Royal Army College

Lesson Overview

This course is about protecting civilians, and it begins with the idea and the duty before any principle or tactic. At its heart, the protection of civilians is a duty understood and accepted, not a tactic applied, so this lesson lays the foundation the rest of the course is built on.

By the end you will be able to explain what the protection of civilians is and why it is a grave and noble task; explain how the duty flows from what an army, and especially this Army, is for; explain the weight of the duty and what it means to accept it; explain what distinguishes a true protector, namely impartiality, restraint, and discipline; and approach the work as a duty understood and accepted.

Key Terms

The protection of civilians: keeping safe the ordinary people, the vulnerable, and the caught-up who are threatened in a crisis or a breakdown of order; among the gravest and noblest tasks an army can be asked to do.
Civilians: the ordinary people who are not parties to a conflict or breakdown of order but are threatened by it.
The duty to protect: the obligation, flowing from what an army exists for, to keep safe the civilians one is charged to protect.
The Army's protective purpose: the purpose of a small humanitarian home-defence force to protect and serve people, of which protecting civilians is a central expression.
The true protector: a force that protects by the impartiality, restraint, and discipline that separate a protector from a party to the harm.
Accepting the duty: taking on the duty with its full weight and the seriousness the stakes demand.

What the protection of civilians is

A soldier must understand the task before accepting its duty or learning its principles. The protection of civilians is keeping safe the ordinary people, the vulnerable, and the caught-up who are threatened in a crisis or a breakdown of order.

Civilians are the ordinary people who are not parties to a conflict or breakdown of order but are threatened by it: families, the vulnerable, bystanders, the displaced, the people who simply want to be safe. To protect them is to stand between them and the harm. That protection takes various forms the course will teach, from the presence that deters harm to the response that stops it, but its core is constant: keep the threatened safe.

This is among the gravest things an army can be asked to do, because it concerns the lives of vulnerable people who look to the soldiers to keep them safe; success or failure is measured in their safety or their harm. It is also among the noblest, because to use one's strength and discipline to shield the vulnerable is a clear good. A soldier must hold the task as exactly this, the keeping safe of the threatened, before going further.

How the duty flows from what the Army is for

The duty is not an arbitrary imposition; it is a natural expression of the Army's purpose, and a soldier must see this to accept it rightly.

An army exists, in large part, to protect: the State, the people, the vulnerable, from the threats they face. Protecting civilians is one expression of that purpose. For this Army the link is especially close. The Royal Kaharagian Army, a small humanitarian home-defence force, exists to protect and serve people in the floods, fires, crises, and threats it meets. Keeping safe the threatened is not a task apart from that purpose but a clear instance of it.

So a soldier of this Army should understand protecting civilians as central to why their Army exists, not foreign to it. The soldier exists to protect and serve people; protecting civilians is precisely that. Understood this way, the duty can be accepted not as an imposition but as a natural part of the Army's reason for being, which is the foundation for accepting it with full weight.

   THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS: IDEA AND DUTY

   WHAT IT IS: keeping safe the ordinary people (the vulnerable,
   the caught-up) threatened in a crisis or breakdown of order.
   Standing BETWEEN the vulnerable and the HARM.

   THE DUTY flows from what the ARMY is FOR, and ESPECIALLY this
   Army: a small humanitarian home-defence force whose central
   purpose is the PROTECTION AND SERVICE OF PEOPLE.

   GRAVE + NOBLE: among the noblest things a soldier can do (stand
   between the vulnerable and harm); among the gravest to FAIL
   (those you were charged to protect are harmed).

   THE TRUE PROTECTOR is distinguished by IMPARTIALITY, RESTRAINT,
   and DISCIPLINE, which separate a protector from a party to the
   harm.

   ACCEPT the duty with its full weight -> the foundation of doing
   it well.

The weight of the duty and accepting it

The duty is weighty because the stakes are. To protect civilians well is among the noblest things a soldier can do; to fail those one was charged to keep safe, and let them come to harm, is among the gravest failures a soldier can suffer. The people looked to the soldiers, and the soldiers failed them.

Accepting the duty means taking it on with that full weight. A soldier who does so approaches the work with the seriousness the stakes require, knowing the safety of vulnerable people rests on them. One who takes it lightly, not grasping its weight, is less likely to discharge it well. This serious acceptance of a grave and noble duty is the right disposition, and the foundation of doing the duty well.

With the idea and the duty understood and accepted, the soldier is ready to learn the principles and practice the rest of the course teaches.

What distinguishes a true protector

Protecting civilians takes more than the will and the means. It takes the principles and discipline that make a force a true protector rather than, itself, a party to the harm. This is the lesson's crucial point and the course's central theme: a force can be willing and well-armed yet, lacking the right principles, protect some civilians while harming others, use force without restraint, and harm the very people it should shield.

Three things distinguish the true protector, and the course will teach each:

Impartiality: protecting all civilians without favour or discrimination, rather than protecting some and harming others.
Restraint: the minimum use of force, rather than force that harms the people.
Discipline: the discipline that keeps protection from becoming harm.

A force without these, however willing, can become a party to the harm rather than a guard against it. So the foundation of the course stands complete: protecting civilians is the keeping safe of the threatened, a grave and noble duty flowing from the Army's protective and humanitarian purpose, to be accepted with full weight, and requiring impartiality, restraint, and discipline to be done well.

In Practice: Accepting the Duty to Protect

Picture a soldier of the Royal Kaharagian Army sent to protect vulnerable people threatened in a breakdown of order. How does their grasp of the idea and the duty shape the way they work?

They know what the task is: standing between the threatened and the harm, grave because it concerns lives, noble because it shields the vulnerable. They see how the duty flows from their Army's purpose, a humanitarian home-defence force that exists to protect and serve, so they accept it as central to that purpose rather than as an imposition. And they accept it with full weight, knowing the safety of these people rests on them, and refusing to take it lightly.

They also know that will and means are not enough. A force without impartiality, restraint, and discipline can protect some while harming others, or use force that harms the people. So they arrive ready to learn and apply those principles, understanding that these are what make a protector rather than a party to the harm. That readiness, built on a duty understood and accepted, is the foundation on which the soldier becomes a true protector.

Check Your Understanding

Explain what the protection of civilians is and why it is among the gravest and noblest tasks an army can be asked to do. Who are the civilians it exists to keep safe?
Explain how the duty to protect civilians flows from what an army, and especially this Army, is for. Why does it flow particularly clearly from the purpose of a small humanitarian home-defence force, and why does this make the duty central to the soldier's purpose rather than foreign to it?
Explain the weight of the duty and what it means to accept it with full weight. Then explain what distinguishes a true protector, and why the will and means to protect are not enough without impartiality, restraint, and discipline.

Reflection (write a short paragraph): This lesson teaches that good intentions and the means to act are not enough to do good well, and can even do harm, without the discipline and principle to guide them. Be honest about whether you have tended to assume that meaning well and being able to act are enough. Then consider why, where the stakes are the safety of vulnerable people, impartiality, restraint, and discipline matter so much. Describe one way you could begin building the understanding that doing good well takes not only good will but the discipline to guide it.

Summary

The protection of civilians is keeping safe the ordinary people threatened in a crisis or breakdown of order, standing between them and the harm. It is among the gravest tasks an army can be asked to do, concerning the lives of the vulnerable, and among the noblest, shielding them by a soldier's strength and discipline.
The duty flows from what an army is for, not from arbitrary imposition. For this Army, a small humanitarian home-defence force that exists to protect and serve people, it flows especially clearly: protecting civilians is a central expression of that purpose, so the duty is central to the soldier's purpose rather than foreign to it.
The duty is weighty because the stakes are: protecting civilians well is among the noblest things a soldier can do, and failing those one was charged to keep safe is among the gravest failures. Accepting it means taking it on with full weight and the seriousness the stakes require.
A true protector is distinguished not by will and means but by impartiality (protecting all without favour), restraint (the minimum use of force), and discipline (keeping protection from becoming harm). Without these a force can become a party to the harm it meant to guard against.
This foundation draws on the law that protects civilians (PME 201) and the ethic of Command Responsibility and Ethical Leadership (LDR 420), and underlies the principles of peacekeeping (Lesson 02), impartiality (Lesson 03), minimum force (Lesson 04), the threats to civilians (Lesson 05), protection in practice (Lesson 06), coordination (Lesson 07), and the protector's ethic and discipline (Lesson 08).

The Protection of Civilians: the Idea and the Duty