For more than thirty years, a conventional mindset of applying force has clashed with the passions of the Iraqi people, complicating decisive outcomes despite US-led coalitions possessing overwhelming technological superiority in Iraq. Most studies of Operation Iraqi Freedom focus almost exclusively on the first few weeks of largely conventional

force employment, thereby missing how much this campaign has in common with other contemporary air campaigns. Air power made enormous contributions against the military “leg” of the Clausewitzian triangle over the course of thirty years with precision and stealth capabilities, but this advantage does not translate neatly into enduring strategic effect. As such, OIF should be reevaluated in a balanced manner that focuses more on the complex interactions between militaries, governments, and people and less on the overwhelming application of US kinetic force.

Chapter 6 revises two of the shortcomings from which the inevitable conflict thesis suffers. First, the inevitable conflict thesis claims that military necessity and humanity in their material context never coincide. On the contrary, there are numerous instances where a belligerent act is both humane and necessary, or both inhumane and unnecessary, as the case may be. Second, according to the inevitable conflict thesis, both military necessity and humanity generate imperatives. For the purposes of IHL norm-creation, however, there is simply no reason why materially necessary acts should be performed, or why materially unnecessary ones should be avoided. This shows that military necessity is normatively indifferent. Although humanity generates imperatives in many cases, it also remains indifferent in others.