European governments have announced massive increases in defense spending as they strive to reduce dependence on the United States and address the increased, long-term security threat posed by Russia. Earlier this year, the European Commission launched the ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030, which aims to mobilize more than $850 billion to strengthen European defense capabilities. That momentum was reinforced at the NATO Summit in The Hague in June, where the allies agreed to raise defense-related spending to 5 percent of GDP by 2035 from 2 percent currently (and with many NATO countries currently below that target). While much of the focus has been on the defense industrial base, strategic deterrence, and operational readiness, this moment of European rearmament also offers a historic opportunity: modernizing civilian protection.
Europe’s rearmament is not simply about acquiring more tanks, missiles, and drones — it is about reshaping the role and structure of European armed forces for a new era of conflict and developing greater operational capabilities independent of the United States. As States embark on a historic reinvestment in new weapons systems, modernization, and multinational interoperability, there is a unique opportunity to update how Europeans operationalize the protection of civilians.
In my role at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence (CPCoE), which was established in 2023, I helped DoD make improvements in what they call civilian harm mitigation and response (CHMR). I saw firsthand where and how CHMR can reduce risks to civilians and enhance operational effectiveness by supporting existing efforts to upholdU.S. obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL, or the laws of war) as well as providing new, additional capabilities to protect civilians.
Now, with U.S. and European security cooperation shifting from a decades-long focus on stabilization and counterinsurgency operations abroad to European self-defense, there is an especially urgent need to reconsider civilian-protection capabilities — in particular civilian harm mitigation and response, a systematic and focused approach to identifying and reducing risks to civilians from military operations and proactively responding when harm occurs. Unlike expeditionary operations abroad, war in Europe would mean European militaries defending and possibly conducting operations on their own territories and those of their allies and partners — exposing their own civilians to significant risks. European militaries can adapt and operationalize CHMR concepts for their own needs, drawing insights from the lessons learned from efforts operationalize CHMR, particularly those of the DoD.
A Valuable Model
Issued in 2022, the DoD Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response – Action Plan (CHMR-AP) offers a valuable model, as have the recent efforts by the DoD Civilian Protection Center of Excellence (CPCoE) to operationalize CHMR across DoD and in conjunction with U.S. combatant commands. CHMR encompasses a range of DoD operational efforts, capabilities, and policies to address the risk to civilians resulting from U.S. military operations. (The CPCoE was established in 2023 as a hub for analysis, learning, and strategic approaches to CHMR, including learning from past failures and gaps, to ensure CHMR practices become part standard practice across DoD. But under the new administration, the CPCoE has been operating under heightened scrutiny. Initial reports of its dissolution proved premature, but how its mission and the CHMR enterprise will be sustained and what shape it will take remains to be seen.
European militaries and NATO have been making some progress in recent years on improving civilian protection — for example, through the U.K.’s Human Security Framework and NATO’s Protection of Civilians Policy. Several countries including the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria have also been actively developing their own national CHMR concepts and practices and are involved in the CHMR International Contact Group, a group of countries engaging regularly to promote and share best practices.
DoD’s experience developing and operationalizing CHMR, however, points to how much more can and should be done, especially as Europe embarks on a historic investment in its defense. While uncertainties remain about how DoD will address civilian protection issues in the future — and U.S. practice remains uneven — there are already essential practices and lessons learned in at least three key areas that could be swiftly adopted and adapted by European militaries: the creation of specialized CHMR expertise and incorporating CHMR into exercises and other training; adapting CHMR to large-scale, high-intensity conflicts and multinational operations; and the integration of artificial intelligence into military operations.
Essential Practices – and Lessons
First, institutional architecture and training: DoD created new specialized civilian protection-focused roles embedded throughout combatant commands ensuring civilian protection is integrated across the operational spectrum, from planning and targeting to civilian harm assessments and response. The CPCoE led an effort to develop and deliver CHMR-specific training to personnel throughout commands, further embedding best practices and standards into warfighting. The CPCoE has also been instrumental in incorporating CHMR into military exercises, working with CHMR personnel to create and integrate more realistic scenarios. Experience has shown that without integrating into exercises, civilian protection stands little chance of being implemented in practice.
Though resources for such efforts will always be subject to constraints, a focus on creating or augmenting existing personnel and training with protection-specific knowledge and capabilities, based on the doctrine, policies, and training adopted by DoD, and adapted for European militaries, could accomplish many of the same gains. CHMR should be holistic and integrated, meaning across directorates — in manning, doctrine, and training. You cannot get the operational benefits if it is relegated as only a civil-military cooperation or civil affairs task — it must be integrated across the operational spectrum.
Second, adapting to larger-scale, high-intensity self-defense operations: As European countries prepare for the possibility of large-scale combat operations on their own territories, the need to adopt and adapt CHMR practices becomes even more urgent. In a European conflict, urban areas, critical infrastructure, and densely populated regions will become contested spaces, as has been demonstrated in Ukraine. Without robust systems for reducing civilian harm, European militaries risk not only greater civilian suffering but also undermining public trust and national defense capabilities. This means developing planning processes that integrate civilian protection, mechanisms for incident tracking and response, including close coordination with humanitarian actors and local civil services, and capabilities to mitigate and strategic consequences of civilian harm and counter adversary disinformation campaigns aimed at sowing political division and undermining national resilience.
From integrating civilian environment analysis into operational planning for faster prosecution of targets to mapping critical civilian infrastructure and scaling up civilian harm assessments to keep pace with higher operational tempos, U.S. DoD has been learning and adapting CHMR lessons for allies in large-scale combat operations and self-defense scenarios. Such adaptation will also be critical for interoperability – European militaries’ ability to work effectively together in multinational operations. Doing so will require harmonizing civilian-protection practices across intel gathering, analysis, target development, operational planning, and civilian-harm tracking and response. Investing in such learning and adaptation now, well left of boom and during a period of increased European defense planning and investment, ensures that if conflict comes closer to home, European forces are prepared to fight smartly and strategically on their own territories.
Third, AI integration: the integration of artificial intelligence into military operations presents both serious risks and affirmative benefits for civilian protection. As European militaries modernize and adopt AI-driven capabilities, embedding CHMR principles into the development, deployment, and governance of these technologies is essential.
Initial exploration by the CPCoE on this front has highlighted not just the risks, but also the potential benefits of AI. Civilian harm tends to occur most often in either collateral damage incidents or misidentification of civilians as military objectives. Currently, pre-strike analysis, done manually, is prone to human error. Incorrect or incomplete information related to the civilian environment can also lead to significant civilian harm — risks that are greatly compounded by the tempo and scale of combat operations likely to take place in the event of conflict in Europe.
But there is significant potential for AI to enable better civilian protection, including through 1) improving target analysis and evaluation; 2) mapping and analysis of critical infrastructure and modeling the impact of attacks; 3) strengthening positive identification (PID) of military objectives and rapid verification and integration of dynamic data into no-strike lists, such as the locations of humanitarian actors and evacuation routes and 4) scaling up and improving accuracy in civilian-harm detection and assessment, including countering AI-generated disinformation.
Incorporate in Early Stages
By incorporating CHMR now, during the early stages of Europe’s integration of AI into military operations and developing policies on safe and effective use, European States can play a leadership role by harnessing the promise of AI innovation to advance civilian protection.
Even as civilian protection and CHMR under DoD faces uncertainties, much progress has been made, and much promise remains. By studying and learning from recent DoD efforts, European militaries can embed civilian protection even more extensively into their rearmament agendas and operational readiness. At the CPCoE, we saw, even at a nascent stage and with relatively modest investment, how much CHMR can help equip military forces to manage the complex risks of modern military operations.
As Europe embarks on an historic rearmament, it has a unique opportunity to modernize civilian protection, and build a military prepared for the threats it faces today. Europe can seize on this momentum and learning to shape a smarter, more strategic, more effective military force. But experience has also shown that protection gains will never materialize without financial investment and prioritizing civilian protection at a policy level. As Europe rearms, it has the chance to learn from these lessons and to lead — by modernizing civilian protection as an integral part of military readiness and 21st century defense on the continent.
