It’s no secret that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doesn’t care much for the laws of war. In the opening days of the war against Iran, he proudly said the ongoing assault involved “no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars.” Standing before the press Friday morning, Hegseth again promised “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”
As isolated rhetoric it would be troubling to hear the civilian atop the military chain of command, just below the commander-in-chief, talk so disparagingly about the concept of restraint in times of war. But Hegseth seems determined to put his belief that war should be conducted free of any constraints or fetters into practice. In doing so, he is encouraging a return to the brutalities of total war that left millions of civilians dead in past wars — and threatens to place a new target on American servicemembers.
Hegseth seems determined to put his belief that war should be conducted free of any constraints or fetters into practice.
Long before President Donald Trump placed him in charge of the Pentagon, then-Fox News host Hegseth lobbied hard to obtain pardons for military service members accused or convicted of alleged war crimes. In a book released in 2024, he railed against “the folly of international law, and the crazy maze of rules of engagement” that govern how countries fight wars without a return to the wide-scale atrocities of World War II. And as ProPublica recently documented, since becoming defense secretary, Hegseth has overseen the dismantling of a plan to reduce civilian deaths during conflicts in favor of, as he put it when rebranding his domain the “Department of War,” an emphasis on “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.”
As MS NOW’s Julia Jester rightly noted, Friday’s comments from Hegseth calling for “no quarter” stand out for even more implicitly greenlighting the military to violate the broader laws of war as well as the military’s own longstanding rules of engagement:
Orders or threats of “no quarter” — a term used for killing enemies who surrender or are rendered unable to fight — have been considered violations of international law since the Hague Convention of 1899, with “directions to give no quarter” listed as a war crime following World War II. […]
And it’s not just global rules that are being flouted. Not only does the term no quarter violate the Geneva Convention, it defies the U.S. Marine Corps’ own rules of engagement: “Do not engage anyone who has surrendered or is out of battle due to sickness or wounds.”
That last bit was the focus of last year’s scandal around the military’s campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The Washington Post reported that during the first of these strikes against suspected drug traffickers, he gave the order to “kill everybody” onboard. When the smoke cleared, two survivors clinging to the wreckage were then fired upon in a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s orders. The ongoing attacks on those boats are one-sided, not an “armed conflict” as is the case in Iran, making them likely illegal and raising the chances of future prosecutions.
Congressional Republicans swiftly opted to drop their investigation into the strike but Democrats remained dissatisfied. The New York Times also reported in January that the U.S. used a plane that looked like a civilian aircraft in its first strike. If true, it was likely a war crime called “perfidy,” given that “the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them.”
The political pressure on Hegseth to answer for that campaign’s deaths and any potential crimes hasn’t deterred him in the slightest from encouraging the war against Iran be carried out with minimum discretion. Each of his press conferences since the first strikes on Iran — mostly attended by right-wing sycophants rather than serious journalists — have included more boastful bravado at the carnage being unleashed on Iran. “Our war fighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly,” Hegseth said last Wednesday. “Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it.”
After Hegseth’s earlier comments disparaging the rules of engagement, Human Rights Watch issued a statement calling on American officials to “reaffirm US compliance with the laws of war and restore the personnel and oversight structures that help protect civilians during armed conflict.” Despite what Hegseth may think, words matter in times of war. That seems unlikely given a new effort from Hegseth to undertake a “ruthless overhaul” of the military’s judge advocate general corps and their fellow civilian lawyers at the Pentagon. As The Atlantic reported, the concern with this review is that it provides cover for an attempt to “reduce the ranks of lawyers, purge internal dissent, and eliminate guardrails designed to restrict the military from carrying out legally dubious orders.” And while operations like the sinking of an Iranian warship returning from a multinational training exercise are technically allowed under the laws of war, it’s hard to say they were fully legal under American law, given the administration’s lack of a clear legal rationale for the war effort. Despite what Hegseth may think, words matter in times of war. Beyond conveying the message of what is gained through fighting, it is only through clear communication that the orders from the top can be carried out by the servicemembers who’ve sworn an oath to obey them. His refusal to acknowledge that there are times where things other than body count should factor into combat decisions threatens the cohesion and professionalism of the military. Likewise, it’s the global commitment to the established laws of war that keeps American civilians safe and untargeted. In rejecting them with his statements, he is incentivizing those who serve under his command to not only discard their humanity but destroy a shield protecting their fellow Americans from having the same standard of “maximum lethality” carried out against them.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House. 
