GWOT... Nope. Long War... Nope. Overseas Contingency Operation... Yes!

[jmm99]

from JP
the question of which law applies - Local laws and regulations (State and Federal Statutes) or the laws of warfare (UCMJ/Geneva Convention).

cut across a number of currently on-going threads. The answers are NOT matters of law only, although the Rule of Law (local and international) and the Laws of War do come into play.

Two levels will come into play, besides law:

1. The current study of "irregular warfare" and the military policies that will be developed from that, including the applicable SROEs.

2. The national strategic policy that is currently under development - not for the far future, but the policy that will be in effect for, say, 2010 (not 4 or 10 years in the future).

This is complicated because one size will not fit all of the situations. From a legal standpoint - and from the military SROE standpoint, I see at least four different situations that the military will have to confront:

1. Conventional warfare.

2. Insurgency (primarily focused on one nation which has one or more Domestic Violent Non-State Actors - DVNSA, with or without external support by one or more State or Non-State Actors).

3. Military action against Transnational Violent Non-State Actors (TVNSA), such as AQ, who launch attacks across international borders. Related to this is the permissible scope of civilian agency paramilitary action against the same TVNSA target. Two approaches have been taken: "War ROEs" and "LE ROEs" (these are in quotes because there are different views internationally as to what "War ROEs" should be, and what "LE ROEs" should be). Adoption of one or the other as a default does not necessarily preclude use of the other in certain defined situations. There is a huge conflict here.

4. Military assistance in LE (Law Enforcement) Operations, which may involve groups that are either DVNSAs or TVNSAs, but as to which the political decision has been made NOT to raise the status of the problem to that of an "armed conflict". In short, these generally will be regarded as domestic criminal law problems.

All of these situations require reasoned political decisions (national policy level); and hopefully mission tasking type orders to the military to allow it to formulate appropriate SROEs, and particular ROEs on a case by case basis - which will have to fit the military strategy, operations and tactics adopted for each case.

My problem (now through 15 Apr) is devoting enough time to these questions to present some coherent view of what is both a military and legal problem.

For those who want to do something in the meantime, I suggest becoming familiar with the "kill or capture" concepts inherent in the two basic types of ROEs:

1. Status-Based ROEs (based on the status of the "kill or capture" target).

2. Conduct-Based ROEs (based on the conduct of the "kill or capture" target).

The status-based ROEs are more "War ROEs"; the conduct-based ROEs are more "LE ROEs". With some digging with Google, etc., you will find discussions about this topic.

Sorry I can't be more explicit now; so, this will have to do for a start.

PS: HUDIMPS was a joke - based on experience with the imps at HUD.