Specifically the exact definition of the word “torture”.

A classic definition was that any permanent harm to body, mind, or soul – enduring damage long after the immediate threat of unjust aggression against the innocent has ended – is torture and thus immoral.

This is why land mines are considered unethical weapons should they be seeded without protocols such that their placement is known to authorities and can be cleaned up after hostilities… it’s also why warnings “Mine field” are considered both prudent and mandatory.

It’s one thing to seek to deny access or defend one’s perimeter in war. Quite another to sow weapons that will kill and maim tresspassers for decades into the future, long after hostilities (and thus the need for defense) have ended.

Similarly it’s one thing to inflict pain or hardship on an unjust agressor so as to motivate him to reveal information he has no moral right to keep secret (since innocents’ well being is at stake). It’s quite another to inflict lasting, permanent damage to him short of execution.

And so, classically, permanent harm was considered torture while roughing someone up, scaring them (gun to head scenario) or fooling them that death was imminent while certainly unpleasant was not classically considered ‘torture’. Crushing, tearing, burning, cutting off limbs, blinding, or poisoning one’s mind – or forcing one to commit a religious transgression…. that was all considered “permanent” and thus beyond the moral imperitive for the just to defend the innocent from the unjust aggressor or his secret.

Move the goal posts from permanent damage and you widen the cases of torture and possible torturers into subjective categories. Tazering would be torture. So would bluffing. Psych-ops too…

The premise here is that unjust aggressors do not have the same rights as the innocent nor the moral obligations of the just defenders of these innocent.

As other commentators have pointed out, the class of person *(unjust aggressor) we’re dealign with also aren’t POWs or criminals but people who are considered non-state actors who by actions or intent seek to harm or kill civilians.

Finally a point about “giving governments power”. Governments already have power. If the fear here is that a strict definition of torture is made that they’ll run amok, the solution is not to expand the definition. The solution is to reduce the scope and power of government!