Meanwhile, the democratically Kabila government in Kinshasa, beset by more than a dozen rebel armies operating in its vast interior has also changed tack.
Among armies operating today, he said, the United States has led the way in making ethical concerns a priority, and not just in cadet classrooms.
The situtation is unpredictable, but some analysts think that Rwanda and Uganda will come to blows, either directly or by proxy, in Congo's North Kivu province, where both armies operate.Aggravating all this is a clash of personalities.
"It would be a dangerous precedent if the United States allowed the presence of private armies operating outside the control of governmental authority and beholden only to those who pay them," the senators said in the letter.
With the cost of uniforms in particular being substantial, most armies operating globally have two separate full uniforms, one for woodland/jungle and one for desert and other dry terrain.
The French authorities had also been taken by surprise by the uprising, and were consequently unprepared: the forces they deployed were inadequate to face the much larger British armies operating in Ireland at the time.
The difference in Colombia is that, after nearly 40 years, it burns on, pitting the government against seasoned guerrilla armies operating in terrain so tangled that El Salvador or Vietnam seem comparatively featureless.
Along the coast, the Thai army operated heavy machinery -- front-loaders, dump trucks and excavators -- piling up felled trees and boards, and moving crushed cars.
But he said that in general the army operated a "zero tolerance policy" towards offenders, noting that a two-star general had been told to investigate the execution video.
However, it placed the launch position in a different place to others, and said the attack could only have been carried out using a discontinued Buk M-1 system, which it claimed the Ukrainian army operated but the Russian army did not.
