What is with the 'proportionate' responses to attacks?

 Michael Rubin:

On June 27, President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes on targets associated with Iranian-backed militias in both Syria and Iraq. The Pentagon executed similar strikes last February.

On both occasions, senior officials rushed to assure that the action was proportionate. Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby called the first strike a "proportionate military response," and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi praised the second. "The defense airstrikes… appear to be a targeted and proportional response to a serious and specific threat," she wrote.

The emphasis on proportionality is not simply an obsession of the Biden administration. After Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against his own population in 2017, the Pentagon spokesman assured, "The strike was a proportional response to Assad’s heinous act." Secretary of State Rex Tillerson thanked allies for their support "for our timely and proportionate response."

Across administrations, the promise to act proportionately has become the center square in White House bingo. Sony hacked by North Korea? "We will respond proportionally," President Barack Obama promised. Russia seeking to interfere with the 2016 election? "There would be a proportional response," Obama press secretary Josh Earnest said. The U.S. strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan after the 1998 East Africa embassy attacks? "These strikes were a necessary and proportionate response," President Bill Clinton wrote to congressional leaders.

Proportionality was not always such a prominent concern. Think of the firebombing of Dresden or the atomic attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Scholars argue that the concept of proportionality dates back to Christian "Just War" doctrine. But both world wars in the 20th century show that states subordinated concerns about proportionality to a desire not only to win battles but, when possible, to other factors, like delivering a knock-out blow to enemies or demonstrating to an enemy’s public the cost of continuing conflict.

The slaughter of the world wars, however, catalyzed a rethink of the laws of war. The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 outlawed poisons, slaughtering prisoners, bombarding undefended towns, conscripting occupied peoples, and the use of certain types of munitions. The Geneva Conventions further codified rules of law.

Still, the notion that proportionality is a hard-and-fast rule is false.

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One of the first responses to the Japanese attack on US forces at Pearl Harbor was Doolittle's raid on Tokyo.   One of the reasons that Iran has been able to continue its war on civilization is the use of force against Iran has been more of a messaging strategy than one designed to defeat the religious bigots who rule Iran.  Iran is ruled by people who do not hide their genocidal intentions yet most of the responses have been "proportional" and have therefore resulted in Iran continuing its terrorist attacks and it plans for genocide.