Restraint in the military or armed groups, during war or

insurgency An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare against a larger authority. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric warfare, asymmetric nature: small irregular forces ...

, refers to "behaviour that indicates deliberate actions to limit the use of violence" with the aim of upholding the modern and professional principles of war, humanitarian rights, and minimizing political and military repercussions.

Background

In the 17th century

Hugo Grotius Hugo Grotius ( ; 10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Hugo de Groot () or Huig de Groot (), was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, statesman, poet and playwright. A teenage prodigy, he was born in Delft an ...

attempted to frame laws to act as a restraint on violence during war. However rather than law, fear of retaliation or pragmatism have had more impact. Modern codification of restraints with regard to weapons and actions during war at an international level includes the

Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 are a series of international treaties and declarations negotiated at two international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands. Along with the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions were amon ...

, the 1929 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1950. In 1977 Howard S. Levie says that a problem with the area of combat restraints is that "The problem in this area, as in many other areas, is not lack of law, it is lack of compliance with the law." More recently, the

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. U.S. United States Code, federal law names six armed forces: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States Navy, Na ...

''Principles of Joint Operations'' lists 12 principles of which "restraint" is one. Restraint became a part of the principles for the US military as early as 1990 when it was added to the principles of

military operations other than war Military operations other than war (MOOTW) are military operations that do not involve warfare, combat, or the threat or use of violence. They generally include peacekeeping, peacebuilding, disaster response, humanitarian aid, military enginee ...

. Restraints on war arise from both political and military policies. Connections between both these forms of policies can help increase the overall restraint. This may refer to military-strategic restraint, say through disconnected military planning and inadequate political direction; restraint from killing a non-combatant even at the expenses of incurring greater military casualties; restraint from excessive or disproportionate violence, use of indiscriminate weaponry, sexual violence, destruction of health infrastructure; restraint during reprisals and retaliation.

Socialization In sociology, socialization (also socialisation – see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is the process of Internalisation (sociology), internalizing the Norm (social), norm ...

and

indoctrination Indoctrination is the process of inculcating (teaching by repeated instruction) a person or people into an ideology, often avoiding critical analysis. It can refer to a general process of socialization. The term often implies forms of brainwas ...

of this restraint may be through training,

hierarchy A hierarchy (from Ancient Greek, Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy ...

doctrine Doctrine (from , meaning 'teaching, instruction') is a codification (law), codification of beliefs or a body of teacher, teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a ...

, rules of engagement, constitutional law and force. The Australian Army's Royal Military College in Duntroon tests ethical compliance under extreme fatigue and stress, which in turn helps inculcate restraint under duress in real world situations. Analysing patterns of violence and restraint help identify violence that is ordered as compared to excessive violence despite no orders for the same. It would also help to identity causes of escalation and de-escalation. Over time, the number of situations in which restraint is expected has increased. Analysing periods of restraint as compared to violence can help identify the motivations behind restraint and in turn guide policy to predicting and controlling the violence. Lack of restraint can cause a massacre, unrestrained war, unlimited war or total war.

Related concepts

From February 2010,

ISAF The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was a multinational military mission in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. It was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1386 according to the Bonn Agreement, which outlined t ...

in Afghanistan followed a policy of 'courageous restraint' during

Operation Enduring Freedom Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) was the official name used by the U.S. government for both the first stage (2001–2014) of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) and the larger-scale Global War on Terrorism. On 7 October 2001, in response ...

. The policy advocated nonlethal force against non-combatants even in the most difficult of situations. Scholars and other commentators have labelled India's approach to retaliation, military strategy and other geo-political issues as 'strategic restraint'. However others argue against this label or signal a shift from it in recent years. Scholar James Ron put forward the idea of 'savage restraint' following a study of the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict Israelis (; ) are the citizens and nationals of the State of Israel. The country's populace is composed primarily of Jews and Arabs, who respectively account for 75 percent and 20 percent of the national figure, followed by other ethnic and ...

References

Bibliography

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Background

Related concepts

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading