"Michael Gross has written a thoughtful, lucid book about the dilemma of 'asymmetric conflict,' as when a nation confronts a terrorist movement or other insurgency that does not observe the laws of war and, more important, does not have a structure or employ tactics against which conventional military force is fully effective. To be limited in fighting such a group by the conventional laws of war is to fight terror and insurrection with one hand tied behind one's back; and, depending on the gravity of the threat posed by such a group, the question becomes how far if at all the nation should depart from the conventional rules of armed combat. The need to balance military necessity with humanitarianism, with regard to such practices as brutal interrogation, assassination, and disabling but nonlethal gas, is the theme of the book; and as Gross states in the conclusion, 'dogmatism is not the answer." - Richard Posner, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Asymmetric conflict is changing the way that we practice and think about war. Torture, rendition, assassination, blackmail, extortion, direct attacks on civilians, and chemical weapons are all finding their way to the battlefield despite long-standing prohibitions. This book offers a practical guide for policymakers, military officers, lawyers, students, journalists and others who ask how to adapt the laws and conventions of war to the changing demands of asymmetric conflict. As war wages between state and nonstate parties, difficult questions arise about the status of guerrillas, the methods each side may use to disable the other and the means necessary to identify and protect civilians caught in the crossfire. Answering these questions while providing each side a reasonable chance to press its claims by force of arms requires us to reevaluate the principle of noncombatant immunity, adjust the standards of proportionality, and redefine the limits of unnecessary suffering and superfluous injury. In doing so, many practices that conventional war prohibits are slowly evolving into new norms of asymmetric conflict. Michael L. Gross is Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of International Relations at the University of Haifa. He is the author of Ethics and Activism: The Theory and Practice of Political Morality and Bioethics and Armed Conflict: Moral Dilemmas of Medicine and War. ...