ABSTRACT
Many scholars have commented upon whether humanitarian intervention meets the traditional ius ad bellum conditions for war.1 Fewer have discussed the ius in bello conditions of humanitarian warfare and, in particular, whether there might not be special combat responsibilities involved. The Kosovo crisis of 1999 is the initial concern of this chapter though it ends looking at an aspect of population ethics. Together these concerns demonstrate the basic thesis of the book: humanitarianism’s critique of privilege condones the killing of the innocent and totalitarianism. The Kosovo crisis prompted the fi rst humanitarian intervention by “Western liberal powers”2 and it is thought likely that its model of “distance” or “zero-casualty” warfare will be the only such model used in future interventions.3 The intervention, as infamous as it is famous, is styled “distance warfare” because NATO planes fl ew very high in the sky in order to avoid loss of aircraft and the death of NATO pilots. The air campaign was a “unique” event in the history of warfare for NATO suffered no combat losses at all.4 A cost came with this uniqueness, however. At higher altitudes, weapon accuracy fell off and sometimes stray munitions killed innocent members of the population, and, of course, sometimes targets were mistaken. What is the precise moral problem here?
