Pentagon Cut Civilian Safeguards Before Iran War

Pentagon officials and military personnel had, over years, built procedures and institutions aimed at reducing civilian harm in strikes and expressed frustration when those precautions failed.

“Even before President Trump returned to office, his advisers sought to remove what they saw as unnecessary constraints on the way the American military fights”

The Atlantic

The practices reflected an institutional desire to avoid unnecessary bloodshed even as operations grew more complex and hazardous.

The Atlantic

Those safeguards included concrete steps — calculating a strike’s expected blast radius, estimating collateral damage, and a practice called “shift cold” to abort strikes in final seconds.

Institutional innovations included a center of excellence, a military-wide policy on protecting civilians, civilian-environment teams advising planners, and personnel embedded in targeting cells to improve precision.

The Atlantic

Despite the safeguards, there was persistent internal tension: some commanders saw rules as overly restrictive and sought broader target categories and greater latitude.

“Even before President Trump returned to office, his advisers sought to remove what they saw as unnecessary constraints on the way the American military fights”

The Atlantic

Commanders pushed to include economic targets and accept more civilian casualties, while the Pentagon hired insiders to run harm-reduction efforts to make the system operationally credible.

President Trump had at times shown restraint on civilian harm—claiming in 2019 he called off a retaliatory strike on Iran to avoid killing some 150 Iranian officials.

After his return to office in 2025 his new advisers ordered the dismantling of the safeguards apparatus even as some Pentagon officials believed the system could endure.

The Atlantic

The dismantling included cancelling a multimillion-dollar database of errant strikes.

“Even before President Trump returned to office, his advisers sought to remove what they saw as unnecessary constraints on the way the American military fights”

The Atlantic

It also closed a State Department initiative tracking civilian deaths caused by U.S.-provided weapons to allies and repealed a White House weapons-transfer policy that emphasized human rights.

The Atlantic

Observers were split: some found these moves alarming, while not everyone was upset.