Further, given that the purpose of a counterinsurgency is in some sense to protect or restore a particular political order, any suspension of individual rights should represent the least disruption to civil order possible and be directed solely toward the task of sorting armed insurgents from the civilian populace. For example, in the early days of the Iraq insurgency, indiscriminate detention of Iraqis by U.S. forces may have served to disrupt some insurgent attacks, but it also had such a destabilizing effect on the larger community that it stiffened the Iraqi resistance and enabled its growth. This effect certainly gives a practical justification to avoid such practices; however, it had that effect precisely because it was indiscriminate and thus perceived as immoral by the population subjected to it.

Regarding lethal force, this ethic will also have to be sensitive to the evolving nature of the threat counter-insurgents face. As the example of the Islamic State suggests, it makes no sense to pursue a law-enforcement ethic where there is no order to maintain or laws to enforce. When the Islamic State took on the character of a state by seizing and governing territory, it excluded Iraqi Security Forces from engaging in the risk-reducing, non-lethal practices recommended here. Moreover, it acquired the ability to generate military capability internally, as opposed to relying on extortion and outside support as it had done previously.[17] These effects, when taken together, precluded the kind of discrimination required by a law enforcement ethic.

That fact, however, does not necessarily enable permissions regarding discrimination associated with regular war. In the regular view of war, the imperative to defeat the enemy enables combatants to use the most force permissible given the limits of proportionality and discrimination. The irregular view of war, on the other hand, permits only the least force possible consistent with the requirements of maintaining or restoring order. In this view, what counts as discriminate is that harms to civilians are not just unintentional, but also unforeseen. What counts as proportional is that it represents the least disruption to civil life possible consistent with ending the insurgency.

The movie Eye in the Sky provides an excellent example of this ethic in action. An American drone pilot refuses to engage an important Al-Shabaab target located in a part of Kenya the terrorist organization controls because of the presence of one small girl in the likely blast radius. The commander of the mission sends a member of the Kenyan security forces supporting the strike in—at great risk—to get the girl out of the way. That effort fails, but the pilot agrees to fire the missile only after the targeteer provides him coordinates that make it unlikely the girl will be affected by the strike. This is a good illustration of how balancing risk works. The imperative to defeat the enemy enables targeting the enemy leadership. The use of drones reduces risk to the pilot as well as combatants on the ground; however, it places that risk on civilians since the pilot’s remoteness and use of missiles does not allow for the kind of discrimination a police officer on the ground might provide. To compensate for that increased risk, the Kenyan soldier took great risk to what he could do get the girl out of the way, and the pilot only fired when he could be reasonably sure no innocents would be harmed.

Unfortunately, despite these additional efforts, the girl is killed in the blast. This dramatic outcome raises another good point about irregular warfare ethics. Unforeseen does not mean impossible. All actions in war are subject to uncertainty and probability estimates. The ethical question is not how much uncertainty do we tolerate; rather, it is whether we want to tolerate such acts given the uncertainty that exists. Of course, that is why this example has such heuristic value. One can have a conversation regarding whether the commander and pilot were sure enough that the strike was warranted. Perhaps there is where the moral fault lies.

There are likely multiple ways commanders can align these moral imperatives: defeat the enemy, minimize harm to civilians, and protect fellow combatants. The point is that by understanding ethical decision-making as balancing competing obligations, a framework emerges for addressing the various demands of the different kinds of fights in which a counterinsurgent force finds itself. Sensitivity to this ethical dynamic enables paths to victory while preserving the moral integrity necessary to fighting just wars well.