Article

The Club-K anti-ship missile system : a case study in perfidy and its repression

by Robert Clarke

• Human rights brief, Vol. 20, issue 1, Fall 2012, p. 22-28

English

Source : https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1852&context=hrbrief (last accessed on 19.06.2020)

Secreted inside the ubiquitous intermodal shipping container and placed on the deck of a cargo carrier, the missile system reveals itself only when the container roof opens, and the missile rises from concealment and launches. As footage of test launches and displays at defense exhibitions illustrate, the Club-K’s ease of transport and concealment offers obvious advantages for a belligerent in an asymmetric conflict by allowing a readily available launch platform to approach high-value warships unmolested and attack. The weapon’s chameleon-like nature and advertised method of employment indicate that it is likely to be used to prepare and execute an attack while feigning civilian status. Such tactics are an example of perfidy, deliberately inducing trust on the part of an adversary in order to injure, kill, or capture them. However, although it may undermine the distinction between warships and civilian vessels, the fact that the Club-K is likely to be used perfidiously would not necessarily inculpate the weapon’s manufacturers. In particular, the structural discreteness of the armed forces would make it difficult to prove a mental nexus between the commanders who determine the method of attack and the arms makers who provide the means. Thus, while the protection of civilians requires an institutional separation between them and combatants, such a divide may prevent the repression of civilian activity which imperils that same protection.

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• Human rights brief / CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMANITARIAN LAW
• Human rights brief [Vol. 20, issue 1, Fall 2012] / CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMANITARIAN LAW