by Kevin Scott Bjornson

This is a reply to Alan Bickley on More on Murder as Policy of State

Alan asserts that Britain did not knowingly offer material assistance to the July 20 conspirators, and that killing a foreign head of state is categorically different from killing a domestic tyrant. Neither claim is as secure as he suggests.

There is evidence that the explosives used in the July 20 plot were of British SOE origin, but no conclusive archival proof that they were obtained from captured SOE stock. The “captured stock” explanation is widely repeated, but it rests on inference, memoir testimony, and post war reconstruction—not on any primary document proving that the Abwehr seized those specific charges and passed them to the conspirators. The absence of documentation is exactly what one expects in a deniable, compartmentalized covert operation. Intelligence services do not leave tidy paper trails for posterity.

The real question is one of probability. Which method of supply would have been more secure under Gestapo surveillance: openly obtaining explosives from German inventory, or receiving foreign matériel covertly through neutral Switzerland? The conspirators’ choice of British type SOE explosives is not explained by Alan’s preferred narrative. If both options were equally dangerous, why choose the one that supposedly came from “captured stock”? The simplest explanation is that secret sourcing was the most secure channel available to them, and that the post war “captured stock” story is a narrative told by the victors, who had every incentive to distance themselves from operational involvement in a plot to kill Hitler.

Alan writes that “each attempt normalised a method that could easily be turned against anyone,” but this cuts against his own argument. The victors had every incentive to maintain the fiction that they had clean hands, because the alternative would imply that assassination is a legitimate instrument of statecraft. If that were admitted, the logic would extend uncomfortably: if revolutionaries may kill leaders, then so may foreign governments; and if foreign governments may do so, then domestic actors—including Americans who twice attempted to assassinate Trump—would have a moral green light as well. If there is to be a distinction, the scales tilt in the opposite direction: a state at war for a national goal has far more legitimacy in targeting an enemy’s military leadership than a lone wolf or ambitious general seeking personal power.

Alan concedes more than he intends. His argument is not that killing a political leader is categorically immoral. His position is prudential: that killing Hitler would have been unwise because his late stage incompetence benefited the Allies. This is the logic behind the abandonment of Operation Foxley, which he cites himself. But once the debate is framed in consequential terms, the categorical distinction he tries to draw collapses. If killing Hitler would have been justified had it shortened the war, then the act is not inherently illegitimate. The only question is whether it works. Had Hitler been assassinated before the highly effective first Ardennes offensive, the war would likely have been shortened. Later Hitler became more erratic, but the dividing line was blurred. And if consequences are the guiding light, this also explains the convenient post war narrative that Britain had no involvement. A prudential calculus can justify both action and denial.

His “leader immunity” argument fails on its own terms. If political leaders were immune from attack simply by virtue of their office, then the solution for any threatened leader would be obvious: live aboard a major military asset and render it untouchable. If Trump—whom Iran has previously attempted to kill—moved onto the USS Ford, would the carrier thereby become immune from attack? Of course not. The carrier remains a legitimate military target. The only constraint is prudential: escalation risk, not moral prohibition.

Alan’s categorical distinction between “domestic coup” and “foreign assassination” amounts to a rejection of universal moral principles. Human morality rests on human nature, which applies across borders and across eras. Otherwise, all revolutions would have a green light, and all interventions a red light simply because they alter borders. In my treatise (an early version of which was published in a Russian science journal), I trace the origin of categorical non interventionism to a feudal departure from jus gentium and jus naturale, which treated the sovereign as if he were the owner of all land within his domain. Maine’s Ancient Law, chapters 3 and 4, lays out this evolution clearly.

Alan’s treatment of Khamenei also ignores the operational reality of modern hybrid warfare. Khamenei is not merely a symbolic head of state; he is the supreme commander of Iran’s armed forces. When he meets with IRGC leadership in a command and control context, he is functioning as part of the military hierarchy. Under modern targeting doctrine, command nodes are legitimate military objectives. Refusing to target him does not preserve a moral boundary; it simply grants his side a structural advantage.

Nor is Alan’s appeal to an older European tradition of avoiding regicide historically complete. During the American Revolutionary War, American forces deliberately targeted British officers—especially senior aristocratic ones—because doing so disrupted command and morale. The British objected precisely because it worked. Leadership targeting is not a modern aberration; it is a longstanding feature of warfare.

Alan’s own essay claims that consequences count and categorical principles do not. He does not argue that killing leaders is inherently immoral. He argues that it is dangerous, destabilizing, and may produce worse outcomes. That is a prudential argument, one that depends entirely on the facts of the case. But prudential arguments cut both ways. If killing a leader shortens a war, prevents further atrocities, or disrupts a hostile command structure, then prudence may favor action rather than restraint. The Allies understood this. They did not reject assassination because it was “murder.” They rejected it because they believed—rightly or wrongly—that Hitler’s survival at that late stage served their strategic interests. That is not a moral principle; it is a tactical calculation.

Alan’s attempt to draw a bright moral line between domestic coups and foreign strikes does not hold. His historical narrative is less certain than he claims, his categorical distinctions collapse under scrutiny, and his own premises concede that assassination is a matter of prudence, not principle. Once prudence is the standard, the debate becomes empirical: does killing a leader improve or worsen the strategic situation? That is the real question, and it is the one his argument never actually addresses.

Related posts:

Murder as Policy of State: Reply to Bjornson America, Israel and The Return of Murder as Policy of State More on Murder as Policy of State International Law as Imperial Propaganda: A Response to Alan Bickley Donald Trump’s Second Term: The Controlled Demolition of American Populism The Empire’s Mask is Slipping Iran: The Last Blunder? Iran, Biden, Trump: Senile and Braindead vs Senile but Demented What the @#!* is Going Going on? A War of Depraved Atrocity Trump’s War on Iran: The Same Old Lies That Led America into Iraq

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