It is true that the armed forces are structured for war. But hot pursuit is not war. It is more like a surgical strike, sometimes overt and sometimes covert, and usually done by one party confident of smothering any subsequent escalation or counter-strike. In reality, there is no actual international law that 'permits' hot pursuit across international borders.There are only precedents. Massive Israeli strikes against the PLO in 1980 were justified by Tel Aviv on the grounds of hot pursuit. The subsequent protest in the UN by 52 nations of the OIC and the Communist bloc were simply trashed by Israel. Iran destroyed Iraqi Kurdish settlements in 1996 citing hot pursuit but Teheran had learnt its lesson from the Americans who destroyed an oil rig, an Iranian frigate and four gunboats in 1988 in Iranian territorial waters, citing hot pursuit.