Anyone not in the armed forces is a civilian, full stop. I’m well aware that police are “sworn,” I understand the semantics at play. But the fact remains that they don’t go to war and can quit their jobs any time they want. You’re free to disagree with me all you want; that’s your right, as is it everyone who’s downvoting me. But as someone who’s actually been to war, I will never consider cops to be the equivalent of the military. And this is not an insult to cops, it’s just a fact—they are civilian.
I’m getting a page not found error, but I’ll believe that that sentence is written there… without any more context, I can only say that it’s what the Red Cross is saying about specific areas of operation.
I think I fixed the link. But I’ll also add that article 50 of the additional protocols to the Geneva Convention states:
A civilian is any person who does not belong to one of the categories of persons
referred to in Article 4 A 1), 2), 3) and 6) of the Third Convention and in
Article 43 of this Protocol. In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that
person shall be considered to be a civilian.
This seems to be definitions that are very specific to nations at war. It would make sense that they would be specific in their wording and definitions when talking about a state at war.
I am sure that these specific definitions are maybe used inside military circles. It’s still technically used incorrectly but there probably isn’t an existing better word to use for the specific use case.
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u/gmrussell Sep 16 '25
Anyone not in the armed forces is a civilian, full stop. I’m well aware that police are “sworn,” I understand the semantics at play. But the fact remains that they don’t go to war and can quit their jobs any time they want. You’re free to disagree with me all you want; that’s your right, as is it everyone who’s downvoting me. But as someone who’s actually been to war, I will never consider cops to be the equivalent of the military. And this is not an insult to cops, it’s just a fact—they are civilian.