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The strategic collapse of law: when crime becomes war and criminals become combatants
In Brief
- States use rhetoric, such as the language of 'invasion' or 'onslaught,' to reframe criminal enterprises as existential national security threats, justifying the adoption of military responses.
- The blurring of the legal line between a criminal suspect (entitled to due process) and an enemy combatant (a legitimate target for lethal force) grants officials expansive, extralegal authority.
- The designation of a conflict as 'war' often serves underlying political and economic interests, creating self-sustaining conflicts that consolidate ruling-class power and enable resource exploitation.
- Historical legal precedents, including the Nuremberg trials, serve as critical warnings against the political convenience of defining enemies outside the bounds of established legal constraints.
Main authors
The modern state's authority often rests on its ability to define and confront threats, a process increasingly reliant on the strategic use of political language [1]. A significant manifestation of this is the deliberate blurring of the lines separating criminal justice from military action. Through rhetoric, states can reframe law enforcement issues as matters of national security, and conversely, characterize enemy combatants as mere criminals [2]. This linguistic maneuver is not simply a matter of semantics; it is a powerful tool that enables governments to circumvent established legal norms and justify actions that would otherwise be considered illegitimate [3].
This process of reclassification has profound implications for both domestic and international politics. By labeling transnational criminal enterprises or migrant groups as existential threats, political leaders can build a case for deploying military force and adopting extralegal measures [4, 5]. The rhetorical transformation of a suspect into a combatant, or a migrant into an invader, dismantles the legal safeguards afforded to individuals and creates a permissive environment for state violence. This strategic collapse of legal categories challenges the foundational principles of international law, which seeks to maintain a clear distinction between peacetime policing and the conduct of war [6, 7].
The Language of Threat: Constructing the Enemy
The justification of extraordinary state power begins with the linguistic construction of a formidable enemy. Political rhetoric serves as the primary instrument for this process, shaping public perception by distilling complex social and economic issues into a simplistic narrative of conflict . This often involves linking targeted groups, such as cartels or undocumented immigrants, to widely feared phenomena like endemic violence, drug trafficking, and sexual exploitation, thereby manufacturing a sense of urgent crisis [8].
This narrative is frequently bolstered by the language of invasion, depicting the movement of people or illicit goods as an organized "onslaught" that threatens national sovereignty and the safety of citizens . The designated enemy is portrayed as not merely unlawful, but as fundamentally "ruthless" and "dangerous," preying upon the innocent and corroding the very fabric of society [9]. Such characterizations are designed to evoke fear and legitimize a shift from a judicial framework, centered on due process, to a military one focused on neutralization and defense.
The rhetoric of threat can also serve as a strategic deception, masking the true objectives of those in power [10]. By creating an external enemy, political leaders can consolidate their authority, distract from domestic failures, and justify policies that expand state control . This can lead to a state of perpetual, low-grade conflict where the enemy is diffuse and ever-present, requiring constant vigilance. In this environment, immense power can be accumulated by state and non-state actors alike, whose very authority is derived from the continuation of the conflict they claim to be fighting [11].
From Criminal to Combatant: The Collapse of Legal Categories
Once a group is successfully branded as a national security threat, the legal distinctions that protect individual rights begin to disintegrate. Historically, a line was often drawn between common crime and "political crime," with the latter sometimes receiving different consideration under law [12]. The contemporary trend, however, is to strategically erase such distinctions. Adversaries can be stripped of any political status to be treated as common criminals, or conversely, criminal suspects can be elevated to the status of enemy combatants, depending on which classification grants the state greater latitude for action .
This reclassification carries life-and-death consequences. An individual charged with a crime is, in principle, entitled to due process and the presumption of innocence. An enemy combatant, however, becomes a legitimate target for lethal force. In its most extreme form, this logic leads to officials being granted "carte blanche" to neutralize individuals based on mere suspicion, completely bypassing the judicial process [13]. A similar rationale is applied when "enemy aliens" are deemed a persistent threat requiring containment even after active hostilities have ended, a decision based on political judgment rather than legal standards [14].
The stark moral contrast between killing one and killing many underscores the profound inversion that occurs when a conflict is framed as war [15]. Actions universally condemned in peacetime, such as murder, kidnapping, and the wanton destruction of property, are rationalized as necessary components of a military campaign [16]. While international law attempts to regulate this by defining specific war crimes, the political decision to declare a situation a "war" is often the critical step that determines whether these legal constraints are perceived as applicable or as obstacles to be overcome .
The Political Economy of Permanent Conflict
The designation of a conflict as a "war" is driven by more than just legal and rhetorical considerations; it is deeply entwined with political and economic interests. War can be a mechanism for the ruling class to generate profit, manage social unrest, and maintain its grip on power [17]. The conflict itself can become a self-sustaining system, analogous to fictionalized cartels whose endless wars are described as "shams" designed primarily to preserve their own power and economic dominance [18]. In these scenarios, the appearance of conflict is more important than its resolution.
In this model of cartelized conflict, the behavior of states can begin to mirror that of powerful criminal syndicates. The primary objective shifts toward the control of resources, be it human labor, strategic territory, or lucrative illicit markets [19]. The conflict provides the perfect pretext for extreme measures of resource appropriation, including the mass deportation of civilians for slave labor, justified under the rubric of military necessity [20, 21]. The lines between state-building, warfare, and organized crime become functionally indistinct.
This logic of maximum exploitation at minimum cost leads to the systematic violation of legal frameworks designed to protect human dignity, such as international conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war [22]. Individuals are no longer viewed as citizens or even as human beings, but as fungible assets to be used for the war effort [23]. The complete enslavement of populations, from their capture to their use as forced labor, represents the ultimate outcome of this process, where the value of human life is wholly subordinated to the cynical calculus of power and profit [24].
The strategic relabeling of criminal enterprises or other designated groups as military adversaries poses a grave challenge to the modern international legal order . Through the careful deployment of political rhetoric, states can manufacture public consent for policies that erase the critical boundary between law enforcement and warfare, thereby carving out a space where extralegal violence is not only tolerated but celebrated . This process is seldom arbitrary; it frequently serves tangible political and economic goals, establishing systems of permanent conflict that enrich and empower a select few while eroding civil liberties and international norms for the many .
The historical record provides a clear and disturbing warning about where this path leads, from the absolute power of autocratic governors to the systematic atrocities prosecuted at Nuremberg . When the definition of an enemy becomes a fluid tool of political convenience and force is accepted as the ultimate arbiter of disputes, the legal and moral structures built to prevent a regression into barbarism are rendered impotent [25]. The enduring challenge, therefore, is whether international law possesses the capacity to hold actors accountable for such crimes, especially when the perpetrators are the very states tasked with upholding that law .
