Targeting Enemy Leaders: Panacea or Pandora's Box

Abstract

Targeting enemy leaders is neither a panacea nor a Pandora's box. Despite continued conclusion with regard to the law, targeting a specific enemy leader is a lawful action pursuant to justified armed conflict and does not constitute en assassination. However, targeting en enemy leader requires careful consideration of legal, political, and military factors. Certain rules of engagement should he applied before selecting such a course of action. Targeting an enemy leader is not a proper stand-alone course of action. An enemy leader should not he designated as the enemy strategic center of gravity. Targeting enemy leaders requires extensive intelligence and wide spread condemnation of the target.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 18, 2001
Accession Number
ADA393514

Entities

People

  • Edward M. Mccue Iii

Organizations

  • Naval War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Counter WMD
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Air Force
  • Assassination
  • Center Of Gravity
  • Command And Control
  • Congress
  • History
  • Information Warfare
  • International Law
  • Law
  • Military Operations
  • New York
  • Rules Of Engagement
  • Security
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Cyberspace Operations against Adversarial Threats.
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.