The Rules of Engagement. An Essential Tool in Need of Improvements

Recently, environmental protection has prominently featured when planning the use of force, and therefore, within ROE.

However, the US Deputy Secretary of Defence’s memorandum of September 2007 required that RUF be reviewed periodically and changed as necessary in order to minimise the risk of innocent civilian casualties.

The study indicates the actual danger of blackmail that this support from military leaders may involve. ‘Our results suggest that there is an incentive for political leaders to get public endorsements from senior military leaders, which necessarily increases the bargaining power of senior military leaders vis-à-vis their elected civilian leaders. Military commanders might be able to threaten—or even simply insinuate—that they would withhold their support for, or voice skepticism about, a particular military mission unless civilian leaders promised to give in on demands related to troop levels, scope or duration of the mission, restrictions on the rules of engagement, or autonomy in carrying out the task. If senior officers were to engage in this type of behavior, they could exert significant policy influence that would undermine the legitimate ability of elected political leaders to make policy decisions’ ([17]: 17).

Kober explained the ethical impact that the Intifada has had on the Israeli army. ‘As a result of the Intifadas, issues of just war, discriminate use of force, proportionality, and civil liberties have penetrated into Israeli military thought (…). Israel’s strong commitment to fight morally has been expressed inter alia by (…) rules of engagement and methods of dispersing demonstrations that tried to ensure that loss of life or serious bodily injury was minimized’ ([19]: 111). But this post-heroic behaviour by the Israeli military is justified by the fact that the low-intensity conflicts it has had to face have never threatened the very existence of Israel. ‘This type of conflict has never posed any existential threat to Israel and has therefore warranted neither high number of casualties nor negative international opinion as a result of the unintended killing of innocent enemy civilians’ ([19]: 115).

We were fully aware of how nebulous and elusive the concept of ‘asymmetric war’ still is, and this was often discussed while the project was in the design stage. We were also aware that concepts such as the US Army's ‘New Wars’ [23] and ‘MOOTW’ (Military Operations Other Than War) are more widely accepted. But the international team believed that asymmetry was the concept that best described the type of mission that was sought to be analysed, as it was understood as a conflict between actors with different strengths, values ​​and tactics. It is, at times, an unconventional fight between unequal belligerents. This implies a great disproportion of forces, of unequal status, with unequal numbers, different forms of combat, different methods, procedures, all with dissimilar resources, motivations and different alliances, geographic factors that involve a different familiarity with the terrain, and unequal strategies and technology. The term 'asymmetry' should not be confused with that of dissymmetry, which indicates the mere disproportion of force or quality between two actors, but never in terms of different levels of resources and way of acting [24‐32]. The concept of asymmetric warfare reappeared after the 11 September attacks and, although most of the analyses carried out since then have focused exclusively on studying conflicts such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, asymmetric wars can be grouped into a broad typology that encompasses a multitude of conflicts. It could even be said that the vast majority of contemporary conflicts are asymmetric. However, this study is confined to those cases in which the State has participated; that is, when the armed forces have participated.

See MC362/1 ‘NATO Rules of engagement’ document approved by the North Atlantic Council (NAC) on 30 June, 2003.

The SROE of UN, EU and NATO are MC 362/1 ‘NATO Rules of Engagement’, 30 June, 2003; EUMC Mtg. Doc. 67/1/05 REV1, February 20, 2006 and UN MD/FGS/0220.0001(2000) ‘UNDPKO, Guidelines for the Development of Rules of Engagement for Peace Keeping Operations’. They are also valid for making instruments such as the Rules of Engagement Handbook by the International Institute of Humanitarian Law.

The UN applies restrictive criteria in this regard: ‘In the volatile and potentially dangerous environments into which contemporary peacekeeping operations are often deployed, these ROE should be sufficiently robust to ensure that a United Nations peacekeeping operation retains its credibility and freedom of action to implement its mandate. The mission leadership should ensure that these ROE are well understood by all relevant personnel in the mission and are being applied uniformly’ (UN [36] and EU shows a lot concern for human rights: ‘Human rights elements should be incorporated into the full range of planning documents for ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) missions, including CONOPS (Concept of Operations), OPLAN (Operation Plan) and rules of engagement. These documents should incorporate elements related to both respect for human rights by ESDP missions and the way in which the mission should promote respect for human rights in the mission area’ (EU [37: 11]).

Return Fire with Aimed Fire: Return force with force. You always have the right to repel hostile acts with necessary force. Anticipate Attack: Use force if, but only if, you see clear indicators of hostile intent. Measure the amount of Force that you use, if time and circumstances permit. Use only the amount of force necessary to protect lives and accomplish the mission. Protect with deadly force only human life, and property designated by your commander. Stop short of deadly force when protecting other property [38, Chap. 8:15].