What is it about?
This paper examines how information communications technology is being used for the command and control of military operations.
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Why is it important?
Imagine a teenager in New York connected to an organised armed group in a city in Iraq that is engaged in hostilities with a foreign occupying or invading state as well as other non-state actors vying for control. The teenager's hobby is supplying the organised armed group with information and instructions on how to use an array of missile launchers. Imagine the teenager's father being radicalised online by a preacher based in Iraq into going out and killing an off-duty soldier going for lunch with her family in New York whilst she is temporarily back from a tour of duty in Iraq. The father seeks revenge for the death of women and children in Iraq. The organised armed group and the preacher have been targeted in air strikes by the foreign power. Are father and son now fighters or members of an organised armed group engaged in hostilities who can now be targeted in a lethal air strike on their New York flat? In our global information environment, individuals and groups are becoming increasingly connected trough information communications technology. This global connectivity allows for command and influence operations, e.g. influencing and manipulating opinions and behaviour, but also command and control of operations that achieve physical effects that are military in nature. This allows individuals in 'peace zones' to be virtually connected to 'war zones'. In virtual theaters of conflict, it is thus increasing difficult to know where the law of the peace can and should apply (e.g. human rights law and criminal law) and where the law of armed conflict should apply (international humanitarian law). This risks the permissive targeting standards under international humanitarian law being applied to situations that amount to peace time.
Perspectives
In our global information environment, there is the risk that the permissive targeting rules of international humanitarian law are coming down into situations of intense violence that may be regarded as extreme law enforcement situations rather than armed conflict. The over-extension and over-application of IHL risks escalating conflicts and rendering the return to peace increasingly difficult. Clearer classification criteria for situations and individuals can help us understand the social dynamics and networks that create and sustain fighting and can help us develop clarity and appropriateness of perception and response - in the main, through the application of the law enforcement framework. This promotes the effective use of force, but also preventing the types of force that we would never allow to be used at home from being used abroad.
Michael John-Hopkins
Oxford Brookes University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Mapping War, Peace and Terrorism in the Global Information Environment, Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, August 2017, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/18781527-00801002.
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