Self Defence

In a response to my previous post, Professor Timothy Waters, asks why it is that US attacks on non-State actors in Pakistan would not be acts of war against Pakistan. In this post, I attempt to answer that question. First, we can't impute al Qaeda or Taliban attacks on our soldiers, which are continuous and well-known, to Pakistan merely because Pakistan is incapable of policing its territory.  Pakistan would have "state responsibility" (but not "imputation" or "attribution" [see Nicaragua v. U.S., 1986 I.C.J.]) - so Pakistan could be subject to sanctions not involving the use of armed force if Pakistan financed or even tolerated such attacks (according to the 1970 UN General Assembly Dec. Principles of  International Law, etc., and Nicaragua v. U.S., 1986 I.C.J.) unless Pakistan had effective control over al Qaeda or Taliban operations or later adopted them as its own (U.S. v. Iran, 1980 I.C.J.) -- none of which has happened to my knowledge.  I suppose we agree on this. Second, Professor Waters asks whether by merely using…