Searching for Solutions to International Unrest:
The Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and The Fund for Peace

THE CARR CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY
Finding the overlap between military issues and human rights concerns

The way that military force is used receives far less attention in policy circles than does the question of when states should intervene militarily. Yet, as we have seen in the recent war with Iraq, the means of military intervention—in other words, the where and how bullets fly and bombs drop—have dramatic implications for the security of civilians in the target country, the security of intervening forces and the effectiveness of the intervention itself.

To explore those issues, the Project on the Means of Intervention, within the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (www.ksg.harvard.edu/cchrp), has brought together active and retired officers from the U.S. military and other security specialists with members of the human rights and humanitarian communities in a series of workshops that have explored how human rights issues are considered, if at all, during military conflicts and how military interventions are influenced by concern, or lack thereof, for collateral damage—particularly civilian deaths. Those workshops and their resultant papers are supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York.

“There is no venue for humanitarian and human rights organizations to get together with the military,” says Stephen Del Rosso, senior program officer at Carnegie Corporation, discussing the void that The Carr Center has filled in that respect. “The U.S. military is very sensitive to issues of collateral damage, and there is a desire for humanitarian concerns to be melded with operational requirements.”

The issue of collateral damage is particularly polarizing, with some military officials believing that mission objective is all that matters, and some humanitarians believing that even one civilian casualty is too many. By bringing these perspectives together in what to this date are six separate workshops on the issue, the project has worked to illuminate a range of topics while exposing participants to competing views.

“There is a great deal of overlap between the traditional military concepts of precision and economy of force and the human rights goal of not killing civilians,” says Carr Center program director Sarah Sewall. “Where is the overlap and how do we expand it? We try to get participants to think differently in the sense that there are very few opportunities for military and humanitarian communities to be exposed to the viewpoint of the other in a non-confrontational way.” The point, she adds, is to move beyond the “blame game” and open up the frames of reference instead of narrowing them.

And why should the military care about reducing collateral damage, i.e., deaths of innocent people? After all, success in attaining military objectives seems tantamount when looking at the big picture and the scope of history. Sewall offered an answer in a recent opinion piece in the Boston Globe, published before the beginning of the Iraq war.

“Repeated ‘regrettable tragedies’ can turn a liberator into an oppressor and jeopardize an intervention’s larger military and political objectives. The risk is greater than fueling hatred in hostile quarters. Arab governments and NATO partners, the very players we’ll need should war come in Iraq, remain concerned about how the United States applies its military power. If the human costs alone fail to convince, U.S. leaders should recognize that collateral damage is a potential public relations nightmare with strategic implications.”

Sewall’s words could be prophetic if America’s Arab allies in the Middle East are reluctant to help in the reconstruction of Iraq should the price of the battle and its aftermath be too high for acceptance by Arab citizens. However, she believes Pentagon leaders from both the civil and military sectors take such concerns very seriously. Interviewed before the Iraq war she said, “The extent to which the administration is talking about avoiding casualties is unprecedented,” a trend that continues to be apparent in the military’s comments about both the war and the post-conflict period.

Going back a couple years, the need for bringing together military officials and human rights experts was demonstrated by the polarizing debate concerning the strategy and tactics of U.S. and NATO forces in the Balkans. Many in the human rights community argued that the bombing campaign unnecessarily endangered Serb civilians and Kosovars on whose behalf force was used. In contrast, Western political and military leaders asserted that the intervention was groundbreaking in its success in minimizing collateral damage while achieving operational objectives.

According to a Carr Center workshop paper on the matter, the apparent disconnect between the military and human rights presented an opportunity to begin a dialogue, which continues today on that issue and other military interventions.

A variety of common interests are now on the table in discussions of these types. One centers on the importance of continuing adjustments in how the U.S. military evaluates the effects of force (e.g., improving bomb damage assessment and empirical analysis of the value of strategic targeting), or what Sewall says is “studying the effects of their intentions.” Another is in shared interest in improving public understanding of the humanitarian implications of alternative military and non-military strategies of intervention, and in defining and helping to create “realistic” public expectations on the use of force.

Finally, for nongovernmental organizations all over the world, the greatest fear is arguably that their work goes unnoticed—policymakers don’t pay attention, important data is ignored and meetings and conferences occur in a vacuum.

That’s not been the case for The Carr Center’s work in the areas of collateral damage and humanitarian issues in military targeting. In March, a senior military planner discussing the issue of civilian casualties publicly credited the work of The Carr Center in a Pentagon briefing.

“One of the issues that I think routinely comes up for folks who are not involved in military operations and have not been involved in the extensive planning is to understand the difficult and really comprehensive process we use to mitigate collateral damage,” said Col. Gary L. Crowder, chief, Strategy, Concepts and Doctrine, Air Combat Command, at the briefing. “[The] Air Combat Command, the United States Air Force, and I personally have been working with The Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University, [which] brings nongovernmental organizations, military officers, policymakers, [and] media into a forum in which we can discuss these issues and better understand each of our requirements.

“And in the end, all of our requirements are the same. If we’re required to conduct military operations, we would desire to conduct those while minimizing collateral damage and unintended damage.”

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