Following 9/11 a new security discourse emerged to describe the security environment of the twenty-first century. The new discourse finds solid expression in the National Security Strategy of 2002 and its prescription of a security policy of pre-emption. Controversy emerges once the argument is deconstructed to reveal a policy of prevention. The policy of preventive war was operationalized in the Iraq (2003) war. Since then, a debate on the ethical implications of preventive warfare has been inaugurated. This paper can be seen in the context of this debate. The central argument is that a security policy of prevention will undermine the moral criteria which determine the ethics of force as found in the Just War tradition. The paper will use pragmatism to defend the Just War as practical.
Section II will discuss the Just War theory as part of the normative international order which determines when states should resort to force (jus ad bellum) and how hostilities ought to be conducted (jus in bello) for any war to be just. Section III will introduce the work of the late American pragmatist, Richard Rorty. Rorty’s post-philosophy rejects the search for absolutes and ahistorical Truths. In his work, moral philosophy becomes a historical narrative and historical contingency can explain why we hold the beliefs that we do. In this way, the Just War tradition is interpreted as the product of the liberal experience with war. Section IV will address the concept of preventive warfare to argue that while preemption is a well established concept in international relations, the latter is morally ambiguous as it advocates war based on suspicion. Section V will empirically illustrate the argument that a policy of preventive war undermines the Just War criteria, using the example of the Iraq war (2003) where appropriate. Finally, the concluding part will offer a pragmatic defense of the Just War.
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February 4, 2009
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Without getting into and engaging Rortyover his post-philosophy errors, as put here, one would be very serious into looking at a very conscious re-orientation of a Judaeo-Christian (one wishes that there was only one Church since that would have made these non-state actors in other states more credible in their 'christian' designs) dominance - via such non-state actors and that attempts to feed upon historical narratives as a justification for 1. increasing the number of the 'faithful' that can then somnabulate to the Church. 2. To provide impetus to the 'judaeo-christain' supremacy in a world - where a 9/11 evokes Rorty and Kant.
These particular forces are as divorced from Rorty and Kant as would be the actors of 9/11 (in popular imagination). Then we have talks of non-state actors, which only serves to highlight the existence of the modern state-system - with its own attendant implications over issues like secularization as well as the normative and pragmatic requirements that any modern state would evoke and demand.
I doubt if most European states would manage that or can manage that, France included. The issue of 'just war' of course demands the basic notion of an overt war that is direct. About covert wars that have devastating direct effects for the international community: how does one look at the notion of just war?
9/11 as a non-state actor oriented programme and overt war, and such covert wars along civilizational lines - as non-state state actor oriented covert war demand similar thought and action. Now preventive Just War in a condition of direct warfare, and preventive Just War in a condition of covert warfare that by itself is unjust...One wishes that Nicholas Sarkozy would screech less when he reads about the reports of the dead in overt news, in their covert war.
Of course, then he and many others may need to study Kant and Rorty and also read enough to take Rorty back to school over his post-philosophy. But then, very interesting issues here that has enough implications and that are serious enough for the international community. Obviosuly, the international community is not the judaeo-christain world of this 'multiple church' syndrome! Though these do form a part and parcel of the global population, as do others. Obviously, the term international community refers to the modern state-system and its adherents or those who have surpassed it via certain ideas. It does not refer to the medieval forces as it does not refer to those that caused 9/11 - by the very same yardstick of Just-ness, from where the idea of a 'Just War' has sprung. let us see...