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Transnational armed conflicts have become a reality. The increasing sophistication of terrorist organizations, their increasingly transnational nature, and their development of military strike capabilities, push and will continue to push States to resort to combat power as a means to defend against this threat. Relying on the factual fiction that the acts of such terrorists must be attributable to the States from which they launch their operations, or on the legal fiction that the use of military combat power to respond to such threats is in reality just extraterritorial law enforcement, fails to acknowledge the essential nature of such operations. Because these operations invoke the authority of the LOAC, they should and must be treated as armed conflicts.LOAC principles must be identified and must be broad enough to provide the authority necessary to bring the transnational enemy to submission while ensuring that that authority does not override fundamental humanitarian protections for victims of war: This Article proposes three essential pillars of this regulatory foundation: military necessity, targeting (object/distinction and proportionality), and humane treatment. These principles provide the balance between authority and obligation that is so essential for the effective and disciplined application of combat power Like the treatment of internal armed conflict, these pillars can form a foundation for a more comprehensive treatment of regulatory analysis, encompassing other issues such as command responsibility, criminal liability, access to judicial review, perfidy and treachery, and medical obligations.

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Book review by Jamie A. Williamson, Legal Adviser, Advisory Services on International Humanitarian Law, ICRC Any author who decides to embark on writing a textbook will be confronted by many considerations in terms of materials as well as demands from students and academics. The materials presented must be coherent, relevant and sound. Professors will scrutinise these as they look for 'the' book that will help them successfully teach and structure a course. A textbook must obviously also be of interest to students, digestible and ideally stimulating, even if the subject matter cannot always be so. Indeed, a bored student is one of the least wanted audiences for professors. Beyond the lecture halls and seminar rooms, textbooks can also serve as useful references for other academics and practitioners in the field. Their needs will be more pointed, and, even if they are not seen as the prime audience for the book, their endorsement can do no harm. The recently published textbook, entitled 'The Law of Armed Conflict: An Operational Approach', succeeds in meeting most, if not all, of these goals. It is a timely addition to the teaching of the law of armed conflict (LOAC), also known as international humanitarian law (IHL). 1 Written from an 'operational' perspective and very much influenced by United States practice and policy, it provides important insight into the thinking of military lawyers in applying the laws of war.

I. INTRODUCTION hen David Sanger 1 and Ellen Nakashima 2 officially broke the news that the United States and Israel had been involved in a long-term collaborative cyber operation focused on Iran and its nuclear development capabilities, they only confirmed what many had assumed for some time.