Military Ethics and Peace Psychology: A Dialogue:a Special Issue of Peace and Conflict by Jean Maria Arrigo & Richard V. Wagner

Author:Jean Maria Arrigo & Richard V. Wagner [Arrigo, Jean Maria & Wagner, Richard V.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Security (National & International), Peace, Psychology, General, Applied Psychology, Social Psychology
ISBN: 9781317759201
Google: w2kJBAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 22830898
Publisher: Psychology Press
Published: 2014-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

Escalation of Conflict

Roblyer states, “The international law of warfare is very clear that civilian persons who are not actively aiding the enemy military forces must not be the objective, or target, of any attack” (this issue, p. 18, italics added). Although the definition of actively aiding may be relatively clear in conventional “uniformed military to uniformed military” conflict, we argue that in the conflicts we are describing, as conflicts continue, decision makers may be unconsciously motivated to view a greater percentage of the population as actively aiding militants. For instance, at the start of the second intifada between the Israelis and Palestinians, the Israelis targeted leaders and members of militant groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. As suicide bombings became more prolific, notably in the spring of 2002, the Israeli army expanded its targets. Not only were perpetrators of violence considered valid targets but also were the people who did not prevent the violence—families of suicide bombers, towns where perpetrators resided, and so on. As the conflict escalated, the Israeli army was more likely to see those who were passive participants in the intifada—for example, those not turning over militants—as active participants.

As this previous example illustrates, when conflict escalates, decision makers broaden the category of who qualifies as actively aiding the militants. We argue that this occurs through a process of deindividuation and cognitive dissonance. Deindividuation is a process by which a person disregards differentiating information and instead sees individual others as part of a category or group (Rubin, Pruitt, & Kim, 1994). As conflict escalates, people are less likely to differentiate between people because their cognitive resources become depleted (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). In addition to distinguishing between militants and civilians, when conflict escalates, the miltary’s lives are at greater risk and, therefore, they cannot devote the same amount of attention to the issue of civilian casualties. Consequently, military officers may be less likely to distinguish between people who are actively aiding militants and those who are not aiding or only doing so by acts of omission (e.g., not turning militants in).

Cognitive dissonance also plays a role in how conflict escalation narrows the category of who is a civilian, as the military needs to justify cases of civilian casualties that have already occurred. For instance, a military officer may ask himself, “Were these really civilian casualties or are they actually people who were aiding the militants?” From the military perspective, to think you were responsible for civilian deaths is extremely dissonant with one’s self-image. To believe that those killed were militants reduces this dissonance. Another source of dissonance is the belief that civilians surrounding the militants could have prevented the actions committed by the militants. From the military perspective, with the violence at such high levels, how could these other people be truly innocent civilians? Either the violence cannot be that extreme or the civilians must have known about the militants’ plans. In this case, it’s easier to change one’s beliefs about the civilians than to change one’s beliefs about the violence.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.