The finiteness of self-defence

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I wrote about extremist warfare in 2009. The idea was that maximalist war objectives such as total annexation or unconditional surrender raise the bar to victory because they provoke maximalist hostile efforts. The effect is that wars are unnecessarily long and destructive compared to the case of more moderate objectives.

Now I'd like to point out something similar:

Some countries becomes extremist in response to being under attack. They have the legitimate and legal right to self-defence, but then they just keep going, inflate and exceed this right, up to "forever conflicts" where supposedly all military action for all eternity isjustified by the original offence.

I strongly suppose that the right to self-defence ends when the hostilities have ceased (including blockades and occupations by the aggressor being lifted) and only renews when a new aggression occurs. Any remaining entitlements to compensation of damages is then a legal affair that does not justify violence.

Examples for such forever conflicts:

• American derangement about the Iranian embassy crisis 
• Israeli conflicts with Syrians, Palestinians, Hezbollah
• The Frozen Korean War (some people pretend the lack of a peace treaty means an attack on North Korea would still be legal) 
• The American sustainment of their conflict with Iraq from 1991-2003

I wanted to raise awareness about the problem and shed some light on it, but the latter intent is difficult to realise. I simply don't see any justification for such an open-endedness of a right to commit violence.

Proportionality is for all I know a universally accepted principle in law. An aggression from decades ago that was already punished ten times over cannot possibly be considered to justify further violence. It would simply not be proportional. And I'm not even discussing the "ten times over" part, right now I just take offense at the abuse of the "self defence" or ' UN authorised military action' authorisations of violence by pretending that they are endless.

 

We should go beyond accepting that self-defence is a right and pay A LOT more attention to the limits of self-defence. Civilised countries did this in criminal law, it's about time the public does it in regard to military actions (and subversive, sabotage and assassination activities).

S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
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