Abstract
This essay discusses three aspects of the targeting challenge from the time of the ancient Greeks: the ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘how’. With respect to the first, we would appear to have broken with past convention and adopted a policy of targeted killings of enemy commanders or political leaders. We have done so in response to a demand of the hour made possible by technology —the need to manage risks . Targeting has become a risk management exercise in all but name. With regard to the second, we are trying to be more precise when aiming at the centre of gravity and to reduce collateral damage to a minimum. We are trying, in a word, to be more ‘humane ’. And with respect to the last, technology now allows us to target from a distance without endangering military personnel, at the risk, however, of producing a problem never before encountered in war: dissociation.
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Notes
- 1.
Lendon 2005, pp. 2, 47.
- 2.
Catherina 2011.
- 3.
Asprey 1994, p. 3.
- 4.
Bell 2007, p. 49.
- 5.
Joshi 2013, p. 44.
- 6.
Norris 1999, p. 217.
- 7.
This is explained in a presentation by Moglen (2012) at Re:Publica (Berlin), around 16 min, he recalls a statement from a Senior White House Official: ‘The Governments wants a social graph of the US.’
- 8.
Bauman and Lyon 2012, p. 47.
- 9.
Lyon 2007, p. 107.
- 10.
International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School and the Global Justice Clinic of New York University School of Law (2012) Living under drones: death, injury and the trauma to civilians from US drone practices in Pakistan. www.livingunderdrones.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Stanford-NYU-Living-Under-Drones.pdf. Accessed 19 December 2013.
- 11.
- 12.
Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, 17 June 1925, 94 LNTS No 2138 (1929).
- 13.
Harris and Paxman 2002.
- 14.
The Economist (2013) The history of chemical weapons: the shadow of Ypres.
- 15.
Cited in Freedman 1998, p. 16.
- 16.
Toffler and Toffler 1994.
- 17.
Orwell 1968, p. 496.
- 18.
Ibid.
- 19.
The Economist (2010) The calibration of destruction.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The Hague. 14 May 1954. 249 UNTS 240.
- 22.
Blair 1999.
- 23.
Stone 2007, p. 99.
- 24.
von Clausewitz 1982, p. 401.
- 25.
Ignatieff 2001, p. 107.
- 26.
Stephens 2007, p. 134.
- 27.
Adam 2003, p. 219.
- 28.
House of Commons Debate, Naval and Military Aeronautics, 2 August 1909, vol 8, cc1564–617. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1909/aug/02/naval-and-military-aeronautics. Accessed 19 December 2013. Idem: Lee 2013, p. 73.
- 29.
Lee 2013, p. 134.
- 30.
Piette 1995, pp. 76–77.
- 31.
Holmes 2004, p. 214.
- 32.
Singer 2009, p. 34.
- 33.
Bowden 2002.
- 34.
Singer 2009, p. 432.
- 35.
Singer 2009, p. 367.
- 36.
Carr 2011, p. 133.
- 37.
Law 1992.
- 38.
Law 1992 pp. 381–382.
- 39.
Thrift 1994, p. 197.
- 40.
Coker 2013.
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Coker, C. (2016). Targeting in Context. In: Ducheine, P., Schmitt, M., Osinga, F. (eds) Targeting: The Challenges of Modern Warfare. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-072-5_2
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