Accidental harm to civilians in warfare often becomes an occasion for public outrage, from citizens of both the victimized and the victimizing nation. In this vitally important book on a topic of acute concern for anyone interested in military strategy, international security, or human rights, Alexander B. Downes reminds readers that democratic and authoritarian governments alike will sometimes deliberately kill large numbers of civilians as a matter of military strategy. What leads governments to make such a choice?

Downes examines several historical cases: British counterinsurgency tactics during the Boer War, the starvation blockade used by the Allies against Germany in World War I, Axis and Allied bombing campaigns in World War II, and ethnic cleansing in the Palestine War. He concludes that governments decide to target civilian populations for two main reasons?desperation to reduce their own military casualties or avert defeat, or a desire to seize and annex enemy territory. When a state's military fortunes take a turn for the worse, he finds, civilians are more likely to be declared legitimate targets to coerce the enemy state to give up. When territorial conquest and annexation are the aims of warfare, the population of the disputed land is viewed as a threat and the aggressor state may target those civilians to remove them. Democracies historically have proven especially likely to target civilians in desperate circumstances.

In Targeting Civilians in War, Downes explores several major recent conflicts, including the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Civilian casualties occurred in each campaign, but they were not the aim of military action. In these cases, Downes maintains, the achievement of quick and decisive victories against overmatched foes allowed democracies to win without abandoning their normative beliefs by intentionally targeting civilians. Whether such ?restraint? can be guaranteed in future conflicts against more powerful adversaries is, however, uncertain.

During times of war, democratic societies suffer tension between norms of humane conduct and pressures to win at the lowest possible costs. The painful lesson of Targeting Civilians in War is that when these two concerns clash, the latter usually prevails.

This volume analyzes the impact of key global trends on civil-military relations by examining defense reform processes since the end of the Cold War. Civil-military relations are reconceptualized to emphasize three dimensions: civilian control of the armed forces, effectiveness in carrying out roles and missions, and efficiency in use of resources.  The key global trends that affect these dimensions are the globalization of new norms and ideas, the democratization of governance, technological innovation, and economic liberalization. By focusing on defense reform processes, this book examines cases where civil-military relations can potentially alter quite rapidly under the impact of global trends. By comparing cases across Europe, Asia, North and South America, this book argues that democratization and globalization have had an outsized role in determining the timing and sequence of defense reform and the consequent impact on civil-military relations.

All U.S. agencies with counterterrorism programs that collect or "mine" personal data -- such as phone records or Web sites visited -- should be required to evaluate the programs' effectiveness, lawfulness, and impacts on privacy. A framework is offered that agencies can use to evaluate such information-based programs, both classified and unclassified. The book urges Congress to re-examine existing privacy law to assess how privacy can be protected in current and future programs and recommends that any individuals harmed by violations of privacy be given a meaningful form of redress. Two specific technologies are examined: data mining and behavioral surveillance. Regarding data mining, the book concludes that although these methods have been useful in the private sector for spotting consumer fraud, they are less helpful for counterterrorism because so little is known about what patterns indicate terrorist activity. Regarding behavioral surveillance in a counterterrorist context, the book concludes that although research and development on certain aspects of this topic are warranted, there is no scientific consensus on whether these techniques are ready for operational use at all in counterterrorism.

Technology has always had a profound influence on the character of war. In the past century alone the industrial revolution, culminating in the development of modern aircraft, tanks, artillery, and naval vessels increased the lethality of war manifold. However, the advent of nuclear weapons in 1945 represented a quantum jump in the lethality of war. Looking ahead, one wonders how emerging information technologies and bio-technologies might revolutionize warfare in the future.

The history of the Cold War can be attributed to the confluence of two factors: the development of nuclear weapons and the rise of the former Soviet Union and the United States as the two dominant military powers after World War II. It may seem paradoxical that the development of the most destructive form of warfare, nuclear warfare, led to a period of relative peace, the Cold War. In fact, nuclear weapons have been used only twice in war-the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. This is not to say that wars on the periphery of U.S. and Soviet interests did not occur, but simply that war between the major powers was absent. This article discusses the development of nuclear weapons, their effects, and the impact they have had on the character of war and military strategy. The ascendance of deterrence as the central strategic concept for nuclear warfare helps explain the apparent paradox mentioned above.

In recent years, Russia and China have urged the negotiation of an international treaty to prevent an arms race in outer space. The United States has responded by insisting that existing treaties and rules governing the use of space are sufficient. The standoff has produced a six-year deadlock in Geneva at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, but the parties have not been inactive. Russia and China have much to lose if the United States were to pursue the space weapons programs laid out in its military planning documents. This makes probable the eventual formulation of responses that are adverse to a broad range of U.S. interests in space. The Chinese anti-satellite test in January 2007 was prelude to an unfolding drama in which the main act is still subject to revision. If the United States continues to pursue the weaponization of space, how will China and Russia respond, and what will the broader implications for international security be?

The American Academy called upon two scholars to further elucidate answers to these questions and to discuss the consequences of U.S. military plans for space. Pavel Podvig, a research associate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and former researcher at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, discusses possible Russian responses, given their current capabilities and strategic outlook.  Hui Zhang, a research associate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, considers Chinese responses.

Each scholar suggests that introducing weapons into space will have negative consequences for nuclear proliferation and international security. As Podvig points out, Russia's main concern is likely to be maintaining strategic parity with the United States. This parity will be destroyed by the deployment of weapons in space, making a response from Russia likely. Podvig suggests that Russia does not have many options for the development of its own weapon systems in space but is likely to react to U.S. development of space weapons through other countermeasures, such as extending the life of its ballistic missiles. Podvig describes such measures as "the most significant and dangerous global effects of new military developments, whether missile defense or space-based weapons."

Zhang arrives at similar conclusions. He describes how U.S. military plans for space will negatively affect peaceful uses of outer space, disrupting civilian and commercial initiatives, but he focuses his discussion on a much greater concern among Chinese officials — that actions by the United States in space will result in a loss of strategic nuclear parity. China's options for response, as detailed by Zhang, include building more ICBMs, adopting countermeasures against missile defense, developing ASAT weapons, and reconsidering China's commitments on arms control. Thus, a U.S. decision to introduce weapons into space would destabilize the already vulnerable international nonproliferation regime. Zhang concludes, "U.S. space weaponization plans would have potentially disastrous effects on international security and the peaceful use of outer space. This would not benefit any country's security interests."