Overview

Necessity and proportionality inform the laws of war, but how do these principles work in modern warfare? What new pressures do the practitioners of war face, especially in light of rapid changes in strategy and policy and an increasing emphasis on ethics and legality? Wars waged in fluctuating environments make the legitimacy of armed force hard to justify, especially among diverse international and transnational publics. More than ever, strategy has come to embrace justice and law as crucial components of military success, but legitimacy is fragile and easily contested, and today's militaries struggle to respond positively, consistently, and legally to an ever-shifting dynamic. Drawing on empirical research and interviews with seasoned military professionals, this volume describes how militaries can work successfully within the politics-law-strategy nexus to foster and maintain a sense of legitimacy in war. James Gow clearly defines the mutual relationship between wars and their outcomes, pinpointing the moment when a war act becomes a war crime, especially within multidimensional combat. Taking an initial, bold step in reconciling a troubling and taboo issue, Gow provides strategists, policymakers, and others with a framework for mitigating negative outcomes.

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9780231701358

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Reviews

This book should be read by all, political and military, who seek to use armed force to achieve their ends. With great clarity James Gow shows the relation of law to war and how this relationship has changed along with the way war is practised. As importantly, he shows what could happen to those practioners who fail to foster this relationship: failure and possibly prosecution. -- General Sir Rupert Smith, KCB DSO OBE QGM

This book should be read by all, political and military, who seek to use armed force to achieve their ends. With great clarity James Gow shows the relation of law to war and how this relationship has changed along with the way war is practised. As importantly, he shows what could happen to those practioners who fail to foster this relationship: failure and possibly prosecution. -- General Sir Rupert Smith, KCB DSO OBE QGM At the heart of this authoritative examination of the legitimacy of war and its conduct in the twenty-first century, James Gow refreshingly gives voice to the military judgment of professionals from around the world, as military officers themselves best understand the moral dilemmas they face and can best explain the context, at the strategic and tactical levels, which is so crucial to determining whether war crimes have been committed -- Jeremy Jarvis CBE, Course Director, Royal College of Defence Studies, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom

Author Information

James Gow is Professor of International Peace and Security at King's College London and an associate at the Liechtenstein Institute at Princeton University. He is the author of several books, among them War, Image, Legitimacy: Viewing Contemporary Conflict, Defending the West, The Serbian Project and Its Adversaries: A Strategy of War Crimes, and Triumph of the Lack of Will: International Diplomacy and the Yugoslav War. He has served as an expert advisor to the British Secretary of State for Defence and as an expert advisor to the Office of the Prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he was also the first witness to be called.

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