[HRW] The alternative to war constrained by the laws of armed conflict, or international humanitarian law, is what is known as total war--war fought without any effort to minimize harm to civilians; indeed, war fought to maximize civilian harm as a deliberate strategy. War is ugly, but total war is worse. That's the way, for example, that Russian and Syrian forces fought in Syria, and how Russian forces are now fighting in Ukraine. The civilian toll can be enormous.
