How Not to Advance Your Position
Attack on Titan: The Final Season (“AoT”) throws us quickly into the middle of an international armed conflict in the first episode. Focusing on the young Eldian warriors forced to fight on behalf of Marley, we see the warriors fighting from entrenched bunkers reminiscent of WWI. The young Eldian warriors, led by Gabi, are pinned down by machine gun nests from the Mid-East Allied Forces and are quickly running out of options.
Gabi, driven by a need to prove her worth to Marleyan commanders, finds a way to advance her unit forward and eliminates the machine gun nests. How does a young girl with no weapons eliminate an entrenched machine gun post? She chose to falsely surrender and then used hidden grenades when the opposing soldiers dropped their guard because they didn’t perceive her to be a threat. Her victory came at the cost of violating long standing principles of war.
Surrendering Gone Wrong
Kids fight all the time. When one kid is losing the fight and doesn’t want to be harmed further, they tend to a variety of things. For instance, they may cry “uncle” or throw their hands up or say they surrender and then the aggressor tends to back off relinquishing their advantage. If the kid who surrenders lies and tries to harm the aggressor via their duplicity, understandably, the aggressor kid is angry because his trust has been violated and is harmed further because of it. Next time, the aggressor may not fully be willing to stop after another surrenders. This action of faux surrender in order to harm others is called “perfidy” and in international law it is especially prohibited.
When a party e.g., Gabi, intentionally fakes surrendering herself to gain a tactical advantage she committed the war crime of “perfidy.” Additional Protocol I (“AP I”) defines perfidy as “acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence.” For international armed conflicts, Article 23(c) of the Hague Relations holds that is especially prohibited to “kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion.” Articles 41(1) and 85(3)(e) of AP I show further that when a party surrenders, they are considered hors de combat meaning they are not targetable and that the opposing force has the responsibility of handling them. This same principle is codified for non-international armed conflict via Common Article 3 and in AP II Article 4.
Where is the honor?
The laws of war have a baseline of reciprocity premised on the idea of mutual honor. Although honor is not explicitly codified, implicitly we incorporate honor into this reciprocity because we want both sides to be treated fairly. Why? Because without this mutual respect for each other and the rules, war is unbound and becomes total. War is not meant to be total. Neither can it be neatly contained. Instead, the mutual adherence helps to try and constrain war to prevent it from harming protected classes of people and breaching protected areas. The lack of adherence is a slippery slope. Gabi exemplifies these present dangers.
When Gabi returns from her perfidious assault, her teammate, Falco, rescues a fallen enemy soldier because he is hors de combat. She questions his motives and says that we shouldn’t care about the enemy. More importantly, she asks, tells Falco “you really think obeying the laws of war will earn you the spot of Armored Titan?” and then calls him a “weirdo” for his continued adherence. Gabi sees these laws as an impediment and that their adherence puts the risk of more lives on the line. To Gabi, war is total and better unfettered with laws. Gabi has no honor. Committing perfidy, even if it may save 800 men which was Gabi’s rationale for her actions, cannot be condoned nor will it ever be. Falco has the right idea. We adhere to these rules to protect ourselves and others and we cannot abandon it for the risk of total war is to great.
