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A shorter version of this paper was delivered as an invited response to the keynote address delivered by
Ken Himes, Second Annual McCormak Conference On Moral Theology, Toledo, Ohio, November 4, 2003.
2
The name of the tradition, just war, is rather unfortunate for it clouds the issue. What is really being
address is the moral justifiability of the use of force. Also it is not really a theory of just war. It provides
more of a moral calculus for the determination of the moral justifiability of force than a theory of war.
3
George W Bush, Remarks by the President in Photo Opportunity with the National Security Team (The
White House, September 12, 2001 10:56 AM 2001 [cited); available from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010912-4.html.
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ISSN: 1522-211X | www.trinstitute.org/ojpcr/6_1snau.pdf
National Security Council, The National Security Strategy of the United States (The White House,
September 2002 [cited); available from http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html., p. 4.
5
George W Bush, Remarks by the President at 2002 Graduation Exercise of the United States Military
Academy West Point, New York [Speech] (The White House, June 1, 2002 9:13 A.M. EDT 2002 [cited);
available from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html., p. 2
6
Ibid.([cited). P. 3
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responding. The threat must be eliminated before it is manifested. The National Security
Strategy states:
History will judge harshly those who saw this coming danger but failed to
act. In the new world we have entered, the only path to peace and security
is the path of action.7
. . . defending the United States, the American people, and our interests at
home and abroad by identifying and destroying the threat before it reaches
our borders. While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the
support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if
necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively
against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our
people and our country; 8
Implicit in this strategy is a very important linkage: the declared enemy is not only the
terrorist but also anyone, including States, that aid them. President Bush articulated this
principle on the night of 9/11: We will make no distinction between the terrorists who
committed these acts and those who harbor them.9 In combination with the doctrine of
preemption this linkage to States is radical, for it declares the right to violate the principle
of nonintervention that is central to the nation-state system.
The Bush Doctrine of preemption can be understood in at least two ways: (1) it
constitutes in itself a fundamental shift in American foreign policy a profound
movement away from a fairly noninterventionist, isolationist tradition, perhaps best
captured by the dictum: dont tread on me; (2) a continued expression of the implicit
linkage between American democracy and imperialism.10 However, the Bush Doctrine
does not stand on its own per se; it is linked to a major shift in our philosophy of
international relations. On one level it is a shift from the cold war philosophy of
containment to the post-terrorism philosophy of preemption. On a deeper level it is a part
of a new global strategy of U.S. global leadership. At West Point President Bush made
the case:
For much of the last century, America's defense relied on the Cold
War doctrines of deterrence and containment. In some cases, those
strategies still apply. But new threats also require new thinking.
Deterrence -- the promise of massive retaliation against nations -- means
nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to
defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with
OJPCR: The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution 6.1 Fall: 121-135 (2004)
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11
Bush, Remarks by the President at 2002 Graduation Exercise of the United States Military Academy
West Point, New York ([cited). P. 2
12
Council, The National Security Strategy of the United States (cited).
13
Richard B Cheney, "Defense Strategy for the 1990s: The Regional Defense Strategy," (Washingtion,
DC: US Department of Defense, 1993).
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Ibid., p.3
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Zalmay M Khalilzad, "From Containment to Global Leadership? America and the World after the Cold
War," (Santa Monica, CA: Rand -- Prepared for the United States Air Force, 1995).
16
See Nicholas Lemann, "The Next World Order: The Hawks Plan to Reshape the Globe.," The New
Yorker (2002).
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Joseph L. Allen, War: A Primer for Christians (Dallas: First Maguire Center/Southern Methodist
University Press, [1991] 2001), Joseph Boyle, "Just War Thinking in Catholic Natural Law," in The Ethics
of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives, ed. Terry Nardin (Princeton, NY: Princeton
University Press, 1996), Duane L. Cady, From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1989), Jean Bethke Elshtain, ed., Just War Theory (New York: New York
University Press, 1992), John Finnis, "The Ethics of War and Peace in the Catholic Natural Law Tradition,"
in The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives, ed. Terry Nardin (Princeton, NY:
Princeton University Press, 1996), Terry Nardin, ed., The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular
Perspectives (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), Paul Ramsey, The Just War: Force and
Political Responsibility (New York: University Press of America, [1968] 1983), Paul Ramsey, War and the
Christian Conscience: How Shall Modern War Be Conducted Justly? (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 1961), James Turner Johnson, Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and Historical
Inquiry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), James Turner Johnson, Morality and Contemporary
Warfare (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral
Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1997).
OJPCR: The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution 6.1 Fall: 121-135 (2004)
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Caleb Carr, The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare against Civilians: Why It Has Always Failed
and Why It Will Fail Again. (New York: Random House, 2002). Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral
Argument with Historical Illustrations.
19
Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1970).
20
Carr, The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare against Civilians: Why It Has Always Failed and
Why It Will Fail Again.
21
Council, The National Security Strategy of the United States ([cited)., p.9
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explicitly linked to a foreign policy that has as its central tenet the expansion of power?
If the expansion of power is the driving intention, then the doctrine of preemption is
unjustifiable; it is being driven by a wrong intention. In turn, intention is intertwined
with a claim of just cause. The wrong intention clouds the justifiability of the cause.
A case in point is the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The invasion was justified,
in accordance with the Bush Doctrine of preemption, as a means to prevent a terrorist
attack upon the United States. It was asserted that the Iraqi regime possessed weapons of
mass destruction and they were likely, given their previous use of chemical weapons, to
sell them to terrorists, including al Qeada. However, since the Gulf War, Iraq has been a
primary example of a rival power in a critical region of the world that must be changed in
accordance with the Global Strategy. Iraqi regime change was justified morally as a
preemptive act of self-defense, while the primary intention was geo-political. Controlling
arguably the most important Arab nation and its oil resources gives the United States
significant power, not only in the region, but beyond to Europe, Central Asia, and China.
One could argue here that the above point smacks of a conspiracy theory. The
central point being made, however, is that primary driver of the National Security
Strategy of the United States is not a set of democratic ethical principles but the pursuit of
power. This is not conspiratorial per se, for it is explicitly and clearly articulated in the
public record.
In recent thinking concerning just cause an additional justification has emerged:
humanitarian intervention. This justification concerns intra-state aggression. If a
government engages in or allows heinous violations of human rights (e.g., genocide),
then humanitarian military intervention is justifiable in order to protect the rights of the
citizenry against threats perpetrated their own government, even though it is technically a
violation of the principle of nonintervention.
If a sovereign national government commits or allows clear and significant
violations of the human rights of its own citizens, committing crimes against humanity
(e.g., genocide), then it has invalidated the social contract and thus has lost its claim to
sovereignty. In such cases the international community is morally justified, perhaps
even obligated, to intervene. Such a nullification of sovereignty and the principle of
nonintervention must be confined internationally recognized crimes against humanity to
prevent the idea of humanitarian intervention from devolving into a specious justification
for aggression.
Given the range of humanitarian abuses the Saddam Hussein regime committed in
the course of its reign, a United States lead international coalition to remove the regime
on humanitarian grounds could have been justifiable according to the principles of just
war theory. However, the central justification for the invasion was not humanitarian,
albeit references to the obvious inhumane nature of the regime and the long suffering of
the Iraqi people were made. The primary justification was prevention of terrorism and
the strategic, geopolitical importance of Iraq: the removal of a regional rival to gain
control of a strategic region of the world.
OJPCR: The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution 6.1 Fall: 121-135 (2004)
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prima facie presumption against violence as well as giving force to the legitimacy of the
just cause .
The Bush Doctrine framed the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Iraq was
conceived as both a terrorist threat and a key rival in a critical region of the world. The
administrations impatience with an inspection regime as means of restraint is linked to
their intentions of countering a rival in a critical region, which entails regime change.
The United States could have waited longer for the inspection regime to take hold after
its return in the spring of 2003. Being driven more by the global strategy than by the
principles of just war theory, the choice of the use of force in Iraq, the military invasion,
was not a last resort. As the subsequent lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction
indicates, the situation was not one of immanent danger or emergency. Diplomacy and
inspections could have achieved the goal of countering the purported threat.
In conclusion, while there are on the face of it morally justifiable elements of the
Bush Doctrine as a security response to terrorism, from the perspective of the Just War
tradition the doctrines linkage with a power-driven, hegemonic foreign policy strategy
undermines the moral credibility of the doctrine, and thus the moral credibility of the
United States. It is through the strengthening of the international moral and legal order
that constitutes the best and most sustainable strategy against terrorism. In a number of
ways the Bush Doctrine as a response to international terrorism is, tragically,
undermining the international moral and legal order, thereby undermining the very order
necessary for sustainable security against terrorism.
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References
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ISSN: 1522-211X | www.trinstitute.org/ojpcr/6_1snau.pdf
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Dale T. Snauwaert, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Educational Theory and Social
OJPCR: The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution 6.1 Fall: 121-135 (2004)
ISSN: 1522-211X | www.trinstitute.org/ojpcr/6_1snau.pdf
OJPCR: The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution 6.1 Fall: 121-135 (2004)
ISSN: 1522-211X | www.trinstitute.org/ojpcr/6_1snau.pdf