Legitimate use of military force against state-sponsored - Air University

Self-Defense against Accumulation of Events. The general rule of international law is
that sporadic or isolated incidents by armed groups (even with state support) do not constitute
armed attack. Consequently, it has proven difficult to characterize international terrorist acts as
armed attack. Theories have been proposed from time to time to view terrorist acts as an
interrelated set of occurrences. In 1956 Israel sought to justify its military action across the UN
armistice line based upon a continuing attack by fedayeen. The United Nations and the United
States rejected this analysis in large part because Israeli action was contrary to a UN supervised
armistice. 71 More recently, however, Israeli scholars have articulated a persuasive analysis of the
problem in the form of the accumulation-of-events theory.
Yehuda Blum, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations from 1978-84 and currently
professor of international law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is among its chief
spokesmen. He writes,
Obviously, one would have to treat an isolated terrorist act emanating from the
territory of one state and carried out on the territory of another differently from an
act of terrorism which constitutes but one link in a long chain of such acts. 72
Although individually a terrorist act may not be an armed attack, the totality of such acts may
suggest otherwise. This is the accumulation of events.
This theory has been accepted in United States practice. The pattern-of-events approach
was used, for example, as part of the legal argument for US participation in Vietnam—the Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution—and for the US incursion into Cambodia in May 1970. The “ongoing
pattern of attacks by the Government of Libya” served as a basis for the 15 April 1986 raid
against that country. 73 Israel used the theory to support its action in March 1962 in the Lake
Tiberias incident and again in November 1966 in the Samu incident. The United Kingdom relied
on the theory for its actions against Yemen in 1964 as did Portugal in its action against the
Senegalese village of Samine in November—December 1969. 74 The International Law
Association’s American branch concluded in its 1985—86 report that “‘defensive retaliation’
may be justified when a state has good reason to expect a series of attacks from the same source
and such retaliation serves as a deterrent or protective action.” 75
Timely Response
Self-defense contains a temporal element. It is limited by time. A response in self-defense
must be made close in time to the actual attack or threat. Otherwise, self-defense could justify
countless reprisals to prior unlawful acts of force or remote future contingencies. This element of
timeliness was emphasized in the Caroline test, which requires that the response be instant, that
is, immediate, now, not later. Since proximity in time is a critical factor, a state can lose its right
to self-defense if it waits too long. How long is too long is a matter of judgment based upon the
factual circumstances. For example, if an armed aircraft is fired upon, then it might be expected
that it would exercise the right of self-defense immediately by making a response. If, however,
an unarmed aircraft were fired upon, then it may be appropriate for the self-defense response to