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Drug Boat Strike

number9 said:
Based on DoD's own regulations, there does seem to be a clear distinction between hors de combat personnel (e.g. those who are shipwrecked) at sea versus personnel on land. I don't think the morality part is at issue, here.
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Implicit assumption being that the target of a naval engagement is going to be a ship or aircraft because that thing is a critical requirement to conducting or sustaining combat at sea. Also written with the intention of covering conventional conflicts.

If the mission orders say we don't care about eliminating the ship, we care about eliminating the people because of an operation against non-state unlawful combatants in asymmetric warfare, does that not change the underlying assumptions upon which the guidance was written?
 
Spekkio said:
Implicit assumption being that the target of a naval engagement is going to be a ship or aircraft because that thing is a critical requirement to conducting or sustaining combat at sea. Also written with the intention of covering conventional conflicts.
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Wouldn't that be an explicit assumption? I'm not a strike guy but I feel like we regularly use naval aircraft to strike targets on land...

Spekkio said:
If the mission orders say we don't care about eliminating the ship, we care about eliminating the people because of an operation against non-state unlawful combatants in asymmetric warfare, does that not change the underlying assumptions upon which the guidance was written?
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I genuinely don't understand what you're saying here. I'm not trying to be snarky - can you phrase it in a different way somehow?
 
number9 said:
I genuinely don't understand what you're saying here. I'm not trying to be snarky - can you phrase it in a different way somehow?
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Ok, changing the parameters a bit just to illustrate the point...

We're at war with China and after a few years and hundreds of thousands of American casualties, we're poised to strike Beijing. We get intel that Xi Xinping and his top general are going to flee to a covert command post in a small island off the cost of the mainland.

The President, SECDEF, and senior military leadership determine that killing Xi Xinping is extremely valuable toward ending the war. Capturing him is not acceptable for whatever reasons.

The Navy orders a strike on the small boat with the mission tasking to eliminate Xi and his generals. The objective is to kill Xi and the leadership, it is not imperative to sink the ship.

Round 1 'misses' but critically damages the ship.

Round 2 is illegal?

I would imagine that the SPECWAR community deals a lot more with the 'eliminate these people who happen to be on a vessel' mission set vs. us who are given the 'sink this ship' mission set.
 
Spekkio said:
Ok, changing the parameters a bit just to illustrate the point...

We're at war with China and after a few years and hundreds of thousands of American casualties, we're poised to strike Beijing. We get intel that Xi Xinping and his top general are going to flee to a covert command post in a small island off the cost of the mainland.

The President, SECDEF, and senior military leadership determine that killing Xi Xinping is extremely valuable toward ending the war. Capturing him is not acceptable.

The Navy orders a strike on the small boat with the mission tasking to eliminate Xi and his generals. The objective is to kill Xi and the leadership, it is not imperative to sink the ship.

Round 1 'misses' but critically damages the ship.

Round 2 is illegal?

I would imagine that the SPECWAR community deals a lot more with the 'eliminate these people who happen to be on a vessel' mission set.
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From the DoD's Law of War manual:

18.3.2.1 Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations.
The requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal. For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.
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number9 said:
From the DoD's Law of War manual:
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Quoting a line of a manual doesn't do the concept justice.

In context, the manual is talking about cases where the ship is the objective, not the people. So after the ship is disabled or sunk, continuing to engage the people is excessive.

taxi1 said:
You're in "start a new thread" territory regarding divergence from what's actually going on.
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I only changed the person on the boat to a more valuable / high stakes scenario because it illustrates that some people make a 'ends justify the means' argument wrt these things.

One can easily arrive at the conclusion that the ends don't justify the means when the people occupying the boat are a bunch of no-name drug runners and that it could justify the means if you eliminate the political and military leadership of a near-peer adversary in full-scale conflict.

But from a legal standpoint, there's no distinction. And so my question is... do we really think that the guidelines were written to tie our own hands to that extent? By that I mean, if we want to eliminate a human target, we need to do it on land?

I submit not, and it's an extremely important detail vis a vis whether the objective promulgated from political leadership is to eliminate the people vs. the vessel.
 
Spekkio said:
What about an unarmed person trying to run for cover from an apache?
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You’re getting into SROE territory here and in which those situations are detailed. No one here probably has that information. Unless some one wants to dig up the litany of annexes in the OPORD and spill it all over the internet. Also provides a solid case for prosecuting said perpetrators if they state otherwise and there’s evidence to support.
 
Spekkio said:
Quoting a line of a manual doesn't do the concept justice.

In context, the manual is talking about cases where the ship is the objective, not the people. So after the ship is disabled or sunk, continuing to engage the people is excessive.
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Agree to disagree, I guess.
 
Spekkio said:
Quoting a line of a manual doesn't do the concept justice.

In context, the manual is talking about cases where the ship is the objective, not the people. So after the ship is disabled or sunk, continuing to engage the people is excessive.
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Within the same paragraph 18.3.2.1 it further states:

"Subordinates are not required to screen the orders of superiors for questionable points of legality, and may, absent specific knowledge to the contrary, presume that orders have been lawfully issued."
 
Swanee said:
Generally when we schwack an HVI, we know who they are, what they've done, who they've interacted with in the last few months/years, why they're bad, etc... and we tell the world.

If there was an HVI on any of those boats, we'd broadcast it.


Also, shooting someone in the water is like shooting someone in a parachute.
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IMG_3664.jpeg
Opinions on this then please?
 
Spekkio said:
The President, SECDEF, and senior military leadership determine that killing Xi Xinping is extremely valuable toward ending the war. Capturing him is not acceptable for whatever reasons.
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What reasons?

If Xi comes out waving a white flag, you're going to say in this scenario it's ok to shoot him anyway?

Even the Nazis were afforded at least the appearance of due process at Nuremberg.
 
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