Deep Dive: The “Civilian Plane” Strike — and Why the Law of War Calls It Perfidy

This is not a story about optics.

It’s a story about whether the United States crossed one of the clearest red lines in the law of war.

Civilian Appearance. Military Strike.

What happened

In September 2025, the United States carried out a lethal strike on a small boat in the Caribbean that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs.

Eleven people were killed.

According to The New York Times, the strike was carried out using a secret U.S. military aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane. The aircraft carried its weapons inside the fuselage, not visibly under the wings, and lacked military markings. Officials told the Times the aircraft flew low enough for the people on the boat to see it.

The boat then turned back toward Venezuela, apparently after seeing the plane — before it was struck.

This detail matters because under the law of armed conflict, combatants are forbidden from pretending to be civilians in order to gain a lethal advantage.

That act has a name.

It’s called perfidy.

Why the administration says the strikes are “legal”

The Trump administration has argued that these boat strikes are not murders, but lawful acts of war.

Their legal theory rests on one key claim:

President Donald Trump “determined” that the United States is engaged in a non-international armed conflict with drug cartels and criminal gangs that he designated as terrorist organizations.

Under that framework, the administration argues:

• The people on the boats are “combatants”

• The strikes are governed by the law of armed conflict, not ordinary criminal law

• Lethal force is therefore permissible

That argument is widely disputed by military lawyers and scholars.

But here’s the critical point:

Even if the administration’s armed-conflict claim were accepted, the laws of war still apply — and perfidy is always prohibited.

What “perfidy” means — in plain English

Under the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, perfidy occurs when a combatant:

• Feigns civilian or protected status

• Intends the adversary to rely on that appearance

• Then attacks, injures, or kills them

In simpler terms:

You cannot pretend to be a civilian in order to make someone lower their guard — and then kill them.

That rule exists to protect civilians, shipwrecked persons, the wounded, and anyone who might otherwise believe they are not facing a military threat.

Why this aircraft raises perfidy concerns

The New York Times reports several facts that directly trigger the perfidy analysis:

1. The aircraft’s appearance

• Painted to look like a civilian plane

• Not painted in standard military gray

• No visible military markings

• Weapons hidden inside the fuselage

2. Human-level visibility

• The aircraft flew low enough to be seen

• This was not a distant, unseen drone strike

3. Target behavior changed

• The boat turned back after seeing the aircraft

• Suggesting the people onboard reacted to what they believed they were seeing

4. Expert assessment

Retired Major General Steven J. Lepper, a former Air Force deputy judge advocate general, told the Times:

“Shielding your identity is an element of perfidy. If the aircraft flying above is not identifiable as a combatant aircraft, it should not be engaged in combatant activity.”

He explained that if the aircraft’s civilian appearance caused the people on the boat to fail to take evasive action or surrender, that would constitute a war crime under armed-conflict standards.

“But it had a military transponder” — why that doesn’t solve the problem

The Pentagon has argued that although the aircraft looked civilian, it was broadcasting a military tail number via radio transponder.

Legal experts told the Times that does not resolve the perfidy issue.

Why?

Because the people on the boat almost certainly did not have equipment to detect military transponder signals.

Perfidy is evaluated at the level where trust is induced — what a reasonable person could perceive — not what might be theoretically detectable by advanced systems the target does not possess.

The follow-on strike: a second legal crisis

After the initial strike:

• Two survivors were seen clinging to an overturned piece of wreckage

• They appeared to wave at the aircraft

• The U.S. military then carried out a second strike, killing them and sinking the remains of the boat

This raises a separate and serious legal issue.

Under the law of armed conflict, shipwrecked persons — those who are wounded, incapacitated, or otherwise out of combat — may not be targeted.

The New York Times notes that public debate has largely focused on this follow-on strike, even as questions about perfidy were being discussed privately in classified congressional briefings.

A notable shift after the incident

The Times reports that after the September 2 strike, the U.S. military changed its approach:

• Later boat strikes used recognizably military aircraft, including MQ-9 Reaper drones

• In an October strike, two survivors were rescued, not killed, and returned to Colombia and Ecuador

That change matters.

It suggests the September strike may have crossed a line the military later sought to avoid repeating.

Why this debate stayed hidden — until now

Several contextual details from the Times are important:

• Questions about perfidy were raised behind closed doors in Congress

• The aircraft itself is classified

• Planning for the boat-strike campaign was closely held, excluding many military lawyers

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth moved to undercut the role of military JAGs, including firing senior legal officers

None of this proves illegality on its own.

But it explains why one of the most serious legal questions surrounding U.S. use of force was not debated publicly until now.

The core legal question

As Geoffrey Corn, a former senior Army law-of-war adviser, put it:

“The critical question is whether there is a credible alternative reason for using an unmarked aircraft to conduct the attack other than exploiting apparent civilian status to gain some tactical advantage.”

That is the hinge point.

Not secrecy. Not classification. Not stealth.

Intent and inducement.

The ONEST bottom line

This case matters because it tests one of the most fundamental principles of the law of war:

Combatants must distinguish themselves from civilians.

If a military aircraft was deliberately made to appear civilian, flown low enough to be seen, and used to carry out a lethal strike — and if that appearance caused the people below to misjudge the danger they were in — then the issue is not semantic.

It is legal.

And it goes to whether the United States upheld — or violated — a rule designed to protect everyone, everywhere, from the collapse of civilian immunity in war.