ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the argument, probing more fully the status, respectively, of combatants and non-combatants. The received rules of war and, in particular, the principle of discrimination and civilian immunity require one to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, to directly target only the former, and to take reasonable steps to avoid harming the latter. War is a struggle between collectivises between states or state-like entities. The chapter rarely holds individual combatants responsible for the wars they fight or criticize or blame them for participating in them, focusing moral assessment instead on the political leaders who bring about those wars or lead their states into them. Some believe that in an asymmetrical conflict between a strong conventional force and a weaker unconventional force, the requirement to minimize collateral damage should be interpreted more stringently for the former than for the latter.
