The Civilianization of War The Changing Civil–Military Divide, 1914–2014

Distinguishing between civilians and combatants is a central aspect of modern conflicts. Yet such distinctions are rarely upheld in practice. The Civilianization of War offers new ways of understanding civilians' exposure to violence in war. Each chapter explores a particular approach to the political, legal, or cultural distinctions between civilians and combatants during twentieth-century and contemporary conflicts. The volume as a whole suggests that the distinction between combatants and non-combatants is dynamic and oft-times unpredictable, rather than fixed and reciprocally understood. Contributors offer new insights into why civilian targeting has become a strategy for some, and how in practice its avoidance can be so difficult to achieve. Several discuss distinct population groups that have been particularly exposed to wartime violence, including urban populations facing aerial bombing, child soldiers, captives, and victims of sexual violence. The book thus offers multiple perspectives on the civil–military divide within modern conflicts, an issue whose powerful contemporary resonance is all too apparent.

Introduction: the civilianization of war and the unpredictable civil-military divide, 1914–2014 Andrew Barros and Martin Thomas; Part I. Who Fights? Combatants, Mobilization, and the Changing Nature of War: Sections 1. The 'Total War' Era, 1914–45: 1. Doing the necessary: the declaration of London and British strategy, 1905–1915 John Ferris; 2. Fighting the fifth column: the terror in republican Madrid during the Spanish Civil War Julius Ruiz; 3. Moscow 1941: the rise and fall of the Soviet People's Militia (Narodnoe Opolchenie) Jean Lévesque; Section 2. The Cold War and Decolonization, 1945–2000: 4. The collapsing civil-military divide in wars of decolonization: two case studies from the Indochina War (1945–54) Christopher Goscha; 5. Parallel ambiguities: prisoners during the Algerian War of Independence Raphaëlle Branche; 6. East Pakistan/Bangladesh 1971–72: how many victims, who, and why? Christian Gerlach; 7. 'I wasn't a boy, I was a soldier': militarization and civilianization in narratives of child soldiers in Africa's contemporary conflicts, c. 1990–2010 Stacey Hynd; Part II. A Moving Target: Strategic Bombing and Civilians, 1916–2014: 8. The problems of opening Pandora's box: strategic bombing and the civil-military divide, 1916–39 Andrew Barros; 9. Bombing civilians scientifically: operational research in Bomber Command, 1941–45 Victor Bissonnette; 10. Creating a cordon sanitaire: US strategic bombing and civilians in the Korean War Alexander Downes; 11. 'One hell of a killing machine': how a civilian agency became the vanguard of America's War on Terror Chris Fuller; Part III. Civilian Protection and International Norms and Organizations: When and How Much?: 12. Turn everyone into a civilian: René Cassin and the UNESCO project, 1919–45 Andrew Barros; 13. Human rights is the continuation of war by other means: the United States and the creation of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, 1945–48 Olivier Barsalou; 14. The United Nations, decolonization, and violence against civilians in the French and British Empires Martin Thomas; 15. The 'protection of civilians': peacekeeping's new raison d'être? Frédéric Mégret.

Andrew Barros is Associate Professor of History at the Université du Québec, Montréal.
Martin Thomas is Professor of Imperial History and Director of the Centre for the Study of War, State and Society at the University of Exeter.