The video of the U.S. submarine USS _Charlotte_ torpedoing the Iranian frigate IRIS _Dena_ in the early morning of March 4, 2026, was hard to watch. Yes, this is war, and war is hell. Destroying a warship from below is, prima facie, not very different from bombing a command center from above. Yet something about this did not sit right. Perhaps it is the brutal death of dozens of unsuspecting sailors while their ship sat idly in international waters off the coast of Sri Lanka, far from the Strait of Hormuz, which lent the attack an unsettling air of canned hunting. Perhaps it is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s visible glee as he remarked at a press briefing later that day that the sailors had met a "quiet death", when it was certainly anything but. <iframe width="100%" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; web-share" allowfullscreen src="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DOD_111556089_Hegseth,_Caine_Hold_Press_Briefing_3_4_2026.webm?embedplayer=true" /> *Video: Pete Hegseth commenting on the "quiet death" from 6:45 to 7:00.* Or perhaps it is the legally questionable and ethically despicable [[Laconia order]] that reportedly followed, leaving survivors to drown in apparent contravention of Articles [12](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gcii-1949/article-12) and [18](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gcii-1949/article-18) of the 1949 Geneva Convention. This is the kind of cheap tactical victory that may come at the greater cost of a future strategic defeat. The memories of this event among Iranians will outlast the present administration, and the resulting generational resentment may well express itself through violent and asymmetrical means against American interests everywhere.