Finding Common Ground Cultural Property Protection in Modern Conflict

Author(s): Laurie W. Rush

Source: Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and
Criticism , Vol. 14, No. 1 (Summer 2017), pp. 25-35
Published by: University of Minnesota Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/futuante.14.1.0025

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Figure 1. Failure to recognize the ancient karez water system resulted in a base expansion cutting off the water to four of the five
villages surrounding the base. Photograph by Steven Wood, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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Laurie W. Rush
Finding Common Ground
Cultural Property Protection in
Modern Conflict

Introduction
In order to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act,
the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,
and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, the U.S.
Department of Defense (DOD) has maintained a robust cultural
resources stewardship program for identification and protec-
tion of cultural property on domestic installations for more
than twenty-­five years. The U.S. DOD employs more than two
hundred professional archaeologists, along with more than
one thousand contract professionals, many of whom meet the
professional requirements under U.S. Federal Regulation 36
CFR Part 61 to serve as archaeology principle investigators. One
challenge during overseas operations has been to implement
the same ethics and procedures practiced on U.S. soil. Part of
the strategy has been to provide active-­duty military person-
nel the capacity to identify and respect the cultural property
of other nations and to develop a more sophisticated under-
standing of the importance of identifying cultural property on
the battlefield with respect to military intelligence, operations
planning, education of military personnel, and potential for
mission success. In essence, subject matter experts who care
about heritage preservation during military operations explore
the strategic and tactical value of protecting cultural property
as what the military would call a “force multiplier.” A force
multiplier is a method, tactic, or strategy that, when identified
and implemented, will contribute to the potential for mission
success.
Although preservation comes first to anthropologists and
archaeologists working in the identification and protection of
cultural resources, the safety of personnel is the main concern
in a military setting. Therefore, the common ground between
the interests of preservation professionals and the mission
goals of deployed military personnel on the battlefield is that
the ability to “read” the cultural landscape can increase the
chance of a successful mission. This challenge is especially
pertinent in the conflict zones since 2010, where aggressive
radical organizations use cultural property for strategic and
tactical advantage. There is no question that a key component
of heritage preservation in the event of armed conflict is the
Future Anterior
Volume XIV, Number 1
protection of international archaeological sites, such as those
Summer 2017 on the UNESCO World Heritage list. However, in the context

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 of the U.S. military mission, the ability to identify and respect
cultural property at the local level is critical. Two examples
illustrate this idea: one hypothetical, one actual. The first
example is a rock formation said to be the tooth of the dragon
slain by the hero Hazrat Ali to make the Bamiyan Valley safe
for the Hazara people. This feature is not marked, fenced, or
protected in any visible way. To outsiders, the dragon’s tooth
looks like a pointed rock. The question is, what would happen
if military personnel inadvertently destroyed this iconic symbol
of Hazara identity? The anticipated hypothetical response is
that members of the local community, enraged by the damage,
could attack the unfortunate perpetrators.
Programs critical to the method of learning from mistakes
in the U.S. military include the “lessons identified” and “les-
sons learned” programs. However, if no one knows that dam-
age to an iconic object was what provoked violent retribution,
the event could never be captured as a lesson. Essentially,
the lesson that is available in this hypothetical case is that not
knowing is very dangerous in a cross-­cultural conflict setting.1
The second example has been captured as a “lesson
learned.”2 When the United States and the NATO allies first
entered Afghanistan after 9/11, their understanding of ancient
Afghan infrastructure was limited to say the least. There were
reports of Taliban disappearing into “tunnels” or “caves” but
little recognition that these features were actually elements of
ancient water systems. This lack of understanding came back
to haunt the U.S. military in 2009 when the secondary effects
of expanding Forward Operating Base (FOB) Wolverine compro-
mised the karez system running near the base and resulted in
water being cut off for four of the five neighboring villages.3 An
FOB is a relatively small military base constructed in a conflict
zone in order to accommodate U.S. forces. FOBs are usually
given nicknames, and in this case, the name of the FOB was
“Wolverine.” Its effect was the opposite of stabilization and
protection for the valley. In terms of the lessons learned, the
commander of the base, Colonel Martin Leppert, became a pas-
sionate advocate for improved understanding of water issues
moving forward. In a presentation to the Combatant Command
Cultural Heritage Action Group (CCHAG) in 2012, he pointed
out how a more sophisticated understanding of cultural issues
could affect the mission.4 His work, combined with that of
others, has resulted in a new U.S. policy for the creation and
expansion of FOBs that requires cultural resources to survey
prior to site selection and/or ground disturbance.5
This second example also points to the contributions that
academic archaeologists should make to ensure that cultural
property is taken into consideration by ministries of defense
that abide by international laws of armed conflict. When the

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Figure 2. U.S. military personnel base expansion went awry at FOB Wolverine, according to one
gather at Saqqara for the first on-­site
informant, nobody in the planning unit was able to recognize
archaeological awareness training for
allied military personnel since World the aerial imagery signature of a karez.6 This lapse could have
War II. Dr. Zahi Hawass, then secretary been prevented by the appropriate education of military plan-
general of the Supreme Council for
Egyptian Antiquities, made it possible ners and engineers concerning ancient infrastructure; a cultural
for the group to visit the site as his property geo-­spatial data layer available on human terrain
guests. Photograph by the author.
mapping products; detailed mapping of ancient Afghan water
systems available on U.S. and NATO military maps; or a more
sophisticated understanding of the nature of ancient karez
systems and how they work in the landscape of Afghanistan.
Preservation professionals in the academic setting should
note that qualified scholars could have provided all of these
elements.
Since 2003, ministries of defense with support from
academics and non governmental organizations (NGOs) around
the world have made progress on these issues. For the first time
since Sir Leonard Woolley provided lectures for British troops
on site at Cyrene, Libya,7 professional archaeologists from the
United States, the United Kingdom, Egypt, and the Netherlands
provided on-­site training for military personnel during the
Egyptian Bright Star War Games at Saqqara, Al Alamein, and
the Citadel, Cairo, in 2009.8
When working with military personnel awaiting deploy-
ment, it is critical to offer them an opportunity to learn about
cultural property prior to deployment. To that end, Fort Drum,
New York, home of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division,

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Figure 3. At Fort Drum, N.Y., offers soldiers opportunities to train on actual archaeological
approximately ten thousand soldiers
sites. In addition, replicas of archaeological sites and cultural
per year have the opportunity to train
on and in the immediate vicinities of properties have been constructed in the training areas for
actual archaeological sites. Photograph soldiers to use. In 1940, a series of major U.S. military bases
by Tracy Wagner. Courtesy of the U.S.
Army and Colorado State University. expanded under the aegis of eminent domain in order to
meet the military training needs required by World War II. As a
result, thousands of farms and dozens of villages were leveled
in order to make room for tanks and soldiers. More specifi-
cally, at Fort Drum more than 350 families lost their farms, and
citizens of five villages had to leave their homes. The remains
of these properties are now archaeological sites (a.k.a. cultural
resources) found all across the installation. These properties
are now coming back to life, serving to teach soldiers how to
look for and anticipate insurgent use of cultural features in a
historic landscape. The crossroads at the Historic Village of
Sterlingville, the remains of a nineteenth-­century community,
can serve as anything from an insurgency stronghold to an
ancient sacred site during modern training scenarios. Regard-
less of how the historic village is used, the soldiers occupying
it learn to minimize the impacts of their presence on the site.
Currently, more than ten thousand soldiers train at Historic
Sterlingville per year.
Members of the academic community and NGOs also
encourage the protection of cultural property in conflict zones
by preparing cultural property inventories for areas of the world
where such sites are at risk. The second protocol of the 1954
Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the
Event of Armed Conflict offers the suggestion that each country

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Figure 4. Fort Drum also offers replica
archaeological features constructed
on training lands so soldiers can
become familiar with the concept
of identification of and respect for
cultural property in the cross-­cultural
landscape. Photograph by Tracy
Wagner. Courtesy of the U.S. Army
and Colorado State University.

that has ratified the convention could establish a Committee

of the Blue Shield whose responsibility is to assist the nation
in preparing cultural property inventories and supporting the
training of specialized military personnel. The United States
and the United Kingdom both have very active Blue Shield
Committees. In both cases, the committees have worked to
encourage ratification of the conventions by their respective
countries (successfully in the United States) and have been
actively working to provide military personnel with education,
training, and mapping information. In addition to the U.S.
Committee of the Blue Shield (USCBS), a consortium led by the
Smithsonian Heritage Preservation Officer in partnership with
the University of Pennsylvania and the American Association
for the Advancement of Science also has been actively educat-
ing military personnel; analyzing impacts to cultural property
as seen on satellite imagery; initiating research into patterns of
deliberate destruction of cultural property; and working on the
ground in Syria, assisting with protection of immovable cultural
property in situ.9 The Archaeological Institute of America also
has stepped forward under the direction of its previous presi-
dent, Professor Brian Rose, to offer educational opportunities
and lectures for soldiers.
In 2015, the U.S. State Department established an
initiative for protecting members of religious minorities and
religious minority communities located in conflict zones.
Quickly recognizing that protection of sacred places, features,
and structures is an essential component of religious protec-
tion, this program has also reached out to the U.S. military, the
USCBS, and the Smithsonian/Penn consortium. Establishment
of these partnerships also played a key role in the develop-
ment of training initiatives for coalition forces participating
in the liberation of Mosul and the region of northern Iraq and
Syria from al-­Dawla al-­Islamiya fil Iraq wa al-­Sham (DAESH).

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Figure 5. Cover of the Smithsonian
Institution’s Guide to Mosul Heritage.

Guide to Mosul HeritaGe

‫رێبەری کەلەپووری موسل‬
‫دليل تراث الموصل‬

Another NGO that has contributed to this effort is the Iraq

Conservation Institute at Irbil. Its long-­term goal is to provide
continuing education to Iraqi heritage professionals. However,
given the challenges in the region, faculty and students alike
are helping to build cultural property awareness and educating
coalition personnel. All of these organizations worked together
to create a trilingual guide to cultural property in Mosul for
distribution to all friendly forces.
Even as the preservation community works to address
issues at the ongoing conflict/crisis level, long-­term initia-
tives to institutionalize policy, doctrine, and best practices for
cultural property protection continue to be important. In 2014,
NATO chose to fund just such a project via the NATO Science for
Peace and Security program. Since that time, the project has
hosted a series of advanced research workshops focusing on
international legal requirements for Cultural Property Protec-
tion (CPP), cultural property geospatial data layers for military
mapping, and military training and education for CPP. In addi-
tion to the workshop, the project has funded CPP briefings by

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Figure 6. Saddam Hussein deliberately the project principals for the Vice Chief of Staff for Supreme
built Talil Air Base adjacent to the
Headquarters Allied Powers Europe and advocacy for the
ancient Mesopotamian City of Ur. His
goal was to use the site as protection importance of cultural property considerations at a series
against air attack. Hussein anticipated of meetings for Civil Military Cooperation or CIMIC.
the reluctance of the West to bomb
in the immediate vicinity of a world At least two factors have brought the importance of
treasure. Photograph by the author. heritage to the attention of the twenty-­four NATO member
countries. The first is that the Alliance received very positive
publicity for successful implementation of the no-­strike list
during Operation Unified Protector in Libya.10 A mission to

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 Libya by representatives of the International Committee of the
Blue Shield was able to demonstrate that NATO forces used
precision weapons to destroy radar equipment that Gaddhafi’s
forces had placed on the ancient Roman fortification Ras
Al Maghrib.11 This example also pointed out the additional
challenges created when aggressors attempt to use cultural
property for tactical advantage. Gaddhafi’s forces deliberately
selected the ancient Roman ruins for emplacement of weapons
systems, knowing that western forces would hesitate to risk
the potential collateral damage.
The second factor is that the right to one’s heritage is
emerging as an international human right. The current United
Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur in the field of Cultural Rights
includes issues of deliberate destruction versus preservation
of cultural property in her reports to the United Nations.12 In
addition, NATO has been working on policy for the Protection of
Civilians, and cultural property is now considered an aspect of
civilian protection.13 Once cultural property protection is codi-
fied into military policy and guidance statements, professional
staff and military personnel will be empowered to implement
meaningful programming.
The recognition of and appropriate response to cultural
property on the battlefield has definite benefits for a military
mission. However, there are costs. Consider the radar placed
on the Roman fortification in Libya. A radar system not in direct
association with cultural property would be a relatively easy
target. It could be attacked and destroyed from the air with low
risk to the friendly forces. Radar installed on or within ancient
ruins requires special tactical considerations. An air assault
would destroy the cultural property, but sophisticated preci-
sion weaponry might not always be available. As a result,
soldiers may need to assume additional risk in order to remove
a target that has been deliberately placed near a cultural site or
feature. In Timbuktu, insurgents occupied a house adjacent to
the Djinguereber mosque, a place of worship on the World Heri-
tage list. Not willing to risk collateral damage to the mosque,
government forces decided against an airstrike. Instead, they
brought in a 122mm howitzer and attacked the house from the
ground.14 This strategy was successful; the insurgents were re-
moved with no damage to the mosque, but clearly this success
placed the artillery crew at much greater risk.
The conflict in Mali is the first where a United Nations
resolution has authorized deadly force to protect cultural prop-
erty as part of its mission. As a result, the Multidimensional
Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) includes
patrols and protection of mosques, tombs, and archaeological
sites as part of its planned military operations. The MINUSMA
forces in Mali found that their show of respect for cultural

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Figure 7. It is extremely difficult to property resulted in improved acceptance for their presence by
quantify the importance of places
the local population.15 In this case, the ability to identify and
of worship and cultural heritage to
the life and spirit of a community. respond appropriately to cultural property valued by the local
In this image, both Christian and population contributed to mission success.
Muslim women are leaving requests
for luck in love at the House of Mary From 2014 to 2016, extremely disturbing trends began to
in Ephesus. Reports coming out of emerge in the use of cultural property for strategic communica-
DAESH-­controlled territory described
young women continuing to worship tion at the global level. As a component of what the U.S. mili-
at similar locations, even where the tary is currently referring to as hybrid warfare, one example was
sacred features had been completely
destroyed. Photograph by the author.
the use of the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria. First held hostage
by DAESH, subjected to acts of performance destruction, and
used as a setting for the commission of atrocities, it became
a backdrop for a Russian symphony concert after changing
hands. According to the New York Times, the concert fulfilled
both international and domestic goals for the Russians. Their
international goal was to cast themselves as a civilized entity
fighting barbarians, and their domestic goal was to illustrate
for Russian citizens at home a view of their forces as victorious
in Syria.16
In considering the complexities and challenges of cultural-­
property protection in modern conflict, it is important to remem-
ber that the most important priorities for protection occur at
the local level. Deliberate destruction of cultural property can
be a powerful weapon precisely because it strikes at the heart
of a community. For the same reason, heritage preservation is
critically important. In times of peace in the ancient world, it

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 is possible to experience ancient rites being celebrated in new
ways amid temple ruins that are thousands of years old. It is
also possible to encounter women of many faiths petitioning
the same deity. These beliefs and practices, handed down from
generation to generation, form the fabric of a healthy, stable
community. When the protection of material culture encour-
ages communities to survive as collective identities, there is
hope for peace.
Biography
Laurie W. Rush is the cultural resources manager and army archaeologist stationed
at Fort Drum, N.Y., and is a board member of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield.
She holds degrees from Northwestern University (PhD and MA) and Indiana
University–­Bloomington and is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome. At Fort
Drum, she manages cultural property on more than 100,000 acres of military land,
including nearly one thousand archaeological sites that include five historic villages
and more than 360 farmsteads lost during the 1941 expansion of the military base.
She also manages the LeRay Mansion Historic District. Dr. Rush educates deploying
personnel about cultural-­property protection during military operations and is work-
ing with NATO to develop the Cultural Property Protection Policy, Doctrine and Best
Practices. Her archaeology research focuses on the prehistory of the Northeast and
Great Lakes Region and the local history of Jefferson, Lewis, and Saint Lawrence
Counties in New York. As Native American Affairs Liaison for the Garrison Com-
mander, she manages all diplomatic relations between the 10th Mountain Division
and federally recognized tribes with ancestral ties to Fort Drum land.

Notes
This article is written in the author’s personal capacity. Opinions expressed here do
not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department
of Defense, or the U.S. Federal Government.
1
The Army Center for Lessons Learned (CALL) is based at the Combined Arms Center
at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Its website can be accessed at http://usacac.army
.mil/organizations/mccoe/call. CALL identifies, collects, analyzes, disseminates,
and archives lessons and best practices while maintaining global situational
awareness in order to share knowledge and facilitate the Army’s and Unified Action
Partners’s adaptation to win wars.
2
Ibid.
3
M. Phillips. “A Few Yards of Dirt and 3000 Years,” The Wall Street Journal, 13 May
2009.
4
The Combatant Command Cultural Heritage Action Group was an ad hoc group
of distinguished academic and military partners formed to develop solutions for
cultural property protection education and reach back information for U.S. DOD per-
sonnel deploying the Central Command Area of Responsibility, which includes the
Middle East and Afghanistan. With some funding from the Office of the Secretary
of Defense and Air Combat Command, this group established a website filled with
“reach back” expertise. Information on this website includes live maps, reveal-
ing archaeological site locations and descriptions available for sites in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The CCHAG also developed and distributed archaeological awareness
playing cards focusing on Iraq, Egypt, and Afghanistan for distribution to deploying
forces. As of 2016, nearly 200,000 of these decks have been distributed to deploy-
ing personnel.
5
Department of Defense Directive 3000.10, Section 3, Part H, 2013 “It is DoD Policy
to pursue increased effectiveness and efficiency in contingency basing by: minimiz-
ing adverse effects on local populations and cultural resources.”
6
Laurie W. Rush and James Zeidler, personal communication with U.S. Military
Participant, Cultural Property Protection Training, U.S. Southern Command, Miami,
Florida, 15 August 2012.
7
Leonard Woolley (Sir), A Record of the Work Done by the Military Authorities for the
Protection of the Treasures of Art and History in War Areas (London: His Majesty’s
Stationery Office, 1947).
8
Laurie W. Rush,“Teaching Archaeology to Military Personnel in the Middle East,”
in Laurie W. Rush, ed., Archaeology, Cultural Property, and the Military (Newcastle:
Boydell & Brewer, 2010).
9
Conflict Culture Research Network 2016 Conflictculture.info, accessed at
conflictculture.info, 30 October 2016.

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 10
Francis D’Emilio, “Expert: NATO Raids Spared Libyan Antiquities,” Associated
Press, 4 November 2011.
11
Hafed Walda, “Saving Cultural Property in Libya,” Presentation to Saving Cultural
Property in Crisis Areas, Conference at the American Academy in Rome, 2–­3 Novem-
ber 2011.
12
Karima Bennoune. Report to the Conflict Culture Research Network, Washington
D.C, 24 June 2016.
13
NATO 2016 Handbook for Protection of Civilians.
14
Roger O’Keefe. 2016 Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict (Military
Manual), first draft, commissioned by UNESCO.
15
UNESCO 2014 Report to the Danish Mission at the United Nations, personal
communication.
16
A. Kramer and A. Higgins, “In Syria, Russia Plays Bach Where ISIS Executed 25,”
New York Times, 5 May 2013.

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