Just Security Analysis: Hegseth's 'No Quarter' Rhetoric Follows Historical Pattern of Dehumanizing Adversaries
Ali Sanaei argues in Just Security that Defense Secretary Hegseth's 'no quarter' declaration during Iran operations reflects a recurring American wartime pattern where adversaries are stripped of legal standing as combatants, not a novel policy. The analysis traces the rhetoric from colonial warfare through the Civil War, Philippine-American War, and Pacific theater, noting it emerges when enemies are viewed as fundamentally different rather than reciprocal belligerents. 'No quarter' violates the Hague Regulations, Geneva Conventions, and the U.S. War Crimes Act. Hegseth previously lobbied for pardons of service members accused of war crimes and dismantled a Pentagon plan to reduce civilian deaths in favor of 'maximum lethality, not tepid legality.'
The prior IC brief reported Just Security's analysis of how the