Between Distinction and Destruction: Civilian Harm in Modern

Kristian Alexander argues that despite robust international humanitarian law prohibiting attacks on civilians, modern warfare continues to expose them to severe harm. He highlights how states exploit ambiguous concepts like dual-use targets, proportionality, and military necessity to justify strikes on civilian infrastructure. Weak enforcement, political shielding, and strategic incentives - from coercion to retaliation - sustain a cycle in which legal norms exist but civilian protection remains fragile.

International humanitarian law (IHL) has evolved to place civilian protection at the heart of the laws of armed conflict. The Geneva Conventions, their Additional Protocols, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court prohibit the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian objects, outlaw collective punishment, and restrict attacks on infrastructure essential for survival. However, despite these legal prohibitions, civilians continue to suffer devastating harm in contemporary wars. According to the United Nations, at least 36,000 civilians were killed in fourteen-armed conflicts in 2024.

The persistence of this harm is partly due to how IHL principles such as, distinction, proportionality, and military necessity, are interpreted in practice. Few belligerents openly admit to targeting civilians. Instead, attacks on power grids, water plants, or residential areas are framed as strikes on dual-use or war-sustaining facilities. Critics argue such reasoning can blur the line between legitimate military objectives and unlawful civilian harm.

This tension illustrates both the strength and fragility of IHL. Legal norms exist, but enforcement mechanisms remain limited and political shielding often protects violators. As a result, civilians continue to be strategically instrumentalized in warfare despite the formal legal protections designed to safeguard them.

The Never-Ending History: From Antiquity to World War II

The deliberate targeting of civilians predates modern IHL. In antiquity, the sacking of cities and massacres of inhabitants were widely accepted spoils of war. The twentieth century, however, institutionalized mass civilian targeting through the logic of total war.

During World War II, the Nazi Luftwaffe’s bombing of London, the Allied firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. These campaigns were justified as necessary to break morale and cripple industrial capacity. Importantly, they occurred before the post-1949 IHL framework emerged. The codification of civilian protections therefore developed largely in response to the devastation of total war.

Modern Conflicts and Dual-Use Justifications

Subsequent conflicts illustrate how modern warfare increasingly operates within a legal grey zone. During the Vietnam War, U.S. bombing campaigns such as Operation Rolling Thunder blurred the distinction between military and civilian spaces. Although planners framed strikes as degrading North Vietnam’s war capacity, the destruction of villages and infrastructure caused extensive civilian suffering.

In the 1991 Gulf War, coalition forces targeted Iraq’s electrical grids and water treatment systems as “dual-use” military objectives, contributing to a public health crisis. In Syria, the Assad regime’s sieges of Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta included strikes on hospitals and bakeries intended to pressure civilian populations. In Gaza, Israel has been accused of striking apartment towers, roads, and power stations while arguing that Hamas military assets are embedded within civilian areas.

These cases highlight the persistent ambiguity between legitimate military objectives and disproportionate civilian harm. Belligerents frequently invoke military necessity, yet the proportionality threshold remains contested.

Another dimension is the invocation of “collateral damage.” While IHL acknowledges that incidental harm may occur during lawful attacks, the term often functions as a legitimizing frame. Originally meant to describe unintended consequences, it can also serve to normalize civilian risk and mitigate public criticism when casualties occur.

Terror as Strategy: Why Civilians Are Harmed

The targeting of civilians, whether deliberate or through expansive interpretations of dual-use infrastructure, can serve several strategic purposes. It may aim to degrade morale, displace populations, or deprive adversaries of resources. Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure during winter and ISIS’s destruction of water facilities illustrate how resource denial can be weaponized against civilian populations.

Forced displacement is another tactic. The Bosnian War witnessed systematic ethnic cleansing, while conflicts in Syria and Gaza have produced mass displacement and concerns about demographic engineering. Although prohibited under international law, such practices continue to appear in contemporary conflicts.

Civilian areas also tend to be less defended than critical military installations. Missile-defense systems such as Iron Dome, Patriot, or S-400 are typically concentrated around strategic assets, leaving residential neighbourhoods comparatively exposed. This imbalance can make civilian zones more attractive targets for belligerents seeking operational advantage.

Another strategic logic is the belief that civilian suffering may pressure governments or armed groups to capitulate. From World War II firebombing campaigns to the Vietnam War, planners have repeatedly assumed that hardship imposed on civilian populations could translate into political concessions.

Urban warfare intensifies these dynamics. In densely populated areas such as Mosul, Aleppo, and Gaza, military assets are often embedded within civilian neighbourhoods. This proximity allows belligerents to argue that attacks on residential areas are justified by the presence of enemy forces, complicating the application of IHL principles.

Some attacks are also motivated by retaliation or punitive signalling. States that perceive themselves as victims of terrorism or insurgency may strike civilian areas to demonstrate resolve or impose collective costs. Although framed as deterrence, such actions can resemble reprisals prohibited under IHL.

A recent example involves Iran’s missile and drone strikes targeting GCC states, including civilian-proximate sites in the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. After U.S. and Israeli attacks on its territory, Tehran framed its response as retaliation while extending the confrontation to states not directly involved. The objective appeared less about military impact than signalling that escalation could affect the wider Gulf region.

By threatening airports, commercial districts, and symbolic landmarks, Iran seeks to generate public anxiety and economic disruption in sectors such as tourism and aviation. This approach reflects a form of horizontal escalation: unable to match adversaries directly, Tehran broadens the conflict geographically to increase pressure on its rivals.

Principles of IHL and Contestation

At the core of IHL are three principles: distinction, proportionality, and necessity. Distinction requires that attacks be directed only against military objectives. Proportionality prohibits attacks in which expected civilian harm would be excessive relative to anticipated military advantage. Necessity limits force to what is required to achieve a legitimate military objective.

In practice, these principles are frequently contested. States increasingly argue that telecommunications networks, financial institutions, or energy infrastructure indirectly support the war effort and therefore qualify as military objectives. Critics counter that such interpretations risk expanding the category of legitimate targets beyond what IHL intended.

The doctrine of “war-sustaining objects” has further widened the targetable space. Civilian facilities such as oil refineries or food production sites may be interpreted as indirectly supporting military operations. This interpretive flexibility contributes to uncertainty about the boundaries of lawful targeting.

Enforcement and Accountability

Enforcement remains one of the most significant weaknesses of IHL. The International Criminal Court can prosecute individuals for targeting civilians, but its jurisdiction depends on state ratification and political dynamics within the UN Security Council. Other accountability mechanisms include ad hoc tribunals, UN commissions of inquiry, and universal jurisdiction cases such as German prosecutions of Syrian officials.

However, these mechanisms are often selective and shaped by geopolitics. A further challenge is the absence of a dedicated international convention on crimes against humanity. While genocide and war crimes are codified in treaties, crimes against humanity lack a single comprehensive legal instrument governing their prevention and prosecution.

When powerful states or their allies inflict civilian harm without meaningful consequences, it can reinforce perceptions that international law is applied unevenly. Such perceptions risk undermining the credibility of humanitarian norms.

Conclusion

Despite the extensive codification of international humanitarian law, civilian harm remains a persistent feature of modern warfare. What has changed is less the existence of legal prohibitions than the ways in which they are interpreted and applied. States and armed groups rarely acknowledge directly targeting civilians. Instead, strikes on infrastructure or residential areas are justified as attacks on dual-use or war-sustaining targets.

The persistence of such practices highlights the gap between legal principles and enforcement realities. Institutions such as the ICC, UN investigations, and universal jurisdiction cases have produced limited accountability, but political shielding and selective justice continue to constrain enforcement.

Unless enforcement mechanisms strengthen and interpretive loopholes narrow, the protection of civilians will remain a central yet contested aspiration of international humanitarian law.

Dr. Kristian Alexander is a Senior Fellow and Lead Researcher at the Rabdan Institute for Security & Defence Research, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He is an adviser at Gulf States Analytics, a Washington-based geopolitical risk consultancy. He previously worked as a Senior Fellow at Trends Research & Advisory (Abu Dhabi) and before that as an Assistant Professor at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Photo by Ibrahim Al-Aorfali