Collateral Damage and Resentment
Political and Ethical Aphorism 3
As I wrote in a previous aphorism, collateral damage is a tricky issue. One reader rightly pointed out that it is difficult to avoid collateral damage when the enemy hides among innocent or powerless people. It is a fair argument. In fact, one might even concede that, in some situations, it may be impossible to defeat an enemy without causing collateral damage.
But what follows from that? Does the impossibility of avoiding collateral damage justify any level of destruction? Surely not. Just because harm cannot be reduced to zero does not mean the effort to minimize it becomes optional, or that harm is acceptable. On the contrary, the effort becomes more necessary. When one knows in advance that civilians are present, the moral question is not whether harm is conceivable but whether foreseeable harm is treated as a limit or a cost.
Let’s consider a hypothetical situation (any resemblance to recent events is purely coincidental) in which a military operation is carried out against opponents hiding in a school. In this case, postponing the operation until the risk can be reduced or eliminated may be the only way to avoid collateral damage.
One might argue that information is difficult to gather and that, when the location of a target is known with relative certainty, it is precisely the moment to act. That is fair. From a narrow military and tactical perspective, it may even seem like the right call.
Yet, precisely here, the reasoning must be broadened. A military operation is never purely military. Strategy and human considerations do not exist in separate worlds.
The targets are human beings. Collateral damage affects people, too. They do not simply disappear once the strike is over. They remain as survivors, witnesses, relatives, and neighbors. They remember. They bury the dead. They reinterpret what happened. Therefore, the real question is not only whether the intended target was hit. It is also, “What kind of political and moral reality was created in the process?” In philosophical terms: What imagination, representation, or ideology will emerge from that point?
This is one reason why collateral damage cannot be assessed only in immediate operational terms. For instance, eliminating one opponent could create ten more. Destroying a node in a network, for instance, can strengthen its emotional and symbolic foundations.
Resentment is a strategic consequence. Humiliation, grief, and the perception that some lives are less valuable than others are some of the most effective recruitment tools ever invented. Collateral damage is part of the causal chain of the conflict itself.
What does that mean? Does it mean that nothing should be done? No, it means that actions cannot be judged based solely on their immediate effects. Rather, they must also be evaluated based on their potential long-term global consequences.
One must ask not only if a strike is possible, but also if it is the right call for the long-term fight. One must consider not only its legality in a narrow sense, but also its political and human intelligence. One must also consider whether it eliminates the current threat and exacerbates future conditions of violence.
The vocabulary used in such cases is not innocent either. Words such as “target,” “opponent,” “enemy,” and “terrorist” do more than merely describe. They create symbolic asymmetries. They draw a moral line between those whose deaths are narrated as tragedies and those whose deaths are narrated as necessities. These words make it easier to speak of people as objects and of lives as costs.
Of course, language does not kill by itself. However, it can prepare the conscience to accept what would otherwise be considered intolerable.
In such a context, targeting a facility is similar to targeting an individual because both reduce the target to something that could be shut off with the push of a button.
This mindset erodes moral safeguards and lowers the threshold for violence.
This publication would not be possible without your support. Please consider becoming a paid or founding subscriber. This will give you access to all my posts and the ability to react to them.
Any attack anywhere will have collateral damage. I saw it in Northern Ireland. I just read Michael's comment on tear gas which was used often in N. Ireland and it did help somewhat. They also used rubber bullets, but unfortunately damage was still extensive and war was then turned on the local police trying to control situations. War is terrifying for the innocent children and pets caught in the midst of it all, and the wild life is affected, animals, insects and birds also suffer. Every attack perpetrated by humans creates damage.... not just war, but the clearance of environments for construction. All creation, even of those things we consider beautiful, is married to destruction of something. We live in a world of karmic activity and have a responsibility to lessen the impact on the Earth, ourselves and others. ***
In the school scenario, rather than bullets and bombs, they could fill the school with tear gas. There may be some casualties, depending on the age of the children or semi-adults inside, but it would likely force those in opposition to the attackers/saviors from doing untold harm to the people inside the building. In outside spaces, depending on how wide and open, a stun overhead effect could be launched. Yes some people may lose their hearing or eyesight, but the death rate could be minimum and with no other harm done. So far this has been outside the realm of a military’s role, perhaps now it should be inserted when something more ethical than simply a win is called for.