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Civilian Harm and Military Legitimacy: Evidence from the Battle of Mosul
No full textThe legitimacy of armed forces in the eyes of civilians is increasingly recognized as crucial not only for battlefield effectiveness but also for conflict resolution and peace building. However, the concept of “military legitimacy” remains under-theorized and its determinants poorly understood. We argue that perceptions of military legitimacy are shaped by two key dimensions of warfare: just cause and just conduct. Leveraging naturally occurring variation during one of the deadliest urban battles in recent history—the multinational campaign to defeat the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq—we evaluate our theory using a mixed-methods design that combines original survey data, satellite imagery, and interviews. Civilians living in neighborhoods where armed forces were less careful to protect civilians view those forces as less legitimate than civilians elsewhere. Surprisingly, these results persist after conditioning on personal experiences of harm, suggesting that perceptions are influenced not only by victimization—consistent with previous studies—but also by beliefs about the morality of armed forces’ conduct and the cause for which they are fighting
Leadership Keynote
No full textIntroduction: Maj Gen Charlie Dunlap, USAF (Ret.), LENS Executive Director
Speaker: Gen. Frank McKenzie, USMC (ret), Executive Director of the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute (former Commander, USCENTCOM; author, The Melting Point: High Command and War in the 21st Century (2024)
A Lawyer\u27s Duty to Uphold the Rule of Law - Revisiting Rule of Law Foundation Ethics and 21st Century Security Challenges
No full textSpeaker: Prof. Adam Oler, Col, USAF (Ret.), National Defense University
Speaker: Ms. Erin Wirtanen, Foreign Service Officer, Department of Stat
Presidential Administration\u27s Accountability
No full textIntro by Brandon
Brian D. Feinstein, Presidential Administration’s Accountability Fallacy
Discussant Kevin M. Stac
Caught in the Content Tornado: How to Protect Violent-Crime Trials From the Prejudicial Effects of Live Streaming
Get PDFWith the rise of social media use and true-crime consumption postpandemic, this Note argues that current court practices regarding cameras in the courtroom are insufficient to protect a defendant’s right to a fair trial. This Note focuses on the impact of live streaming violent-crime trials on social media and its consequences—specifically, the “content tornado” that it creates. The content tornado, a concept this Note introduces, refers to the whirlwind of fact, fiction, and opinion that emerges when violent-crime trials are live streamed on social media. This concept describes how live streamed trials generate emotional and moralized content that gets amplified by social media algorithms. The emotional nature of violent-crime trials—fueled by anger, grief, and public passion—draws viewers in, and as they engage with the content, they become more likely to produce their own secondary content on the subject. This user-generated secondary content—in the form of videos, comments, and posts—amplifies the tornado and mixes accurate information with misinformation, exaggerations, and public biases.
As the content tornado gains momentum, it creates an atmosphere like a “Roman circus” or “Yankee Stadium,” where the public spectacle overshadows the trial’s goals of delivering justice and maintaining the presumption of innocence. This phenomenon undermines the fairness of the trial by turning it into sensationalized entertainment, potentially biasing the jury and the public against the defendant, thus violating their right to a fair trial. By analyzing landmark cases and the effects of modern media, this Note proposes a multifaceted solution, advocating for delayed trial coverage to preserve a defendant’s constitutional rights while maintaining public access to courtroom proceedings. This balance aims to mitigate the adverse effects of real-time media amplification and ensure fair judicial outcomes