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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Washington, DC (September 12, 2017) — Technology is rapidly changing the way wars are waged today, although the rule of law has yet to adapt to these advances in autonomous robotics, cyber weapons, and space-based communications. In “Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War” (Encounter Books, 2017), legal experts Jeremy Rabkin and John Yoo provide a historical overview of war, weapons, and the rules of warfare and explain that the traditional understanding of war and force no longer fits today’s challenges.
New technological advances are changing military tactics and development away from relying on draft armies and mass-produced weapons — such as biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons that do not distinguish between combatants and civilians — leading instead toward precise targeted strikes that put fewer soldiers and civilians in harm’s way while still advancing US national security goals. Today:
The authors conclude that the rules of war must evolve to keep pace with technology. An inflexible approach to the rules of war, such as the one advocated by those who would want to keep and freeze the International Humanitarian Law and the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, tend to favor guerrillas, terrorists, and insurgents over Western nations and those who favor conventional ground combat over technology and innovation, which save lives.
John Yoo is the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Jeremy Rabkin is a Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
To interview the authors, or for a copy of the book, please contact Charlotte Kearney at charlotte.kearney@aei.org or 202.862.5904.
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a public policy think tank dedicated to defending human dignity, expanding human potential, and building a freer and safer world.
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