For the counterinsurgency experts of a century ago, the extension of European empire into the Middle East offered exciting possibilities. The Italians bombed Libyans on the eve of World War I, but that was just the beginning. From 1919 onward, the fledgling Royal Air Force was busy dropping bombs on Afghan, Somali and Iraqi tribesmen. In 1926, French artillery shelled the center of Damascus. It was in this context that Elbridge Colby, an American Army captain, wrote an article, â??How to Fight Savage Tribes,â? in order to educate his countrymen and challenge what he saw as their naïve faith in international law.
America has come a long way since then. As the country finds itself embroiled in one unconventional conflict after another, â??precisionâ? airstrikes, drones and the use of other robotic weaponry of ever increasing sophistication have steadily pushed the military further and further away from anything resembling classical notions of the laws of war. Today it is those who seek to remind Americans of the importance of observing international law who are on the back foot.
If we have anyone to thank for this, it is men like Elbridge Colbyâ??s son, William. He fought behind enemy lines for the O.S.S. in Nazi-occupied Europe, then set up anti-Communist stay-behind cells in Italy (unfortunately some went rotten and started blowing up civilians), before running the C.I.A.â??s shadow war in Vietnam and ending up as the director of central intelligence. Colby junior belonged to that generation of Americans who came to terms with the world that gives Max Boot the title of his book â??Invisible Armies.â? Indeed, they formed and fought in invisible armies themselves.
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