The cardinal principle of distinction in LOIAC (supra 40–1) is of fundamental importance: it affects the entire normative architecture relating to susceptibility to attack in the course of hostilities by dividing the population of Belligerent Parties into two disparate categories of combatants and non-combatants. The goal of the bifurcation is to ensure in every feasible manner that IACs are waged among combatants while sparing non-combatants (primarily, innocent civilians). Of course, this goal is easier to verbalize than to apply in the intense strain of hostilities. In consequence, there are occasional scholarly attempts to expose ‘the ambiguity, instability and indeterminacy of distinction’.247 But, whatever challenges are encountered in the implementation of the principle of distinction, it cannot be denied that it constitutes a recurrent leitmotif of both customary and treaty LOIAC. The Security Council, too, has stressed the importance of ‘distinguishing between, on the one hand, civilian populations, civilian objects and all other persons and objects afforded protection, and, on the other hand, combatants and military objectives’.248