When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stood at a Pentagon podium on March 2 and declared that the U.S. war against Iran would have “no stupid rules of engagement,” he wasn’t just using tough-guy rhetoric. He was signaling that the United States would operate with fewer restraints on when, where, and how it uses lethal force — and against whom.
But what are rules of engagement, exactly? Where did they come from? And why should anyone care if the U.S. government dismisses them as “stupid”?
What Are Rules of Engagement?
Rules of engagement — commonly abbreviated as RoE — are official military directives that tell armed forces when, where, how, and against whom they may use force.
They are issued by a competent military authority, typically flowing from the president and secretary of defense down through the chain of command to the troops carrying out operations on the ground, at sea, or in the air.
Think of RoE as the operating instructions for how a military fights.
They answer questions like: Can a soldier fire on someone who hasn’t fired first? What happens when enemy fighters operate near a school or hospital? Can a pilot strike a target if civilians are nearby? How much collateral damage is acceptable to take out a military objective? What level of approval is needed before launching a strike in a populated area?
These aren’t abstract legal concepts.
They are the rules that determine whether a bomb gets dropped on a building with children inside or whether a commander is required to wait, find another way, or call off the strike entirely.
Where Did They Come From?
The idea that war should have limits is ancient, but the modern legal framework grew out of very specific horrors.
In 1859, a Swiss businessman named Henry Dunant witnessed the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in Italy, where tens of thousands of wounded soldiers were left to die on the battlefield with no medical care.
His account of the suffering led directly to the founding of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the adoption of the first Geneva Convention in 1864, which established protections for wounded soldiers and the medical workers who treated them.
The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 expanded the framework further, addressing the methods and means of warfare itself — banning certain weapons and establishing the principle that the right to harm an enemy is not unlimited.
Then came World War II. The systematic slaughter of civilians, the Holocaust, the firebombing of cities, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — all of it laid bare that existing rules were insufficient. In 1949, the international community adopted the four Geneva Conventions in their modern form. They were ratified by 196 countries, including the United States, and remain the cornerstone of international humanitarian law today.
The conventions established protections for wounded soldiers, prisoners of war, shipwrecked sailors, and — crucially — civilians caught in war zones. Two additional protocols adopted in 1977 expanded civilian protections and imposed stricter rules on how military forces conduct hostilities in populated areas.
Rules of engagement as a formal military concept are more recent. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff issued the first Standing Rules of Engagement in 1994, though the principles behind them go back much further.
RoE draw from the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, customary international law, U.S. military doctrine, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Violating rules of engagement is prosecuted under military law — often as a violation of a lawful general order.
The Core Principles
At their heart, rules of engagement are built on four principles from the law of armed conflict:
Distinction — Military forces must distinguish between combatants and civilians. You can’t treat everyone in a war zone as a valid target. Attacks must be directed at military objectives, not civilian populations.
Proportionality — Even when attacking a legitimate military target, the expected civilian harm cannot be excessive compared to the military advantage gained. If destroying an enemy radar installation means leveling a hospital next door, proportionality says no.
Military necessity — Force may only be used to accomplish a legitimate military objective. Destruction for its own sake — or for punishment, revenge, or intimidation of a civilian population — is not a lawful use of force.
Humanity — Weapons and methods that cause unnecessary suffering are prohibited. This is why the international community has banned chemical weapons, biological weapons, blinding laser weapons, and anti-personnel mines, among others.
Rules of engagement translate these broad principles into specific, actionable directives that troops can follow in the chaos of combat.
Why Do They Exist?
Rules of engagement exist for several overlapping reasons, and not a single one of them is “political correctness.”
They protect civilians.
This is the most obvious purpose. Wars are fought among populations. Without clear rules about when force can be used in the presence of civilians, every conflict devolves into mass slaughter.
The devastation in Gaza over the past three years — where military operations killed hundreds of thousands of civilians — is what warfare looks like when rules of engagement are ignored.
In the case of Israel’s attack on Palestine (not the Israel/Palestine “war,” because only one side is fighting), it is a genocide meant to wipe out the Palestinian people and steal their land as part of the Israeli government’s Greater Israel Project.
In the case of genocide, there are obviously no rules of engagement recognized/followed.
They protect American troops.
This is the part that gets overlooked. When one side abandons the rules of war, it gives the other side no reason to follow them either.
If U.S. forces operate without restraint, captured American soldiers lose the protections afforded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.
Rules of engagement protect the people holding the weapons as much as the people downrange.
They prevent war crimes.
The Nuremberg trials after World War II established that “following orders” is not a defense for committing atrocities.
Rules of engagement give individual service members a legal framework to understand what they can and cannot do — and grounds to refuse unlawful orders.
Democratic lawmakers, former military and CIA, made a video after hearing from constituents in the service concerned about getting illegal orders
They maintain legitimacy.
A military that slaughters civilians loses international support, alienates allies, and creates new enemies faster than it eliminates existing ones.
The U.S. learned this in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Civilians killed in careless strikes become recruitment tools for the other side.
People have said that by killing civilians in the Middle East, the U.S. increases the number of people in terrorist groups and the threat of a terror attack on the U.S.
They are legally binding.
The Geneva Conventions are not suggestions. They are treaties the United States signed and ratified.
Serious violations — known as “grave breaches” — constitute war crimes under international law and can be prosecuted by international tribunals, including the International Criminal Court (ICC).
What Hegseth Actually Said
Pete Hegseth talking about the war in Iran: “No stupid rules of engagement” mentions “politically correct” wars.
During a Pentagon briefing on March 2, as Operation Epic Fury entered its second day, Hegseth laid out the administration’s approach:
“America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history. B-2s, fighters, drones, missiles, and, of course, classified effects, all on our terms, with maximum authorities. No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives.”
Three days later, he doubled down: “We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it.”
He was explicit about dismissing international oversight: “regardless of what so-called international institutions say.”
He praised Israel as a “capable partner” while mocking European allies who “wring their hands and clutch their pearls” about the use of force — allies who, it’s worth noting, are signatories to the same Geneva Conventions the United States signed.
Human Rights Watch responded directly:
Since January 2025, under the administration of President Donald Trump, the US Defense Department has fired top military lawyers without cause and systematically rolled back legal oversight and mechanisms to mitigate harm to civilians, placing fewer constraints on military operations.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has lifted restrictions on antipersonnel landmines and agreed to purchase cluster munitions – weapons inherently harmful to civilians – from Israel.
The 2026 US National Defense Strategy omits civilian harm mitigation as an explicit policy consideration.
Human Rights Watch has documented serious abuses by Israel in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran. Israeli forces in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel have committed numerous violations of the laws of war – including unlawful strikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure, indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas, and actions amounting to collective punishment.
In June 2025, an unlawful Israeli attack on Evin prison in Iran killed scores of prisoners and other civilians.
Why This Matters Right Now
Within days of Hegseth’s “no stupid rules of engagement” declaration, a girls’ school in the Iranian city of Minab was struck, killing 165 people — most of them girls between the ages of 7 and 12.
That is what loosened rules of engagement look like in practice.
More details about what the school bombing investigation found
The school was adjacent to an IRGC barracks. A U.S. military investigation found that they are likely responsible for the bombing (double-tap). Satellite images show that the buildings were hit directly in the center—an indication that precision strikes were used.
The satellite imagery revealed an additional clue. The school had previously been part of the IRGC compound, leading experts to believe that outdated targeting information may have been to blame.
(NPR/Planet Labs PBC)
It’s unknown if AI was used to determine the targets of strikes, but if so, the devastating outcome serves to bolster Anthropic’s red line: Claude could not be used in weapons systems without human intervention.
That was one of two red lines resulting in the company being “blacklisted” by the government. The second: Claude can’t be used for mass surveillance of Americans.
Did anyone double-check the target data if it was AI that determined that information?
The rules that Hegseth dismissed as “stupid” were written because of the Battle of Solferino. Because of the trenches of World War I.
Because of the concentration camps and firebombed cities of World War II. Because of My Lai in Vietnam. Because of Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Because human beings learned, over and over, that without enforceable limits on how wars are fought, armed conflict becomes indistinguishable from mass murder.
These rules were not created by “woke” bureaucrats or “politically correct” lawyers. They were forged in the aftermath of the worst atrocities in human history by nations that decided — together — that some things should never happen again.
When the U.S. Secretary of Defense calls them “stupid” on national television, he isn’t just making a policy choice.
He’s telling the world that the United States no longer considers itself bound by the international framework designed to prevent war crimes.
And he’s telling every adversary that captured American soldiers shouldn’t expect to be treated humanely either.
Rules of engagement aren’t what makes war harder. They’re what separates war from barbarism.
