Page 115 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

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Americans did not apply the rules of that law, while they were fighting in Third World sce-
narios in the 19 and 20 centuries. At the beginning of the 20 century, in order to crash the
th
th
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guerrillas during the independence war in the Philippines Americans adopted a strategy of
scorched earth, which included not taking prisoners and killing civilians indiscriminately .
44
Almost in the same years, during the Anglo-Boer war, the British set up concentration camps
whose conditions led to a high rate of death among civilians interned therein. The British
manual of military law of 1914 decreed the following: «It must be emphasized that the rules
of International Law apply only to warfare between civilized nations, where both parties un-
derstand them and are prepared to carry them out. They do not apply in wars with uncivilized
States and tribes, where their place is taken by the discretion of the commander and such
rules of justice and humanity as recommended themselves in the particular circumstances of
the case» .
45
The historian Ernesto Galli della Loggia notes that «in the second half of the 20 cen-
th
tury», «the transnational organization of partisan war», «guerrilla warfare, much more than
other factors, contributed to dissolve some essential points of international law governing
relations among States» . Actually, many characteristics of today’s conflicts were already
46
present during anti-west guerrilla warfare (in most of which communism and anti-colonial-
ism were intertwined): asymmetric wars, peace enforcement operations, military operations
whose purpose is regime change or state building. Obviously, relations with civilians are
clearly fundamental to get victory in the latter ones.
In the course of history, wars have been fought for infinite reasons, but it would be su-
perfluous to discuss this subject here. Sometimes, as in the 18 century succession wars, the
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reason was to designate the sovereign or change the political status of a State. Actually the
winner did not consider his concern to foster the loser’s recovery. However the opposite hap-
pened after the Second World War, concerning Germany, Italy and Japan. During this con-
flict, the U. S. Army’s manuals mentioned civil affairs referring to occupation tasks in liber-
ated territories as well as military government for activities in conquered enemy countries .
47
In the former ones, the Army’s needs and the scopes of the Allies could be satisfied on a large
scale and obtained by means of existing local laws and personnel, in the latter ones, drastic
changes to laws, institutions and executives were needed. in the first case, the model was
that of the indirect rule, used by the British on a large scale across their Empire. France and
North-Western Europe were examples for the former type of operations, whereas Germany
and Japan were examples for the latter; after the armistices of September 1943 Italy was in a
situation which more resembled the first type. A Civil Affairs Division was established at the
War Department, under the name of Provost Marshal General’s Office, in order to coordinate

a universal theory of what war ought to be, rather than what it actually was and had been» (A History of
Warfare, cit., p. 6).
44 M. Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, New York, 2002, pp. 99-
109.
45 Manual of Military Law, 1914, p. 237, par. 7, quoted in G. Pastori, L’Occidente in guerra con gli
«altri»: lezioni storiche, in M. de Leonardis-G. Pastori (eds.), Le nuove sfide per la forza militare
e la diplomazia. Il ruolo della NATO, Bologna, 2007, pp. 37-38.
46 Galli della loggia, Il mondo contemporaneo ..., cit., p. 257.
47 See H. L. Coles-A.K. Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, Washington D.C., 1964, p. IX.