Counterinsurgency, Military Occupations, and Civilian Targeting

This book addresses the causes of civilian targeting during counterinsurgency campaigns in occupied territories. It develops a new theoretical framework explaining the level of civilian victimization in expeditionary counterinsurgency as an outcome influenced by state leaders’ perceptions of threats and constraints in international and local political contexts. Understanding civilian targeting as risk-taking behaviour, the book pairs Realism’s tenets with prospect theory’s insight that people, including state leaders, become risk-tolerant to avoid or recoup losses. The book argues that the inclination of the leaders in charge of counterinsurgency to take the risks of civilian targeting will vary according to their local alliance strategy in the occupied society and their perceptions of external threats against the occupied territory. Accordingly, the book identifies four scenarios from combinations of local alliance strategy and external threat perceptions that shape leaders’ risk-tolerance and are conducive to specific levels of civilian targeting through distinctive causal pathways. The book tests its arguments against cases of British, French, German, US, Saudi, and Israeli counterinsurgency (including the Gaza War), before considering the policy implications for the protection of civilians. This book will be of interest to students of counterinsurgency, military and strategic studies, human rights and International Relations.