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Catherine Perez-Shakdam

On the Fallacy of ‘Proportionality’ When Facing Annihilation

Image courtesy of Catherine Perez-Shakdam

The incessant babble about “proportionality” in war deserves nothing less than open scorn. It is the kind of dainty moralism that thrives in the genteel parlors of the West, where the closest many come to combat is rearranging the lines on a football pitch. When a people are confronted not with mere hostility but with the very real prospect of annihilation, what kind of fool demands a “proportional response”? Such a concept is not just laughably naïve—it is obscene. It speaks to a state of mind so detached from the realities of mortal conflict that one wonders if its advocates have any idea what it is to fight for one’s survival.

Let’s be clear: there is nothing “proportionate” about annihilation. There is no sense in balancing the scales with a force that matches some arbitrary moral equation when your enemy is baying for your extinction. Those who prattle on about proportionality in these circumstances might as well ask the condemned to mind their manners on the scaffold, or a drowning man to ration his breaths. When existence itself is at stake, restraint is not a virtue; it is a prescription for collective suicide.

The peddlers of this nonsense seem to imagine war as a kind of civilized sport, where rules of engagement can be determined in advance, and the players ought to be mindful not to commit a foul. But wars are not settled by referees; they are determined by those who are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that their side, their people, and their way of life continue to exist. In situations where the very survival of a people is under threat, it is not just permissible but imperative to destroy the source of that threat without delay or compunction. To hesitate or to strike back timidly is to invite further atrocity, to embolden the butchers to return with their knives sharper.

Indeed, the clamor for “proportionality” is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to hamstring the very nations that bother to uphold civilized values in the first place. How odd it is that the loudest appeals for restraint are always reserved for democracies defending themselves, while barbarism is met with a pathetic shrug. When the missiles fly from the hands of fanatics, no one demands an exacting toll of the aggressors. But let a sovereign state defend itself with even the slightest decisiveness, and a chorus of outrage swells forth from the comfort of editorial offices, lecture halls, and diplomatic salons. This moral asymmetry is not just foolish; it is a betrayal. It rewards terror by insisting that its victims resist as gently as possible, as if in deference to their own extinction.

The spectacle of those pontificating about proportionality from afar is especially nauseating. Safe in their quiet suburbs, they moralize about the conduct of nations facing slaughter, and never seem to question whether they would be so lofty if the war were fought at their own front door. Would they call for restraint if it were their own children cowering in bomb shelters, or their own streets being torn asunder? Or would they, like anyone with an ounce of sanity, demand that their government obliterate the threat without hesitation?

The truth is that when annihilation looms, a government’s duty is not to indulge the whims of distant critics but to defend its people by all necessary means. That may well involve preemptive action, and it will certainly involve measures that would make the squeamish clutch their pearls. The aim is not to merely survive the current round of violence, but to ensure that the enemy is rendered incapable of mounting another assault. Anything less is to leave a mortal threat festering, to nurse a viper back to health. It is not the casualties in the present conflict that should guide the hand, but the certainty that there will be no next time.

Of course, the sanctimonious chorus will bleat that such measures are “disproportionate” or “collective punishment.” But these pieties are always uttered at a safe distance from the blast zones and the mass graves. Those who embed themselves among civilians, who launch their assaults from behind the veil of innocents, do so precisely to exploit the West’s quaint obsession with moral arithmetic. They know that in this absurd calculus, the defenders will always be held to a higher standard, while the attackers receive a morally discounted rate.

To hell with that. A state under the threat of annihilation has not only the right but the duty to act with overwhelming force. This is not a question of revenge or retribution, but of survival—plain and simple. Proportionality is a luxury reserved for those who do not face the prospect of erasure, who have the leisure to fret over abstractions. Those who have lived with the genuine threat of extinction know that you do not fight by halves when your back is against the wall. You do what it takes, and you keep doing it until the danger is gone.

And when the dust finally settles, when the butcher’s bill has been paid, there will be time enough for the armchair strategists to convene their tribunals and bemoan the methods used to secure survival. But that time is not now. Now, the obligation is to the living, to those who have entrusted their leaders with the solemn duty of defending them from harm. In the face of annihilation, proportionality is not just misguided—it is obscene. It is the counsel of cowards and fools, whispered from afar by those who would never themselves dare to stand and fight for anything worth dying for.

About the Author
Catherine Perez-Shakdam - Director Forward Strategy and Executive Director Forum of Foreign Relations (FFR) Catherine is a former Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and consultant for the UNSC on Yemen, as well an expert on Iran, Terror and Islamic radicalisation. A prominent political analyst and commentator, she has spoken at length on the Islamic Republic of Iran, calling on the UK to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. Raised in a secular Jewish family in France, Catherine found herself at the very heart of the Islamic world following her marriage to a Muslim from Yemen. Her experience in the Middle East and subsequent work as a political analyst gave her a very particular, if not a rare viewpoint - especially in how one can lose one' sense of identity when confronted with systemic antisemitism. Determined to share her experience and perspective on those issues which unfortunately plague us -- Islamic radicalism, Terror and Antisemitism Catherine also will speak of a world, which often sits out of our reach for a lack of access.
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