It is good that there is a proper investigation, and I think it’s likely just a statistical anomaly.My personal opinion is that scientists should be off-limits for any military as
long as they are not directly involved in operational planning and execution in an active state of war.
That said, targeting and capturing scientists is a military policy with a long history.
https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/alsos-mission/
The United States and Israel have allegedly carried out the most attacks on (nuclear) scientists after WW II.
There is a rather extensive scientific discussion about the legality and morality of this kind of targeting.
https://www.legitimacyasatarget.com/books/drones/
The overall conclusion in the broader scientific context, though, is that this approach is not effective.
https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501760341/all-...
Removing individual expertise may delay strategic asset acquisition, but targeting alone is unlikely to destroy a programme outright and could even increase a country’s desire to strengthen research and acquire even more expertise.
You can see good examples of this with how the Israelis fail horribly over and over, preventing Iran from acquiring weapons-grade nuclear material. They failed so hard that the President is telling the public that Iran was within weeks to have a functional nuclear weapon and has set the world economy on fire over this with millions all over the planet suffering right now as a direct consequence of that decision.
Just a few days ago, a Ukrainian electronics expert for drone tech was hit in his home with five Shahed drones by Russia.
https://united24media.com/latest-news/russian-shahed-drone-h...
The result of his survival will likely be that more Ukrainians want to learn what he does and result in an even stronger drone electronics programme to gain a further advantage over Russia even quicker, especially in the midrange strike capabilities of the Ukrainians. If he had died, the same effect would have likely occurred. So touching this scientist / engineer was a huge long-term strategic error by the Russians.
Just like when the Ukrainians car-bombed Alexander Dugin’s daughter https://www.kyivpost.com/post/23139, which resulted long-term strategically in a Ukrainian brain drain by bullets behind ears.
https://acleddata.com/report/personal-payback-assassinations...
Regardless of my or your opinion on this, this practice will likely persist as part of the foreign policy toolkit for states aiming to prevent proliferation.
And if you allow the US and Israel, or Russia or the United Kingdom, who all did kill scientists, to follow this policy unpunished, you need also to respect that their adversaries have the same right to do so.
Which means US scientists will end up as targets. Reality is, it has never been easier to kill a person with drones without risking capture or even consequences for the assassin, so the US might get some of its own medicine, and the only one who can stop that is the average citizen by putting enough public pressure on this issue to force a policy change.
If you care about your scientists, start calling your representatives and make sure to tell them how unhappy you are with the US targeting acquisition and policy, and ask them what they are going to do about it if they want to deserve your vote.
