Abstract
 Since the carnage of the Second World War repulsed much of the world, norms that rationalize and limit the use of force have emerged and become embedded in major new international institutions, like the 1949 Geneva Conventions and additional protocols in 1977, and in national military doctrines. Two such norms – aversion to the killing of civilian non-combatants, and the deaths of military personnel under the rubric of “force protection” – have become factors that influence decisions about initiating, conducting, and continuing military operations. This article is organized as follows: the first section briefly describes the rise of the two major casualty aversion norms, focusing mainly on US history. The second section discusses the constructivist literature on military topics and identifies other parts of the literature theoretically more relevant to modern warfare. The next section shows that revisionist actors for several decades have acted as if they understood constructivist concepts published much later, and illustrates how belligerents iteratively adapt norm-related operational techniques in ways consistent with constructivist theory. The fourth section generalizes about the role of norms in modern warfare, offers suggestions for practitioners, and critiques security-related constructivist theory. The final section summarizes the paper and muses a bit about the future role of norms in war.
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