Ebook: The War Lawyers: The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare

The War Lawyers: The United States, Israel, and Juridical Warfare examines the laws of war as interpreted and applied by military lawyers to aerial targeting operations carried out by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Israel Defense Force (IDF) in Gaza. Drawing on interviews with military lawyers and others, this book explains why some lawyers became integrated in the chain of command whereby military targets are identified and attacked, whether by manned aircraft, drones and/or ground forces, and with what results. The analysis shows how a series of political, legal, and technological developments have given rise to a targeting apparatus that requires legal input. In examining the effects of this process, the book argues that when lawyers render legal advice on targeting, they effectively put the indeterminacy of law in the service of producing and extending military violence, as well as constraining it. This is an iterative and ongoing law-making enterprise carried out in concert with the commanders whom lawyers advise. The provision of legal answers and options takes place in a highly routinized fashion under the overarching imperatives of mission success, and crucially, under pressures of time and emergent events in the battlespace. Military lawyers respond to intelligence data from widely distributed actors—but also inevitable gaps, errors, and misinterpretations in such data. The War Lawyers examines the mutual influence of US and Israeli targeting policies and shows just how important law and military lawyers have become in the conduct of contemporary warfare.