A legal review of sieges in modern war

Abstract This paper examines the relationship between Western military doctrine, international law, and the impact of sieges in war. This paper examines three case studies – the battles of Mosul (2016–2017), the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport (2014–2015), and Ghouta – to analyze the effect of international law on the conduct of sieges and how that impacts the attacker, the besieged, and the innocent bystanders. In the end, we find that Western military doctrine is inadequate to address siege situations, which in turn can result in mishandling siege situations from an international law standpoint. Additionally, we find that international law, as well as applied law, provides the actors therein sufficient leeway to create the conditions for the siege to continue to be used well into the future.