My column this week is on the technological implications of the Obama administration’s excuse for avoiding the WPR: In the future, however, presidents may resort to airpower in order to avoid congressional limitations on their executive power. A longer-range concern is that as the United States continues to develop technologies that increase the distance between […]
Tag: laws of war
Iain Ballantyne’s new book Killing the Bismarck makes a rather controversial claim: As HMS Rodney, HMS King George V, and several attendant cruisers and destroying were pouring shells and torped
Lt. Gen. Michael Oates is worried that excessive adherence to war law might be undermining military effectiveness in Afghanistan: Commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have been reluctant to launch more
The US intelligence analyst who leaked the footage that resulted in Wikileaks’ infamous “Collateral Murder” video has been outed by a hacker to whom he boasted of his actions online, and arrested by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. Wired has the story: Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with […]
I’ve been meaning to comment for awhile on the March/April print issue of Foreign Policy , and I finally got around to posting my observations at Current Intelligence. In brief, for a special issue
Amitai Etzioni, a law professor at George Washington University, has followed up the State Department’s justification for drone attacks in Pakistan with an argument of his own, published in the
The DoD’s updated rules of engagement in Afghanistan beg the question. These rules – such as holding your fire unless you are certain a target is an actual combatant, withdrawing from fire-fights in civilian-populated areas, more reliance on ground troops and less on air raids – are meant to reduce collateral damage from military operations. […]
I’ve been thinking this weekend about Gary Solis’ WAPO op-ed of Friday about CIA drone pilots being unlawful combatants – unlike drone pilots serving in the US armed forces who may a