The Expansion of the US Military’s Civilian Periphery and Corollary Progressive Changes in US Military Law

Abstract

To varying degrees, soldiers and civilians have always been together on the field of battle. Civilians have sometimes been unwilling victims, but sometimes they have gone to war as willing camp followers, or as unlawful combatants. Military conventions and laws have placed these civilians in distinct categories, each category seen as deserving of special punishments or protections. In this chapter, I argue that there is a connection between progressive updates to military law and the expanded role of civilians on the battlefield as an adjunct to uniformed military personnel. Military law shows signs of becoming a viable code for Western people generally, as opposed to a code for people who, voluntarily or not, have been placed in a special legal category apart (e.g. that of soldier). US military law may remain socially conservative in its character, but to a Western sensibility the most egregious and jarring manifestations of this conservatism have been recently removed, in the name of social progress. Ironically, this step toward social progress has made it more feasible, from a cultural and legal point of view, to place more civilians (already acting as de facto soldiers in certain situations) under military authority as de jure soldiers, with the limited rights of the soldiers they support.