class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide # Dirty Wars ## Guns, Smartphones, and Liability to Attack ### Jack McDonald --- class: inverse # Lecture Outline .pull-left[ How does information and communication technology shape the ability of civilians to participate in conflict? How can the study of dirty wars help us to engage with the problems this raises? ] .pull-right[ - Information Processing in War - Insights from Dirty Wars - Informational Participation in War - The Smartphone Problem - Conclusions and Connections ] ## Main Points Information processing and intelligence are central to war, and complicates the idea of what participation means in conflict If direct participation in hostilities includes information processing, then it massively expands the range of people who are liable to attack in war Key problem is how participants are meant to recognise and distinguish civilians from those that might be participating in conflict ??? asd --- class: inverse # Part 1: Information Processing in War ??? --- # Spotters and Nokias > Nearly all of the interviews conducted with former personnel referred to the presence of children as ‘dickers’ in theatres of armed conflict. The ‘dicker’ is a term first used in the Northern Ireland campaign and refers to a person who tracks the enemy’s movements whilst passing on information to their own force regarding the enemy’s location and other relevant intelligence. The use of children as ‘dickers’ was prevalent in Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, and Iraq and was present as a recurring theme throughout many of the extracts and interviews. Children were able to get closer to a base’s entrance without being deemed suspicious, therefore were able to watch troop movements and notify enemy forces as to the timings, and quantity of forces entering and leaving the area. Michelle Jones, _Encountering Children in Conflict Zones: The British Experience_ ??? --- # War and Information Processing .pull-left[ ![Worldwide Military Command and Control System that served through the 1960s to 1990s](img/2020/wwmccs.gif) ] .pull-right[ ![US Cyber Command logo](img/2020/cybercom.png) ] ??? Pulling the frame wider --- # Distributed Participation In Conflict .pull-left[ > Approximately one in 10 people involved in the effort to process data captured by drones and spy planes are non-military. And as the rise of Islamic State prompts what one commander termed “insatiable” demand for aerial surveillance, the Pentagon is considering further expanding its use of contractors, an air force official said. Abigail Fielding-Smith et al, _Revealed: Private firms at heart of US drone warfare_ ] .pull-right[ ![NSA HQ at Fort Meade, CC pic from Wikipedia](img/2020/nsahq.jpg) ] ??? NSA HQ Tailored Access Operations NSA employs thousands of contractors --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[Why might soldiers restrain themselves from attacking civilians that are obviously helping their opponents to attack them?] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 2: Insights from Dirty Wars ??? --- # What Counts as War and Warfare? Four related points: What counts as war - e.g. where the concept of war kicks in - determines when IHL applies What counts as warfare implicitly relates to what kinds of activities might count as participation in conflict Whether you have a constrained or permissive view of DPH (act/function/membership) determines who counts as a participant given their relationship to those activities Expanding frame to include intelligence gathering and information processing greatly widens range of possible participants in war ??? --- # Private Holmes Revisited .pull-left[ ![Sherlock Holmes](img/9/sherlock.jpg) How does an individual know who/what is, or is not, a permissible target? **New: How might an individual know whether someone is participating in conflict via informational work?** ] .pull-right[ How does an organisation "know" about the external world? Intelligence production requires internal and external coordination Standards of truth and knowledge production are a mix of internal and external factors **New: An organisation's ability to identify its opponents is fundamentally related to the kinds of activities that its opponents undertake** **New: Digital communications technologies make it harder for states to track participation in some ways, but also enable large scale tracking where states have access to communications data** ] ??? --- # Insight from Intelligence Ethics .pull-left[ Any account of what can be done to someone depends on the possibility of prior information to correctly identify them Core questions: - Who are you? - How can a third party know who you are? ] .pull-right[ Classifying humans in war and national security: - Combatants and non-combatants - Civilians - Direct Participation in Hostilities - Citizens and Aliens - Human beings with dignity and human rights - Public and private agents ] ??? --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[What else have you learned on this course that can help explain these issues?] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 3: Informational Participation in War ??? --- # Direct Participation in Hostilities > the Interpretive Guidance seems to suggest that to be direct, the harm caused must have resulted from a physical act. For instance, it distinguishes between a civilian who physically shields a military objective, as in blocking passage over a bridge, from one who merely goes to a military objective hoping the enemy will refrain from attacking it because of his presence. In both cases, the enemy suffers harm. But the latter, according to the Guidance, does not “directly” harm the enemy because the action does not physically impede an attack. The Guidance could not have selected a more contentious, or indeed weaker, example to make its point. Michael N. Schmitt, _Deconstructing Direct Participation in Hostilities_ Applies to civilians (not members of armed forces or levee en masse), members of organised armed groups have a continuous combat function ICRC: - Threshold of harm - Direct causation - Belligerent nexus ??? --- # Work, Contribution, and Conflict Participation DPH relates to different abstractions of human involvement in conflict: - Acts (Physically gives ammunition) - Service provision (Provides ammunition supplies) - Work (Makes munitions) - Role (Factory worker in a munitions factory) These can be direct or indirect contributions to military activities These need not be physical acts - what about information processing and communication? ??? Work and role different because work is functional contribution, role is status sortof --- # Theory and Practice of Liability to Attack .pull-left[ ![WW2 bomber](img/2020/ww2bomber.jpg) ] .pull-right[ Direct participation Indirect participation Civilians who provide guns versus civilians who provide food ] ??? Fabre argument that harm and distribution of responsibility means no civilians liable Contrast with Mike Schmitt - actually need to evaluate whether actions are beneficial and no threshold of harm needed for evaluation --- # Distributed Liability to Attack? > Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers. Jeff Howe, _Crowdsourcing: A Definition_ ??? https://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/cs/2006/06/crowdsourcing_a.html --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[Where do you draw the line between what constitutes direct participation in hostilities and what does not?] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 4: The Smartphone Problem ??? --- # _McCann and Others v United Kingdom_ > Soldier A drew his pistol, intending to shout a warning to stop at the same time, though he was uncertain if the words actually came out. McCann’s hand moved suddenly and aggressively across the front of his body. A thought that he was going for the button to detonate the bomb and opened fire. He shot one round into McCann’s back from a distance of three metres (though maybe it may have been closer). Out of the corner of his eye, A saw a movement by Farrell. Farrell had been walking on the left of McCann on the side of the pavement next to the road. A saw her make a half turn to the right towards McCann, grabbing for her handbag which was under her left arm. A thought that she was also going for a button and shot one round into her back. > When D was about three metres away, he felt that he needed to get closer because there were too many people about and there was a lady directly in line. Before D could get closer however, he heard gunfire to the rear. At the same time, C shouted "Stop". Savage spun round and his arm went down towards his right hand hip area. D believed that Savage was going for a detonator. He used one hand to push the lady out of line and opened fire from about two to three metres away. D fired nine rounds at rapid rate, initially aiming into the centre of Savage’s body, with the last two at his head. ??? Operation Flavius - Gibraltar 6 March 1988 Seán Savage, Daniel McCann, and Mairéad Farrell who were members of Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade --- # War in the Smartphone Age > The attackers reportedly used cell phones and a satellite phone, both their own and others taken from their victims. They also carried Blackberries. A thoroughly preplanned attack, which Mumbai certainly was, would have required no communications between the terrorist operators and their headquarters. According to a dossier released by Indian authorities, however, the terrorists were in frequent contact with their handlers, presumably based in Pakistan, during the attack. In the transcripts of these phone calls, intercepted by Indian authorities and released in early January, handlers in Pakistan urged the attackers on, exhorting them to kill, reminding them that the prestige of Islam was at stake, and giving them tactical advice that, in part, was gleaned from watching live coverage of the event on television. Angel Rabasa et al., _The Lessons of Mumbai_ ??? 2008 26/11 attacks by Lashkar-e-Taiba kill 174 inc 9 attackers Injured over 300 3 day raid/siege, with 12 separate attacks, --- # The Agent or the Infrastructure? > Afghanistan's communications infrastructure has become the latest casualty of the intensified war between Nato and the Taliban, with mobile phone companies reporting crippling attacks on their network of transmission masts. > The onslaught came in the wake of a decree by Hamid Karzai ordering phone companies to defy insurgent demands to shut down transmission networks in large parts of the country during the night. > The mobile phone networks are a key battleground in the war on the Taliban as the vast majority of anti-insurgent tipoffs from Afghan civilians are made at night, through phone calls. Jon Boone, _Taliban target mobile phone masts to prevent tipoffs from Afghan civilians_ ??? Neutrality in War --- # Recognising Targets: How Do You Know? .pull-left[ ## Over-exclusion Self defence ROE/EOF and 'Strict' interpretation of DPH excludes most informational participation ## Over-inclusion Huge range of civilians and objects that would be permissible targets with wider understanding of DPH that includes informational participation ] .pull-right[ ![Collateral Murder van](img/2020/cmvideovan.jpg) - Rule interpretations - Policy choices - Rules of Engagement - Standardised procedures (escalation of force) ] ??? --- class: inverse # Reflection Question .large[Would you err towards over-exclusion or over-inclusion of permissible targets? Why?] ??? --- class: inverse # Part 5: Conclusions and Connections ??? --- # Key Issues .large[ Informational participation in war demonstrates the huge variance in conduct that could arise from small differences in understanding of concepts Digital ICTs give civilians huge opportunities to participate in conflict in minor ways that could have great consequences Intangible activities such as digital communication pose a significant problem for combatants seeking to identify hostile opponents ] ??? --- # Key Questions .large[ Do you think that participation at a considerable distance from a combat zone should render someone immune to physical attack? Do you think that physical responses are legitimate in response to cyberattacks? When? Why? Would it ever be possible to construct a DPH regime that neither over-included or over-excluded civilians from harm? ]