons of NATO’s Kosovo Campaign, 

International Law Studies 78, ed. Andru E. Wall (Newport, RI: Naval War College, 

2002), 281–92.

120. NSHR Proceedings. 

121. This was also apparent in debate about targeting Radio Television Serbskia: 

the United States and other key alliance members held that media was a legitimate 

target, but other coalition members resisted this claim. See Richard Norton-Taylor, 

“Serb TV Station Was Legitimate Target, Says Blair,” Guardian (UK), 24 April 1999.

122. Clark, Waging Modern War, 238.

123. Myers, “Civilian Risks Escalate.”

124. NATO dropped some 23,000 air munitions and fired over 300 cruise missiles. Anthony H. Cordesman, The Lessons and Non-Lessons of the Air and Missile 

Campaign in Kosovo (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2001), 89.

125. “Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon estimated that one-third to one-half of all 

civilians killed in the NATO air campaign may have been deliberately placed around 

bombing targets,” quoted in “NATO Says ‘Human Shields’ Account for Bombing 

Deaths,” CNN.com, 18 May 1999, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9905/17/

kosovo.03/index.html.

126. HRW, Civilian Deaths.

127. A USAF colonel complained that technology allowed intelligence analysts, 

lawyers, commanders, and others to monitor his actions. In Desert Storm, he said, he 

and the weapons officer decided which targets to hit. “We’d come back with the 

[cockpit] videotape and maybe someone would look at it and tell us what we did 

wrong.” Lt Col Daniel Ourada, USAF, retired, HAF/A2 chief, Director’s Action 

Group, interview with the author, Washington, DC, 21 December 2009.

128. Mike Short, “Operation Allied Force from the Perspective of the NATO Air 

Commander,” in Legal and Ethical Lessons of NATO’s Kosovo Campaign, International Law Studies 78, ed. Andru E. Wall (Newport, RI: Naval War College, 2002), 

19–26.

129. Antonia Felix, Wesley K. Clark: A Biography (New York: New Market Press, 

2004), 143.

130. Clark, Waging Modern War, 434.

131. Albright, interview.

132. James C. O’Brien, special presidential envoy for the Balkans during the 

Clinton administration, e-mail to author, 24 September 2010.

133. O’Brien, e-mail. 

134. Defense analyst Edward Luttwak is cited as the source in Bruce D. Nordwall, 

“Coalition Conundrum,” Aviation Week and Space Technology 151, no. 8 (23 August 

1999): 27.

135. Clark, Waging Modern War, 416.

136. O’Brien, e-mail.

137. Ibid.

138. Nordwall, “Coalition Conundrum,” 27.

139. “Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro voiced concern today that the bombing 

‘has moved from the military to the civilian sector’ and suggested that European 
142 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

allies have been too compliant in accepting US leadership of the air campaign.” 

Rowan Scarborough, “As Strikes Mount, So Do Errors,” Washington Times, 11 May 1999.

140. Marcus Gee, “NATO Faces Loss of Public Support as Civilian Death Toll 

Mounts,” Toronto Globe and Mail, 16 April 1999.

141. “The view was both that it was rotten that civilians died and that we needed 

to control it more and do something.” Albright, interview. “The logic of the campaign, and its expansion, in short, brought more allied voices into decision-making 

throughout the campaign and gave them the ability to condition their support on 

decisions that they liked.” O’Brien, e-mail. See also General Accounting Office, Kosovo 

Air Operations.

142. Clark, Waging Modern War, 240.

143. Ibid., 430.

144. “People would often raise questions about what was happening to civilians 

after we hit a convoy or something. They had questions especially when we were 

bombing Belgrade.” Albright interview. Clark reported that “increasingly pointed” 

pressure about Serb civilian casualties from France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, and 

even Germany resulted in guidance for “no more strike mistakes.” Clark, Waging 

Modern War, 339.

145. O’Brien, e-mail.

146. Rebecca Grant, The Kosovo Campaign: Airpower Made It Work, An Air Force Association Special Report (Arlington, VA: Air Force Association, September 1999), http://

higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/AFA/6379b747-7730-4f82-9b45-a1c80d6c8fdb/UploadedImages/Mitchell%20Publications/The%20Kosovo%20Campaign.pdf. 

Forward air controllers could dip to 10,000 feet to improve target identification.

147. Gen Michael C. Short, interview, Frontline: War in Europe, PBS, no date, 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kosovo/interviews/short.html.

148. Amnesty International, NATO/FRY, 29–33.

149. W. J. Fenrick, “Targeting and Proportionality during the NATO Bombing Campaign against Yugoslavia,” European Journal of International Law 12, no. 3 (2001), 501.

150. Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo, 140.

151. Short, interview.

152. Phil M. Haun, “Airpower versus a Fielded Army: A Construct for Air Operations in the Twenty-First Century,” Aerospace Power Journal 15, no. 4 (Winter 

2001): 81–88; and Rebecca Grant, “Nine Myths about Kosovo,” Air Force Magazine

83, no. 6 (June 2000): 50–55.

153. Although these changes may have reduced civilian casualty incidents, they 

did not halt them. For a more full discussion see HRW, Civilian Deaths; and Amnesty 

International, NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: ‘Collateral Damage’ or Unlawful 

Killings? Violations of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied Force (New 

York: AI, June 2000).

154. Thomas G. Mahnken, Technology and the American Way of War since 1945

(New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).

155. William M. Arkin, Ticking Time Bombs: NATO’s Use of Cluster Munitions in 

Yugoslavia (New York: HRW, June 1999). 

156. The tank-killing munitions had also been used during Operation Deliberate 

Force but failed to garner much attention. The ICTY was asked to consider depleted 

uranium weapons and was decidedly guarded in its opinion. See ICTY, Final Report.
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 143

157. A hazard warning letter issued by the United States in 1999 seemingly confirmed the threat. See Marlise Simons, “1999 U.S. Document Warned of Depleted 

Uranium in Kosovo,” New York Times, 9 January 2001. Depleted uranium weapons 

were also used in Operation Deliberate Force but avoided controversy.

158. See NATO’s 17 March 2005 fact sheet, http://www.nato.int/du/home.htm.

159. HRW, Civilian Deaths, 31. See also Thomas Michael McDonnell, “Cluster 

Bombs over Kosovo: A Violation of International Law,” Arizona Law Review 44, no. 

1 (2002): 123–29; and Fenrick, “Targeting and Proportionality,” 501. However, General 

Clark reported that the permission to use clusters was granted about one month 

later. Clark, Waging Modern War, 337.

160. See oral presentation by Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering on 17 

June to the Chinese government regarding the accidental bombing of the PRC Embassy in Belgrade, released 6 July 1999 and cited in HRW, Civilian Deaths.

161. Clinton, My Life, 854–55.

162. Other negative effects on US interests were attributed to the conduct of the 

Kosovo campaign. These ranged from a general diminution of US moral authority to 

the Chinese retraction of trade concessions. Joel Havemann, “Convoy Deaths May 

Undermine Moral Authority,” Los Angeles Times, 15 April 1999. In a more direct link, 

Russia dismissed US criticism of its use of force in Chechnya with a single word: 

Kosovo. Associated Press, “Russia Rejects Criticism of Chechnya Offensive; Moscow 

Cites War in Kosovo, Accuses West of Hypocrisy,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 26 October 1999.

163. The US air commander pressed Clark to resume the strikes. Clark acceded but 

directed additional changes in bombing guidance. Clark, Waging Modern War, 298.

164. Ibid.

165. W. Hays Parks makes the latter claim in “Rolling Thunder,” Air University 

Review 33, no. 2 (January–February 1982), 17; and W. Hays Parks, “Linebacker and 

the Law of War,” Air University Review 34, no. 2 (January–February 1983), 8.

166. Amnesty International, “Serbia: Impunity for NATO—Ten Years after Operation Allied Force,” press release, http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/

serbia-impunity-nato-%E2%80%93-ten-years-after-operation-allied-force-20090423. 

The outrage only increased when it became known that NATO had called Western journalists to inform them of the need to vacate the station. HRW, Civilian Deaths.

167. Snjezana Milivojevic, “And That’s the Way It Was: April 29, 1999,” Columbia 

Journalism Review, 29 April 2013, http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/and_thats_the_

way_it_was_april_17.php; and Steven Erlanger, “NATO Strikes Serb State TV; Casualties Seen,” New York Times, 23 April 1999.

168. On 21 April NATO bombed Pink TV and Kosova TV, but no civilian casualties were reported. “Kosovo Crisis Media Dossier: B92,” Radio Netherlands Media 

Network, 17 November 2000, https://web.archive.org/web/20070429122438/http://

www.radionetherlands.nl/features/media/dossiers/b92.html.

169. Compare with HRW, Civilian Deaths; and HRW, Needless Deaths in the Gulf 

War: Civilian Casualties during the air Campaign and Violations of the Laws of War

(New York: HRW, 1991).

170. Deptula, interview.

171. See HRW, Civilian Deaths. The total number of civilian deaths is estimated 

at 500. Amnesty International, “Serbia: Impunity for NATO.” Certainly factors 
144 │ AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s

beyond the strengthened norm itself may have been at play. The international consensus supporting the 1991 Gulf War (reflected in the UN authorization for the invasion) was far higher than the level of support for the war in Kosovo. From a purely 

Western perspective, the proximity of Europe and the level of empathy with Europeans 

may have also been factors.

172. For example, during the Kosovo air campaign, French president Jacques 

Chirac opposed bombing Serbia’s electrical power grid. “U.S. and French military 

officers searched for more palatable alternatives and finally came up with the idea of 

using the still-secret CBU-94 cluster munition, which could shut down Belgrade’s 

power source for at least a few hours by dispensing carbon-graphite threads on a grid 

to short it out.” Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower, 188.

173. General Accounting Office, “Kosovo Air Operations.”

174. Clark said it was always the United States pushing to expand the target list 

and scope of bombing, contrasting the United States’ direct and overwhelming response with a “more far-sighted” French view. Clark, Waging Modern War, 449.

175. See the case of Kosovo discussed above.

176. Clark, Waging Modern War, 238.

177. Montgomery, “Legal Advisors and Time-Sensitive Targets,” 213. A reporter 

observed, “In the current context, that means choosing targets with the lowest risk of 

injuring or killing civilians.” Scarborough, “As Strikes Mount, So Do Errors.”

178. Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower, 222.

179. John F. Harris and Bradley Graham, “Clinton Reassessing Sufficiency of Air 

War,” Washington Post, 3 June 1999, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/

longterm/balkans/president060399.htm.

180. See, for example, Stephen T. Hosmer, The Conflict over Kosovo: Why Milosevic 

Decided to Settle When He Did (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001).

181. Kurt Schork, “Allies Shrug Off Claims over Civilian Deaths,” Birmingham 

Post, 1 June 1999.

182. Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower, 205.

183. See chapter 5 for a discussion of new munitions that proved useful in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

184. NSHR Proceedings.

185. HRW, Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq (New 

York: HRW, 2003), 21–27, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/usa1203.pdf.

186. Interviews in theater, Afghanistan, 2009.

187. In practical terms, ground commanders in Afghanistan were often relatively junior members of small special forces teams that were partnered with Afghan 

coalition forces.

188. Dana Priest, The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’s 

Military (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2003), 155.

189. Ibid., 155–56. 

190. Ibid. 

191. Ibid. 

192. Firsthand accounts from almost any stage of the two wars illustrate this 

point. See, for example, Evan Wright, Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain 

America, and the New Face of American War (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004); 

Matt Gallagher, Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War (Cambridge, 
AIR CAMPAIGNS OF THE 1990s │ 145

MA: Da Capo Press, 2010); and Dexter Filkins, The Forever War (New York: Alfred 

A. Knopf, 2008).

193. US Army, FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, 15 December 2006.

194. Gen David H. Petraeus, Congressional Testimony, “Report to Congress on 

the Situation in Iraq,” 10–11 September 2007, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/

petraeus-testimony20070910.pdf.

195. Elisabeth Bumiller, “Anger over Afghan Civilian Deaths Shows Limits of 

U.S. Air Power,” New York Times, 23 February 2009; Miles Amoore, “U.S. Air Strikes 

in Afghanistan ‘Kill Dozens of Women and Children,’” Telegraph (UK), 6 May 2009; 

and Jason Motlagh, “U.S. to Limit Air Power in Afghanistan,” Washington Times, 24 

June 2009.

196. Gen Stanley McChrystal, interview with the author, Kabul, Afghanistan, 6 

February 2010.

197. “Helicopters, particularly in the Army, do not face the same restrictions or 

scrutiny as fixed-wing air,” according to former Combined Air and Space Operations 

Center director Col Gary Crowder, USAF, retired. He argues that the Army has “deliberately resisted” using the same “formal hand-off from a ground commander to an 

Airman” in which very precise description and locations of targets are provided to the 

aircraft. See, for example, Daniel Sagalyn, “N. Report: Apache Helicopters to Blame for 

Afghan Civilian Deaths,” PBS News Hour, 14 July 2011, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/

rundown/2011/07/un-report-civilian-casualties-rise-in-afghanistan.html.

198. Deptula, interview; Col Gary Crowder, USAF, retired, deputy director of the 

Combined Air and Space Operations Center (2007–08), interview with the author, 

Southwest Asia, 11 June 2008; and Col Tom Ehrhardt, USAF, retired, chief of 

USCENTAF Strategy Division at the Combined Air Operations Center in Saudi 

Arabia during Operation Enduring Freedom, interview with the author, 25 January 2010.

199. Cliff Tompkins, HAF A9A, “Kinetic Airpower and Civilian Casualties,” 

briefing, June 2009, described in chapter 1.

Chapter 5

Institutional Adaptation 

During the 1990s operational constraints stemming from political 

and military leadership concerns about limiting civilian casualties 

became a defining element of US air warfare. United States Air Force 

(USAF) leaders gradually moved from criticizing and resisting these 

constraints to accepting them as an enduring aspect of modern war. 

This set in motion the process of institutional adaptation, distinct 

from the operational adaptation described in the previous chapter.

Preparing future air capabilities to minimize civilian harm hinged 

upon the USAF recognizing and accepting the importance of the 

challenge. Adapting future war-fighting capabilities through doctrine, tactics, weapons, and training is a service responsibility, distinct from the operational responsibilities of the combatant commands (COCOM).1

 The demarcation between the services and the 

commands is not absolute. Persistent operational demands shape 

service priorities, and individuals with operational experience go on 

to occupy key institutional positions, in turn shaping service priorities. Nonetheless, if the USAF had ignored the issue of civilian harm, 

it would have developed capabilities without regard to their contributions to minimizing collateral damage. Instead, the harsh realities of 

constrained air war, reflecting persistent concern about harming 

noncombatants, led the USAF to develop institutional responses to 

the challenge.

Beginning in the late 1990s, the USAF took incremental institutional steps to make civilian protection a goal in its own right, rather 

than viewing it solely as a derivative benefit of airpower’s technological evolution. The service developed new weapons designed to reduce civilian harm and developed new capabilities to predict civilian 

impact of airstrikes. The USAF’s evolving approach to civilian protection contrasted starkly with the absence of innovation in ground 

force planning and capabilities with regard to reducing civilian harm 

during combat operations.2

 The USAF’s adaptation would prove invaluable during subsequent counterinsurgency (COIN) operations 

in Afghanistan and Iraq.
148 │ INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION

From Resistance toward Acceptance

In the years immediately following the Gulf War, airpower proponents resisted seeing avoiding civilian casualties as a new institutional 

responsibility or an independent requirement. For the USAF, the 

Gulf War was a vindication of airpower—not a call for institutional 

change. Many perceived the Amiriyah bombing as a “glitch”—a singular incident. Moreover, it was not even considered a mistake of the 

USAF’s making. Instead, leaders deemed Amiriyah to be either an 

intelligence failure or Saddam Hussein’s fault for placing civilians at 

risk—or both.

In fact, to some airpower experts the Gulf War provided additional 

evidence that efforts to avoid civilian harm could undermine military 

success. Military historian Williamson Murray argued that Operation Desert Storm had failed to cause enough collateral damage. The 

coalition’s careful air targeting looked cautious, he wrote, and failed 

to inflict the destruction necessary to compel Saddam Hussein’s swift 

capitulation.3

 A key Desert Storm air planner, then–Lt Col David 

Deptula, argued that Gen Colin Powell’s sensitivities about civilian 

harm were misplaced. “Later, we found out from the intelligence 

world that as a result of [Amiriyah], Saddam Hussein . . . concluded 

that we were becoming serious. The actual impact was very different 

from what Powell thought. Logically we should have turned up the 

effort then to achieve what we wanted, not turn it down. There’s a real 

issue of balancing mission accomplishment and collateral damage.”4

Such comments echoed the USAF sentiment following Vietnam, 

exposing the resilient appeal of the short, sharp war. The narrow utilitarian approach to military operations offers a powerful internal 

logic and is particularly tempting for proponents of strategic airpower. Yet the argument appeared increasingly divorced from reality 

as it pertained to civilian harm. The Powell-Weinberger doctrine had 

provided an antidote to Vietnam’s gradualism, and it framed the Bush 

administration’s approach to Operation Desert Storm. Still, a single 

mass killing of civilians impeded the air strategy during Desert 

Storm. Without fully acknowledging the distinction, the USAF was 

confronting a competing canon of military thought: Carl von Clausewitz’s 

observations about the political context of war. Faith in “turning up 

the military effort”—even when it might jeopardize other US 

objectives—essentially denied the complexity of US political goals in 

a given conflict. However, in the glowing aftermath of Desert Storm, 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 149

the utilitarian strand in US military thinking remained a barrier to 

change.

There were other institutional reasons to avoid considering alternatives; reducing civilian harm entails several distinct types of costs. 

Force protection might be jeopardized. USAF voices warned that collateral damage constraints posed significant risk to the aircrews enforcing the Iraqi no-fly zone operations that followed Desert Storm.5

Developing new technologies and approaches to address the issue 

would consume resources and energy and, more importantly, distract 

from other efforts to enhance military effectiveness. US airpower already was the most accurate and discriminate in the world; further 

improving capabilities and concepts to protect civilians simply 

seemed unnecessary.

Over the next two decades, though, three factors combined to 

change the USAF’s perspective. First, the sheer consistency of the 

constraints on airpower, imposed during different types of military 

operations and through both Republican and Democratic administrations, indicated that concern about civilian casualties had become 

an enduring factor in using airpower. Second, accommodating these 

constraints was in some respects—although not entirely—consistent 

with the desire for greater precision and the use of effects-based targeting concepts that the USAF already had been pursuing. Finally, 

there was a demonstrable payoff in developing tools to demonstrate 

airpower’s ability to address civilian casualties. What came to be 

called collateral damage mitigation (CDM) offered a route toward regaining greater operational freedom and ensuring airpower’s role in 

future conflicts. Thus, once airpower leaders came to view collateral 

damage constraints as unavoidable, they recognized that satisfying 

these constraints served USAF institutional objectives.

Growing familiarity with the constraints and concerns further 

eased USAF opposition. The service continued over the next decade 

preparing its crews for missions in which collateral damage mattered. 

Aircrews devised and trained on tactics that ensured greater attention to civilian harm—whether flying routine no-fly zone missions 

over Iraq or engaging in a high-profile humanitarian intervention.6

Despite concerns that doing so would undermine airpower, the 

new practices offered evidence that airpower could accommodate 

civilian protection concerns without compromising success. The difference between Vietnam and Kosovo, one analyst wrote, was that 

improved equipment and training allowed the “air weapon [to] prevail 
150 │ INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION

despite the resurgent burdens of gradualism and proportionality.”7

(emphasis added) Both Operation Deliberate Force (1995) and Operation Allied Force (OAF, 1999) succeeded in spite of the imposed 

collateral damage restrictions. Indeed, the USAF ultimately portrayed the Kosovo air campaign as delivering decisive strategic effects 

independently of ground forces.8

 OAF, in particular, publicly vindicated airpower’s long-asserted strategic role. Airpower could “afford” 

the constraints imposed by civilian protection.

Aircrews performed brilliantly in the face of the new demands, 

and there were few discernable costs. US aircrews would face serious 

air-to-air challenge only in a handful of notional high-intensity wars 

now that the Cold War was over. Aircrews still faced varied threats 

from surface-to-air fires. However, devoting more effort to avoiding 

civilian deaths did not directly translate into American casualties.

From the no-fly zone enforcement through the air campaigns in 

the Balkans, hundreds of Airmen gained individual experience in operating—successfully, even if at nominally higher risk—within severe 

collateral damage constraints. Many of these individuals would go on 

to serve in USAF staff roles in which they then shaped institutional 

views and choices.9

 The service gradually grew more comfortable 

with the practice of prioritizing the avoidance of civilian harm.

Airmen—most prominently Kosovo air commander Lt Gen 

Michael Short—still complained about gradualism and micromanagement.10 Nevertheless, by the time of the Kosovo campaign, senior 

USAF leaders had begun to accept a new reality. The vice chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Joseph Ralston, USAF, argued that civilian casualty concerns were here to stay.11 Even General Short conceded that the restrictions might be a permanent phenomenon. 

“Concern for collateral damage drove us to an extraordinary degree 

and it will drive the next generation of warriors even more so, because whereas I see [restraint] as an extraordinary failure, the leadership within the NATO senior administrations would say this was indeed an extraordinary success.”12 Short’s observations acknowledged 

that political leaders viewed war through a different lens.

The civilian leadership’s perspective on operations in Kosovo was 

indeed broader and more sensitive to the political context of using 

force. While American military commanders, having studied Clausewitz, 

intellectually understood this reality, many still longed to practice 

“pure” doctrinal concepts (and advance institutional interests) as 

they conducted war. European air leaders appeared more accustomed 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 151

to political constraints and less sympathetic to US airpower complaints.13

After Kosovo, the USAF began grappling more directly than ever 

before with the implications of political concerns about civilian protection. “It is the politics of the moment that will dictate what we can 

do,” said Gen John P. Jumper, USAF. “If the limits of that consensus 

mean gradualism, then we’re going to have to find a way to deal with 

a phased air campaign. Efficiency may be second.”14 In lamenting the 

demise of “doctrinally pure strategy,” a RAND airpower analyst conceded the need “to recognize and accept instead that it is, after all, 

political considerations that determine—or should determine—the 

way in which campaigns and wars are fought.”15

Indeed, a rising generation of US Airmen appeared well acculturated to civilian casualty restraints through their repeated operational 

familiarity with such restrictions. Col Brian McDonald, USAF, summarized this attitude in suggesting that Airmen should “consider a 

politically restricted target list like the weather: complain about it, 

but deal with it.”16

The lesson seemed clear: if airpower was to succeed in the future, 

it would need to do so despite restrictions reflecting sensitivity to the 

civilian protection norm. This meant that instead of relying on adaptation in the field on the fly, the USAF would have to undertake more 

forward-looking institutional adaptation.

Institutional Adaptation 

Fortunately for the USAF, the service already had been heading in 

a direction largely compatible with this goal. The USAF had been 

seeking greater precision, less destruction, and economy of force. 

This contrasted with the sustained ground forces focused upon applying massive destructive power at greater standoff distances. USAF 

efforts therefore had naturally, albeit inadvertently, supported civilian protection objectives.

Two new synergistic avenues of adaptation emerged in the late 

1990s. Advances in precision enabled more tailored and discrete approaches to targeting, which in turn demanded measuring effects—

including civilian casualties. This motivated efforts to improve capabilities for the specific purpose of limiting civilian harm. In small 

steps that flowed logically from and reinforced one another, the 
152 │ INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION

USAF gradually changed its attitude toward civilian protection. It no 

longer assumed that civilian protection was an inherent or subsidiary 

aspect of the American way of war. It began, haltingly, to regard civilian casualty reduction as an independent goal and an institutional 

responsibility.

Effects-Based Operations and Measuring Civilian Effects 

After Desert Storm, the USAF emphasized the value of its strategic, 

rather than tactical, contributions to the fight. It saw the war as vindicating an effects-based approach, one that provided decisive results 

more efficiently and with reduced loss of life for Americans.17 After 

Operation Deliberate Force in 1999, the USAF also began emphasizing how effects-based operations (EBO) helped to reduce airpower’s 

impact on civilians.18 Air Force Chief of Staff Ronald Fogelman even 

claimed that the USAF could deliver a “new American way of war.”19

Skeptics in the Army and Marine Corps dismissed EBO as the 

pursuit of tangential and uncertain psychological effects.20 Ground 

forces preferred the certainty of destroying enemy military capabilities. Indeed, air advocates struggled with how to measure “cumulative impact at operational and strategic levels” to support overall 

campaign success.21

The USAF’s doctrinal movement toward EBO logically demanded 

quantifiable “effects.” As civilian impact mattered more to the USAF, 

the service created tools to predict the effects of targeting on civilians. 

The ability to predict and quantify civilian casualties—as we saw in 

the case of Kosovo—proved critical for enabling the greater operational freedom in targeting.

Measuring Effects on Civilians

The most obvious way to assess civilian harm is to document the 

actual effects on noncombatants in war. The United States did so after 

WWII. The resulting Strategic Bombing Survey sought to measure 

not just the destruction of infrastructure and enemy forces but also to 

estimate civilian casualties.22 Yet the US military subsequently declined to consider the civilian in its battle damage or postconflict assessment processes. Even dedicated assessment assets—such as the 

USAF’s conventional weapons effects assessment teams (CWEAT)—

would examine only physical damage to structures and weapons systems when performing poststrike assessments in the field; they did 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 153

not assess civilian consequences.23 US service member deaths were 

tracked carefully. The military often documented body counts of enemy killed, at least through the Vietnam War. The armed forces voraciously measured and reported on easily tracked inputs such as sorties conducted and tonnage of weapons dropped. However, they did 

not assess civilian casualties.

During the 1980s humanitarian and human rights groups began 

documenting civilian deaths and injuries that US forces caused in 

Central America. By the 1990s this work had become a central occupation of many American and international nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and regional bodies, and the United Nations also 

began counting civilian deaths.

It was not until 2005, in Iraq, that the US military began compiling 

civilian casualty data. Despite vociferously resisting this responsibility for some 50 years, international expectations about war, transparency of the battlefield, and American claims of good intentions combined to demand greater awareness of the results of using force.24

More immediately, though, ground force commanders found the information operationally useful.

For the USAF, the lack of empirical data posed an obvious challenge to improving effects-based targeting, particularly since political 

guidance increasingly demanded fewer civilian casualties. The failure 

to measure actual effects on civilians also prevented the USAF from 

substantiating its claims to support the protection of civilians during 

military operations. To advance its pursuit of precision and EBO, the 

service followed a different path to assess civilian harm.

Predicting Effects on Civilians

The USAF chose to focus on prediction—theoretical modeling of 

what would happen—rather than on empirical data regarding civilian 

effects. This approach was born of its organizational history and culture. As primary guardian of the nuclear mission, the USAF had already developed tools for predicting “collateral damage” from nuclear 

explosions. Modeling civilian effects of nuclear strikes “fit less well 

with the assumptions and aspirations of precision [nuclear] strategic 

bombing doctrine” because it exposed massive human suffering.25

Although both the methodology and moral implications of its efforts 

remained controversial, modeling was the only viable route toward 

assessing employment of modern nuclear targeting options.26 The 
154 │ INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION

conventional side of the USAF initially faced similar psychological 

and technical hurdles. Unsurprisingly, then, modeling civilian harm 

from aerial bombing did not begin specifically as an effort to count 

civilian casualties but as a corollary of more familiar questions.

A major impetus was a technical puzzle from Operation Desert 

Storm—one that threatened to undermine the USAF’s effects-based 

targeting approach. US airpower’s destruction of Iraqi infrastructure 

was effective. It also contributed to unintended second-order effects 

of disease and death for up to 100,000 Iraqi civilians.27 The Joint 

Warfighting Analysis Center (JWAC) had been conducting the relevant engineering and modeling analysis and developing precision 

targeting options. Nevertheless, the damage to Iraq’s electrical system 

had been more extensive and permanent than anticipated. So airpower leaders launched a voyage toward joint collateral damage estimates with a narrow question: how could airpower more predictably 

and discretely disable infrastructure in the future, such that it would 

yield only desired military effects?

The initial interest lay in improving airpower’s ability to attack urban infrastructure. However, once the challenge was no longer defined as maximizing destruction, the analysis assumed a fresh and 

inexorable logic. Launched on the path of minimizing specific effects, 

the modeling community developed ways to estimate the direct 

physical impact on physical persons.

Collateral Damage Estimation Tool

The value of modeling civilian casualties proved significant. “Modeling provides the ability to demonstrate to your political masters 

how you can achieve the results you want,” Lieutenant General Deptula observed. “You can lift these restraints if you can demonstrate 

the particular effects of specific weapons, and that will allow for 

greater application of force.”28 These benefits drove the continued development and refinement of an estimation process until the pace 

and nature of air operations in the Middle East drove demands for a 

simplified, more responsive system.

 The first phase of the effort was creation of a collateral damage 

estimation tool (CDET) that provided an automated inventory of 

weapons to set parameters and calculated the effects of particular 

munitions. As discussed in chapter 4, this tool was still evolving as 

NATO commenced OAF in 1999. USAF strategists previously had 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 155

lacked useful data about the potential civilian impact of bombing. 

However, in the Kosovo air campaign, civilian casualty estimates became a critical element of the target approval process. In fact, the 

predicted number of civilian casualties often determined whether a 

target or an air strike would be approved or not. Adjusting the parameters of the strike to yield a smaller predicted number enhanced the 

prospects for strike approval and helped preserve a central role for 

airpower.29

The CDET created a collateral damage estimate (CDE) that was 

included in each “target folder” considered by NATO or US approval 

authorities. Targets of greater sensitivity because of their purpose or 

predicted civilian casualties were required to go to higher approval 

levels, including, in the parallel US chain of command, the president 

of the United States. In OAF, any strike in which 20 civilians deaths 

were predicted required the president’s approval; the threshold for 

presidential approval was 30 civilian deaths during Operation Iraqi 

Freedom (OIF).30 Such approval thresholds were applied regardless of 

the value of the target—notably delinked from LOAC standards of 

proportionality. The threshold has been enshrined in doctrine as the 

noncombatant casualty cutoff value (NCV) and is now specified in 

operational ROE.31

CDET evolved into a tiered system of categories of analysis. These 

ranged from the cursory—simply to see if any civilians might be 

within the radius of the strike blast—to highly detailed computer 

simulations. The most detailed analysis could simultaneously replicate multiple parameters of a proposed strike and predict its impact 

on people, both directly through explosion and blast and also indirectly through the destruction of buildings or even the trajectory of 

shards of broken window glass.32 Some likened this analysis to a “high 

powered electron microscope,” and the process required hours to 

complete.33

Limits of Modeling

US modeling capabilities are highly sophisticated, yet they remain 

flawed in important respects.34 Questionable assumptions from prior 

studies were transferred to the CDET process. Modelers applied the 

parameters that had previously been used to ensure destruction of targets, 

but they now applied these parameters to civilian casualty estimates. 

However, the weaponeering process is designed to underestimate the 
156 │ INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION

effects of a weapon (in order to ensure destruction), whereas civilian 

protection estimates should instead overestimate potential harm so as 

to understand the outer limits of effects.35

In addition, the models remained largely theoretical. Unlike nuclear 

weapons, combatants have repeatedly used conventional weapons in 

modern conflict. The USAF could have used the actual results of airpower on civilians to corroborate the CDET models or enable adjustments.36 Yet because the US military for decades dismissed the desirability and feasibility of conducting “civilian body counts,” the USAF 

lacked data to validate or adjust its models.37 Some ground force units 

kept information about civilian casualties, but the collection or dissemination of even that partial data was rare. Instead, the military 

spent significant effort seeking to counter data provided by the press, 

NGOs, or intragovernmental bodies.38 Until very recently, the USAF 

did not even evaluate these outside organizations’ operational assessments of the effects of USAF bombs.39

The armed forces acknowledge that collateral damage estimates 

are imperfect guides to military decision making. “The CDM [collateral damage methodology] is a balance of science and art that produces the best judgment of potential damage to collateral concerns. 

As a science, the CDM uses a mix of empirical data, probability, historical observations, and complex modeling for CD [collateral damage] assessments. However, the science is inherently limited by quantity and reliability of collected and analyzed weapons effects data and 

target information. Furthermore, the science of the CDM cannot always account for the dynamics of the operational environment.”40

The modeling cannot account for “transient” civilians; “therefore, it is 

critical that CDE Level 5 estimates never be portrayed as an expected 

“casualty count.”41 Yet the establishment of the NCV inevitably gives 

the numbers enormous power.

Maj Gen Charles Dunlap described the system as “a kabuki dance 

because you don’t have the fidelity of systems; they can’t tell you the 

reality.”42 Key assumptions could be adjusted so that estimates could 

stay below the specified level of political approval. For example, if a 

strike was predicted to have 31 civilian casualties, triggering White 

House review, it would be possible to adjust assumptions such that 

the recalculated numbers fell below 30 and thereby avoided presidential scrutiny.43

Limitations of the estimation process raise valid questions about 

the purpose and utility of the CDE. Current doctrine notes that the 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 157

estimate allows commanders to mitigate unintended or incidental 

damage or injury to civilian or noncombatant persons or property or 

the environment.44 The process also “assists commanders in weighing 

risk against military necessity and in assessing proportionality within 

the framework of the military decision-making process. In short, the 

CDM is a means for a commander to adhere to [the law of war].”45

However, as the doctrine acknowledges, the process is not determinate, and far more than the law of war is at stake.

Collateral damage estimates “are meant to inform decision makers 

and commanders and are not decisions themselves.”46 Therefore, why 

complain if the system is imperfect? Is it not better to have at least 

standardized swags than just educated guesses? The downside risk 

lies in what the numbers suggest and allow in practice.

Tyranny of Numbers

Data can easily assume a life of its own, even in a process recognized as complex and interpretive. Fighting the tyranny of numbers 

in the targeting process remains a challenge. Numbers not only can 

become just the key to political oversight but also can sometimes—as 

in OAF—function as the de facto criteria for targeting. This can be 

undesirable from a variety of perspectives.

With the focus on the CDE, a consideration of civilian impact can 

be divorced from military effects.47 As one military lawyer complained, the process reflected a “desire to make a decision based on 

some objective ‘number’—no matter how unscientifically reached or 

misunderstood—rather than a subjective ‘value.’”48 In his mind, this 

warped the target approval process by removing consideration of the 

strikes’ potential benefits—the essence of any LOAC proportionality 

judgment.

The CDET process had the potential to blind operators as well, 

substituting a number for a real effect. One modeler complained that 

others “want to maneuver the system so they get the results they want 

for airpower. They think ‘If I get approval for this, I need to know 

what to tell the tribal sheik the impact will be.’ They aren’t thinking 

about how the locals will view the hole and the buildings. They’re 

thinking how many, the numbers, to get approval.”49

Finally, the numbers—despite their clear doctrinal caveats—can 

provide false reassurance, or even incentives, for targeting that might 

not otherwise be deemed acceptable, appropriate, or necessary. If a 
158 │ INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION

legally questionable target can be eliminated with predicted zero 

civilian casualties, it is likely to move higher up on the preference list 

even if its military value is minimal. Similarly, political and military 

decision makers may feel constrained to attack a particular target set 

simply because it is predicted to cause few civilian casualties.

CDET was originally developed for preplanned attacks against 

fixed targets; it was not initially envisioned to have tactical applications. CDET modeling required extensive information on the materials in the target, population density, terrain, aim points, munitions, 

and so forth, and it took at least four hours to run the modeling software.50 Because the process was complex and lengthy, it was unclear 

that it could support a dynamic fight (versus strategic targeting). Indeed, the CDET process proved unwieldy for informing close air support in COIN, an urgent requirement after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

Accordingly, the JWAC in 2002 developed a simplified version of 

CDET called “FAST CD.” This software drew a blob-like two-dimensional 

footprint of a proposed air strike’s estimated blast radius (giving it the 

unfortunate colloquial name “Bugsplat”).51 It was much faster but not 

as comprehensive or accurate. Unlike its “mother” CDET program, 

which took hours to yield results, FAST CD could provide a response 

in as few as five minutes and generally no more than 10.

Approved for use during the planning of the invasion of Iraq, 

FAST CD quickly became the primary process for estimating civilian 

casualties. United States Central Command (USCENTCOM), the 

command with oversight of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, in 

2004 assumed responsibility for most collateral damage assessments.52 This change allowed the command greater control over, and 

responsiveness to, the field commanders seeking approval for air 

strikes. More detailed CDET analysis by JWAC was required only 

rarely.53 One leading technical expert considered this problematic. 

USCENTCOM “doesn’t want bigger numbers based on factual engineering data,” he explained. “They use digital data—the ring system—

but that’s just a good first cut. . . . They assume away complexity and 

just let the [ground] commander take the risk.”54

However, once the CDE process entered the mainstream of the 

joint doctrine, even the simplified process became increasingly complex, deconstructed to its smallest tasks, labeled with overlapping acronyms, and codified in various training and certification programs. 

The 2009 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 159

3160.01 articulates five levels of analysis and risk. The first step, CDE 1, 

determines whether the target can be positively identified and is a 

valid military target. CDE 1 also provides an initial collateral damage 

estimate for the employment of all conventional munitions. The second step, CDE 2, provides an estimate for precision-guided unitary 

and cluster munitions based on nominal weaponeering restrictions. 

CDE 2 also provides an assessment of whether a target meets the 

minimum requirements for employment of air-to-surface and surface-to-surface unguided munitions. The third step, CDE 3, provides 

specific [collateral effect radius] values and weaponeering assessments for all precision and unguided munitions to ensure the desired 

effect is achieved while mitigating collateral damage. The fourth step, 

CDE 4, further refines the CDE 3 assessment by incorporating collateral structure type with the goal of achieving a low CDE while 

minimizing tactical restrictions. Finally, CDE 5, casualty estimation 

is employed when some level of collateral damage is unavoidable.55

CDE has become an essential aspect of the targeting process. Doctrine now includes unprecedented detail about the considerations and 

ramifications of civilian casualties.56 Acronyms multiplied and rolled 

off tongues: CDM (CDE methodology) and CDA (the final CD assessment). Conducting CDE became so routine that Airmen hardly 

noticed it. Visits to the Combined Air and Space Operations Center 

demonstrated that what planners had once dismissed as an impossible 

expectation or an unwieldy imposition was now regarded as simply 

another step in the planning process and the conduct of operations.57

Despite the rapid institutionalization of the CDE practice, the 

future of the estimation and assessment processes remains uncertain. 

Lodging responsibility for battlefield assessments in combatant commands has compelling operational logic, yet it complicates the question of institutional responsibility for the tool itself. The COCOMs—

rightly concerned with use—have neither the capacity nor the mission 

to improve estimation processes. Moreover, JWAC’s original CDET 

work was underwritten only through supplemental (nonrecurring) 

funding, not the regular budget cycle.58 It is unclear which entities—

the services, the joint community, and so forth—will be responsible 

for institutional investment in improved CDE.59 This uncertainty has 

implications both for the possibilities of analysis of actual collateral 

damage and for future refinement of estimation tools. Both streams 

of work should shape future capabilities and concepts (e.g., munitions and platform requirements or improved tactics).
160 │ INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION

Overall, the emergence of the CDE process was a qualified triumph for civilian protection. It represented an unprecedented investment in understanding—and limiting—the effect of military action 

on civilians. It had important limitations. First, the systems were not 

calibrated to empirical data about actual effects of military force. The 

second limitation lay primarily in how CDE was used, since the numbers created an illusion of certainty and control and risked driving 

decision making. On the other hand, CDE allows political and military leaders to anticipate better the potential civilian harm in specific 

targeting choices and to decide whether to risk the potential civilian 

cost regardless of the legality of taking action. CDE also highlighted 

tradeoffs in how a given target might be attacked (in addition to 

whether to attack it), in many cases allowing mitigation of collateral 

damage through actions that brought the United States little, or zero, 

additional risk, such as choosing a more appropriate munition or altering the angle at which the aircraft approached the target. CDE enables win-win solutions to reduce civilian deaths and injury without 

undermining US military objectives.

Beyond Precision: New Weapons to 

Reduce Civilian Harm

After the first use of laser-guided munitions in Vietnam, the 

United States acquired a small arsenal of precision weapons and the 

enabling technologies: lasers, computers linked to satellite position 

systems, gun cameras, explosive technology refinements, and unmanned surveillance drones—the latter of which the USAF now refers to as remotely piloted vehicles (RPV). However, precision did not 

make its true public debut until Operation Desert Storm in 1991, 

where it was arguably overhyped in videotape extolling the virtues of 

laser-guided missiles. Only about 8 percent of munitions deployed 

during conflict were smart bombs; precision-guided munitions 

(PGM) remained a nascent capability.60

The USAF nonetheless concluded that precision was not simply 

consistent with a doctrinal emphasis on the economy of force but was 

also crucial for military success.61 Following Desert Storm, key USAF 

voices argued that the future lay in precision. Gen Lee Butler, the 

former head of Strategic Air Command (SAC), said that greater air 

precision was essential if the service was to remain relevant. Bombing 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 161

proficiency had not advanced sufficiently, he argued; airpower must 

change lest it become irrelevant. “If we had to do the Persian Gulf six 

or seven years from now, and all SAC could do was come with B-52s 

and drop banded high drags from forty thousand feet, then we would 

not be invited to participate,” he warned.62 The secretary of the air 

force later noted that the role of PGMs had become “central in this 

media-intensive environment we operate in . . . [and] essential to 

modern air operations.”63

The USAF committed itself more fully to precision.64 Modifications on existing weapons during the early 1990s, such as the laserguided Hellfire II missile, were touted for providing additional flexibility for aircraft and otherwise enhancing war-fighting capabilities. 

Their smaller size and precision guidance also offered derivative benefits with regard to reducing collateral damage.

Cost remained a key hurdle for PGMs, however. As late as 1996, 

the former USAF chief of staff complained that the price of highly 

accurate cruise missiles made them impractical to actually use in 

war.65 The service continuously sought lower-cost precision alternatives; it began developing a capability to convert conventional munitions to PGMs in 1992. The GBU-31 Joint Direct Attack Munition 

(JDAM) was essentially a smart guidance system that could be 

strapped onto “dumb” bombs of various sizes. JDAM used the emerging Global Positioning System (GPS) to overcome the weather limitations of laser guidance, thereby increasing the flexibility and reliability 

of conventional airpower.66 This low-cost capability was tested at the 

end of the decade and made a successful combat debut in OAF.

The USAF also refashioned air delivery platforms and improved 

surveillance and reconnaissance systems, including the development 

of relatively inexpensive unmanned systems. RPVs “not only improved situational awareness and the ability to discriminate visually, 

they eventually became deadly weapons in their own right. Able to 

stay “on station” far longer than manned aircraft, RPVs were better 

suited to awaiting complex target approval processes and provided a 

means to avoid any risk to pilots.67

The net result of airpower investments during the 1990s was improved precision, more widely available, at reduced cost. This made it 

possible to increase the rate of PGMs’ use from less than 10 percent 

in Desert Storm to about 35 percent during OAF.68 Larger numbers of 

more accurate weapons also helped reduce unintended casualties. 

Even so, the Kosovo campaign revealed shortfalls. Bad weather had 
162 │ INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION

interfered with navigation aids, except in the case of the all-weather 

JDAM. Demand exceeded supply; even with a growing inventory, the 

United States nearly ran out of key low-collateral-damage weapons. 

The USAF recognized that the PGM effort required more institutional attention in order to be ready for the next air war.69

OAF also highlighted the need for developing capabilities specifically in order to minimize collateral damage. Greater institutional 

awareness of the changed operating environment eventually led to an 

entirely new category of weapons, referred to as lower-collateraldamage capabilities.70 Some of the key considerations include the size 

of the bomb (or more specifically, its explosive charge), the bomb’s 

casing (whether it functions as an independent kill mechanism), and 

the guidance system that steers the bomb to the target (laser guidance 

is subject to atmospheric and other distortions whereas GPS functions in all weather conditions).

So, for example, the USAF in 2001 awarded a contract for a 

250-pound small diameter bomb (SDB). The USAF noted that the 

weapons increased flexibility and allowed greater numbers of bombs 

per platform, but the primary utility lay in reducing collateral damage.71 In addition to elevating the priority of low-collateral-damage 

weapons, the USAF embraced different types of nondestructive munitions to minimize harm, such as the carbon-filament bombs that 

could temporarily disable electrical wires.72

The USAF also began considering new options for minimizing the 

blast or fragmentation from conventional munitions. These innovations, often emerging out of the Air Armaments Center (AAC) at 

Eglin Air Force Base, stemmed from earlier field adaptation. As a 

joint task force commander in Operation Northern Watch, then–Brig 

Gen David Deptula sought innovative solutions to the challenge of 

avoiding civilian harm. “There were so many games the Iraqis played, 

like putting a surface-to-air missile next to a mosque. I know I can’t 

use a 2,000-pound weapon or even a 500-pound weapon with a steel 

casing. So, I went to the flight line and I told the F-15E guy to load an 

inert bomb—a GBU-12—a laser-guided, 500-pound bomb. And, he 

looked at me like I had three heads. I said, ‘500-pound coming at you 

at 500 knots is enough to ruin your whole day if it hits you.’”73

Unlike precision, which had multiple advantages, reducing blast 

was primarily useful for reducing unintended harm to civilians and 

civilian objects.74 In seeking to reduce collateral damage with inert 

weapons, Deptula ushered in a new look at an existing technology 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 163

used primarily for training purposes.75 Eglin’s Air Force Research Lab 

began experimenting with the concept of a nonexplosive bomb.

The USAF subsequently sought modifications to existing munitions to reduce their blast and secondary effects. In 2002, when 

USCENTCOM identified a need for a nonexplosive area munition to 

destroy soft targets, Eglin was able to respond within an astonishingly 

short 98 days.76 The CBU-107 Passive Attack Weapon is a guided canister that flings tungsten and steel rod “penetrators” across a limited 

diameter, avoiding fragmentary blast damage to surrounding areas. 

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, US forces used this weapon to remove antennas on buildings in Iraq.77

The service also began developing new bomb casings to limit blast 

effects on civilians.78 For example, the GBU-39B Focused Lethality 

Munition (FLM) is an SDB (250-pound bomb) with a carbon-fiber 

casing. Unlike a steel casing, which is scored to ensure that it will 

disperse fragmentary shards to destroy objects or persons, the carbonfiber casing disintegrates.79 In addition, the FLM’s explosive fill is 

mixed with tungsten particles to limit the weapon’s destructive zone 

to just a few meters across. The USAF used this GPS-guided weapon 

in Iraq in 2006.80

Forces in the field continued to request expanded air options for 

reducing civilian casualties in the urban COIN fight.81 Too large a gap 

remained between nonlethal options and the lowest-collateral-damage 

capabilities then available. This gap left forces without the full range 

of tools they needed in air support. Skirting normal weapons development procedures, the Joint Urgent Operational Need (JUON) request process led to the production of the nonlethal JDAM and the 

certification of USAF platforms to carry the Navy’s new low-CD 

weapon.82 The impetus for adaptation remained the same: operational freedom. As one capability needs statement explained, “This 

reduction in collateral damage will allow [combatant commanders] 

to place previously off-limits targets at risk.”83

By necessity, the USAF also began to rethink airpower as a nonlethal 

tool. In some respects, this reflected the service’s studied ignorance of 

lessons from Vietnam and other limited air engagements that did not 

fit its preferred model for employing airpower as a strategic capability 

and pursuant to Weinberger-Powell sensibilities.84 Nevertheless, airpower rediscovered a broad set of capabilities to meet COIN needs. 

Manned aircraft and RPVs were used to deter or disperse insurgents, 

gather intelligence, and monitor patterns of life to better inform targeting 
164 │ INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION

or signal US presence to reassure the population or coalition forces. 

The USAF began to conceptualize the show of force and the show of 

presence as tactics for providing nonlethal effects, further codifying 

airpower’s flexibility and responsiveness in constrained operating environments.85

For pilots engaged in careful tactical applications of force, even the 

gradualism of OAF or the careful strategic targeting during the first 

phase of OIF seemed in retrospect to reflect a “fangs-out, kill-kill-kill 

culture” in which airpower maximized the number of bombs dropped 

and destruction caused.86 By the time of Afghanistan, not dropping 

weapons had become a metric of success. The restraint, explained one 

pilot, required “a different mentality.”87

The continuing USAF weapons innovation did not occur in a 

vacuum. New systems reflected demands—often in the form of urgent 

requests—from operators in Iraq and Afghanistan who were fighting 

in COINs that demanded sensitivity to collateral damage. Lt Col 

Andrew D. Spires, chief of AAC’s weapons and tactics division, explained that because Airmen in the field were expending an “extraordinary amount of effort [on the task of limiting collateral damage,] . . . 

a lot of that drives the engineering on what we need in theater.”88

Therefore, there was receptivity when USAF Col Thomas Ehrhard 

asked scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory whether 

they could modify a standard bomb series by creating a composite 

casing that would minimize blast and collateral damage.89 The ultimate answer to this question was the BLU-129B, described as the 

FLM’s “big brother,” which came into use in Afghanistan in 2011.90

This 500-pound bomb has a composite case warhead that can be laser 

guided for greater accuracy and flexibility or have a JDAM guidance 

kit strapped on to perform in poor weather conditions.

By 2011 the USAF was able to portray itself as moving into a new 

era of civilian-friendly weaponry.91 Brig Gen Jerry P. Martinez told 

Congress that new USAF capabilities allowed “enhancing prosecution of targets while minimizing collateral damage and the associated 

negative public reactions and perceptions. The Air Force has also 

made significant gains in adapting to the requirement for precision, 

low-collateral damage, and low civilian casualty fires with investment 

in additional joint terminal attack controllers, as well as research and 

development in relevant third-generation munitions.”92 He went on 

to explain that first-generation weapons were WWII-era fragmentary 

munitions while second-generation weapons are precision-guidance 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 165

and fragmentary bomb munitions. Third-generation weapons have not 

only precision guidance but also “commensurate precision effects.”93

Although collateral damage mitigation had gained higher priority, 

it still had to compete with other institutional objectives.94 For example, the USAF appeared to balk at investing in RPVs at a level that 

met operational needs in COINs. Unmanned platforms conflicted 

with preserving roles for pilots.95 More generally, programmatic decisions to create specialized capabilities to limit collateral damage created tensions internally, because some viewed such decisions as inconsistent with the requirements of high-intensity conflict that had 

driven demand for air platforms and justified the USAF’s strategic 

role. While precision is advantageous in all types of conflicts, including major combat operations, planners regarded low-collateral-damage 

weapons and techniques as a specialized requirement virtually irrelevant in a major war. Some innovators within the USAF found this 

frustrating.

Col Tom Ehrhard was one such innovator. While serving in Afghanistan, he had promoted collateral damage–mitigation tactics. 

These included substituting 500-pound bombs for the 2,000-pound 

weapons that were preferred early in the conflict and for eliminating 

“z-axis” error by employing air weapons at a 90-degree angle, which 

significantly reduced circular error probability in mountainous terrain.96 His concerns extended to other challenges such as bomb fragmentation and the sensitivity of laser-guided bombs to weather, laser 

frequency, and employment tactics that marred their otherwise impressive accuracy.

Upon returning to Washington, DC, Ehrhard decided to tackle the 

longer-term challenge of improving air-launched munitions. “I come 

from the nuclear community,” Ehrhard explained. “My lesson from 

the nuclear business is stockpile to target discipline. A bomb should 

only go off if everything goes right. I walked into the conventional 

community where no one regarded weapons that way. And, I was 

energized by engagement [on civilian harm] with the [Harvard] Carr 

Center dialogue; so, I started seeing the problem through that lens. I 

thought we could fix some things through technology, like a fuse that 

would prevent a misguided weapon from exploding.”97

He encountered repeated roadblocks in what seemed to him (and 

to weapons designers he spoke with) a low-cost, sensible idea that 

could save civilian lives. He just wanted a fuse to disarm a bomb if it 

did not get the right input—essentially an abort option on the 
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weapon. Such a fuse could prevent the bomb from arming if it did not 

see the laser spot, could not find the right frequency on which the 

target were being lased, or if the pilot needed to pull the bomb off 

target at the last minute. Ehrhard appreciated the complexity of fuses 

and was not sure the fix would be feasible. Therefore, while a student 

at the School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Ehrhard “went over on 

my own time to talk to the ‘fuse guru’ at Eglin AFB. . . . After grilling 

me with questions, he finally said that designing it would be trivial—

i.e., easy. . . . He concluded that every bomb should have it.”98

However, it was not that easy to make it happen within the USAF. 

The issue was not substantive. “There’s no logical pushback; I win 

every argument,” Ehrhard explained. “It’s pure bureaucracy. Who will 

pay for it? Who’s going to spend money to do it in the absence of a 

program? Who’s got the requirement? I’d get them the requirement, 

then they’d deny it. One general approves the idea, and the guy underneath waits him out till he leaves and then I have to start all over 

again. They’d say ‘There are too many things we’re doing. It doesn’t fit 

into our plan. The AAC hasn’t said they need it.’’99 Ehrhard became 

discouraged.

Despite the progress that was made throughout the 2000s, then, 

countervailing pressures limited the USAF’s investment in collateral 

damage mitigation. A 2003 Defense Science Board study concluded 

that a variety of institutional factors prevented DOD from supporting low-collateral-damage capabilities “to the extent possible and the 

degree necessary.”100These institutional factors include an incomplete 

understanding of likely enemies; absence of comprehensive effects 

assessment and failure to fully develop tools to shape and monitor 

effects; weakness of anticipatory, collaborative contingency planning 

processes; and the intellectual development to support these objectives.101 Even when civilian protection concepts were developed and 

approved, many were simply not considered top priorities when 

stacked against other requirements.

Nonetheless, the USAF had come to recognize collateral damage mitigation as an independent—not derivative—objective for the development of capabilities. The new capabilities were win-win propositions—

more effective for the mission and less deadly for the civilian. Furthermore, 

the service no longer viewed collateral damage exclusively in the context 

of legal compliance or moral obligation. Addressing civilian protection 

was important to the service because it could help ensure that airpower 

would remain relevant and effective.
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 167

Conclusion

In the dozen years that preceded US engagement in COIN operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the USAF had begun integrating civilian casualty mitigation not just into its conduct of operations but also 

within its institutional ethos. During the 1990s, the USAF had come 

to accept that operational constraints to avoid civilian casualties were 

likely unavoidable, and accordingly the service began to accommodate civilian casualty mitigation into its longer-term institutional capabilities and concepts.

The USAF turned its response to civilian harm from a liability into 

a virtue. Today, the service emphasizes its abilities to reduce civilian 

harm and portrays those abilities as advancing institutional goals. 

The USAF’s analytical arm, A9, argues that collateral damage minimization helps maintain airpower’s asymmetric advantage.102 Airpower advocates continue to tout airpower’s unique characteristics of 

speed, flexibility, and mass effects, but they also stress airpower’s ability to limit collateral damage. This latter characteristic, one expert 

writes, offers “the greatest pertinence for the likely demands of future 

warfare.”103 Within the air community, some analysts have recommended that the USAF widen its comparative advantage by adopting 

additional civilian-friendly concepts.104 Collateral damage prevention became part of the airpower sales pitch. The process of institutional change, however, remains tentative and fragile. Future opportunities and challenges for civilian casualty mitigation are the subject 

of the next chapter.

Notes

1. The geographic COCOMs are responsible for directing use of the deployed operational force; the services prepare forces for use by the COCOMs. The services, as 

stewards of their “institutional” force, are responsible for training and equipping their 

respective members. The Special Operations Command uniquely merges institutional 

responsibilities for preparing forces with the operational responsibilities of the global 

counterterrorism mission.

2. During the 1990s, ground forces faced a different adaptation challenge related to 

civilians on the battlefield. US infantry during that decade repeatedly were deployed to 

peace operations, which are doctrinally distinct from conventional combat operations. 

In peace operations, the primary challenge for the US Army and Marine Corps was 

learning to work effectively with local villagers, representatives of nongovernmental or 

international organizations, and US government civilians during reconstruction and 
168 │ INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION

development efforts. This was far removed from the USAF’s adaptation regarding reducing civilian casualties while bombing.

3. Williamson Murray, “Not Enough Collateral Damage: Moral Ambiguities in 

the Gulf War,” in Civilians in the Path of War, ed. Mark Grimsley and Clifford J. Rogers 

(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 251.

4. Lt Gen David Deptula, USAF, retired, interview with the author, Washington, 

DC, 21 December 2009.

5. William M. Tart, “No Fly Zones: Costs, Benefits, and Conditions” (MA thesis, 

School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, June 2001).

6. Iraq sought to induce the coalition to cause collateral damage by placing Iraqi 

antiaircraft batteries near civilian and protected sites. US and other coalition pilots 

operated under strict rules of engagement designed to avoid escalation and civilian 

harm. Alfred B. Prados and Kenneth Katzman, Iraq-U.S. Confrontation (Washington, 

DC: Congressional Research Service, 20 February 2002), 5.

7. Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Airpower (Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell University Press, 2000), 313.

8. Rebecca Grant, “True Blue: Behind the Kosovo Numbers Game,” Air Force 

Magazine 83, no. 8 (August 2000), 74–78.

9. Thomas Keaney, “Collateral Damage in the Gulf War: Experience and Lessons” 

(working paper, NSHR Proceedings, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, June 

2002). David Deptula is a prime example, moving from serving as a planner in Desert 

Storm to being integrally involved in almost all subsequent major air operations and 

then returning to the institutional forces as the head of intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance.

10. See the description of doctrine and General Short’s view of airpower in Paul 

C. Strickland, “Aerospace-Power Doctrine Decisive or Coercive?,” Aerospace Power 

Journal (Fall 2000), http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj00/

fal00/strickland.htm. These views are reminiscent of the concerns about gradualism 

and constraints on airpower in Vietnam.

11. “Ralston Sees Potential for More Wars of Gradual Escalation,” Inside the Pentagon, 

16 September 1999, 1.

12. Michael Short, “Operation Allied Force from the Perspective of the NATO 

Air Commander,” in Legal and Ethical Lessons of NATO‘s Kosovo Campaign, International Law Studies 78, ed. Andru E. Wall (Newport, RI: Naval War College, 2002), 24.

13. After the Kosovo campaign, British Air Vice Marshal Tony Mason remarked 

that he had not “spent the past 25 years trying to persuade unbelievers of the efficacy 

of air power only to finish up whining because political circumstances made operations difficult.” Quoted in Benjamin Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic 

and Operational Assessment (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), 238.

14. “Washington Outlook,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, 23 August 

1999, 27. Quoted in Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo, 237.

15. Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower, 229.

16. Col Brian McDonald, USAF, briefing, RAND, Santa Monica, CA, 14 December 1999.

17. Donald B. Rice, Secretary of the Air Force, Global Reach–Global Power: The 

Evolving Air Force Contribution to National Security (Arlington, VA: Aerospace 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 169

Education Foundation, December 1992), http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD

=ADA326700&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf.

18. Sheila E. Widnall, secretary of the Air Force, “The Air Force in the New 

World Order” (speech, Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium, Orlando, FL, 

16 February 1996), http://www.afa.org/aef%5Cpub%5Col1.asp; and Merrill McPeak, 

former Chief of Staff of the Air Force, “The Art of War,” PBS Online NewsHour, 16 

June 1999, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/jan-june99/lessons_6-16.html.

19. Ronald R. Fogleman, “Air Power and the American Way of War” (speech, Air 

Force Association Air Warfare Symposium, Orlando, FL, 15 February 1996).

20. See, for example, James N. Mattis “USJFCOM Commander’s Guidance for 

Effects-based Operations,” Parameters 38 (Autumn 2008): 18–25.

21. Robyn S. Read, Transformation: Effects-based Planning and Operations, 

CADRE MDA Quick-Look 2003-07 (Maxwell AFB, AL: College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education, and Airpower Research Institute, 2003).

22. For effects on civilians, including estimates of civilian casualties, are included, 

see, for example, Summary Report of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (European War) (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 30 September 1945), 14–15.

23. NSHR Proceedings.

24. During the Vietnam War, many derided counting the number of enemy 

killed as a false metric of success and one that fueled counterproductive operational 

practices (such as the killing of civilians). The military conveniently resolved to avoid 

all such metrics. As late as 2002, USCENTCOM commander Gen Tommy Franks 

famously said, “You know we don’t do body counts.” Quoted in Epstein, “Success in 

Afghan War Hard to Gauge,” San Francisco Chronicle, 23 March 2002. In a dramatic 

departure from past US practices, the US-led coalition in Iraq began systematically 

collecting date on civilian deaths. See, for example, Sabrina Tavernise, “U.S. Quietly 

Issues Estimate of Iraqi Civilian Casualties,” New York Times, 30 October 2005, 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/international/middleeast/30civilians.html. 

The US-led coalition in Afghanistan began to do so several years later.

25. Lynn Eden, Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear 

Weapons Devastation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 54–55.

26. Arguing that civilian harm was difficult to predict, the nuclear weapons community focused only on measuring the effect (initial blast) that better fit existing 

USAF measurement processes. Ibid., 7.

27. Theo Farrell, “World Culture and Military Power,” Security Studies 14, no. 3 

(July–September 2005), 484. International sanctions exacerbated the effect of the 

physical destruction. See, for example, Thomas E. Griffith, Jr., Strategic Attack of 

National Electrical Systems (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, October 1994).

28. Deptula, interview.

29. Ibid.

30. For Kosovo targeting, see Government Accounting Office (GAO), Kosovo Air 

Operations: Need to Maintain Alliance Cohesion Resulted in Doctrinal Departures, 

GAO-01-784 (Washington, DC: GAO, 27 July 2001), 8 n. 9. For Iraq thresholds, see 

Bradley Graham, “U.S. Moved Early for Air Supremacy,” Washington Post, 20 July 

2003, A26.
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31. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 3160.01, No-Strike 

and the Collateral Damage Estimation Methodology, 19 February 2009), D-A-30.

32. NSHR proceedings.

33. See, for example, Tony Montgomery, “Legal Advisors and Time-Sensitive 

Targets,” in Legal and Ethic Lessons of NATO’s Kosovo Campaign, International Law 

Studies 78, ed. Andru E. Wall (Newport, RI: Naval War College, 2002), 194.

34. “Collateral damage estimation has evolved to a sophisticated state.” Maj Gen 

Gordon C. Nash, USMC, commander Joint Warfighting Center (JWFC), in preface 

to JWFC Doctrine Pamphlet 2, Doctrinal Implications of Low Collateral Damage Capabilities, 27 January 2003.

35. The reason for the overprediction model appeared to be largely a function of 

the legacy hardware-system requirements. Anonymous modeler, interview with the 

author, Dahlgren, VA, 1 March 2010.

36. Empirical testing is particularly important given the model’s reliance on accurate population density figures. As one Army judge advocate general officer admitted, it is not feasible to perform a proportionality analysis if one does not know the 

potential for civilian harm. NSHR Proceedings. More generally, see Sarah Sewall, 

“An Empty Pledge to Civilians?” New York Times, 21 March 2003.

37. US officials have evoked the Vietnam-era practice of treating the numbers of 

enemy killed as a metric of success. The practice encouraged military tactics that 

harmed civilians. It is illogical to suggest the Vietnam practice as a rationale for not 

measuring civilian harm. Epstein, “Success in Afghan War Hard to Gauge.”

38. In fact, the military often dismissed independent civilian casualty estimates. 

NSHR proceedings.

39. See, for example, Clifford Tompkins, “Kinetic Airpower and Civilian Casualties” 

(PowerPoint presentation, HAF A9A, Rosslyn, VA, June 2009).

40. CJCSI 3160.01, D-1. For further information on the sensitive target approval 

and review process into which CDE feeds, see CJCSI 3122.06, Sensitive Target Approval and Review (STAR) Process, 12 December 2007.

41. CJCSI 3160.01, D-A-30.

42. Dunlap’s use of the metaphor kabuki—a form Japanese theater—means that 

the CDET numbers are an artistic reflection, not a true representation, of facts. Maj 

Gen Charles Dunlap, USAF, retired, interview with the author, Washington, DC, 4 

December 2009.

43. Ibid.

44. CJCSI 3160.01, D-1.

45. Ibid.

46. Joint Publication (JP) 3-60, Joint Targeting, 13 April, 2007. Appendix G, Collateral Damage Estimation, G1.

47. “Whether or not destroying a particular target is going to achieve the stated 

military or political objective is not part of the tier system.” Montgomery, “Legal 

Advisors and Time-Sensitive Targets,” 194.

48. Ibid., 193.

49. Anonymous modeler, interview.

50. Ibid.

51. Bradley Graham, “‘Bugsplat’  Computer Program Aims to  Limit Civilian 

Deaths at Targets,” Washington Post, 22 February 2003.
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 171

52. Anonymous modeler, interview.

53. Doctrine specifies the possibility that JWAC would still be tasked to do CDE. 

In addition, necessity became the mother of “Field CDE,” which is typically used 

“when there is a time-constrained opportunity to engage a fleeting target. Field CDE 

differs from Formal CDE, which is conducted by certified/qualified CDE analysts. . . . 

Field CDE is a degraded mode of CDE, and creates the opportunity for increased 

risk.” CJCSI 3160.01A, No-Strike and the Collateral Damage Estimation Methodology, 

12 October 2012, D-A-36. 

54. Anonymous modeler, interview.

55. CJCSI 3160.01. Produced by the intelligence arm of the Joint Staff, the level 

of detail for standard, joint CDE is nothing short of astonishing. The list of CD-related 

acronyms expands to include CDM (CDE methodology) and CDA (the final CD assessment).

56. The process continues to evolve, with updated guidance and methods. Air 

Force Doctrine Document (AFDD 3-60), Targeting, 8 June 2006, was updated 28 July 

2011. CJCSI 3160.01A was also update 12 October 2012.

57. Sarah Sewall and Larry Lewis, Reducing and Mitigating Civilian Casualties: Afghanistan and Beyond, Joint Civilian Casualty Study Final Report (Kabul, Afghanistan: 

International Security Assistance Force, 31 August 2010), http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/

operation_and_plans/GlobalWarOnTerrorism/Miscellaneous/12-F-0460_doc_01_Reducing_and_Mitigating_Civilian_Casualties_Afghanistan_and_Beyond.pdf.

58. Anonymous modeler, interview.

59. I discuss the issue of institutional ownership for civilian casualty prevention 

and mitigation in chapter 6.

60. John T. Correll, “The Emergence of Smart Bombs,” Air Force Magazine 93, 

no. 3 (March 2010): 60–64.

61. Reflecting the airpower community’s consensus, an unofficial history argued 

that laser-guided bombs “largely swung the outcome of the 1991 Gulf War” by shutting down Iraq’s air defenses, keeping the Iraqi air force out of the fight, and destroying Iraqi tanks and other fielded equipment. Lambeth, Transformation of American 

Airpower, 160.

62. His reference is to the WWII practice of wrapping bombs in bands to keep 

their fins from deploying. George Lee Butler, “Disestablishing SAC,” Air Power History (Fall 1993), 8.

63. Widnall, “The Air Force in the New World Order.”

64. The Navy was also making huge strides in this arena.

65. “If you want to get somebody’s attention at $1.5 million a pop, you can shoot 

those things and get their attention, but if you want to conduct an air campaign, you’re 

going to bankrupt the country quickly by doing that.” Quoted in Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower, 162.

66. Ibid., 161.

67. Lt Col Daniel Ourada, USAF, retired, interview with the author, Washington, 

DC, 25 January 2010.

68. Correll, “The Emergence of Smart Bombs.”

69. Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower, 230.
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70. In 2003 joint publications began discussing low-collateral damage capabilities 

(LCDC), a new term encompassing nonlethal weapons. The term has not come into 

widespread use. JWFC Doctrine Pam 2, preface.

71. Ourada, interview; and John Pike, “Small Diameter Bomb / Small Smart Bomb,” 

GlobalSecurity.org, 7 July 2011, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/muni

tions/sdb.htm.

72. During the Kosovo air campaign, French president Jacques Chirac had opposed bombing Serbia’s electrical power grid. “U.S. and French military officers 

searched for more palatable alternatives and finally came up with the idea of using the 

still-secret CBU-94 cluster munition, which could shut down Belgrade’s power source 

for at least a few hours by dispensing carbon-graphite threads on a grid to short it out.” 

Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower, 188. The USAF subsequently mainstreamed the weapon because of its success, and used it in OIF.

73. Deptula, interview.

74. Col Gary Crowder, USAF, retired, interview with the author, Southwest Asia, 

11 June 2008; and Ourada, interview.

75. However, the inert GBU-12 bombs ricocheted and skipped far from their 

intended target in Operation Northern Watch. Thomas R. Searle, “Making Airpower 

Effective against Guerillas,” Air and Space Journal 18, no. 3 (Fall 2004), 19.

76. Lieven Dewitte, “Crash Program at Eglin Produced Non-explosive Weapon Used 

in Iraq,” General F-16 News, 12 May 2003, http://www.f-16.net/news_article137.html.

77. Human Rights Watch, Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties 

in Iraq (New York: HRW, 2003), 21–27, 46-48, 112, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003

/usa1203/usa1203.pdf.

78. Deptula, interview.

79. Col Tom Ehrhard, USAF, retired, interview with the author, Washington, 

DC, 25 January 2011.

80. Pike, “Small Diameter Bomb / Small Smart Bomb.”

81. Ernie Haendschke, “Adding Less-Lethal Arrows to the Quiver for Counterinsurgency Air Operations,” Air & Space Power Journal 22, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 33–43, 

http://www.au.af.mil/au/afri/aspj/airchronicles/apj/apj08/sum08/haendschke.html.

82. Ibid.

83. Pike, “Small Diameter Bomb / Small Smart Bomb.” 

84. See, for example, W. R. Johnson “All Thrust and No Vector? Classical Air Power 

Theory and Small Wars,” in No Clear Flight Plan: Counterinsurgency and Aerospace 

Power, Silver Dart Canadian Aerospace Studies, vol. 4, ed. James Fergusson and William 

March (Winnipeg, Canada: Centre for Defence and Security Studies, University of 

Manitoba, 2008).

85. Haendschke, “Adding Less-Lethal Arrows.”

86. C. J. Chivers, “A Changed Way of War in Afghanistan’s Skies,” New York Times, 

15 January 2012, quoting a Navy pilot on his operations in Afghanistan.

87. Ibid.

88. Marc V. Schanz, “Focused Lethality,” Air Force Magazine 91, no. 12 (December 2008): 36–39.

89. Ehrhard, interview.

90. “Shaping Adaptive Innovation for the Warfighter: The Air Armament Center 

Functions as the Linchpin; An Interview with Randy Brown, Norma Taylor, and 
INSTITUTIONAL ADAPTATION │ 173

Wally Messmore,” Second Line of Defense (web site), 19 January 2011, http://www

.sldinfo.com/shaping-adaptive-innovation-for-the-warfighter-the-air-armament

-center-functions-as-the-linchpin/.

91. Although some within the USAF bureaucracy derided these innovations as 

“Not smart bombs, but nice bombs.” Ehrhard, interview. I further discuss the resistance to these innovations in chapter 6. 

92. Brig Gen Jerry P. Martinez, USAF, testimony in House, Institutionalizing Irregular Warfare Capabilities: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, House Armed Services Committee, 112th Cong., 1st sess., 3 November 2011, 

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg71528/pdf/CHRG-112hhrg71528.pdf.

93. Ibid.

94. At the Air Armament Summit conferences early in the 2000s, two experienced USAF officers made the case for the USAF to develop lower-collateral damage 

weapons. They gained little traction for their proposals. Ehrhard, interview. 

95. “Attack of the Drones,” Newsweek, 19 September 2009, http://www.newsweek

.com/2009/09/18/attack-of-the-drones.html.

96. Ehrhard, interview.

97. Ibid.

98. Ibid.

99. Ibid.

100. The report called for creation of strategic effects integration capabilities and 

changes in military professional development. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Report of the Defense Science Board Task 

Force on Discriminate Use of Force (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2003), 2.

101. Ibid.

102. Tompkins, “Kinetic Airpower and Civilian Casualties,” slide 13.

103. Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower, 317.

104. Read recommends nonlethal combat doctrine, including show of force, presence, 

and weapons that allow ground commanders to “dial-an-effect.” Read, Transformation.

Chapter 6

The Future of Civilian Casualty Prevention 

The US military’s adaptation to civilian casualty (CIVCAS) prevention varied by service but was driven largely by operational pressures to reduce harm to noncombatants. Airpower hit these pressures 

during the 1990s, while land forces confronted them the following 

decade during counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Adaptation occurred in the field, but institutional, lasting 

change was uneven. In 2006 the Army and Marine Corps created new 

doctrine (FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency) that placed civilian protection at the heart of military operations. The two services then sought 

to apply this doctrine in the field. But, while the Army took further 

steps to institutionalize civilian casualty mitigation, overall institutional progress has been halting.

Terminology indicates a changed military awareness of civilian 

casualties. Noncombatant deaths were once considered, and spoken 

about, as a subset of collateral damage. However, by the 1990s, that 

term seemed out of step with international sensitivities, and US officials began referring more frequently to civilian casualties than to 

collateral damage. By the end of the 2000s, the military had adopted 

a new acronym for its internal use: CIVCAS.

Some military voices began pushing the Department of Defense 

(DOD) to do more to prevent noncombatant deaths. Air Force major 

Patrick Shaw’s 1997 thesis disaggregated potential causes of civilian 

deaths and offered related military mitigation strategies.1

 A Joint 

Warfighting Center leader in 2003 questioned whether joint doctrine 

needed to do more than discuss collateral damage only as a planning 

factor.2

However, the real driver of change was operational experience. After 

a decade of extended COIN operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, most 

service members understood that civilian casualties were both counterproductive and difficult to avoid when fighting against an irregular 

enemy. Guidance on the use of force, often in the form of tactical directives complementing rules of engagement (ROE), grew more 

complex—as commanders sought to prevent civilian harm. Instead 

of just focusing on targeting decisions, US forces began thinking 

about a broader range of prevention and mitigation activity, and they 
176 │ THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION

began counting foreign civilian deaths. By 2009 US military leaders 

in Afghanistan began using the term civilian casualty to encapsulate 

the general civilian protection challenge, and the term migrated back 

into the services.

Even so, adaptation in the field remained stovepiped, ad hoc, and 

less effective than it could have been. Key lessons learned the hard 

way in Iraq never made it to operations in Afghanistan. As late as 

2010, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) leaders had difficulty tracking, let alone integrating, disparate ISAF efforts to prevent and mitigate civilian harm. Operational leaders at different levels 

sought to address particular aspects of preventing civilian harm, but 

they lacked a common conceptual framework and a comprehensive 

understanding of the challenge.3

Nor had the services—particularly the Army and Marine Corps—

back in the United States kept pace with the civilian casualty mitigation demands of the field. These services lacked specific tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP), and they did not possess codified 

lessons, best practices, or guidance from other services that specifically focused on civilian casualties.

Because the services were slow in adapting, forces had to learn on 

the fly. For example, when Gen David Petraeus, US Army, in spring 

2008 directed an offensive against insurgents in Baghdad’s densely 

populated and politically charged Sadr City, US air and ground elements had to create new tactics and a concept of operations to enable 

precision engagements to halt indirect fire with minimal civilian 

casualties.4

 As late as 2010, ISAF commanders were frustrated by the 

enduring disconnect in priorities accorded civilian casualties by the 

operational force and the Army and Marine Corps.5

 These commanders described newly arriving ground forces as lacking dedicated 

TTP or systematic training on how to minimize civilian harm. They 

reported that forces did not necessarily bring appropriate equipment 

for the Afghan theater.6

The Joint Civilian Casualty Study (JCCS) team sought to address 

many of these gaps. It began by developing a model to help the military conceptualize the problem. The civilian casualty lifecycle model 

(fig. 1) parsed out distinct elements of prevention and mitigation and 

illustrated the interrelationship among the efforts of the institutional 

(services) and operational (deployed) force. The model was designed 

to help leaders better direct, assess, and coordinate civilian casualty 

prevention.
THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION │ 177

Prepare

Assess

Respond

Learn Plan

Employ

Comprehensive

Approach

Figure 1. Lifecycle for reducing and mitigating civilian casualties. 

(Adapted from Sarah Sewall and Larry Lewis, Reducing and Mitigating 

Civilian Casualties: Afghanistan and Beyond, Joint Civilian Casualty Study 

Final Report [Kabul, Afghanistan: International Security Assistance Force, 

31 August 2010], 2, http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/operation_and_plans/

GlobalWarOnTerrorism/Miscellaneous/12-F-0460_doc_01_Reducing_

and_Mitigating_Civilian_Casualties_Afghanistan_and_Beyond.pdf.)

•  Prepare: Doctrine, professional military education (PME), routine and predeployment training and equipping, mission rehearsal exercises, and in-theater training and adaptation

•  Plan: Mission planning, rehearsals, intelligence, information, 

and shaping the environment; also deliberate crisis action planning by the institutional force

•  Employ: Actions on contact, escalation and deescalation of 

force, tactical patience, and application of ROE and tactical directives

•  Assess: Holding the ground, battle handover, battle damage assessments, data collection, and gaming simulations and exercises

•  Respond: Medical response, key leader engagement, media engagement, solatia payments, and other information activities

•  Learn: Reporting, data management, data analysis, after action 

reviews, investigations, and capturing and disseminating lessons learned (both operational and institutional)
178 │ THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION

While the study’s framework was not revolutionary, it filled a critical 

void. It captured the complexity and multidimensional nature of the 

problem, drawn from field analysis in Afghanistan. It highlighted the 

responsibilities of the institutional force—the services—in tackling 

the challenge, and it provided a template for designing and monitoring those efforts. Using this template, even the US Air Force (USAF), 

pioneer in this arena, could identify those phases of response that 

require more attention.7

The JCCS study also offered more than 70 operational and institutional recommendations, based on issues identified in Afghanistan. 

Overall, the services’ civilian casualty prevention efforts have remained principally in the phases of preparation, planning, and employment of force. Yet even in these phases, work remains unfinished. 

For example, most civilian casualty-related training is considered 

part of the COIN predeployment cycle only rather than an element 

that could be incorporated into other types of operational training. 

Some of the JCCS recommendations would have benefits in areas beyond civilian casualty mitigation. For example, the paucity of joint 

practice and preparation for close air support, particularly that involving discrimination between combatants and noncombatants, impedes the effectiveness of US airpower.8

 In other words, there is more 

work to be done even in those areas in which the United States already has made the most progress in mitigating civilian harm.

The fundamental issue facing the US military, particularly the 

Army and Marine Corps, remains the need for institutional change—

internalization within the services that civilian casualty reduction is 

not something that automatically happens but rather requires dedicated attention: technology, tactics, training, and so forth. The present decade began with some encouraging efforts to elevate civilian 

casualties within the joint force and the Army, as described below, 

but these do not appear to have been sustained. Real progress will 

require attention in several key areas: data, learning, analysis, expertise, institutional responsibility, and evaluating US success. These 

challenges are discussed in turn.

Operational Data

One of the most important indicators of an institution’s priorities 

is what it measures. The military came late to measuring civilian 

harm, and it is unclear whether the military will extend this practice 
THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION │ 179

beyond COIN operations. In the 1990s, the DOD developed models 

for predicting civilian casualties from air strikes but did not—and 

still does not—test those models against the actual results of strikes.

The armed forces began systematically recording civilian deaths 

only in 2005 in Iraq and even later in Afghanistan. These efforts had 

weaknesses related to the information that was (and was not) collected. The wide variability of formats for collecting data, confusion 

of relevant terminology, and uneven collation processes combined to 

undermine the utility of the data.9

 Additionally, there was no entity 

responsible for interpreting the civilian casualty data. The Civilian 

Casualty Tracking Cell (CCTC) in Afghanistan collected numbers, 

but the cell itself did limited analytical work. Because the CCTC did 

reach back for support from the United States, no other entity was 

pushed to assume responsibility for civilian casualty expertise.

Moreover, the type of data collected was not ideal for operational 

learning. Tracking casualties captured failure, not success. Since instances of avoiding civilian casualties were not typically recorded, 

best practices largely remained matters of personal experience. Many 

service members were left to make their own tragic mistakes instead 

of learning from those that preceded them.10

While imperfect, the data on civilian deaths helped commanders 

understand overall battlefield trends, particularly the levels of civilian 

harm over time, by region, and in comparing the casualties caused by 

US forces to those caused by enemy fighters. The data also, in the case 

of Iraq, were critical for explaining operational success to external 

audiences.11

In future combined operations, a standardized joint data-collection 

system should be developed and codified, data collection should be 

designed to better support learning, and data should be housed in 

organizations responsible for analysis and learning. For air-only 

operations, alternative data collection methods should be developed 

so that the United States can learn more about the effects of its 

kinetic operations.

Lessons

Until 2011, the Joint Lessons Learned Information System (JLLIS) 

had no formal civilian casualty category. The index of subjects covered 

through the JLLIS was extensive, and by examining other JLLIS 

topics, such as fire control, civilian casualty lessons could be gleaned. 
180 │ THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION

However, a new captain searching JLLIS to learn how best to lead or 

train a company to avoid civilian casualties would have struggled to 

piece together that knowledge.

The fragmentation of civilian casualty learning stood in stark contrast to friendly fire, which had been identified as an independent 

issue within the database, although its lessons, too, must be drawn 

from a variety of other JLLIS topics, such as fire control or communications. The designation of an independent category for friendly fire 

has helped ensure ongoing operational analysis and institutional 

remedies for friendly fire incidents.

The same can be done for civilian casualties. In late 2011, the Joint 

Staff J7 took an important first step by creating a civilian casualty 

“community of practice” within the JLLIS system, consolidating the 

civilian casualty studies conducted since 2009.12 Whether civilian casualty is firmly established as an ongoing topic of institutional concern, rather than a historical artifact, hinges upon whether future 

operational analysis focuses on civilian casualty learning and adaptation.

Analysis

To better understand civilian harm and military operations, the 

military must build a cadre of subject matter experts. Yet civilian 

casualty expertise is limited—in part because the topic is rarely studied. 

This vicious cycle underscores the importance of prioritizing civilian 

casualty as an ongoing concern of the institutional force, regardless of 

whether the topic is dominating headlines at the moment.

In 2009, after almost a decade of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, 

Jacqueline Henningsen and Cliff Tompkins initiated the military’s 

first official analysis of the relationship of airpower to civilian casualties.13 The USAF’s A9 division correlated civilian casualty data available from Human Rights Watch with USAF mission reports to conclude that only roughly 1 percent of air strikes in Afghanistan had 

resulted in civilian harm.14 The study revealed the relative infrequency 

of civilian casualty incidents from airpower. While A9 did not examine 

causality or operational issues related to reducing civilian harm, one 

member of its team later joined the first major civilian casualty study.

At approximately the same time, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff (CJCS), Adm Mike Mullen, directed the Joint Center for Operational Analysis (JCOA), then part of Joint Forces Command, to 

study the 4 May 2009 Farah air strike in Afghanistan. The strike had 
THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION │ 181

killed a large number of civilians and had become a source of tension 

within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and with the Afghan 

government. The case study examined various contributing factors 

and highlighted areas for potential improvement in using airpower in 

the future. It examined only one airpower incident, but two of the 

study’s analysts went on to help lead other civilian casualty studies.15

Civilian casualty expertise began to develop.

The JCCS was the first comprehensive study of civilian harm in a 

US military operation.16 Although proposed and led by a civilian academic (this author), the study was sponsored by senior military officials and included JCOA and service representatives. From 2009 to 

2010, the team researched ISAF and US operations across Afghanistan, ultimately providing an unprecedented primer on civilian casualties and over 70 operational and institutional recommendations. 

Among the more important findings were that Gen Stanley McChrystal’s 

leadership and tactical directive had a significant impact on civilian 

casualties and that success in minimizing civilian harm did not compromise the fighting force or the mission.17

Led by JCCS coauthor Lawrence Lewis, JCOA went on to study 

how the DOD’s learning process addressed civilian casualty issues 

and conducted several other operational civilian casualty studies in 

Afghanistan. It also produced a retrospective analysis of how civilian 

casualty lessons could be institutionalized.18 To this author’s knowledge, 

however, the US military has not conducted analogous comprehensive reviews of civilian casualties in other theaters of war.19

Expertise

Developing and sustaining expertise remains a dilemma for the 

DOD. If an organization fails to develop its capacity to see a problem, 

it may not be able to see that problem. This is especially true if the 

organization largely dismisses external feedback (and the DOD often 

distrusts civilian casualty critiques from the press, nongovernmental 

organizations [NGO], and international organizations). Yet if the organization does not see the problem, it has no incentive to develop 

the requisite capacity to understand and address the issue. This may 

be a hole into which civilian casualty is now falling. Even after the 

USAF began adapting to civilian protection, civilian casualty has yet 

to become part of what Lynn Eden has called the “enmeshing of organizational goals and disciplinary knowledge.”20
182 │ THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION

Operational analysis of civilian casualties is complex, crossing domains of fires, discrimination and positive identification, foreign cultural 

awareness, operational law, tactics, behavioral science, and targeting 

processes. civilian casualty expertise takes time to develop, and the 

DOD is no closer today to having a dedicated cadre of experts than it 

was in 2010. In fact, there are almost certainly more people dedicated 

to studying civilian casualties outside of the US government than 

within it.21 For several decades, human rights NGOs, the United Nations, 

and other organizations have conducted battle-damage assessment 

missions and performed civilian casualty analysis. Individuals specializing in this work acquire important historical and operational 

insights, albeit from the civilian perspective and with information 

that is available in the public domain. International and NGOs are 

likely to increase their study of civilian casualties worldwide. These 

experts are likely to challenge military assumptions and access different 

sources of data. And, until the military develops its own civilian casualty 

expertise, civilian analysis of civilian harm is likely to set the terms of 

the debate.

Institutional Responsibility

Civilian casualties have long been considered an issue of morality. 

While chaplains help service members grapple with their personal 

qualms regarding the use of force, since Vietnam, lawyers have assumed increasing responsibility for assessing civilian harm. They advise commanders and train service members regarding when and 

how targets can be attacked lawfully. Lawyers write ROE and review 

campaign plans. Commanders (and in some cases, the national command authority) make the final decisions, but the lawyers consider 

civilian casualties as part of their legal assessment of proposed targeting 

choices.

However, as explained in chapter 3, an opinion about what is legally 

permissible is not equivalent to a judgment about whether the potential for civilian harm is reasonable, advisable, or preventable through 

alternative approaches. Nor does a legal judgment account for the 

political effects of civilian deaths on an ally, a local population, global 

opinion, or domestic support. In other words, lawyer approval remains necessary, but it may no longer be sufficient in modern war.

The sensitivity of civilian death is a primary reason why the United 

States created civilian casualty thresholds, known as the noncombatant 
THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION │ 183

casualty cutoff value (NCV). These have been used in air campaigns 

since Kosovo. When a proposed strike triggers the NCV by predicting the threshold level of civilian casualties, the targeting decision is 

automatically pushed to higher political authorities—regardless of 

the presumed legality and the importance of the target.

In the military realm, neither lawyers nor chaplains have the institutional stature of members serving in the combat arms. Operators 

tend to be the most respected and influential part of the uniformed 

force, setting the unit tone and priorities. Yet even in 2009, some 

units in Afghanistan looked to lawyers or chaplains as the experts 

most responsible for understanding civilian casualties.22 This remains 

a cultural and organizational barrier to mainstreaming civilian casualty 

mitigation. The problem is not the involvement of lawyers or chaplains per se but rather the implication that operators are not fully responsible for the issue. As the JCCS study found, leadership is key to 

maintaining focus on reducing civilian casualties, especially in the 

face of morale challenges due to friendly force losses or curtailed 

freedom of action.23 As such, operational commanders must own this 

issue directly in the field and, equally important, when they move to 

positions of leadership in the institutional force.

There is no enduring institutional or bureaucratic proponent or 

constituency for reducing civilian harm. As a result, there is no obvious 

destination for the lessons captured in reports posted on JLLIS. Even 

highly useful but seemingly routine work may be left undone. Who in 

the USAF, Navy, or Army is responsible for advocating and budgeting 

for new nonlethal capabilities? Who is responsible for the analysis 

and effort to correct false claims about civilian casualty concerns depriving American troops of crucial air support? Whose job is it to 

scrub the military’s deliberate plans to ensure that civilian harm has 

been thoroughly considered, and how do they know enough has been 

done? Whose promotion is enhanced if the military fights effectively 

with fewer unintended deaths?

Although great progress has been made in enabling US forces to 

reduce civilian harm, that progress may not be sustained without institutional sponsorship. For example, much of the airpower technology 

that enabled civilian casualty reduction was developed for other 

reasons.24 Who will ensure that civilian casualty innovation continues? 

Even where there is dedicated institutional support for civilian casualty mitigation capabilities, efforts may falter without high-level advocacy. At the moment, no one is accountable for determining 
184 │ THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION

whether the United States is doing everything feasible to assess and 

advance civilian protection. Military personnel frequently say that 

everyone deals with civilian casualties—that it is “part of what we do.” 

Yet when everyone is nominally responsible, it is easy for each individual to avoid action. Moreover, when an issue is embedded across a 

thousand other issues—for example, fires; intelligence, surveillance, 

and reconnaissance; and training—it often receives inadequate attention.

The May 2009 civilian casualty incident in Farah, Afghanistan, 

pushed responsibility for institutional adaptation into the office of the 

CJCS. In December, Admiral Mullen established a Joint Staff civilian 

casualty working group of dual-hatted joint officers, meaning that 

they maintained their ongoing responsibilities. The group, which occasionally briefed the service operations deputies, aimed to ensure 

that the services implemented the appropriate civilian casualty prevention lessons from the Farah incident.25 A year and a half later, the 

working group moved to the J-7 (the Joint Staff ’s learning and training arm) with the goal of strengthening expertise and initiatives to 

reduce civilian casualties. However, the group disbanded in 2013.26

Nearly simultaneously, the Army also took steps to institutionalize 

civilian casualty prevention. The commander of the Army’s Training 

and Doctrine Command, Gen Martin Dempsey, decided to assign 

formal responsibility for civilian casualty prevention. Dempsey 

directed that it be integrated within the Army’s most strategic center 

of excellence (COE), the Mission Command COE, where Brig Gen 

Charles Flynn pushed to create simulations, write new doctrine, and 

improve training regarding civilian casualties.27

Flynn’s efforts ultimately yielded two publications that borrowed 

heavily from the JCCS and follow-on JCOA work in Afghanistan. In 

July 2011, the Army published Army Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (ATTP) 3-37.31, Civilian Casualty Mitigation. The publication 

was not exclusively devoted to COIN; it discussed the relevance of 

civilian casualty mitigation across the operational spectrum. Using 

the JCCS civilian casualty lifecycle concept, the new publication 

spelled out the implications of each phase, providing an enduring official template for the Army to address civilian casualty mitigation.28

In 2012 the Center for Army Lesson Learned, with significant support from several JCCS contributors, produced the Afghanistan Civilian Casualty Prevention Handbook. This document focuses primarily 

on preparing forces for COIN and, specifically, operations in Afghanistan. It includes numerous examples and cases to illustrate options 
THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION │ 185

and lessons.29 Through these two publications, the analysis from research studies was able to reach a wider military audience.

Earlier doctrine had treated civilian harm as a question of law or a 

parenthetical planning consideration, except in COIN. Now, Soldiers 

have publications that could help them understand and prepare to 

address multiple aspects of civilian casualty prevention. The two 

publications are therefore significant for the Army, although their 

practical impact on doctrine, organization, training, materiel, and 

leadership remains unclear.

Evaluating Success

Even if each service and the Joint Staff have assigned clear responsibility for improving capabilities to minimize civilian casualties in 

future conflicts, how would an entity know whether it is exerting 

enough, or the right, effort to address civilian casualties? Metrics for 

performance in the field—actual civilian casualties—are not the same 

metrics that are needed to guide institutional efforts.

The services can always do “more,” but in the absence of expertise 

and standards, it is challenging to assess change and impact.30 For 

example, the civilian casualty working group lacked the analytic capability to evaluate whether reported implementation of the Farah 

study recommendations was in fact responsive or effective. Only by 

building and retaining analytical expertise can the DOD effectively 

identify the possibilities, costs, and tradeoffs of preventing civilian 

harm. JCOA, as the generator of multiple civilian casualty studies, is 

the obvious home of expertise, yet its most experienced analyst has 

returned to the Center for Naval Analysis. Apart from A9, the services themselves, as well as the Office of the Secretary of Defense, do 

not appear to have developed dedicated civilian casualty expertise.

One way to build or strengthen this expertise is to partner with 

outside groups that study civilian casualties. Enormous gaps in perceptions and understanding exist between the military and humanitarian communities and between the military perspective and that of 

the broader public. The bottom line is that while the military may not 

have fully exploited opportunities to minimize civilian harm, outsiders 

do not fully appreciate the difficulties and tradeoffs inherent in improving civilian protection. Nonetheless, the two communities share 

the goal of minimizing civilian harm and can learn from one another.
186 │ THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION

Focusing on the how—what the United States can do to protect 

civilians—opens up an evaluation of the costs and tradeoffs associated with different options and forges common cause toward shared 

goals.31 Many civilian casualty mitigation options will be relatively 

easy to adopt. For example, such options will have low financial costs 

and impose few additional risks or frictions. To date, the USAF story 

of adaptation illustrates such possibilities. Other options—from new 

capabilities to alternative TTP—may impose significant risks and 

costs to Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines. The military and humanitarian communities may disagree about which risks are worth 

taking and why, but humanitarians can provide a constructive external pressure, in effect representing the otherwise invisible foreign civilian.

Humanitarian voices are needed to push the military to consider 

the outer limits of adaptation. Because military actors traditionally 

prioritize mission and forces, they will always benefit from external 

prodding—from civilian leadership, from outside advocates, from 

other countries, and from international norms and law—to continue 

testing the assumption that the military is doing everything possible 

to prevent civilian harm in war.

Conclusion

While limited humanitarian air wars prompted USAF adaptation 

in the 1990s, it was the operational impact of civilian casualties during COIN operations that pushed civilian casualties into the joint institutional consciousness by the end of the 2000s. Yet the character of 

US military operations has now changed. The Obama administration 

focused on extricating US forces from large-scale COIN operations 

while retaining a robust global counterterrorism campaign using remotely piloted vehicles (RPV). This is exemplified by the fact that in 

2014 the United States rebuilt an international coalition to destroy 

the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)—largely relying on 

airpower.

The future of civilian casualty prevention efforts may be linked to 

broader questions about the US military’s focus in the coming decades. What kinds of wars will the United States prepare to fight? 
THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION │ 187

How much does avoiding civilian harm help or hinder those operations? The Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” emphasizes air and 

naval power as well as cyber capabilities to preclude a competitor 

from destabilizing or dominating the region. Reorienting military capabilities toward large-scale conventional conflict tempts a return to 

earlier paradigms of war. In this environment, ground forces in particular risk misperceiving civilian harm as purely a function of COIN, 

rather than, as the USAF has learned, an enduring modern phenomenon.

A major conventional conflict—the standard unit of US military 

planning —might suggest reduced sensitivity to civilian casualties, just 

as global war in the 1940s exerted enormous pressure on American 

leaders and prompted use of the atomic bomb. On the other hand, 

how would South Koreans judge US military support that had failed 

to do everything possible to mitigate harm to Korean citizens in the 

name of defending them? Meanwhile, civilian casualties remain a 

controversial aspect of counterterrorism operations using RPVs and 

have begun to emerge as a vulnerability in the counter-ISIL air campaign.32 Minimizing civilian harm will remain important across the 

operational spectrum for a variety of reasons, such as ensuring coalition support, maintaining operational freedom, and demonstrating 

US moral and political character.33

From the contemporary perspective, a pragmatic military selfinterest in minimizing civilian harm seems obvious, but this has not 

always been the case. For much of the twentieth century, the United 

States convinced itself that as long as its intentions were good—it did 

not seek to harm noncombatants—inadvertent harm to civilians was 

both unavoidable and legally justified. It was war, after all, and civilian deaths were simply collateral damage.

Today’s military attitudes have changed, but there is nothing inexorable about the military’s institutional prioritization of civilian 

casualty mitigation. During the Vietnam War, the secondary effects 

of civilian harm undermined the mission, and while field operations 

sought to adapt to this reality, the services resisted translating this 

lesson into lasting institutional change.34 If history is any guide, then, 

the services risk downplaying the operational costs of civilian harm 

as they prepare for the kind of future wars they would prefer to fight. 

Success in civilian casualty mitigation efforts requires constant effort.
188 │ THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION

Notes

1. Patrick M. Shaw, “Collateral Damage and the United States Air Force” (MA 

thesis, School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air Force 

Base, AL, June 1997).

2. US Joint Force Command (JWFC), Doctrine Pamphlet 2, Doctrinal Implications of Low Collateral Damage Capabilities, 27 January 2003, 1.

3. Sarah Sewall and Larry Lewis, Reducing and Mitigating Civilian Casualties: 

Afghanistan and Beyond, Joint Civilian Casualty Study Final Report (Kabul, Afghanistan: 

International Security Assistance Force, 31 August 2010), ii, http://www.dod.mil/

pubs/foi/operation_and_plans/GlobalWarOnTerrorism/Miscellaneous/12-F-0460_

doc_01_Reducing_and_Mitigating_Civilian_Casualties_Afghanistan_and_Beyond.

pdf.

4. Larry Lewis, interview with the author, Suffolk, VA, 12 July 2009.

5. The JCCS study, therefore, concluded that there was “a general lack of synchronization between forces in-theater and CONUS institutions regarding the issue 

of civilian casualties.” Sewall and Lewis, Joint Civilian Casualty Study, 12.

6. Ibid., ii.

7. Shortfalls exist principally in the USAF’s assessment and learning areas; in the 

“response” phase, the USAF has minimal responsibilities.

8. Sewall and Lewis, Reducing and Mitigating Civilian Casualties, 141. Common 

mission-essential task lists should be developed for joint training exercises and doctrine, and TTPs should be harmonized so that language and practices are uniform 

across services.

9. Sewall and Lewis, Reducing and Mitigating Civilian Casualties, 11.

10. See, for example, a Marine’s critique of the failure to capture and train lessons to 

mitigate civilian casualties at checkpoints. Nathaniel Fick, “Manning the Barricades,” New 

York Times, 13 March 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/opinion/13fick.html.

11. Gen David H. Petraeus, commander, Multi-National Force–Iraq, congressional testimony, in House, Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq, Joint Hearing 

before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on Armed 

Services, 110th Cong., 1st sess., 10 September 2007, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/

pdfs/petraeus-testimony20070910.pdf.

12. This was the result of the CJCS’s creation of a high-level CIVCAS working 

group, described below. This underscores the need for institutional responsibility in 

order to spur further changes within the military system.

13. As noted in chapter 1.

14. Clifford Tompkins, “Kinetic Airpower and Civilian Casualties” (PowerPoint 

presentation, USAF HAF A9A, Rosslyn, VA, June 2009).

15. Joint Center for Operational Analysis (JCOA), DOD, “Civilian Casualties in 

Afghanistan” (Farah Quick Look brief, Suffolk, VA, July 2009), https://info.publicintelligence.net/USMC-CivilianCasualtiesMitigation.pdf.

16. Sewall and Lewis, Reducing and Mitigating Civilian Casualties.

17. Ibid., 6, 31. 

18. JCOA, Reducing and Mitigating Civilian Casualties: Enduring Lessons (Suffolk, 

VA: JCOA, 12 August 2013), http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/research/CIVCAS_

Enduring_Lessons.pdf.
THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION │ 189

19. CIVCAS analysis of NATO’s Operation Unified Protector in Libya, for example, 

could have yielded significant lessons for US forces. During peacetime, CIVCAS 

issues should be addressed through war games, tabletop exercises, and simulations 

to draw lessons; test operational concepts, technologies, and TTP; and evaluate any 

potential tradeoffs between risk to forces and operational effectiveness.

20. Lynn Eden, Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear 

Weapons Devastation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 6.

21. US civilian analysts and organizations prominently involved in this work include William Arkin, who first began conducting CIVCAS analysis during Operation Desert Storm; Human Rights Watch researchers (including Marc Garlasco and 

Bonnie Docherty), who conduct field surveys in conflicts worldwide; Carl Conetta at 

the Project on Defense Alternatives; the Iraq Body Count; and the Coalition for Innocent Victims of Conflict. The UN now routinely conducts detailed CIVCAS analysis. 

The number of foreign organizations monitoring CIVCAS by combatants in armed 

conflict continues to increase. See, for example, Alessandria Masi, “In Syria’s Civilian 

Death Toll, The Islamic State Group, or ISIS, Is a Far Smaller Threat Than Bashar Assad,” 

International Business Times, 7 January 2015, http://www.ibtimes.com/syrias-civiliandeath-toll-islamic-state-group-or-isis-far-smaller-threat-bashar-1775238.

22. Author’s experience interviewing units in Afghanistan, 2009–2010.

23. Sewall and Lewis, Reducing and Mitigating Civilian Casualties, 38.

24. A9 summarized CIVCAS progress as a byproduct of the economy of force. 

Tompkins, “Kinetic Air Power and Civilian Casualties,” slide 6.

25. Nathan Hodge, “U.S. Finishing Afghan Casualty Review,” Wall Street Journal, 

26 January 2011, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704013604576104

321480503788. The Farah study examined a single air incident, not activities within 

a theater of operations over time (this was the JCCS study). 

26. Its last act was transferring the JCOA Enduring Lessons report to Joint Lessons Learned Information System. Larry Lewis, e-mail to the author, 6 January 2015. 

27. Mission Command Center of Excellence, command briefing, 5 July 2011, 

slide 6.

28. Army Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (ATTP) 3-37.31, Civilian Casualty Mitigation, July 2012, http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/DR_pubs/dr_a/pdf/

attp3_37x31.pdf.

29. Center for Army Lessons Learned, CALL Handbook No. 12-16, Afghanistan 

Civilian Casualty Prevention, 16 June 2012, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/

report/call/call_12-16.pdf.

30. A9 expressed this concern in noting the need for “analytics based metrics for assessment” of institutional effort. Tompkins, “Kinetic Air Power and Civilian Casualties,” 

slide 13.

31. This was the experience of military and human rights actors participating in 

the National Security and Human Rights Program at Harvard University from 2001 

to 2008.

32. Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Probes Civilian Casualties in Iraq, Syria,” Wall Street 

Journal, 6 January 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/ u-s-acknowledges-probes-ofcivilian-casualties-in-iraq-syria-1420582071.
190 │ THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN CASUALTY PREVENTION

33. A9 notes that civilian casualties impact the relationship between coalition 

partners and the partner nation/people. Tompkins, “Kinetic Air Power and Civilian 

Casualties,” slide 7.

34. See John A. Nagl’s foreword to the University of Chicago Press edition of the 

U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago: University of 

Chicago Press, 2007).
Chapter 7

Success

The United States Air Force (USAF) has enjoyed great success in 

minimizing civilian harm in war. While this success emerged as the 

collateral benefit of a technological evolution, the USAF also began to 

promote purposefully the goal of mitigating civilian casualties (CIVCAS). 

During the 1990s, conscious efforts to innovate in weapons development, targeting methodologies, and tactics, techniques, and procedures enabled the USAF to achieve its military objectives while reducing risks to noncombatants.

Since airpower’s birth, USAF doctrinal principles, such as the 

economy of force, had predisposed the service toward precision. Yet 

through much of the twentieth century, technology had limited airpower’s ability to be precise. As the Cold War neared an end, however, advances in munitions; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and delivery platforms enabled the USAF to envision, and 

then demonstrate, the ability to focus on achieving specific effects in 

armed conflict, rather than focusing primarily on the destruction of 

enemy military capabilities. 

The reshaped security landscape also increased the feasibility of—

and the incentives for—USAF efforts to address civilian casualties. 

With the demise of the Soviet Union, the prospect of a global conflict 

between two superpowers gradually diminished, and US military 

planning began to focus on less existential scenarios in which rules 

and limits on the use of force appeared more germane. Furthermore, 

US military superiority—and specifically its dramatic airpower advantage over potential adversaries—reduced key risks and costs to 

pilots as they experimented with new tactics. A diminished air-to-air 

threat allowed the USAF to concentrate on targeting and support of 

ground operations.

Finally, US military operations increasingly revealed civilian casualties as an operational constraint, as a coalition wedge, as a propaganda vulnerability, as a reflection of national values and “soft power,” 

and even as counterproductive for operational success. Airpower 

planners began facing these realities a full decade before ground 

forces were forced to reckon with the same issues. From the searing 

experience of the Al Firdos bombing during the 1991 Persian Gulf 
192 │ SUCCESS

War to the recurring front-page civilian casualty incidents during the 

two Balkans air campaigns, civilian casualties imposed real costs. 

Chastened by criticism for killing noncombatants during the 1990s, 

the USAF began to dedicate additional investments, new tools, and 

different approaches to further reduce the risks to civilians.

Perhaps most critically, the USAF had begun to change its way of 

thinking. The service no longer needed to focus on destruction in the 

name of ensuring results; the new planning mind-set sought instead 

to identify specific targets that could achieve equivalent effects with 

reduced destruction and collateral damage. The USAF moved beyond 

reliance on the “floor” of the law of armed conflict and instead sought 

to minimize civilian harm as an operational priority.

As a result, farsighted and far-reaching institutional adaptation began. 

Rather than simply adjusting in the field to operational restrictions 

resulting from sensitivity to civilian harm, the USAF invested in lasting innovations, including the collateral damage estimation process, 

discriminate capabilities, and an effects-based orientation. These 

suggested a deeper, institutional commitment to civilian casualty 

prevention. And as the USAF pursued technology and developed 

new targeting concepts consistent with USAF tenets, new opportunities to mitigate harm emerged.

Over the past 20 years, the USAF has been at the vanguard of addressing what the US military now refers to simply as civilian casualties. 

This has benefited the United States in many respects, but it has also 

benefited the USAF and airpower. The USAF has been able to advance its normative intent without impeding its operational effectiveness. Its institutional adaptation has reduced the likelihood that operators would have to make zero-sum choices among civilian protection, 

self-protection, and mission accomplishment. Moreover, by addressing high-level political concerns about the impact of civilian harm, 

the USAF has advanced its institutional interest in maintaining freedom of action. Improving civilian casualty mitigation also helped ensure that airpower would remain a capability of choice. Finally, this 

progress has been consistent with key tenets of airpower and has 

“cost” the service relatively little in time and resources.1

Americans are proud that their armed forces fight with professionalism and humanity, and Americans believe the military does all it 

can to minimize civilian harm. The military in turn should be making 

every effort to do just that. However, ground forces remain significantly behind in their institutional innovation to prevent civilian 
SUCCESS │ 193

casualties. Moreover, it remains unclear whether civilian casualty adaptation within the USAF will be fully institutionalized or will eventually wither away. For those who believe the civilian casualty issue has 

been “solved” or no longer requires dedicated attention, it is worth considering an analogous issue: fratricide.

Since the early days of the republic, the US armed forces had considered fratricide, like civilian casualty, an unavoidable aspect of war. 

And, as in the case of civilian casualty, the American military has 

always sought to minimize the accidental killing of friendly forces. 

However, through most of the military’s history, fratricide was not an 

independent priority for the institutional force. That is to say that 

while fratricide was a constant operational concern and an inherent 

element of training, it was not regarded as a problem that could be 

addressed effectively on its own. Instead, reducing friendly fire would 

be a collateral benefit of other improvements in military capability. 

Fratricide lacked an institutional proponent pushing for dedicated 

solutions. While a constant concern of Americans and the US military, fratricide was almost invisible from an institutional and organizational perspective.

This situation changed after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Americans 

and the US military began to see fratricide in a different light—as a 

tragedy that could be greatly reduced, if not permanently eliminated.2

Increased attention, advocacy, and dedicated funding pushed the institutional force to devote resources to preventing fratricide in future 

conflicts. While fratricide still tragically occurs, forces have benefitted 

from innovations such as Blue Force Tracker—a GPS-enabled system 

providing location information regarding friendly and hostile forces.3

If the military institutionalizes a focus on civilian casualty in a similar 

manner, the United States can continue to whittle away at the enduring challenge of noncombatant deaths. Even the USAF can do more, 

in each of the areas highlighted in chapter 6, to ensure civilian casualty 

remains an institutional priority.

Public concerns about civilian casualties in war seem to “stick” 

most to airpower, even during combined operations when ground 

commanders control air strikes. This is ironic given that airpower led 

the way in developing new approaches to reduce civilian casualties. 

Airmen fear that US power, and airpower in particular, may never be 

good enough because it is always chasing its own success. They have a 

point. Thus, it is essential that we applaud and recognize the progress 

achieved to date. 
194 │ SUCCESS

It is precisely because US leaders assert, and Americans believe, 

that the armed forces do everything possible to minimize civilian 

harm, that this is the standard to which the USAF and US military 

more broadly should aspire. Therefore, civilian casualty prevention 

must become not just a goal during combat operations but also an 

essential element of improving capabilities and options for the next 

armed conflict. The USAF, which learned this lesson over a decade 

ago, must therefore continue chasing its considerable success.

Notes

1. The costs may vary dramatically among the services; in particular, air and land 

forces face very different risks in tactical actions to avoid CIVCAS.

2. An estimated 24 percent of all US combat deaths were due to friendly fire, a 

rate that was considered shockingly high both because of the small number of total 

combat deaths and due to a historical underestimation of fratricide rates. Office of 

Technology Assessment, US Congress, Who Goes There: Friend or Foe? (Washington, 

DC: Government Printing Office, June 1993), 1.

3. Anne Plummer, “DOD Attempts to Tackle Fratricide Problem That’s Lingered 

since 1991,” Inside the Army, 22 March 2004.
Abbreviations

AAC Air Armaments Center

ACTS Air Corps Tactical School

AFDD Air Force doctrine document

AFHRC Air Force Historical Research Center

AFMAN Air Force manual

AFPAM Air Force pamphlet

AI Amnesty International

AP I Protocol Additional (I) to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949

CALL United States Army Center for Lessons Learned

CCTC Civilian Casualty Tracking Cell

CDA collateral damage assessment

CDE collateral damage estimate

CDET Collateral Damage Estimate Tool

CDM collateral damage mitigation

CFACC Combined Force Air Component commander

CIVCAS civilian casualty(ies)

CJCS chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

CJCSI Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff instruction

COCOM combatant command

COE center of excellence

COIN counterinsurgency

CWEAT conventional weapons effects assessment team

DOD Department of Defense

DOTMLPF doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities

EBO effects-based operation

FLM Focused Lethality Munition

FM US Army field manual

GAO Government Accountability Office (formerly 

General Accounting Office)
196 │ ABBREVIATIONS

GBU guided bomb unit

GPS Global Positioning System

GWAPS Gulf War Air Power Survey

HRW Human Rights Watch

ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross

ICTY International Criminal Tribunal of the Former 

Yugoslavia

IED improvised explosive device

IHL international humanitarian law

ISAF International Security Assistance Force

ISIL Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant

JCCS Joint Civilian Casualty Study

JCOA Joint Center for Operational Analysis

JDAM Joint Direct Attack Munition

JIEDDO Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization

JLLIS Joint Lessons Learned Information System

JP joint publication

JTAC joint terminal attack controller

JUON Joint Urgent Operational Need

JWAC Joint Warfighting Analysis Center

JWFC Joint Warfighting Center

LCDC low-collateral-damage capabilities

LOAC law of armed conflict

LOW law of war

MISREP mission report

MRAP Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NCV noncombatant casualty cutoff value

NGO nongovernmental organization

OAF Operation Allied Force

OIF Operation Iraqi Freedom
ABBREVIATIONS │ 197

PGM precision-guided munition

PME professional military education

RAF Royal Air Force

ROE rules of engagement

RPV remotely piloted vehicle

RTS Radio Television of Serbia

SAC Strategic Air Command

SACEUR Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (NATO)

SDB small diameter bomb

SF United States special forces

SIGACTS significant activities

STAR sensitive target approval and review

TTP tactics, techniques, and procedures

UK United Kingdom

UN United Nations

US Unites States

USAAF United States Army Air Force

USAF United States Air Force

USCENTAF United States Central Air Force

USCENTCOM United States Central Command

USMC United States Marine Corps

UNSC United Nations Security Council

USSBS US Strategic Bombing Survey

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Afghanistan, 126-132, 145, 156, 162, 

163, 165, 173-179, 181, 182

Air Armaments Center, 160

Air Corps Tactical School, 27

Al Firdos, 106, 110, 189

Amiriyah, 106, 108-110, 117, 122, 123, 

131, 146

Amnesty International, 73

Baghdad, 103, 106, 109, 110, 126, 129, 

174

Belgrade, 116, 117, 120, 122

bombing, 23-33, 35-37, 40-45, 47, 49-

53, 77, 85, 86, 106, 108-110, 112, 

114-116, 119-122, 126, 130-132, 

146, 150-153, 158, 189

Bush, George H. W. 

9,54,93,95,103,105,108,133

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

33, 107, 117, 148, 156, 178

China, 35, 42

civilian casualties, 23, 29, 34, 37-41, 43, 

45-48, 52, 53, 73, 77, 78, 85, 86, 90, 

91, 101-106, 109-114, 116-119, 121, 

122, 124-127, 129-131, 145-147, 

149-154, 156, 157, 161, 165, 173-

185, 189-191

civilian protection, 35, 36, 39, 41, 49-

51, 53, 69, 73, 78, 85, 89, 91, 103, 

104, 106, 108, 110, 113, 115-117, 

119-121, 123, 125-128, 145, 147-

150, 154, 158, 164, 173, 174, 179, 

182, 183, 190

cluster munitions, 77, 120, 121, 157

Cold War, 23, 33, 37, 40, 49, 52, 69, 

127, 148, 189

collateral damage, 24, 37-40, 42, 43, 46, 

50, 52, 76, 77, 85, 87, 102, 106, 111-

114, 124-128, 130, 132, 145-148, 

151-165, 173, 185, 190

collateral damage estimate, 124, 125, 

153, 157

Collateral Damage Estimate Tool, 124

collateral damage mitigation, 87, 130, 

132, 147, 163, 164

compliance, 52, 69, 71, 74, 75, 89, 91, 

92, 105, 117, 124, 164

Department of Defense, 34, 104, 106, 

173

depleted uranium, 121

Desert Storm (Operation), 103

Djakovica, 120, 121

DDresden, 30-32, 34

dual-use, 76, 77, 80, 82, 117

Eighth Air Force, 29, 30

Farah, 130, 178, 182, 183

Firdos, 106, 110, 189

firebombing, 31, 32, 35, 36

flight deck, 120, 121

Focused Lethality Munition, 161

France, 24, 115, 119

fratricide, 191

General Order No. 100, 71

Germany, 25, 115

Global Positioning System, 159

Grdelica, 120

Hague, 26, 70

Hamas, 15,22

Hanoi, 42-44

Hiroshima, 32

Human Rights Watch, 74, 126, 178

Hussein, Saddam, 9, 103,105, 

107,108,133,134,146

industrial web, 27, 50, 103

Instant Thunder (Operation), 103

International Committee of the Red 

Cross, 74

international humanitarian law, 69, 88, 

115

International Security Assistance 

Force, 130, 174, 175

Iraq, 51, 103, 109, 111, 112, 126-131, 

145, 147, 151, 152, 156, 161, 162, 

165, 173, 174, 177, 178, 184

Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant 

(ISIL), 184

Israel, 15,22

Italy, 25, 115, 119

Japan, 31

Index
224 │ index

Joint Center for Operational Analysis, 

178

Joint Civilian Casualty Study, 174, 175

Joint Direct Attack Munition, 121, 159

Joint Lessons Learned Information 

System, 177

Joint Urgent Operational Need, 161

Joint Warfighting Analysis Center, 152

Joint Warfighting Center, 152, 173

Jumper, John ,139,149

Korea, 34-37, 40, 42, 43, 45, 52, 83, 85

Kosovo, 73, 76, 83, 86, 89, 114, 116, 

118, 120-126, 132, 147-150, 153, 

159, 181

Kuwait, 103

Lafayette Escadrille, 24

law of armed conflict, 38, 69, 70, 102, 

190

law of war, 40, 71, 117, 155

Leaf, Daniel, 121,123

LeMay, Curtis, 31,56,58

Lewis, Lawrence, 179

Lewy, Guenter, 43, 44, 53, 62, 63 

Libya, 25, 107

Lieber Code, 71

Lilienthal, David 33, 58

limited war, 24, 34

Lincoln, Abraham, 71

Linebacker (Operation), 40

low-collateral-damage capabilities, 164

MacArthur, Douglas, 36, 59, 60

Martinez, Jerry, 171

McChrystal, Stanley, 130, 131, 144, 

179

McDonald, Brian, 149, 166

McKiernan, David, 16, 22

Middle East, 102, 112, 152

military necessity, 33, 71, 73, 90, 104, 

155

Milosevic, Slobodan, 83, 86, 114, 117, 

125, 149

Mitchell, William, 26, 45, 52, 55

morale, 25, 26, 29, 30, 36, 42, 50, 52, 

77-80, 83, 85, 181

Mullen, Michael, 178, 182

My Lai, 45, 71

Nagasaki, 32

Niš, 121

Nixon, Richard, 40, 41, 42, 62

No Gun Ri, 35, 36

no-fly zone, 111, 147, 148

noncombatant, 28, 33, 43, 46, 71, 72, 

87, 102, 104, 123, 125, 126, 128, 

131, 153, 155, 173, 180, 191

noncombatant casualty cutoff value, 

153, 180

norms, 88, 92, 184

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 

73, 119, 179

Northern Watch (Operation), 111

Obama, Barack, 184

Oxfam, 11

Pape, Robert, 27, 28, 42, 44, 54, 55, 56, 

59, 62, 63, 66,

Parks, W. Hays, 19, 30, 58, 62, 63, 64, 

65, 80, 93, 94, 96, 98, 140, 142

Persian Gulf War, 112, 189, 191

Petraeus, David, 129, 130, 144, 174, 

186

Powell, Colin, 64, 107, 109, 110, 135, 

146

precision, 27-30, 32, 33, 37, 44, 46-53, 

85, 91, 103-106, 108, 114, 121, 147, 

149, 151, 152, 157-160, 162, 163, 

174, 189

professional military education, 102, 

175

proportionality, 71, 72, 77-80, 87, 123, 

148, 153, 155

Protocol Additional (I) to the Geneva 

Conventions of 12 August 1949, 82

Provide Comfort (Operation), 111,136

public opinion, 27, 109, 110, 119

Quintet, 115, 118, 119

Ralston, Joseph, 148, 166

refugees, 30, 35, 36, 121

Rolling Thunder (Operation), 40, 41, 

42, 43, 62, 63, 142

Roosevelt, Franklin, 28, 32, 56

Royal Air Force, 28

rules of engagement, 43, 104, 114, 173

Russia, 42

Ryan, Michael, 101, 113, 114, 123, 137

Sadr City, 174
index │ 225

Sarajevo, 113

Save the Children, 11

Schwarzkopf, Norman, 109, 134, 135

Schweinfurt, 29

Scowcroft, Brent, 109

Serbia, 81, 120

Short, Michael, 65, 117, 118, 120, 121, 

141, 148, 166

skepticism, 75, 76

small diameter bomb, 160

smart weapons, 47

Southern Watch (Operation), 111, 138

Soviet Union, 35, 46, 112, 189

Spaatz, Carl, 29

special forces, 126, 128

Spires, Andrew, 162

Srebrenica, 113

Sri Lanka, 15, 19, 22

Stimson, Henry, 32, 57, 58

Strategic Air Command, 158

strategic bombing, 23, 24, 30, 33, 36, 

41, 43-45, 47, 50-53, 122, 126, 150, 

151

strategy, 27-30, 34, 35, 39, 41, 44, 79, 

104, 113, 116, 126, 146, 149

surface-to-air missiles, 42, 105, 120

tactics, techniques, and procedures, 47, 

174, 182, 189

targeting, 25-28, 30-35, 37-40, 42, 47, 

49-52, 76-80, 82-85, 91, 102-105, 

109, 113-117, 124-127, 132, 146, 

147, 149-152, 155-158, 161, 162, 

173, 180, 181, 189, 190

Thanh Hoa, 48

Tokyo, 31, 32, 34, 51

Tompkins, Cliff, 18, 19, 22, 144, 168, 

171, 178, 186, 187, 188

Trenchard, Hugh, 26, 54, 56

Truman, Harry, 35, 58

Tucker, Michael, 3, 4

Unified Protector (Operation), 12, 187

United Kingdom, 111, 112, 115

United Nations, 34, 107, 108, 151, 180

United States Central Command, 156

Vietnam, 23, 40-46, 48, 52, 71, 83, 85, 

103, 104, 106, 123, 129, 146, 147, 

151, 158, 161, 180, 185

von Clausewitz, Carl, 50, 146

von Moltke, Helmuth 45, 64

Wald, Charles 118

Walzer, Michael, 10, 20, 58, 93

war crime, 73

Warden, John III, 50, 66, 103, 104

Warsaw Pact, 46, 49

war-sustaining, 80, 82, 83, 85

Weinberger, Casper, 45, 51, 64, 128, 

146, 161

Westmoreland, William, 41

World War I, 24-26

World War II, 23, 26, 28, 32, 34, 36, 37, 

42, 44, 45, 52, 83

Yugoslavia, 84, 112, 113

Zemin, Jiang, 122