Draft:Combat zone

A war zone or combat zone is the localized area where combat is occurring or is likely to occur between organized military forces. Colloquially, the term is also used to address areas that have been seriously damaged by other factors, such that the appearance of the area is similar to an area beset by military conflict, and is also used to refer to areas that present a substantial threat of crime or violence.

War zones have been described as "a different world, without privacy, freedom of movement, with scant personal initiative, and with an urgent, ubiquitous sense of danger".

Those who are distant from a war zone are also cautioned to be aware of the degree to which "the flow of information in a war zone is controlled by military and political authorities who wish to see the media adopt a particular perspective on what is actually happening..."

On February 4, 1915, Germany declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone, further declaring that from February 18 on, Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning. Following the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, and Germany's justification for this as having occurred in a war zone, Ellery Cory Stowell said:

"The term " war zone " is not commonly used. The nearest precedent for such a zone is that set by England in the South African war. In that case, however, England, as a concession to Germany, waived certain rights outside the war zone and limited her activities to the region within it. In other words, that war zone was not for the extension but for the limitation of the activities of the belligerent. She had the right to search all vessels anywhere on the high seas; but she gave up this right and confined her search and seizure to the war zone itself."