Whose Life Is Worth More? by Levy Yagil;

Whose Life Is Worth More? by Levy Yagil;

Author:Levy, Yagil; [Levy, Yagil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2019-08-14T16:00:00+00:00


7

Tactical Transfer of Risk in Fallujah and Gaza

Chapter 6 presented the Kosovo War as an example of risk transfer at the strategic level, characterized by the decision to refrain from deploying ground forces from the outset. However, risk can be shifted at the tactical level as well, such as when decision makers decide to deploy ground forces but also to adopt tactics that shift at least part of the risk from their own soldiers to enemy noncombatants, as described in section 6.1.

Risk transfer can be demonstrated by comparing cases or deployments to identify variations over time, although single cases can also give us a fairly credible picture. I therefore present two sets of serial cases: the two US-led campaigns to capture the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004, operations that symbolized US aggressiveness in Iraq, and Israel’s campaigns in Gaza—operations Summer Rains (2006), Cast Lead (2008–2009), and Protective Edge (2014). The cases in each set are largely comparable, providing the opportunity to measure variations in risk transfer from one operation to the next by controlling arena-related variables. Therefore, the proximity in time between the operations is important. These cases typify an armed dispute between a democratic state (where the dilemma leading to risk transfer is more acute than in nondemocracies) and a nonstate actor in an urban terrain (where the underlying dilemma is most relevant). These criteria exclude such cases as Israel’s two Lebanon wars (separated by twenty-four years) or nondemocratic Russia’s Chechen wars. No less important, these cases are more complicated than those studied in previous chapters in terms of the inferences produced by the (disputed) fatality figures; therefore, they also contribute methodological insights, and the chapter is accordingly organized to highlight this contribution. I describe each serial case, beginning with the operations and the fatalities that occurred, and then I explain variations in fire policies that resulted from changes in the interactions between the legitimacies during the operations.

7.1 The Battles of Fallujah

Risk transfer, an active form of force protection, typified the conduct of US troops in Iraq from the eruption of the insurgency until at least the surge of 2007 (see Chapter 8), together with passive practices of force protection as typified by the forward operating bases (FOBs) from 2004 to 2006 (see section 5.1). Burton and Nagl (2006, 304) and Smith (2008, 151–157; 2017, 70–79) mapped a series of policies and practices indicating risk transfer. First, the language of self-defense received a central place in the rules disseminated to the troops. At the same time, the criteria for defining the threat against which the use of force was allowed were relaxed to “perceived threats,” a more subjective determination. Second, estimates of collateral damage from air attacks, which had been stringently applied during the invasion and the first period of the occupation, were gradually relaxed; by implication, so too were the restrictions on strikes in proximity to civilians. Third, practices like area targeting, punishing artillery fire, and cluster bombs caused the death of noncombatants, sometimes also because indirect artillery fire and airstrikes were employed in close proximity to civilian areas.



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