In war, behavioral and ethical norms rarely collapse all at once. They erode step by step. The current Middle East conflict has demonstrated this progression with unsettling clarity through a sequence of assassinations. Targeted killings of Hamas officials were followed by a deadly strike on Hezbollah leadership. These operations gradually normalized cross-border decapitation strikes as instruments of policy. The progression culminated in the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei, the head of state of Iran, and a leading Shia religious authority, whose position historically placed him beyond the reach of wartime targeting.
The killing of militant commanders was justified as counterterrorism. The expansion of strikes across national borders was framed as a necessary response to regional threats. By the time the campaign reached the level of state leadership, the conventional barrier separating battlefield violence from political authority had weakened. What once would have been regarded as an extraordinary breach of norms could now be presented as a logical extension of earlier actions.
The Ratchet of Armed Transgression
This progression reveals a broader process in which repeated violations gradually dissolve behavioral and ethical restraints that once shaped the conduct of conflict. Norms reinforced through decades of practice lose their stabilizing force when they are breached without meaningful consequence. The metaphor of a ratchet captures this directional movement. Once a boundary is crossed, restoring the previous restraint becomes difficult. Future decision-makers operate within the expanded range of action established by earlier precedents. The ratchet phenomenon proceeds through a recognizable sequence. A perceived emergency is used to justify an exceptional violation of a behavioral or ethical norm. The action is presented as temporary and necessary, often accompanied by assurances that the underlying restraint remains intact. Critics who question the breach may be portrayed as naive about the severity of the threat or indifferent to national security. When the violation produces no immediate catastrophe, repetition becomes easier. What was initially defended as extraordinary gradually becomes routine.
The targeted killings in the Mideast illustrate how rapidly this progression can unfold. Early operations focus on actors widely regarded as legitimate military targets, such as insurgent commanders. Subsequent actions extend the same logic to politically sensitive figures whose operational roles may be ambiguous but whose removal is deemed advantageous. With each step, the conceptual boundary between battlefield combatants and political leadership weakens. The result is a gradual transformation of the behavioral landscape of warfare. Practices that once would have provoked widespread condemnation become normalized instruments of statecraft. Over time, the expectations that once stabilized conflict begin to erode, increasing uncertainty about what adversaries may be willing to do.
Existential Threat and the Neutralization of Restraint
The ratchet of armed transgression rarely advances without justification. Violations of established restraints must be framed in ways that render them politically acceptable to domestic audiences and allied governments. The most powerful justification available to political leaders is the claim that the nation faces an existential threat. Once a conflict is defined in existential terms, the calculus of restraint changes dramatically. Behavioral and ethical limits that normally constrain the conduct of war begin to appear secondary to the imperative of survival. Actions that might otherwise provoke widespread opposition can be defended as unfortunate but unavoidable necessities. The presence of nuclear weapons further amplifies this dynamic, because the possibility, however remote, of national destruction lends extraordinary persuasive power to claims that survival itself is at stake.
Existential framing also weakens political opposition to exceptional measures. If the survival of the state is perceived to be in danger, arguments about legal or ethical limits can be dismissed as irresponsible distractions from the task of removing the threat. Critics may be portrayed as naive, disloyal, or sympathetic to the adversary. The language of existential danger therefore plays a crucial role in advancing the ratchet. Each violation is presented not as a precedent but as an necessary response to extraordinary circumstances. By the time the long-term consequences of the action become clear, the political debate has often shifted to the next perceived emergency. The result is a cycle in which escalating rhetoric and tactics reinforce one another. As the perception of threat intensifies, restraints that once governed the conduct of war lose their political support.
Transgressive Leadership
Conflict dynamics alone do not explain how restraints can erode rapidly. The behaviors of political leaders also matter. Some leaders display a pronounced willingness—sometimes even an eagerness—to cross established boundaries in pursuit of strategic or political advantage. For such leaders, transgression itself can become a source of authority. Actions that violate established behavioral or ethical norms are framed not as regrettable necessities but as demonstrations of strength and resolve.
Thus, the willingness to disregard established limits becomes evidence of decisive leadership, while restraint is portrayed as weakness. When this leadership style intersects with the ratchet effect described above, the erosion of restraint can accelerate dramatically. Each boundary crossing reinforces the leader’s reputation for boldness while simultaneously expanding the range of actions available to the state. In this way, leadership psychology can function as an accelerant for the ratchet of armed transgression.
History offers examples of leaders who treated the violation of established restraints as a deliberate political strategy. The career of Benito Mussolini provides a clear illustration. Mussolini repeatedly demonstrated strength through the visible rejection of international and domestic limits—from the use of chemical weapons in Ethiopia to the normalization of paramilitary violence at home. In such systems, transgression itself becomes a source of political authority, reinforcing the perception that decisive leadership requires the willingness to disregard conventional constraints.
The current Middle East conflict demonstrates that similar incentives can operate within modern democratic states facing intense security pressures. In both the United States and Israel, leaders function within political environments that reward decisive demonstrations of military strength. Actions that cross established behavioral or ethical boundaries may therefore carry domestic political advantages, particularly when they are framed as necessary responses to existential danger.
The Nuclear Threshold
The erosion of conventional restraints in warfare rarely produces an immediate catastrophe. Each violation appears manageable in isolation and may even deliver short-term tactical advantages. The danger lies in the cumulative effect. The most dangerous boundary in this landscape is the longstanding taboo against the use of nuclear weapons. Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear-armed states have avoided crossing this line despite numerous crises and wars. Yet the logic of the transgressive ratchet suggests this disturbing possibility. As behavioral restraints erode and existential threat rhetoric intensifies, pressures to violate even this most consequential prohibition may grow.
There is already active speculation about the possible use of nuclear weapons by Israel against Iran. Having declared that a military threat from Iran is incompatible with Israel’s security, what would prevent the use of nuclear weapons to eliminate it? The current U.S. administration armed and assisted Israel in its devastating assault on Gaza. Would it be willing or able to prevent an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran?
Conclusion
The rise of transgressive political leaders who invoke existential threats to normalize unprecedented acts of military violence poses a grave threat to world peace. If the process of armed transgression continues unchecked, the path ahead leads toward the collapse of the nuclear taboo and the possibility of global catastrophe. Preventing that outcome will require the deliberate restoration of the ethical and legal limits that once constrained the conduct of war. If the ratchet of armed transgression continues to advance, the next boundary to fall may be the nuclear threshold.
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The problem as I see it is that throughout the collective west we have a bunch of half smart people inhabiting an echo chamber of western omnicompetence vs. incapacity / weakness / passivity of the “other guy” topped off with personal impunity. I don’t see how we escape without mushroom clouds.
Our only hope to avoid Gotterdamerung is for the rapid destruction of the collective west
You are too kind to those who don’t deserve it. “Half-witted, delusional and incompetent sociopaths” is a much, much more appropriate description of the West’s leadership, and their sense of impunity will dissolve rapidly at the prospect of a dance at Tyburn or a few moments spent alone in a cell in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Centre.
One would hope that maybe wars might be fought less often if leaders, spouses, children, grandchildren, and cetera are now considered “fair game” under the “rules” of war. But probably not.
Of course, “rules for thee but not for me” Western leaders will scream the loudest if THEY and their families have to suffer under the new rules, but, as they say, “war is hell.”
> The emergence of categorical norms.
>> We use it to capture an essential feature of sanctioning in norm enforcement models: it is worth sanctioning (playing S) if and only if others expect you to. This is the case, for instance, if you are liable to
be sanctioned or exploited if others believe you witnessed a transgression that you did not sanction.
>> Third, in these same three vignettes we showed that participants expected avoiding higher-order punishment (being punished for failing to punish norm violations–a common feature of norm enforcement [5]) or gaining higher-order rewards to depend on punishing a transgression, but not on the transgressions’ magnitude
“What once had been presented as an extraordinary breach of norms could now be presented as a logical extension of earlier actions.”
It may be worse.
Mass assassination and a more general acceptance of the validity of murder now appear to be in the air.
The impulses behind such activity cannot be completely understood simply through the dynamics of international politics, economics, or international diplomacy.
What may be emerging is some kind of desire of killing for killings sake–I can feel it, at times, within myself.
Fascism viewed the usage of violence not as “ultima ratio” when everything else fails, but as a perfectly normal tool to be used right away if expedient or convenient, and actually glorified force and an aggressive posture as virtues. Congruent with the reflection of Ignacio further down.
Back to the future, I am afraid.
My read is not only will the United States be unwilling to stop Israel but will deliver the nuclear strike on Israel’s behalf. And likely using the same logic as with the initial strike.
Ok Mr. Hovaness. This is another interesting discussion. My intuition goes in the direction that, so far, the most important factor in the US is transgressive leadership though in Israel, the garrison state, armed transgression seems to be in advanced stage having achieved normalization and probably with ratchet effect. The US pirates of the caribb… err… US Navy, with the killing of civilians at sea, is advancing towards transgression normalization. Bombardment of whoever had been normalized long ago, though now, the bombardment of a city like Teheran is a new breach in the wrong direction. A new transgression. Some say with the help of AI (another transgression).
As I see it, such transgressions, in a let’s say “normal” environment wouldn’t necessarily become normalized and irreversibly converted in military “doctrine” if enough opposition arises against them. The fascio (Mussolini) succeeded in some special circumstances. Are current circumstances in the US similar to those? So far, something tells me this isn’t the case and the transgressors are putting themselves in a corner.
funny, that just a few hours ago I was referring to Duce too in a post.
as you conclude:
“So far, something tells me this isn’t the case and the transgressors are putting themselves in a corner.”
Even though Marx´s saying is being overused – but speaking of “history first a tragedy then repeated as farce” …. farce – which is a comical category after all – is what we witness today in terms of a crumbling empire that is not willing to acknowledge its waining powers (King Lear rejecting the truth).
You only mock those who demand what is not within their true reach (any more.)
By comparison Duce was no farce (if we look at the actual violence and not the parading around). Duce was tragedy that would precede the farce.
And if one fancies to apply the proverb by Marx on the whole of the West: then the fascism trope may have been a true tragedy 80 years ago but it more and more unravels as a farce today.
Of course that West is still powerful enough to exterminate Palestinians and terrorize particular cities in the US and certain minorities, like immigrants – which on the other hand are being terrorized all over the world. Demise needs time. But Rome wasn´t destroyed in a day either.
p.s. hope I didn´t get you wrong…🙄
Wasn’t the entire premise of the creation of Israel based on the belief that Jews were under existential threat everywhere that they were a minority population? This is going back to 1900 or maybe a few years before. So almost from the beginning the idea of Israel has been a get-out-of-jail-free card for whatever level of violence the settlers found expedient. The escalatory ladder already began with the climber more than halfway up. In other situations like aerial bombing of civilians in World War II, there were at least a few months of trying to behave in accordance with the norms that the nations involved said they were trying to observe. (Of course these norms were only for countries with a majority “white” population.)
The fact that Jews are doing swimmingly and even have a number of extra protections in countries like the US doesn’t seem to have weakened this sense of existential risk used to justify the Israel project. In fact the Samson option basically is antiexistential, a threat to blow everyone else up if anything sufficiently bad happens to Israel, even if that means also blowing up the larger Jewish populations of European and North American nations. Even Iran has a Jewish population that is a recognized as part of the state. Why is killing other Jews (along with everyone else) out of pique that the Israel project is failing a rational step when the project’s justification is safety for Jews? Is there a point where transgression is just done for its own sake because the leaders involved are so intellectually and spiritually impoverished?
#TheNuclearThreshold
Like a good few here, I believe this remains the most disturbing wildcard in the deck at play. We cannot rule out the insanity given the proven, raw sociopathy displayed by the players (mainly 15r43L over decades) here. The collective Western Kakistocracy, from MAGA anointed ghouls like Graham, Hegseth & Miller in the US to equally fetid familybloggers like Kallas, Merz Starmer & VDL in the UK/EU remain resolute in their desire to push toward global confrontation. I was thinking that even if – as some here have hoped – Iran has produced a nuclear weapon, responding in kind after being hit by one would only serve (in their rancid minds) to validate the violence inflicted heretofore upon the Islamic Republic. I can imagine the shower of “Look! See?! We told you so!” headlines in establishment Western press.
> Preventing that outcome will require the deliberate restoration of the ethical and legal limits that once constrained the conduct of war.
Restoration by whom, though? I’m not confident we can get there from here. Revolt by the masses in the Western countries currently threatening world peace seems to me to be the only way. There is too much civility in much of the West. Western “leaders” (not you, Spain) and their billionaire backers are not afraid of pushing the world toward war because there is no one making them afraid. Until that changes, we sit on the edge … waiting to be pushed forward … or miraculously pulled back.
> I’m not confident we can get there from here
::MusicalInterlude:: (via YouTube)
$1M Question: What is the societal equivalent of “kicking the clay that holds the teeth in”?
Another example of ‘normalization’ was the bombing of the Consulate in Damascus two or three years ago by the Israelis. So now Iran is bombing US Embassies in the Gulf States because, you know, that is what normal countries do nowadays. Of course an argument may be made that it was the US itself that set of this normalization when the CIA bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade back in the 90s.
Thanks HH! A good, but distressing article.
I was watching some of the many interviews, I think this was Nima interviewing Marandi, and he stated that he had heard Iran will continue this war until the US midterm elections. All of the polling I have seen so far indicates that America is going to vote out the current ruling party, and that this war is an extremely unpopular. But given America’s uniparty system, I have to wonder if even Iran is expecting something which may no longer be possible given America’s elites. – that what the American citizens actually want matters anymore. Congress seems to be completely non-functional.
A few points.
The comparison with 1920s and 1930s fascism is legitimate but leaves out a few things. Mussolini had the socialist party leader Matteotti murdered by squadristi thugs (some of whom later, IIRC, formed the core of his political police OVRA. When there was no effective protest against this murder by any powerful figure in Italian society, the Fascist party was free to take the next step, banning opposition parties and cementing control over the state. Genocidal war in Libya and Ethiopia followed naturally. However, when Mussolini decided to send his blooded troops to Spain they went into an expensive and disastrous meatgrinder which cost so much (on top of the occupation expenses in Ethiopia, which was in a constant ferment) that the Italian military could not afford to re-equip its armed forces which meant that when Italy attacked Greece in 1940 it was defeated by a far weaker power, after which the British conquest of Ethiopia and Cyrenaica followed. This suggests that ultimately breaking down the norms of behaviour has limited effective impact in the end — though of course Italy was a weak power, as compared to the US, the biggest military and second-biggest economic power on the planet.
Secondly, this whole thing is part of a trend. Remember that the bizarre Carter-era attempt to “recover” the Tehran embassy staff was considered an anomaly at the time. US armed aggression against other countries before the 1980s was generally cloaked in UN Security Council resolutions or carried out by the CIA with plausible deniability (the real issue with the Bay of Pigs was that the cloak fell off).
I’d argue that the two events showing how much things had changed were the attack on Yugoslavia in 1999, and perhaps more important, the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, an act of war against a US trading partner which was not engaged in the conflict in any way and which was essentially the act of a Mafia thug. After the turn of the century almost anything became possible. The Obama administration admittedly preferred to use the CIA and covert operations wherever possible, but nevertheless its actions would not have been possible without the threat of using force with impunity — remember when the US was trying to construct justifications for aggression against Syria early in the 2010s? Granted it was trying to hide behind its puppet chemical weapons UN propagandists, but the US made it clear that force would be used regardless if it felt it was a good idea.
We are in blood stepped in so far that, should we wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er, to quote MacHegseth.
Der kommentar hier ist Nachdenklich präsentiert. It is also steeped in fact and precedent. Yet I weep for the voices of the inarticulate.
I have always been offended when, in the climax of the trio of Hobbit films, “The Return of the King”, the Hero King Aragorn lobs the head off Sauron’s grotesque spokesman in a gross breach of the convention that emissaries of the enemy are inviolate,
The concept of ‘absolute war; was proposed by Clausewitz in 1832, and any warfare limited by ‘rules’ or ‘ethical or moral considerations is by definition not absolute. The convention that one doesn’t strike at a Head of State might be ethical, but one cannot help but wonder what destruction and misery the world might have avoided had Hitler been assassinated in the early 1930’s. Or Trump in 2025, perhaps.