ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the fundamental issue whether the steps taken in international law represent effective responses to the abuses and atrocities characteristic of contemporary armed conflict. While they add to the nexus of restraints on state actors involved in such conflicts, they have done little to affect the conduct of non-state actors so involved. The chapter comments the similarity between Ramsey's treatment of such warfare and that in contemporary American military doctrine. The actual face of warfare as it has developed since the end of World War II has been dominated by small wars and insurgencies: local and regional conflicts. International law had real successes in protecting noncombatants from the ravages of war and in seeking to restrain and control the means of war. For both just war reasoning and international order, more attention needs to be given to strengthening states in their essential functions and enlisting their involvement in dealing with the non-state perpetrators of armed conflict.
