The US secretary of war’s internationally televised talk at Quantico last week to all American operational commanders of single-star rank and above has implications for the world. It’s one thing for the US to choose its own policies. But when they’re announced to the world in such a manner, all sorts of responses may be expected.
One statement of interest made by Pete Hegseth was, “We [also] don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralise, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality, and authority for war fighters.”
Rules of engagement and the broader laws of war have a long history, moving from customs and codes of honour of antiquity to formal international law. The aim was to control man’s perennial propensity to use violence against man. Nothing should erode that progress achieved over centuries. Here is why.
Abraham Lincoln had commissioned the Lieber Code of 1863, the first codification of the laws of war in the modern age. This was to prevent unnecessary torture, destruction and cruelty during the American Civil War. Later, this law influenced the Geneva and Hague conventions. While Lincoln surely wanted his side to win, he still chose to tie the hands of his soldiers. That was responsible statesmanship.
It was said that hands were being ‘untied’ to restore fighting spirit to the US military. The freedom to do anything doesn’t bring fighting spirit—understanding or experiencing fighting does. As they rage, battles constantly pose challenges. Problem solving at the individual, group, unit, and higher levels alone can bring victory. History has an example.
The British Royal Navy had fought for 55 of the 75 years before the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. So many decades of war had saturated the Royal Navy with problem solvers and its benefits manifested in its victory with a weaker fleet against the much stronger Franco-Spanish one.
This they achieved even without being led, as their leader Nelson had been shot by a French sniper at the beginning of the battle and was lying bleeding at the bottom of his ship. Nelson could lead without being present because he had implanted his fighting doctrine of unconventionality and unrelenting offensive into every soul.
That he himself had regularly displayed these throughout his career helped. It gained him respect and credibility, leading to belief in his doctrine. All these lie at the core of the fighting spirit.
But fighting spirit is only one aspect of military conflicts. The unprecedented death and destruction of the two world wars made the world realise the need for rules of engagement as standard military practice, to be issued by commanders to define when and how force can be used, balancing military necessity with political and legal limits.
This is complex. ‘Military necessity’ for the commander is the achievement of the ‘desired end state’ of a military action. However, the fluctuating emotions of the troops involved in the same action could spill over in many ways during the course of action. A military leader feels the real weight of his responsibility only when he has to rein in the emotions of his troops to ensure that no political or legal limits are overstepped once the military aim is achieved.
War being ‘politics by other means’, its political limits and legality are supreme. Public announcement of untying hands is bound to increase the challenge military leaders may face, as in extremely emotional situations their troops could question the limits laid by commanders. “If our government has no problem, what is yours?” they could ask. This is dangerous.
There are layered consequences when the strong play the victim. It presents aggression or harsh actions as self-defence, which can be used to legitimise disproportionate responses as domestic populations and allies are more likely to back a cause if they believe it’s defensive. It also shifts focus from being the powerful aggressor to being a supposed target.
This opens up dangerous results. With manipulation being revealed, trust erodes. If both sides claim victimhood, compromise—the only practical end state for conflicts—too becomes harder. It weakens the voice of real victims, overshadowing genuine suffering. Sympathy, legitimacy, and freedom of action may be gained in the short run, but it can breed resentment, isolation, or backlash. And with States increasingly pitted against non-State actors, there is no telling how new responses can emerge. Words like ‘untying hands’ are a double-edged sword—effective rhetorically, but corrosive strategically if not correctly contextualised.
The world will always have strong and weak nations. Common sense dictates that it is the bounden duty of the strong to be considerate and accommodative of those not so strong.
The nature of today’s warfare and military personnel is unlike those of Nelson’s era. The inability of military action alone to bring conflicts to an end is clear. The likelihood of soldiers getting into physical fights is also fast receding. But what remains perennial is the uncertainty borne by the fog of war, the need for the ability to work through ambiguity using creativity, and the ability to endure, not inflict.
Professional militaries are forever persevering to keep their people ready for the next war, without ever getting into war. That is best done through a good doctrine, matching force structures, realistic training, great leadership, and high morale. A rule-based world is best for humans, and having rules and respecting them are critical for it.
Read all columns by Commodore G Prakash
(Views are personal)
Commodore G Prakash (Retd)
Nau Sena Medal awardee and naval aviator whose command appointments included captaining three warships
