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So apparently the gloves are coming off. Trump has Truthed out, in clear language, that Iran has 48 hours to allow all traffic through Hormuz with no threats of action, or the US will start hitting power plants. Apparently what Trump meant when he said the USA could easily open the strait without any help.
Notably to this point Iranian government sources have only put civilian casualties at 200-400, essentially one big accident and change for a bombing operation this large. From here the intention is to strike civilian targets until Iran cries uncle.
Iran in turn is threatening to strike back at gulf power generation targets. With weapons they may or may not have at this point.
How it started:
How it’s going:
Hehe.
I suspect blowing up power plants is a war crime.
How is this going to win the hearts and minds of the Iranian people? The US is going to seem like a bigger enemy than the clerics now.
Power plants are duel use, so my understanding is that attacking them is legitimate if it is connected to a proportionate military effect. Certainly it's been done in the past, by multiple parties.
For the record, I continue to stand by my stated preference that the Trump administration not carry out a wholesale energy disruption campaign.
People keep throwing the word "proportionate" around like it's something to be desired.
Was Nuking Japan twice and waging total war against them a "proportionate" response to loosing a few boats and a few thousand people at Pearl Harbor? No of course it wasn't, "proportionality" was never the intent to begin with.
My understanding is that proportionality has a specific meaning in international law as pertains to armed conflict, although I can't claim to always use that correctly.
It's probably worth noting in your example that Japan actually did quite a lot more than just bomb Pearl Harbor!
Anyway, I don't object to moving vertically up the escalation ladder. I do object to using military force against civilians in a way that is not directly connected to military objectives. For instance, if we are at war with Iran, and we intentionally airstrike a public school and hit civilians, the degree to which that airstrike will be justified under the laws of armed conflict will depend on the nexus to a military objective. If we did it for no reason, then it would be disproportionate. If we did it to kill a single low-ranking Iranian soldier, it would likely still be disproportionate. If we did it to strike a surface-to-air system that was colocated with the school, it would be much more defensible (and also the Iranians might be themselves guilty of a war crime).
My objection to a concentrated campaign against the Iranian power grid is not a principled objection to hitting power facilities, but rather that I think that such a campaign would not degrade the Iranian military forces more efficiently than allocating those weapons elsewhere would. To the extent that hitting Iranian power facilities would degrade the operations of their military forces in ways that could not be more easily achieved by other military means, I have no particular objections. But most high-end weapons systems are going to have generators as either a primary (if mobile) or secondary (if fixed) power source. Thus, as a general rule, I think that a concentrated air campaign against weapons systems and military facilities themselves is a more efficient allocation of resources than hitting centralized power sources.
There is a certain logic to striking purely civilian facilities in Iran because Iran has not respected the civilian-military distinction themselves, and according to old custom, the laws of the civilized do not apply to barbarians (defect against defectors). But I do not think the United States needs to do this to accomplish its goals in the region, and it would undermine our pretensions to moral conduct in war and give future opponents precedential cover to make such attacks against us.
What does it have to do with "proportion"? Hitting a public school with no military purpose behind it is wrong. This is because of how our society and our morals work, not because Iranians didn't hit exactly the same school before. Even if they did, it still would be wrong. If Iranians killed 100 random US civilians, would "proportionate" answer be killing random 100 Iranians civilians? I don't think a lot of people in the US would endorse such notion of "proportionality", neither should they.
If you're saying we should not inflict unnecessary civilian casualties, and if there is a collateral damage, there must be a very good justification of why that was unavoidable - I totally agree. But "proportionate" doesn't sound like a very good term to use in such case.
As for hitting power facilities, that depends on the goals of the campaign. If the goal is to degrade Iran's capacity of making trouble, then destroying its energy system is a reasonable step towards this goal. It's hard to manufacture advanced weaponry - or in fact any weaponry beyond light arms - without a functioning power grid. If, however, the goal is to cause the regime change, then it may be less effective, since people would be disorganized and depressed by the lack of basic necessities, and may not be able to resist the regime troops who probably have generators and other provisions to survive independently. Maybe also specific power plants are important for specific weapons factories or communication facilities and knocking them out will disable some important pieces. That's a tactical question.
Yes, that's what I am saying. Feel free to use a different word - I use it because, as I explained earlier, it's a term of art.
Yes, I agree with this. But (if my priors are correct) the decision to hit power plants instead of weapons factories or communications facilities would be a curious one. I would guess that it would likely be easier to hit Iran's weapons factories and military communications nodes than to take out their power network.
I'm not sure that is inherently the case, of course. If Iran decentralized its arms production facilities and situated them in civilian neighborhoods and dwellings, for instance, bombing power plants would likely be both more efficient and more humane. So I agree with you that the facts of the case really matter, there's not some blanket rule saying you can't hit power plants.
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