American-owned sata centers are actually legal targets, because they’re used to process intelligence and provide strike targets. They’re basically equivalent to a CIA office. Israel also does this.
American tech companies provide cloud computing and AI services to both the US and Israel, and obviously these services work through data centers, meaning that some data centers somewhere are legal targets, but it’s impossible to know which. I’d argue that this makes all data centers run by relevant companies for cloud computing and similar services valid military targets.
Since when was fucking Israel a guide on how to conduct legal war?!? Christ.
No no, as in: Israel also uses AI assisted targeting like America.
So, would you say Russia is legitimate in striking infrastructure like power plants which are mostly used for civilian purposes but might power military buildings as a small percentage of their use?
Would Iran be justified, if it had a nuclear weapon, of dropping it on Tel Aviv, wiping out the civilian population alongside the Israeli Air Force headquarters?
Proportionality is a key concept in military planning. It’s not the case that one drop of military utility makes something a legitimate target. It’s certainly not if you only know that the minority military use is somewhere among many different locations and just bomb any of them on the off-chance.
So, would you say Russia is legitimate in striking infrastructure like power plants which are mostly used for civilian purposes but might power military buildings as a small percentage of their use?
For starters nothing Russia does in this war is legitimate because the war itself is illegitimate, but that aside: No, because as you said there’s no proportionality. Depriving civilians of power—a human right—is not proportional to cutting off power from a military building that likely has emergency power anyway.
Would Iran be justified, if it had a nuclear weapon, of dropping it on Tel Aviv, wiping out the civilian population alongside the Israeli Air Force headquarters?
See above, the lives of civilians are paramount. The difference between data centers and these examples is that Amazon data centers aren’t necessary for any human rights, nor are they particularly important for civilian life. It’s little damage to civilians for little military gain. If you have five empty luxury resorts and one military headquarters and can’t distinguish between them (or all six are alternately used as military headquarters at random times), I’d say it’s a fair decision to bomb all six. It’s analogous to a factory that makes 90% shoes and 10% bullets. I also want to emphasize the importance of these facilities—AI-based targeting produces orders of magnitude more targets than human intelligence officers, allowing for orders of magnitude more strikes. When you’re running a mass bombing campaign, running out of things to bomb is legitimately a thing that happens.
By this logic, schools are valid targets because they are educating future CIA recruits and Walmart is a valid target because it’s providing the food to fuel them.
American-owned sata centers are actually legal targets, because they’re used to process intelligence and provide strike targets. They’re basically equivalent to a CIA office. Israel also does this.
Got any evidence of that? If so, then I agree targeting them would likely be legal.
Since when was fucking Israel a guide on how to conduct legal war?!? Christ.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/03/iran-war-heralds-era-of-ai-powered-bombing-quicker-than-speed-of-thought
American tech companies provide cloud computing and AI services to both the US and Israel, and obviously these services work through data centers, meaning that some data centers somewhere are legal targets, but it’s impossible to know which. I’d argue that this makes all data centers run by relevant companies for cloud computing and similar services valid military targets.
No no, as in: Israel also uses AI assisted targeting like America.
So, would you say Russia is legitimate in striking infrastructure like power plants which are mostly used for civilian purposes but might power military buildings as a small percentage of their use?
Would Iran be justified, if it had a nuclear weapon, of dropping it on Tel Aviv, wiping out the civilian population alongside the Israeli Air Force headquarters?
Proportionality is a key concept in military planning. It’s not the case that one drop of military utility makes something a legitimate target. It’s certainly not if you only know that the minority military use is somewhere among many different locations and just bomb any of them on the off-chance.
Oh, and ok, sorry for the misunderstanding.
For starters nothing Russia does in this war is legitimate because the war itself is illegitimate, but that aside: No, because as you said there’s no proportionality. Depriving civilians of power—a human right—is not proportional to cutting off power from a military building that likely has emergency power anyway.
See above, the lives of civilians are paramount. The difference between data centers and these examples is that Amazon data centers aren’t necessary for any human rights, nor are they particularly important for civilian life. It’s little damage to civilians for little military gain. If you have five empty luxury resorts and one military headquarters and can’t distinguish between them (or all six are alternately used as military headquarters at random times), I’d say it’s a fair decision to bomb all six. It’s analogous to a factory that makes 90% shoes and 10% bullets. I also want to emphasize the importance of these facilities—AI-based targeting produces orders of magnitude more targets than human intelligence officers, allowing for orders of magnitude more strikes. When you’re running a mass bombing campaign, running out of things to bomb is legitimately a thing that happens.
There are civilians working inside data centers, and they also provide services to civilians - some of which are critical and some are not.
By this logic, schools are valid targets because they are educating future CIA recruits and Walmart is a valid target because it’s providing the food to fuel them.