Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
OK, we are building it - and you are supposed to post here. You do not have to be a lawyer.

This is not a Charlie Dunlap thread; but he started writing about this topic in 2001. Let's start with two shorter articles; and end with his law review article from 2001.

Lawfare amid warfare 2007 (Wash Times)

Lawfare: A Decisive Element of 21st-Century Conflicts? 2009 (JFQ)

Law and Military Interventions: Preserving Humanitarian Values in 21st Conflicts 2001 (Duke)
I read the Dunlap pieces in chronological order. I have a few questions.

1. Dunlap asserts arguendo that landmines could be used in a creative manner, quoted below. How realistic is this?
"In my opinion the objective of neutralizing a WMD capability might be more safely undertaken simply by dousing the installation with hundreds if not thousands of highly sophisticated landmines. Rendering it unusable until it can be brought under control by friendly forces would seem to be in keeping with humanitarian values." – page 13
2. He suggests a similar approach to rendering an airfield unusable by the enemy. Has this ever been seriously considered?
"... shower the runway with a variety of landmines that make it impossible for aircraft to land or takeoff." – page 13
3. He gives an example of a use of cluster munitions. Is this how we actually have used them?
"... where an enemy places military equipment such as an anti-aircraft system on something like a dam, cluster munitions can attack the site without risking the catastrophic destruction of the dam itself." – page 14
4. Lastly, he states that banning cluster munitions will influence how the enemy arrays his forces.
"... banning cluster munitions invites adversaries to wage lawfare by placing military objects on or near facilities whose destruction by other weapons (e.g., high explosives) puts civilians and their property at risk." – page 14
Has this ever occurred? Do we suspect that any enemy has places weapons in this manner due to a belief that we would not use cluster munitions? I don’t understand why the enemy would expect us to use cluster munitions on such targets but not GPS-guided missiles. The assertion by Dunlap seems counterintuitive to me.

 One comment. In his 2009 piece in Joint Forces Quarterly, Dunlap gives a lot of attention to documenting operations in order to combat the "lawfare" claims that will be made by our adversaries. I was anticipating some emphasis on decisions regarding whether or not an operation should even be attempted when the likelihood of such claims seem very likely and very damaging. It seemed odd that he made no such mention of this consideration. Did I miss it?