Year Ahead – A Year to Refrain from Destructive War Rhetoric

Editors’ note: We are pleased to announce that Articles of War has recently added several thematic editors to our staff. Each editor has contributed a post to this year’s Year Ahead series with thoughts on issues or situations they recommend our readers track over the coming months in their respective field of the law of war. We will resume our usual publications at the conclusion of this series.

The past year’s news has showcased the law of armed conflict (LOAC), but unfortunately not because the Geneva Conventions turned 75. Escalating conflicts, including those in Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, Sudan, Lebanon, and Syria, have either caused or exacerbated widespread civilian harm, humanitarian catastrophe, and destruction of property and the environment. In these respects, the way forward for 2025 is obvious. State forces as well as non-State armed groups must work towards sparing more of those under LOAC’s special protection. Parties to ongoing armed conflicts are obliged to take all feasible measures towards protecting victims caught in the crossfire. To do so, the year ahead will require them to practice more restraint than they have exercised this past year.

Regrettably, 2024 concluded with a disastrous toll on persons not directly taking part in hostilities. The sheer number of casualties has put a spotlight on LOAC and surfaced pivotal, critical questions concerning its limits. How useful is it in constraining harm against civilians in times of armed conflict? Could it and should it be reformed? Or does it rather confer undue legitimacy to violence?

In search of answers, some have addressed diverging understandings of proportionality assessments or proposed to rethink how indiscriminate attacks are understood. Yet, as Cordula Droege, Head of the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), reiterated in a recent post on achieving compliance, LOAC “remains a uniquely powerful tool for mitigating the human cost of armed conflict – if and when it is respected, which hinges on strong political will.” The law could serve its intended purpose, though the political will to uphold it appears diminished these days.

One aspect that has received limited attention that nonetheless matters in terms of compliance is the use of certain types of war rhetoric. In times of war, government officials and other influential figures address the public to deliver messages in support of one side. Such comments, statements, and speeches are useful to underscore lawfare tactics, spread disinformation about the adversary, or rally support for strategic goals. The case before the International Court of Justice on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip relies in part on what Israel defends as “mere” war rhetoric to prove intent to destroy the Palestinian group in whole or in part.

Some of the comments to which South Africa refers are clearly rhetorical, made in the immediate aftermath of an event which severely traumatized Israel, but which cannot be seen as demanding genocide. They express anguish and the necessity to restore control over Israel’s own territory under severe threat and safety to its citizens. As Judge Tomka has noted, sometimes statements are made which are “nothing more than a part of the recent war-time rhetoric intending to put the blame and shame on the other side”. Not to be totally ignored, but not to be ascribed an importance which belies how and when they were made, nor of legal significance (emphasis added, para. 49).

The judgment in this case will probably further demarcate where the line between significant expressions of genocidal intent—or of incitement—and anguished war rhetoric lies. Beyond that, the judgment may also include some more general observations on the legal implications of war rhetoric.

With this post in the Articles of War Year Ahead series, I want to explore such statements’ significance for LOAC. While the relevance of rhetoric to prove allegations of genocide has been addressed elsewhere, I will argue that destructive, dehumanizing kinds of war rhetoric also contradict key principles and goals of LOAC. In my view, 2025 should be a year to reflect on using such language and to recognize the serious harm it contributes to.

War Rhetoric: More than Empty Words

War rhetoric is an omnipresent phenomenon in times of war. It may incorporate an emotive element to remind those conducting military operations and external supporters of the (real or perceived) legitimate reasons behind the hostilities. If understood in a wider sense as conflict discourse, war rhetoric serves different functions and therefore replicates varying motifs.

Some of those are productive. Grandiose speeches given to rally support for historical campaigns echo long after battles have ended. Examples include the “Gettysburg Address” by President Abraham Lincoln or Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” broadcast, both drawing on what would now be considered—because of the consensus on the justness of their war—constructive portrayals of reasons to use force. Another modern example for a productive focus in war rhetoric stemming from international law would be to outline legitimate reasons for self-defense in the sense of Article 51 of the UN Charter.

A few scholars have addressed the different functions war rhetoric may serve. By contrast to a constructive approach, war rhetoric may also focus on polarizing, negative narratives that can serve to rally the population in support of aggression and of dehumanization that is conducive to LOAC violations. As this collection of relevant statements by President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials reveals, recurring concepts they draw on “include the notion of historical Russian and Ukrainian unity, denial of the Ukrainian nation, and the conceptualization of ‘Ukrainianism’ as a fascist threat to Russian sovereignty” (emphasis added).

This kind of language denies any national Ukrainian identity, thereby serving Putin’s strategic goal of undermining Ukrainian statehood. More generally, Innocent Chiluwa and Jurate Ruzaite have concluded in their analysis of the polarizing language used by Presidents Volodomyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin in Russia’s ongoing war of aggression, that

War rhetoric as a type of polarizing ideological discourse heightens ethnic and national consciousness, explicitly highlighted through the construction of We, Us, They and Them dichotomies. Polarization in general is a basis of hostile narratives, propaganda and disinformation as it conveniently simplifies the complexities arising in unsettling periods and crises and creates the illusion of stable categories. Besides, having an enemy (Them) helps to mobilize the audience (p. 14).

Conflating Civilians with Enemy Forces

While war rhetoric therefore undoubtedly provides a useful tool to influence public opinion, it may also incite or increase violence by appealing to destructive sentiments. In this vein, it is commonly used to construct social groups and place them in stark opposition to one another. In their analysis of post-9/11 language and rhetoric used by Presidents and more broadly by policy-makers, Professors Oren Gross and Fionnula Ní Aoláin emphasize that,

War rhetoric not only constitutes the “united community of patriots;” it also identifies and names the enemy. Presidential rhetoric identifies and addresses two socially constructed target populations, i.e., “us” who need protecting and the “dangerous others” who threaten us and the polity. Clear lines of demarcation are drawn around “them”, separating them from “us” (p. 250).

Though the list of examples of such war rhetoric is too long to review here, one commonly used narrative to highlight an “us” versus “them” division is to frame a group as complicit with terrorist organizations. To give one example, Bashar al Assad relied on polarizing rhetoric to gain support for his own regime by delegitimizing enemy rebel groups as fanatics. Alicia Campbell summarized for the Harvard Political Review,

During the Arab Spring, … the Assad regime fueled sectarian tensions in order to create divisions within a broad-based opposition that had managed to unite hundreds of thousands of people from various faiths. Assad thus tightened grip on his base by persuading them against Sunni Muslims, imposing laws that permitted the seizure of Sunni assets, and releasing Jihadists from prison “in order to taint the uprising.” Assad also favored Alawites and Christians, thus garnering their support while encouraging them to mirror his regime’s hateful and sectarian language. Accordingly, Assad’s supporters often referred to Sunnis as “infidels” and “terrorists.”

In doing so, Assad justified “cracking down on the majority Sunni population in order to gain greater favor with his non-Sunni supporters.” Concerning individuals associated with terrorism, legal adviser Ellen Policinski has also raised “serious concern that ‘terrorism’-related rhetoric will be reflected in the way that States approach both civilian populations associated with actors designated as ‘terrorist’ as well as humanitarians seeking to provide life-saving protection and assistance.”

Examples from ongoing hostilities in Gaza come to mind here too. Consider Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who recently justified cutting support for the Palestinian Authority (PA) due to its alleged use as “terrorist funds which it [the PA] directs from its budget to the families of terrorists.” Such comments not only blur the difference between civilians and terrorist fighters; they are also a potent tool to use fear or hatred and direct it against an entire population. Constructing groups and pitting them against each other emboldens them. It creates simple dichotomies and offers a clear, discerned solution instead of reserved complexity. Above that, such war rhetoric may also draw on preexisting racist or xenophobic narratives and fall on fertile soil to those in search of a reason to subject the group in question to violent behavior.

Overall, though the interplay between this kind of rhetoric and heightened violence is far from conclusively analyzed, using dehumanizing or demonizing language may at least contribute to an escalation of violence.

Significance for LOAC Compliance

Irrespective of the useful unifying effect war rhetoric may have, it holds dangerous potential when an entire population or ethnic group is conflated with the enemy. While it could be argued as legally unproblematic, for instance if such rhetoric endangered only legitimate targets in war, the effect is usually not contained to the armed forces involved. Instead, when emotional, dehumanizing, or demonizing comments attach to an entire group, the harm done is not limited to the armed minority.

Yet, maintaining protective respect for the civilian population—even if it is perceived to be politically associated with an armed force—is essential if one endeavors to comply with LOAC. Those commanding the forces involved in an armed conflict are required to take all feasible measures to protect those not taking part in the hostilities. In this regard, 2024 has raised particular concern that destructive war rhetoric may contribute to a heightened disregard for basic limits of LOAC.

Not only might destructive war rhetoric entice soldiers to disregard the principles of distinction or proportionality and thereby incite the commitment of war crimes (along the lines of Article 8 para. 2 (b) and (e) of the International Criminal Court Statute). States also have an obligation to disseminate knowledge and educate their soldiers and the general public on LOAC. Dehumanizing language that conflates civilians with armed forces undermines the very essence of this obligation, particularly if amplified by replication in social media. In the words of the ICRC,

The obligation to spread knowledge of IHL is based on the idea that sound acquaintance of the rules set forth in the law is essential for their effective application and, consequently, for the protection of the victims of armed conflicts.

From the above, two intertwined observations stand out. First, dehumanizing rhetoric implicates those perceived as associated but not identical with members of the enemy armed force. Such destructive rhetoric inherently holds potential to put those not participating in hostilities in harm’s way. Second, and returning to building a culture of compliance with LOAC, political commitment to adhere to its rules is essential. Cultivating the will to conduct military operations in accordance with its basic principles must be taken seriously by the entire chain of command. Therefore, those rules must also be mirrored throughout the use of political rhetoric.

Conclusion

This post intended to highlight that language matters to build an overall culture of compliance. In this vein, it is important to reiterate that adhering to LOAC rules benefits all sides to an armed conflict, far more than the incendiary rhetoric outlined above could. After all, placing legal guardrails on violence supports the possibility to return to a state of peace. As the ICRC recently added in its 2024 Report on International Humanitarian Law and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts, “Respect for [international humanitarian law] can be a first step towards building trust and facilitating the path to peace when the parties decide to pursue it” (p. 71). By conflating a civilian population with the enemy armed force and undermining compliance, destructive war rhetoric also endangers that process. As an initial step, this must be recognized as an obstacle; one that might be removed by refraining from such destructive war rhetoric this year.

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Rosa-Lena Lauterbach is a PhD Candidate at the University of Cologne and a former Visiting Researcher at the Lieber Institute and Columbia Law School.

Photo credit: Council.gov.ru