Introduction

This chapter introduces the topic and main questions of the book, assesses the literature on the subject, and briefly presents the arguments and methods of this work. The book is about the drivers of civilian targeting in expeditionary counterinsurgency in territories under temporary and permanent occupation. Counterinsurgency campaigns display relevant cross-case and within-case variations in the level of civilian targeting from property destruction and restrictions on personal freedom to indiscriminate lethal violence up to extermination. The book aims to create a novel typological theoretical framework that can help account for such variations, even if not in a deterministic way. That would matter not only for academic debates on the fate of civilians in warfare but also for scholars, governments, and organizations interested in protecting civilian noncombatants. While practitioners or “soldier scholars” mostly disregarded the sources of civilian targeting, political scientists offered insightful but incomplete explanations. The author maintains that a more exhaustive explanation should include leaders’ perceptions and understanding of international and local political contexts. After sketching the argument and discussing the methodological choices, the chapter concludes by explaining how the remainder of the book is organized.