United and powerful applause – regardless of which side of the political spectrum it’s coming from – fills the Chamber of Representatives, perhaps for the first time since Pearl Harbor. Less than weeks have passed since the attacks on the World Trade Center.
As President Bush enters the hall to address the nation, the air brims with a mixture of mourning and a desire for revenge. This is no ordinary address; he, and perhaps everyone present that day, is aware that his next words will shape the course of global history.
What follows is the reaffirmation of the “War on Terror” declared on 9/11. Its implications are not yet understood by the military generals in the crowd, nor by even Bush himself.
Offering an appeal to Americans – and a warning to the rest of the world – this moment saw Bush define what armed conflict would mean for decades. That day, the enemy ceased to be a state with physical resources and a standing army. Instead, it was replaced by a shadowy organization, operating outside the bounds of established borders and beyond the reach of the laws of war. Twenty years after the speech and countless special military operations, interventions, and anti-insurgency campaigns, the question remains: why is war no longer called war? The answer lies deeper than it might initially appear. Although the use of a declaration of war as a tool of international diplomacy has decreased drastically since World War II, it was not until the “War on Terror” declaration that the true reason for not calling war what it is was made clear.
Historically, wars have been named after the sides involved (e.g., the Franco-Prussian War), the location (e.g., the Balkan Wars), or the intent behind the conflict (e.g., the Algerian War of Independence). This framing clearly implies either the sides or the physical location of each conflict. Such framing and naming were common practices for most of human history. A change of direction arrived after the Second World War, particularly as a result of the 1949 Geneva Convention, a charter defining the rules of war and rights of POWs. In addition to specifying the conduct of warfare, the Convention distinguishes between two types of conflicts: International Armed Conflict (IAC) and Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC). The former is characterized by having at least one of the parties declare war. If that’s the case, the extensive 429 articles of detailed conduct of war apply. This is not the case for NIAC. Although, some basic rules still apply – mainly those attempting to prevent a genocide – their reach and execution is more limited than in the case of IAC. In large, the governments of the post-Geneva era devised an unexpected solution: they ceased calling war by its proper name.
A quick look at major media outlets illustrates the problem. The likes of Deutsche Welle (the largest German public news agency) and the BBC report on what they call the “Israel-Hezbollah War,” or “conflict,” rather than the Invasion of Lebanon or the Israel-Lebanon War. Under the definition of Geneva, an occupation of a territory of a fellow UN member is an act of war – an IAC. However, if intentionally framed not as a war against Lebanese civilians living in Lebanese territory, but rather a war against terrorism, the Israeli government gains political leverage and avoids abiding to the extensive rules controlling IAC.
The example of the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon is only a symptom of a larger phenomenon that is the center point of discussion on modern armed conflict. The same can be said about how Russia frames the War in Ukraine or how U.S. media covered the Invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.
An argument can be made that with the ongoing replacement of the national flags on combatants’ uniforms with emblems of non-state groups, the decreasing use of war declarations in diplomacy is justified. However, this is a quarrel for political sciences scholars to discuss during their symposium lunch breaks. The average person has less of an association, presumably none, to terms like NIAC or conflict between High Contracting Parties. Rather, they are aware of the grave weight that the word “war” carries.
Wrongful framing, such as “Country-Organization,” “War on (Insert Your Ideology),” or the use of softer synonyms, dilutes the real impact of the conflict. Organizations don’t exist in a vacuum. In conflict—especially a modern one—targeting a non-uniformed group operating in an urban area is impossible. Pretending that it is feasible to wage a war against a single dispersed group is, at the very least, a fallacy, and at most, a purposeful avoidance of international law.
Regardless of whether it’s Russia Today with its “Special Military Operation in Ukraine,” The New York Times in 2004 with “The War on Terror,” or Deutsche Welle reporting on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, as long as bombs keep falling, let’s call war for what it is. For civilians who go through the rubble of their homes do not wonder if the drone meant to target them or a shadowy organization.
