The news out of Israel is, well, discouraging. It seems increasingly likely that Israel is going to launch a major combat operation to clear Hezbollah assets from southern Lebanon. The threat to Israeli border communities—which have been victimized by constant attacks since October 8, 2023—is likely perceived by Israeli leaders as rendering the current tit-for-tat status quo untenable. Exacerbating the problem is the genuine risk of a major Hezbollah incursion utilizing Radwan forces – special operations units whose plans for such an incursion arguably provided the playbook for Hamas’s October 7 barbarism. It certainly appears Israeli leaders have concluded the restraint they have shown to date coupled with efforts to find a diplomatic solution to this ongoing threat has become futile, necessitating a more expansive military campaign to protect their people.
Anyone who has visited Israel’s northern border knows how precarious the security of Israeli citizens has become, even before the current escalation. In anticipation of what seemed inevitable several years ago, I (Geoffrey Corn) participated in a site-study visit to Israel focused on the operational and legal issues that would arise if Israel were to conduct a major combined-arms maneuver operation in southern Lebanon. That visit led to this report. While predating current events, it offers insights from highly experienced U.S. military commanders and law-of-war experts on the nature of such an operation—including how its scale, speed, and intensity will create legal challenges substantially different from those associated with counter-insurgency (COIN) operations.
How the law of armed conflict (LOAC) will be stressed, but also effectively implemented, in large-scale combined-arms maneuver warfare is an increasing focus of professional armed forces. This issue has also generated important consideration of the exact question the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are likely to confront in such an operation: how can the LOAC be “operationalized” to ensure maximum compliance? Consider, for example, Lieutenant General (Retired) Charles Pede’s excellent piece on legal compliance in future conflicts.
Co-authored by this law professor and his former student (both Army veterans), this article, forthcoming in the Southern Methodist University Law Review, focuses on this challenge. In the article, we posit that frontline combat leaders at all levels—from colonel to corporal—are playing increasingly decisive roles in LOAC implementation and compliance. Perhaps this has always been true; perhaps the COIN era created a false assumption that the extensive involvement of legal advice in use-of-force decisions shifted that decisive point.
The ongoing air campaign by the IDF against Hezbollah is almost certainly focused on targets that have been carefully assessed through a deliberate process. But it seems possible—even likely—that this campaign will evolve into a large-scale combined arms incursion into Lebanon with the objective of denying Hezbollah such proximity to the Israeli border. While air power will continue to play an important role in any such campaign, the degree to which Hezbollah has embedded its assets in the civilian communities near the border makes it unlikely that air power alone can produce the decisive effect needed to neutralize this threat. If this occurs, the kinetic nature of such a maneuver operation will render attack decision-making quite different from the deliberate processes dominating the operation at this moment. Instead, ground forces—down to the company, platoon, and squad levels—will be operating pursuant to “mission type” orders. In other words, superior commanders will rely on the initiative of junior combat leaders to make time-sensitive decisions to achieve a broad commander’s intent.
As a result, we argue that a revised approach to LOAC education for military leaders—from the very inception of their professional development— is needed to ensure they are capable of navigating the tactical and ethical challenges they will confront. Specifically, we propose that the development of LOAC competence should be based on a two-pillar foundation: (1) a genuine understanding of military necessity—what it justifies and what it does not; and (2) a commitment to an ethos of constant care— constantly seeking to implement feasible measures to mitigate civilian risk and other unnecessary suffering without compromising the mission.
Some may say that the “balance” between military necessity and humanity already provides this foundation. In our view, it is difficult—if not impossible—to teach a junior officer or NCO how to apply the meaning of humanity to the time-sensitive use-of-force decisions he or she will be forced to make during the chaos of ground combat. What exactly does humanity entail in that context beyond distinguishing between enemy and civilian? The principle of humanity is somewhat nebulous; it is hard to precisely define and even harder to put into practice. In contrast to the amorphous humanity principle, an expanded version of Additional Protocol I’s constant-care principle can serve as a more wieldable complement to the principle of military necessity. Teaching combat leaders that they should always try to mitigate risk to anyone who is not the enemy—that they are expected to exercise their initiative and creativity to figure out ways to accomplish the mission without causing incidental death, injury, and collateral damage—is simply a more concrete foundation upon which to build professional excellence and develop a moral warrior ethos.
We are hopeful that the LOAC challenges associated with large-scale ground combat operations remain purely theoretical for Israel, Lebanon, and our own Armed Forces. But should such an escalation occur between the IDF and Hezbollah, observers should consider not only the applicable laws of armed conflict, but how the nature of modern maneuver warfare will affect how those laws are implemented.
Originally published in Articles of War.