Craig Jones
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780198842927
- eISBN:
- 9780191878824
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198842927.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
This chapter argues that the US-led war in Vietnam (1955–1975) paved the way for institutional changes in the US military, including the establishment of the US Law of War Program, which later ...
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This chapter argues that the US-led war in Vietnam (1955–1975) paved the way for institutional changes in the US military, including the establishment of the US Law of War Program, which later precipitated the emergence of a new doctrinal approach to the laws of war called ‘operational law’. Military lawyers emerged from the Vietnam War better equipped and with a formal mandate to advise military commanders on the legality of targeting operations. Military lawyers performed a wide range of duties in Vietnam, especially around Prisoner of War (POW) issues, and were deployed in unprecedented numbers. Military lawyers were not involved in targeting, neither during ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’ nor ‘Operation Linebacker’, but the Vietnam War in general and the My Lai massacre of 1968 in particular helped to create the conditions for their involvement in subsequent wars.Less
This chapter argues that the US-led war in Vietnam (1955–1975) paved the way for institutional changes in the US military, including the establishment of the US Law of War Program, which later precipitated the emergence of a new doctrinal approach to the laws of war called ‘operational law’. Military lawyers emerged from the Vietnam War better equipped and with a formal mandate to advise military commanders on the legality of targeting operations. Military lawyers performed a wide range of duties in Vietnam, especially around Prisoner of War (POW) issues, and were deployed in unprecedented numbers. Military lawyers were not involved in targeting, neither during ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’ nor ‘Operation Linebacker’, but the Vietnam War in general and the My Lai massacre of 1968 in particular helped to create the conditions for their involvement in subsequent wars.
