Suppose that the U.S. decides to attack Syria without approval from the U.N.
Could Syria legally return fire? While they don’t have the ability to conventionally shoot back, they could send commandos and undercover agents to the U.S. and attack military targets with vehicle mounted bombs. This seems more or less equally “dishonorable” to the U.S. sending robot cruise missiles and stealth bombers into Syrian airspace.
Yes, I am aware that “international law” has less teeth than “Papal bulls” of the past. It isn’t worth the paper it is printed on. However, from a technical point of view, if the U.N. had limitless power to enforce the international laws, how would the legalities work out?
Furthermore, it is at least possible than in the future the U.N. will have more power than it currently does.
Finally, right now the U.S. has an on paper justification for their attack - the chemical weapons attack. However, what if, in 3 months, the Syrian government produces definitive proof that they were not responsible? (I am aware that this is unlikely, however, it probably seemed unlikely that Iraq didn’t have at least some WMDs at the time)
If the UN had limitless power to enforce the international laws, they wouldn’t be *able *to shoot back, because the UN would have limitless power, and as such would be completely invulnerable, like Superman.
Go ahead and shoot back, but with what? The first move has to be to take out his air power and all other long distance threats; we are pretty good at doing that. World class at it in fact; we’ve had some practice at this kind of stuff.
They always could ‘legally’ fire back…or fire first…at the US (because, frankly, the GC accords aren’t worth a hell of a lot in reality, and ‘legal’ means whatever the sovereign country deciding such things THINKS it means internally to their own legal code…or the whim of the dictator in chief). I wouldn’t advise it, and I doubt they would be so stupid (unless they think they can do it without getting caught), but there is nothing more than their own self interest stopping them from doing what you suggest. In fact, countries HAVE done stuff like this in the past, when they thought they could get away with it. Iran, for instance, supports several terrorist groups who periodically wage war against Israel. The US and Soviet Union fought several proxy wars.
As to getting UN approval, it’s to laugh. That’s never going to happen. The way the UNSC works simply doesn’t allow for any sort of binding resolution against Syria in this case. Even if literally every other country on the planet lined up and said they supported official UN sanctions, the fact that Russia will veto any such initiative down renders the whole thing moot. Which is why the US and others are considering working around the UN…as usual.
Missed the edit window and didn’t really want to appear to be trite with you. Of course Syria has the right to attack back, but it’s expected. And yes, we will expect commando style, terrorist style attacks; but these have become mind numbingly common these last 10 years. Syria would need to attack the USA at home thru cyber attacks or terrorist attacks to really get the American peoples attention. As for the UN, it will remain a American puppet because our leaders don’t want to let go of thier god given right to attack other countries.
Perhaps hi-jack some airliners and fly them into skyscrapers?
Of course, the answer to the OP is that they would not be allowed. If they tried they would be sent to bed without any supper. This is because they are the bad guys. The US, by contrast, being the good guys, can throw bombs at who they like.
Well, in real life, if a lawfully appointed judge declares that you should be punished in some way (perhaps by imprisonment in a cage, or even an injection of poison), you can’t “legally” go and shoot the judge and the people charged with carrying out the sentence. Even if you had the power to do so, credibly.
Syria has enough resources that if they choose to, they could probably send hundreds of commandos and commit hundreds of separate terrorist attacks. 9/11 was done by what, 50 people total? What if 10,000 terrorists were to all attack at once?
Granted, in Syria’s case, they can’t spare the forces for such an attack right now, but if they were to win the civil war, they could in a few years.
Anyways, in real life, if you kill the bailiff in a court room and the judge, all the other bailiffs (and cops in general) will come after you.
Similarly, if Syria were able to blow up a bunch of buildings and oil refineries and other vulnerable infrastructure, or sink some of the naval vessels that were shooting Tomhawks at their coastline, in theory the other world nations would step in to help the U.S. beat Syria into submission. Not every nation (Russia probably wouldn’t help), but NATO countries at a minimum.
Syria is going to shoot back as they will be defending themselves, that is of course if we go ahead and attack. The US is not going to be able to get all the targets with cruise missiles and drones, so there will probably be manned aircraft over Syria. Assad and Co. have very good air defenses both AA missiles and artillery plus some Air Force assets, expect the US(and any Allies) to loose a few.
I also might expect some attacks on Israel, to draw Israel in and weaken Arab support for action against Syria.
Assad will punch back the question is at whom and with what? He is not going to take it lying down.
It’s funny. Used to be, wars were a method of *resolving *disputes. Now they seem to be a method of enforcing resolutions made in advance. It’s a weird new legalistic world we’re living in.
I guess that’s why people don’t respect enemies any more. In the past, even when their rulers were evil and their nations were in the wrong, that didn’t change the fact that the actual soldiers were doing the honorable thing by fighting for their country. Now, they’re all criminals whose guilt has been decided in advance. I feel as though we’ve lost something important here.
A lawfully appointed judge has bailiffs and police and suchlike to back him up and make sure his rulings are respected and enforced, and beyond that, the relevant nation’s government (who pay for those bailiffs and police) and armed forces. In real real life, there is no such higher authority over the nations of the world. Certainly the UN is not such an authority. It exists and functions only insomuch as the individual nations allow it to, and find it convenient to. The situation is not at all analogous.
Fair point, but what if Syria decides its best play is to attack the US’s best friends in the neighborhood instead of half-assed ninja-terrorist plays? Israel is RIGHT THERE, and taking your frustrations out on the US’s favorite pet might work better than futilely shooting radar-directed SAMs at stealth aircraft. (Of course, the pan-Arabist pipe dream of provoking Israel into a disproportionate response and instantly garnering the adoration and armed support of the entire Arab world didn’t work out too well for Gamal Nasser, or at all for Saddam Hussein in GW1… but maybe al-Assad thinks “third time’s the charm”.)
True that, upon reading your post I immediately thought about the movies and books I have been exposed to that show the fight from the “Enemies” perspective, you can sympathize, and how the US Civil War ended so Honorably at Appomattox.
What I am trying to say, is that is seems very Black and White now with no grey area at all. Imagine how it must feel to be a young Alawite manning and AA radar station right now, he must feel right in his cause and knows that he may well endure a World of hurt because of it.
Yeah, and its aircrafts, missiles, tanks are right there too.
I already wrote in another thread : do you really think that when you’re plunged into a civil war and barely able to fight back, the obvious move is to start a foreign war on top of this?
As general principles: the UN Charter and customary international law give great deference to the ability of a state to defend itself against armed attack. I can think of no principle of international law in which a country which is the subject of an attack by another state would be legally prohibited from defending itself.
So long as the country acts within the laws of war, there is nothing to prevent the attacked state from engaging in military actions against the other country. So if Syria sent uniformed soldiers to the United States to attack legitimate military targets in a way that didn’t violate some other law of war (e.g., within the principle of proportionality, discrimination of targets, etc.) there’s no prohibition on that.
So, I notice that the OP didn’t ask whether a US attack on Syria would be consonant with international law…