Immovable cultural properties, whether buildings, archeological sites, museums or libraries, are at substantial risk in the event of armed conflict. In many ways, natural disasters pose many of the same threats to such structures as does war. Earthquakes impose horizontal loads on structures, their weak direction, tornadoes and hurricanes impose large substantial over pressures on walls and roves, just as ground shock and air blast from explosions do. Fire spreads when there is both fuel and ignition, regardless of whether the ignition is purposeful or accidental. A clear message from the natural hazards literature is that you cannot do anything during the emergency period that you have not carefully thought through before the emergency. This paper reviews approaches to protection of cultural properties and the existing Hague Convention. It is proposed that a concerted effort be mounted by the professional conservation community to: 1) prepare guides on how to identify and document cultural properties important to the community; 2) descriptive manuals on how to protect cultural properties using easily available materials and techniques; 3) distributed them to the local communities likely to be impacted; and 4) provide limited technical resource teams to stabilize or repair after hostilities.