Lawfare

[NATO AIR]

Interesting, I put it in here because it relates to the legal side of the WOT. I disagree with the author's conclusion but the article is quite interesting for educational purposes.

http://www.slate.com/id/2116169/

Legal Combat
Are enemies waging war in our courts?
By Phillip Carter
Posted Monday, April 4, 2005, at 2:51 PM PT

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, a common refrain has punctuated the legal arguments offered by the Bush administration in support of its terrorism policies: America is fighting a new kind of war, against a new kind of enemy, who will use unconventional methods to attack our nation and way of life. Extending constitutional protections to these foes might give aid and comfort to the enemy or give them some strategic or tactical advantage. This is the theory of "lawfare," most recently articulated by the Pentagon's March 2005 National Defense Strategy for the United States of America:

Our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism.

This succinct statement fuses two popular strands of military theory, one old and one new. The phrase "strategy of the weak" is a euphemism for "asymmetric warfare," a concept that dates back at least as far as David's use of a sling and stone to slay Goliath. In recent years, this term has frequently been used to describe suicide bombings and terrorist assaults, but it encompasses much more than pure violence. In theory, asymmetric warfare represents any assault in which one side seeks to gain a comparative advantage. The paradigmatic 21st-century example is a small nation with a weak military that cannot challenge strong nations on the field of battle but can attack them using asymmetric means—such as a squad of elite computer hackers to disrupt their banking systems. Many military theorists see asymmetric warfare as the wave of the future. It is, quite literally, the only viable option for a nation or nonstate actor who wants to challenge the United States.

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