The Obliteration Doctrine tackles the deadliest canon of 21st century warfare. It addresses the abject devastation that this military doctrine has wrought, how it was done and those responsible. It puts the Genocide Convention's failure to punish and prevent this crime under close scrutiny.
The Obliteration Doctrine combines lethal forms of warfare--scorched-earth military tactics, collective punishment and civilian victimization--with indiscriminate area bombing and counterinsurgency operations. What's new about this form of warfare is the chilling mix of artificial intelligence and genocidal atrocities in violation of international law, the very foundations of international society and all human life.
This book shows how the doctrine's implementation in Gaza was facilitated by the United States, with Germany, the UK, Italy and Canada as strategic partners. While Israel pulled the trigger in Gaza, the weaponry and financial and diplomatic support came from the US-led West. Hence their complicity in the fatal carnage.
The rise of this deadly doctrine has been enabled by the West's long opposition to genocide prevention, which Raphael Lemkin's quest for effective legislation failed to overcome. Fearful of its vulnerability, the West succeeded in excluding and diluting core parts of the Genocide Convention addressing colonial atrocities, cultural genocide, political killings, and ethnic cleansing. Enforcement was repressed throughout the Cold War, and the few tribunals afterward soon proved inadequate. The West undermined genocide prevention by shunning preparatory attacks, early warnings and incitement prosecution. Ex post facto justice records but doesn't preempt genocides.
Stunningly, the Obliteration Doctrine was largely perfected institutionally by Israel two decades before October 7, 2023, yet the international community failed to prevent its further implementation, which its proponents openly pledged to deploy in the "next war." That said, a broad variety of legal efforts have been launched against Israel and its complicit Western allies in international and domestic courts by many activists and countries increasingly in and by the Global South.
The erasure of Gaza reflects the tragic inability of the Genocide Convention to prevent the genocides it was created to identify, preempt and punish. The Obliteration Doctrine has set a horrendous precedent, providing a template for new and far worse "final solutions" to be unleashed on entire nations
