Unpublished draft

Defensive sabotage looks like friendly fire

I.

Suppose a major strategic bridge collapses in your country during a war. You are the general in charge of logistics, and you demand to know why the bridge fell. There are three very different causal models for what just happened:

  1. Enemy Action: The invading army sent bombers to blow up the bridge.
  2. Friendly Fire: Our own artillery was shelling an enemy battalion near the river, missed, and accidentally took out the bridge.
  3. Defensive Sabotage: The enemy was advancing rapidly toward the capital. Our local commander realized they were about to cross the river, so he intentionally rigged the bridge with dynamite