High Value Target HVT / Political Assassination

[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.

[Bob's World]

Hmm. Seems to me that targeted killing is a tactic. One that should be implemented within the bounds of some policy to achieve some end. If it is by a sniper against some tactical target on the battlefield, it is a tactical end. If it is by design to take out some senior or critical individual for a strategic effect, then it is strategic.

As a tactic, like counterterrorism or terrorism, it is not warfare per se, but rather may be employed in war or peace IAW a nation's policies.

Time, manner, place all contribute to any assessment of some specific killing if one is feeling compelled to place it in some specific bin.

I would recommend that the U.S. adopt a policy of targeted killings of specific individuals that they have publicly "tried" in absentia and found guilty of a capital offense. This would build my standing target list, then, like in all targeting, I would establish clear criteria for on call targets, or targets of opportunity that meet the criteria, but time urgency demands immediate engagemnt.

In conjunction with this I would drop the entire "war" label from our actions to defeat terrorism and also drop the current legal tool of naming organizations in total as "terrorist." Wars, of course, are messy and create tremendous strategic risk for major nations. As to the terrorist labeling of organizations, it simply ties our hands in how we deal with these groups, preventing many more reasonable approaches to bring them in from the cold and incorporate into effective solutions.

[William F. Owen]

Hmm. Seems to me that targeted killing is a tactic.

There are a whole range of tactics to perform targeted killing, but you asked exactly the same question that Adam and I started with.

[Rex Brynen]

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

I'm not so sure I agree--typically IR folks use terms that are understood quite clearly by other IR folks, and where there are multiple meanings ("balance of power" for example) they're discussed and dissected at length.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of "policy" is:

a : a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions
b : a high-level overall plan embracing the general goals and acceptable procedures especially of a governmental body

The term "policy" can thus subsume goals ("our policy is a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict"), strategy ("our policy has been to promote direct talks"), or well-established or habitual official actions ("our policy is not to allow searches of diplomatic vehicles at checkpoints"). Most IR folks (and most policy folks) would understand it as potentially meaning all those things.

A "political end state" sounds more like a goal, or possibly an interest.

[William F. Owen]

I'm not so sure I agree--typically IR folks use terms that are understood quite clearly by other IR folks, and where there are multiple meanings ("balance of power" for example) they're discussed and dissected at length.

OK, good points. Let me re-phrase. IR discussions on strategy are general very poor, because folks have not held to the correct use of language.