U.S. strikes on a school in Minab as part of its war on Iran, which killed more than 150 people, including 120 children, and on a migrant detention center in Yemen, which killed and injured dozens of civilians, underscore the continuing horrors of armed conflict. Since returning to the White House, the Trump administration has rapidly reversed progress on civilian harm mitigation and response (CHMR) procedures, failing to implement the Department of Defense’s 2022 Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP) and the subsequent formal instruction, the 2023 Department of Defense Instruction 3000.17 (DOD-I). Both laid out steps to institutionalize and strengthen the U.S. military’s approach to preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian harm caused by its own operations.

The conditions that prompted the U.S. to overhaul its approach to CHMR, including as a much-needed avenue for amends, have not disappeared. If anything, they have become more acute. Over two dozen Democratic senators have called on the Pentagon to publicize their investigation on the Minab strike so that there can be a “clear accounting ‌of what happened and a credible plan ​to prevent future failures.” Another group of senators raised concerns about Secretary Hegseth’s “abandonment of legally-mandated civilian protection efforts” at the Department. A recent bill to legislate responsible military use of AI includes a provision requiring a civilian harm mitigation and response office.

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Over the past 18 months, the U.S. has transformed from a flawed CHMR proponent to openly expressing its disdain for the laws of war. Rhetorically, this has included a shift from previous top officials recognizing the strategic value of minimizing civilian harm, while continuing to cause it, to today’s senior officials openly threatening war crimes (like “no quarter”) and denigrating rules as needless restraints. As Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has proposed in his “warrior ethos,” the U.S. military is now focused on “maximum lethality, not tepid legality; violent effect, not politically correct.” Similarly on amends to civilians harmed by war and long-standing international legal rules on repair, the Trump administration has shown little interest. Of the war in Iran, President Trump told the press, “to the victor belong the spoils.”

The Trump administration’s disdain for CHMR goes beyond rhetoric. Yet the unraveling did not begin with Trump. Previous administrations’ callous disregard for mass civilian harm contributed. In late 2024, two highly respected civil society organizations pointed out that “the CHMR-AP’s security cooperation commitments on paper have stood in stark contrast to the [Department of Defense’s] actual practice … particularly regarding the US government’s virtually unconditional military support to the government of Israel in the face of catastrophic civilian harm using US weapons.” Devastating air campaigns and razing tactics, from Gaza to Lebanon, appear to have shifted the goal posts for what was deemed acceptable levels of civilian harm.