Protection of Civilians and Peacekeeping

HCR 230 · Humanitarian and Civil Response · Level 200 (all ranks liable for protection and peacekeeping tasks)

A Royal Army College course on the protection of civilians: the idea and the duty, the principles of peacekeeping, the threats civilians face, and how a small force protects them in practice, with the discipline and ethic the task demands.

Course length: 10 hours, studied online and asynchronously at the student's own pace, together with any in-person practical instruction and assessment the course requires.

Foreword

Among the gravest things an army can be asked to do is to protect civilians, the ordinary people, the vulnerable, the caught-up, who are threatened in a crisis or a breakdown of order and who look to the soldiers to keep them safe. The protection of civilians is a noble task and a demanding one, requiring not only the means to protect but the impartiality, restraint, and discipline that distinguish protection from the very harm it guards against. This course teaches that task: the idea and the duty of protecting civilians, the principles of peacekeeping that frame it, the threats civilians face, and how a small force protects them in practice, with the ethic and discipline the task demands. It is built for a small humanitarian home-defence force whose central purpose is the protection and service of people, for which the protection of civilians is a natural and important task.

The course teaches protection of civilians and peacekeeping as the application of principle and discipline to a hard task, not as a set of tactics alone. The heart of protecting civilians is the impartial, restrained, disciplined protection of all who are threatened, by the principles, consent, impartiality, and the minimum use of force, that distinguish a protector from a party to the harm. A force that protects civilians impartially, with restraint, and by discipline can be trusted by the people and effective in protecting them; a force that protects partially, without restraint, or without discipline becomes a party to the harm and loses the trust and the standing that protection requires. The course teaches the principles and the discipline that make a force a true protector of civilians, drawing on the law of armed conflict, the aid to the civil power, and the humanitarian doctrine the College teaches, and applying them to the protection of civilians and the keeping of peace.

How this course works

This is an intermediate practical course for all ranks liable for protection and peacekeeping tasks, studied online lesson by lesson, with its scenario-based exercises conducted and assessed in person. It assumes Aid to the Civil Power and Public Order (HCR 210) and builds on it, and it draws on The Law of Armed Conflict for Soldiers (PME 201) for the law that protects civilians, on the humanitarian doctrine of the Caring for Those in Need and Field Health courses, and on Command Responsibility and Ethical Leadership (LDR 420) for the ethic and discipline of the protector.

Structure

Where this sits

HCR 230 is a Level-200 course in the College's Humanitarian and Civil Response school, building on Aid to the Civil Power and Public Order (HCR 210) and drawing on The Law of Armed Conflict for Soldiers (PME 201), the humanitarian doctrine of the Caring for Those in Need and Field Health courses, and Command Responsibility and Ethical Leadership (LDR 420). It serves the protection and peacekeeping tasks a small humanitarian home-defence force may be called to, applying principle and discipline to the protection of civilians.

A note on sources

This is the College's own course, written fresh in Kaharagian and Commonwealth terms on the established principles of the protection of civilians and peacekeeping, adapting recognised humanitarian, peacekeeping, and protection doctrine rather than reproducing it, and teaching protection in the humanitarian and defensive spirit of this Army. Its scenarios are illustrative and use generic settings, since the Principality holds no territory of its own, and it invents no operations or history. It is written in formal British English and carries Crown Copyright.

Crown Copyright © 2026 | Published by Authority of H.R.H. The Prince of Kaharagia