Modern military Justice punishes officers and soldiers of democratic nations’ armies for their military success. “Excessive use of force” and similar artificial judicial constructions undermine incentives of army officers, making the military machine virtually inoperative. Artificially abridged Army capability prevents any opportunities to win the fight against terror, to defend democratic nations and to break trap of violent dictatorship or warlords brutality for peoples of rogue / failed states. Shurat a Din conference “Towards a new Law of War” addressed the issues such as human shields, proportionality, fighting in civilian areas, defining war crimes in attempt to propose solution of the problem, to restore Democratic nations’ ability to defend themselves against Islamic terrorism. Our comments are based on our extensive research program on the issues of Governments’ failures to provide sustainable defense for the people. The comments focused on the most obvious practical conclusions and recommendations based on the conference materials. The comments also raise some additional problems to be solved in order to restore our Armies’ deterrence capacities.
The notes proposed are poorly edited but, I hope, useful for people interested in the issue:
How to Scrap Modern Military Justice to Restore Army’s Deterrence Capacity.