Second Breakfast: Hegseth’s Second Strike

Tony Stark and Justin Mc return for Second Breakfast.

Our conversation covers…

• How strike decisions are made, and the implications for military officers,

• Why this is a pivotal point for military ethics,

• What Congress may do in response,

• Why Hegseth being the TEA breaks the impartial review process.

Listen now on your favorite podcast app.

The Target Engagement Authority

Jordan Schneider: Let’s talk about the second strike. Justin, you wrote an article on it. What’s your take?

Justin McIntosh: My hope with that article was to clarify some of the language around this topic.

Shortly after the September strike, it was revealed that Secretary Hegseth was the target engagement authority (TEA). Generally, the TEA is a task force commander or a designee vested with the authority to approve strikes.

There are two main types of strikes. Some are status-based strikes, where a person is a known adversary but isn’t actively engaged in hostile acts. The others are action-based strikes, where adversaries are actively threatening friendly forces.

The bar is lower for an action-based strike, but collateral damage estimates are still required. Strikes must adhere to the principles of proportionality and the laws of war, and avoid causing undue damage or suffering or targeting protected sites. The strikes in the Caribbean seem to be status-based until the targets are in a location where they can actively threaten Americans.

If it were a status-based strike, it had to be approved by a TEA following a briefing. Typically, there’s a period of “soak,” where you watch the target — be it a person, building, or something else — to build a pattern of life. You do SLANT counts, which tally the number of men, women, and children. If the count is unfavorable, meaning women and children are present, you do not strike.

All of that information is fed by a ground force commander or a strike cell commander to the TEA in an incredibly detailed briefing. Something like, “Sir, I want to direct your attention to this sensor, under this Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). We are targeting X. Over the last 48 hours of observation, we have this many reports from signals collection co-locating his phone with him. We had a high SLANT count at his location of 4-1-1, but it is currently 1-0-0.