ABSTRACT
Cultural property has been a component of conflict throughout the course of history. Since 2003 and damage at Babylon, academic and military partners have been working to institutionalize cultural property protection programmes within the US Department of Defense DOD), UK Ministry of Defence (MOD), and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). These efforts have drawn upon the historical context provided by the heroic Monuments Officers of World War II and their valuable examples. This chapter describes how a meaningful Cultural Property Protection (CPP) programme requires: inventory and geo-spatial information; military education and training; military regulations governing identification and management of cultural property forward; and research into the relationships between treatment of cultural property and exacerbation of conflict. The chapter also observes that CCP can and should be implemented during all phases of modern military operations, and productive application of sound academic expertise emerges as an essential military asset. When sacred places, agricultural infrastructure, traditional gathering spaces, and other elements of cultural life are spared during conflict, essentially cultural property protection writ large, a community at war has far greater prospects for transforming into a community at peace.
