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Clemson University

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Leaders On The Ground: Command Influence On War Crimes In The Armies Of France And The United States, Hayward Hood May 2023

Leaders On The Ground: Command Influence On War Crimes In The Armies Of France And The United States, Hayward Hood

All Theses

Utilizing torture during the Battle of Algiers, the My Lai Massacre, and torture at Abu Ghraib as specific case studies, this thesis contends that negligence or dereliction of duty by the brigade, battalion, and company commanders were the primary factors. Additional factors included commanders stressing rapid results, and external stressors in the soldiers’ immediate environment. War crimes are defined as violations of the 1907 Hague Convention which was supported by the 1949 Geneva Protocols, and negligence is defined in the legal sense.1 Contrary to the existing narrative, this thesis contends that lower-level commanders did more to create the conditions required …


Failure, Success And Lessons Learned: The Legacy Of The Algerian War And Its Influence On Counterinsurgency Doctrine, Zack Rish May 2010

Failure, Success And Lessons Learned: The Legacy Of The Algerian War And Its Influence On Counterinsurgency Doctrine, Zack Rish

All Theses

The 2003 American invasion of Iraq resulted in a violent insurgency that American forces were initially unable to counter. The United States military was shocked by its failure and was forced to consider what it had done wrong. Once the U.S. military looked into its past it was forced to admit it had wrongly ignored counterinsurgency. To correct this, it assigned many of its officers, along with other military experts, to create a new, updated doctrine that incorporated the lessons of Iraq and other recent, relevant historical precedent.
Perhaps surprisingly to some, the United States military interpreted that the Algerian …