© 2017 by Jeremy Rabkin and John Yoo
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.
First American edition published in 2017 by Encounter Books, an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation.
Encounter Books website address: www.encounterbooks.com
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48‒1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE
Names: Rabkin, Jeremy A., author. | Yoo, John, author.
Title: Striking power: how cyber, robots, and space weapons change the rules for war / by Jeremy Rabkin and John Yoo.
Description: New York: Encounter Books, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017006243 (print) | LCCN 2017012162 (ebook) | ISBN 9781594038884 (Ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: War (International law) | Military weapons (International law) | Technological innovations—Law and legislation.
Classification: LCC KZ6385 (ebook) | LCC KZ6385 .R336 2017 (print) | DDC 341.6/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017006243
Interior page design and composition: BooksByBruce.com
Contents
CHAPTER 2 Returning to Coercion
CHAPTER 3 Except a Few Things Regarded as Barbarous and Cruel: The Law of War Before the 1970s
CHAPTER 4 How the Law of War Was Hijacked
CHAPTER 5 The Rise of the Machines
In his 2017 inaugural address, President Donald Trump protested that for decades the American people had “subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military. . . spent trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.”1 No longer would the United States waste its blood and treasure fighting abroad for the interests of others. “From this moment on,” Trump declared, “it’s going to be America first.” During his campaign, Trump had launched even sharper critiques of U.S. foreign policy. Paying attention to the interests of foreigners had led the United States into disastrous wars, most lamentably in Iraq. “We shouldn’t have been there, we shouldn’t have destroyed the country, and Saddam Hussein was a bad guy but he was good at one thing: killing terrorists,” Trump said during the campaign.2
Despite such rhetoric, the administration did not pursue a foreign policy of isolationism or even non-interventionism. In the Middle East, the United States has not only continued fighting foes from its recent wars but gone beyond them. In April 2017, the Trump administration set aside the passivity of its predecessor and launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles against a Syrian air base in response to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. It expanded the American deployment of ground troops in the Syrian civil war, provided arms to Kurdish militias, and lent air and tactical support to Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State terrorist group. U.S. troops continued to fight in Afghanistan against a resurgent Taliban, even going so far as to use a massive ordinance bomb against insurgent tunnels. Promising to “bomb the hell out of ISIS” during his campaign, Trump has authorized a significant increase in drone strikes and special operations by both the CIA and the U.S. armed forces.3
In Asia, the Trump administration did not send U.S. forces into direct combat, but it resorted to the threat of force to support its foreign policy. To pressure the North Korean regime to halt its nuclear weapons program, Trump dispatched the USS Vinson aircraft carrier strike group and a nuclear submarine to the area. “There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea,” he said. “Absolutely.”4 His administration proposed a more aggressive response to China’s building of artificial islands in the South China Seas. “Building islands and then putting military assets on those islands is akin to Russia’s taking of Crimea. It’s taking of territory that others lay claim to,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in his confirmation hearing.5 “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”6 To enforce such demands would require more frequent freedom of navigation patrols and could even call for naval blockades.
For all that, President Trump shows little sign of reversing the Obama administration’s caution on risking American lives. He continues to criticize the U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan as “costly”—by which he seems to mean costly in American lives but also in budget allocations. The Trump administration faces a quandary. Restoring a muscular American foreign policy will demand a higher rate of operations and deployments, increasing costs and risking greater casualties. Though the administration has proposed increases in military spending, it remains cautious about costly foreign commitments.
Technology can help resolve this looming impasse. Robotics, the Internet, and space-based communications have increased productivity across the economy. These same advances may have a comparably transformative impact on military affairs. Unmanned aerial vehicles
