Sure, when you reach a point that you don’t have better options to achieve the desired goal (for whatever metric you define as ‘better’) then killing is on the table by the sounds of it.

All we need now is an agreement on the threshold.

I’m assuming you’ll concede that individual killing comes before mass killing, in the hierarchy of options.

So, once this threshold is reached then, according to your logic, you are morally allowed to kill in defence ( and i assume pre-emptive defence, given the “They are won by stopping the enemy‘s ability to act.” statement ).

So going back to your original statement, it’s entirely possible to kill an individual and still believe in your definition of ‘believe in universal human rights.’ ?

Provided the correct conditions are met, ofc.

I saw the parts about the declaration of war, i was specifically looking for the part from which you pulled :

Once a war has started, killing is morally acceptable, not before.

Rights need to balanced against each other in practice of course.

So contradiction is possible as i have said and balance would require contextual interpretation, in practice.

Absolute statements such as :

Once a war has started, killing is morally acceptable, not before.

and

You don’t kill people for their ideological beliefs, but to stop their ability to act and remove them from power.

Can be contradictory, depending on context.

I wasn’t challenging your interpretation, though i do think it’s naive and idealistic to the point of impracticality, i was pointing out that your statements could be considered contradictory.

While I’m at it, i missed a false dichotomy as well :

Wars aren’t won by killing soldiers. They are won by stopping the enemy‘s ability to act.

Those things are not mutually exclusive.

You can find that in international humanitarian law.

That’s a large amount of text to sift through, if you could give me a hint to where it specifies moral authority before and after an official declaration of war i’d appreciate it.

Firstly, citation? because as i understand it “killing is morally acceptable in war” isn’t in the universal declaration of human rights.

Secondly, even if it was, there is no magic attribute of those declarations that makes them immune to contradiction.

That is a very strange and self-contradicting hill to die on.