High Value Target HVT / Political Assassination

[William F. Owen]

That assertion is not borne out when one looks at state practice and the terminology used by policy types, where "targeted killings" (or forbidding them) are expressly considered a matter of national policy. Here are examples from Israel, Russia and the US.

You have to differentiate between how the term is used and what it actually means. Ends, Ways and Means. Targeted killings are the Ways, not the Means, so clearly they are not Policy. A verb cannot be a policy. It has to be a condition. Killing is action. It sets forth the policy by a variety of tactics. The strategy has to be viable within tactics, not the Policy.

There may be a "policy of authorisation," but that does not make it a Policy. What they really mean is that they will allow its use in pursuit of the Political Goal = the Policy. That Israel, Russia and the US cannot write English well or use it correctly is part of the problem.

Also credit needs to give to Adam Stahl for this article, far more than me. His research on Israeli Targeted killings is world class.

[slapout9]

Also credit needs to give to Adam Stahl for this article, far more than me. His research on Israeli Targeted killings is world class.

Yes, but America is very good at it when we decide to do it, read Killing Pablo. But like I have been saying Strategy IS Targeting!

[jmm99]

I'll stick with the term "policy of targeted killing" - and line up with those English-deficient Israelis, Russians and USAians.

E.g., Steven R. David, “Fatal Choices: Israel’s Policy of Targeted Killing.” The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies: Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 51 (September 2002): p.2:

Targeted Killing: the intentional slaying of a specific individual or group of individuals undertaken with explicit governmental approval.

In any event, best wishes for your journal.

Regards

Mike

[William F. Owen]

So let me break this down. Is "targeted killing"

a.) A policy = Political end state.
b.) A strategy = the use of force for political objectives.
c.) A tactic = means of fighting

Clearly, it's not a policy and it's not a tactic.

[jmm99]

"a" and "c" - by your fiat, we really have nothing to discuss or "break down", do we.

Hint: "killing" is a present participle, which can have meanings (pl.) as part of a noun phrase and as part of a verbal phrase.

Bonne Chance

Mike

[Ken White]

So let me break this down. Is "targeted killing"

a.) A policy = Political end state.
b.) A strategy = the use of force for political objectives.
c.) A tactic = means of fighting

Clearly, it's not a policy and it's not a tactic.

Seems to me it can be the policy of a nation to use or not to use targeted killing as you said -- that makes it a noun phrase (I made that up...).

It can be a strategy followed by a nation to achieve specific results or actions / counteractions that will possibly lead to certain results.

That it can be a tactic arrive at a strategic goal or simply to achieve tactical advantage.

So I don't see how you can discount a. and c.

We are indeed separated by a common language...

[jmm99]

the following three phrases:

"policy of targeted killing" - 74,900 hits

"strategy of targeted killing" - 45 hits

"tactic of targeted killing" - 68 hits

My personal two cents worth (for what it is worth) is that "targeted killing" (which ain't new) is a different enough form of warfare to have its own "grammer"; and that, moreover, it cuts across the DIME instruments of power (and whatever more letters you want to add) horizontally and runs vertically down from the highest national command authority to the guy or gal who pulls the trigger or pushes the button.

I don't exclude the use of the two lesser phrases (strategy and tactics). For example, the decision making targeting process does have its own features, as illustrated by Amos N. Guiora, License to Kill, 13 Jul 2009, Foreign Policy (another user of the term "policy": "Israel instituted its targeted killing policy in large part in response to Palestinian suicide-bombing attacks"):

When asked by a particular commander to authorize a targeted killing, I would ask the following factual questions:
»Who is the source?
»How reliable is the source?
»How timely is the information?
»What is the relationship between the source and the potential target?
»How precise is the information? (I was once told, for example, "he is wearing a blue shirt and blue jeans," but it was nighttime and the commander had night-vision equipment)
»When was the last time the unit conducted a nighttime ambush?
»How confident was the commander in his unit's capabilities?
»Did the commander receive the intelligence directly from the intelligence community and had he discussed the issue with a case officer?

Not all of its cases have a "Committee X" (or Barak playing a brunette followed by a strawberry blond); Guiora's example was Gaza where the area commander made the decision in individual cases at that time.

Cheers

Mike

PS: Here is an update (mostly on Israeli and US practices - they are somewhat different) from earlier this year, Gabriella Blum and Philip Heymann,Law and Policy of Targeted Killing (Harvard National Security Journal; posted on Jun 27, 2010).

[William F. Owen]

Killing cannot be a "policy." It's like saying "bombing is a policy." Killing and or bombing are parts of a strategy. To be doable they have to be realisable in tactics.

IR uses a lot of and poorly informed language. It's not rigourous, and highly pseudo-academic.