Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Michael J. Butler
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clark University, USA
© Michael J. Butler 2012
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2012 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries
ISBN 978-0-230-36064-8
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
To Ethan and Ben
That your world may know more justice,
and experience less war
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of Figures and Tables viii
1 Introduction 1
Notes 228
Bibliography 247
Index 271
vii
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
viii
List of Figures and Tables ix
Tables
In the words of Yeats, we make out of the quarrel with others rhetoric,
but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry. What follows is hardly poetic,
but every bit the product of a prolonged (and sometimes seemingly
intractable) self-quarrel. The gripping question of ‘why we fight’ has
been a preoccupation of mine since a very young age—with the encroach-
ment of moral considerations as well as justifications (which, as this
book makes plain, are decidedly not the same thing) into that intellec-
tual domain occurring in rough synchronicity with my own emergent
and evolving understanding of morality and ethics. The chief by-product
of the fusion of these two concerns has been a sustained research agenda
defined by nearly a decade of rumination, dialogue, and investigation
concerning the intersection of morality and war, and the utility, signi-
ficance, and seeming ubiquity of just war theory in the American context
in particular.
This research agenda has evolved a great deal since its inception. Indeed,
this particular installment in that agenda has itself undergone significant
alterations in pivotal details pertaining to research design, methodology,
data collection, and the like. Yet what has remained constant throughout
is my central concern with attempting to unpack the timeless and timely
question of what, if anything, makes the resort to war ‘just’—particularly
in the view of those responsible for such a decision, as well as the rest of
us who are impacted in manifold ways by it. After all, the decision to go
to war, and the rationales affixed to those decisions after they are made,
cannot be divorced from the larger political, social, and cultural context
that spawn them.
From that simple yet powerful realization, the question of how
US foreign policy decision-makers ‘sell’ the decision to go to war to
the domestic audience has come to occupy most of my waking hours
for the past few years. This preoccupation only grew as I bore witness
to the undertaking of three significant military operations by the US
(in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Libya) in ‘real time’ while conceiving,
researching, and eventually sitting down to write this book. The material
costs—financial, and more importantly, human—of these military opera-
tions are at once staggering and sobering. Such adjectives can also be
applied to their potential consequences for America’s credibility and legit-
imacy, especially in light of the sometimes profound gap between the
x
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
Michael J. Butler
Worcester, MA USA
List of Acronyms
xiii
This page intentionally left blank
1
Introduction
Few if any concerns are more timeless or resonate more broadly in the
study of foreign policy than the decision by states and their leaders
to go to war. In no small part the timeless nature of this concern can
be attributed to the fact that military force has long been and remains
central to the practice of statecraft. The collective pursuit of organized
armed violence to some defined end has proven a recurring feature of
international society since the codification of the rules and practices of
a state-based system in the Treaties of Westphalia. War has maintained
its viability in the face of numerous supposed portents of its demise.
Examples of such portents include (but are not limited to) the dawn of
the Enlightenment and the birth of popular sovereignty in the latter
half of the 18th century, the founding of the ‘Concert of Europe’ in the
aftermath of Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, and the convening of a series
of peace conferences beginning in the late 19th century (such as the
Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907).
For its part, the 20th century featured the most extensive evidence of
war’s allegedly approaching obsolescence (Mueller, 1990). In this vein,
one can point to the persistence of war in the face of the formation of not
one but two international organizations (the League of Nations in 1919,
the United Nations in 1945) as well as numerous non-governmental
organizations dedicated to the pursuit of peace. Further evidence to
this effect includes the establishment of the so-called ‘North American
security community’ (epitomized by the founding of NATO in 1949,
and the entire European integration process beginning in the early
1950s), as well as successive ‘waves’ of democratization expanding the
liberal ‘zone of peace’ and supporting assertions of the ‘iron law’ of the
1
2 Selling a ‘Just’ War
democratic peace (Doyle, 1983a, 1983b; Levy, 1988). However, the per-
sistence of warfare despite these developments has confined anticipations
of a more stable and pacific world order largely to the realm of the ideal.1
So too did the sudden and extensive proliferation of armed conflict
unleashed with the welcome demise of the Cold War quickly expose the
fallacy of triumphal proclamations of the ‘end of history’ (Fukuyama,
1989).
Despite the purported ascendance of pacific values and institutions,
then, warfare endures. Since 1990, almost four million people have died
in wars (90 per cent of them civilians), while over 18 million people
world-wide have left their homes as a direct result of conflict (Sheehan,
2008). While empirical data suggests that both the aggregate number
of armed conflicts and the incidence of traditional interstate wars are
declining (Harbom and Wallensteen, 2010), since the end of the Cold
War the use of force—in particular intra-state armed conflicts or military
interventions—remains pervasive.2 As this data indicates, the use (and
threatened use) of military force is still the ultima ratio in the con-
temporary international system. It is a tool that is available to and
employed by the leaders of nearly all states regardless of regime type, level
of economic development, geographic location, population size, and any
other indicator one might employ to distinguish states from one another
(Hewitt et al., 2010).
The continuing utility and appeal of military force as an implement
of statecraft is brought into greater relief when one narrows the focus
to recent and contemporary US foreign policy. Since the end of World
War II, the US has stood apart from the rest of the international com-
munity in terms of both the frequency and magnitude of its military
commitments (Butler, 2003). While military force retains great utility
for most states, the United States undoubtedly stands alone in its capa-
city and seeming willingness to employ military force, characteristics
that remain undiminished even with the end of the Cold War (von
Hippel, 2000). As this book was completed in the summer of 2011, the
US was involved in yet another military intervention in response to a
crisis, as part of a NATO operation (‘Operation Unified Protector’) con-
tributing to the end of Moammar Gaddafi’s four decades of autocratic
rule in Libya.
The starting point for this research is this profound gap between stated
norms and actual behavior with respect to the use of force in contem-
porary US foreign policy—a juxtaposition between liberal values and
illiberal policies at the very heart of contemporary US foreign policy
Introduction 5
Figure 1.1 Support for US troop use—2010 (adapted from CCGA, 2010)
Favor
If Israel were attacked by its neighbors
Oppose
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Introduction 9
A key requisite for obtaining that support is that the society at-large
believes the initial decision to start the war to be legitimate and correct
(Gelpi et al., 2009). As was discussed earlier, the evident disjuncture
between stated societal values and actual state behavior concerning war
in the American context fosters a predisposition against war-decisions
advanced without an adequate rationale. The decision to employ military
force, while far from uncommon, is nonetheless largely understood to
be undesirable. The most basic expression of this normative position is
that war is something requiring justification, and as such is something
to be restricted rather than promoted, and undertaken carefully and
soberly (if at all).
This expressed position relative to war and the war-decision has two
major and distinctive sources, each rooted in the liberal tradition. The
first is moral-ethical; in this view, the decision to go to war is appraised
in light of a ‘categorical imperative’ in which some universal code of
conduct (often steeped in natural law) should provide the lodestar
for evaluation.5 The second source is utilitarian in nature. In this trans-
lation, war-avoidance is desirable for practical reasons; irrespective of
whether war violates any defined notion of what is ‘right’ or ‘good’ it is
costly, and those costs must be identified in full and balanced against
war’s attendant and presumed benefits.6 These considerations create
and sustain an environment of ‘norm contestation’ (Hoffmann, 2007)
bounding the practice of war in liberal societies. The chief implication
of this normative contestation in the American context is that it pro-
duces and sustains a definitive and consequential societal standard that
must be accounted for and met by decision-makers wishing to employ
military force.
While decision-makers can and sometimes do railroad the war-decision
through the political process without effectively attempting to ‘sell’ that
decision to the public, doing so jeopardizes the military operation itself,
the strategic and policy objectives associated with it, and the political
fortunes of those responsible for the decision. This seems especially the
case for liberal democracies like the United States. A decidedly public (and
occasionally doctrinaire) adherence to the notion of popular sovereignty
and the introduction of institutions of republican government have made
it increasingly imperative for American foreign policy decision-makers seek-
ing to effectively advance and implement the war-decision to justify that
decision in a way that appeals to the populace, so as to elicit a necessary
(if not sufficient) measure of societal support. In light of this, the public
presentation of the war-decision should be understood as, in fact, a matter
of vital and practical importance to the effective conduct of statecraft.
Introduction 11
Framing a solution
war? If they do, which components of the theory matter most, and
translate the best—and in which circumstances? Do certain aspects of
just war theory and its various translations matter more, or resonate
more widely, in some types or cases of conflicts than others? If so,
which ones and in which circumstances? How do various components
of the notion of the ‘just war’ translate to different audiences? Does the
appeal of just war concepts and language differ in discernable ways
with respect to the mass public, opinion leaders, or the mainstream
media—and if so, in what ways? Do just war concepts and rhetoric
change appreciably over the span of their use by decision-makers in
conjunction with a particular conflict?
Investigating these questions requires a systematic and rigorous empir-
ical examination, one informed by a robust appreciation of framing
and frames relative to foreign policy and in particular the decision to
go to war. Several recent and noteworthy exceptions notwithstanding
(Western, 2005; Entman, 2004; Baum, 2003; Allen et al., 1994), for the
most part the construction of frames and their application to the decision
to go to war by agents of the state remains an under-examined dimension
of US foreign policy decision-making. Through introduction of the just
war frame, this research seeks to rigorously and critically evaluate just war
theory as a policy tool. In doing so, I will draw from the rich theoretical
insights of the just war literature (see Ramsey, 1968; Walzer, 1977; Bull,
1979; Falk, 2004) and related investigations of the relationship between
societal norms and US foreign policy (Tucker, 1960; Osgood and Tucker,
1967; Cohen, 1984; Payne, 1995; Glennon, 1999; Fager, 2002) while simul-
taneously aspiring to the empirical sophistication of leading studies of US
military intervention (Regan, 1998; Haass, 1999; Peceny, 1999a; Chatterjee
and Scheid, 2003; Meernik, 2004).
Many scholars of just war theory consider the theory’s power to
emanate from its potential to offer the philosopher, the statesperson,
and the citizen alike an objective standard for ascertaining the con-
ditions in which war might be considered ethically and morally per-
missible. This is accurate, to the extent that one remains in the realm
of the abstract. Yet for those who may seek to apply this (or any) theory
to the ‘real world’, and test its utility within the realm of state behavior
and foreign policy, such reification suggests a misinterpretation of the
actual purpose and power of just war theory. In seeking to distill just
war theory into a device useful for social scientific inquiry, such a view
of the theory would be wrong-headed. In an application such as this, just
war theory is better engaged from a critical vantage point, and viewed as
a subjective social construct that can be employed (to varying effect) by
Introduction 15
18
Entering the Just War Conversation 19
Birthing a narrative
Antecedents
The origin of an explicit theory of a just war is most often located
in the early Roman church, beginning with the theological labors of
Augustine of Hippo in the 5th century. However, this starting point
obscures the theory’s antecedents in the ancient Chinese, Hindu and
Egyptian civilizations, among others (Christopher, 1994). Historical inquiry
convincingly reveals that these civilizations clearly grappled with moral
quandaries such as how to treat prisoners humanely, as well as how
to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants (French, 2005).
Indeed, the range of considerations concerning the proper conduct of
war (ultimately embodied in the jus in bello component of just war
theory) originally gained traction through the so-called ‘warrior’s
code’ advanced to enhance the social status of warriors by distinguish-
ing them from common criminals and other purveyors of violence
(ibid.).
Relative to the focus of this inquiry, the Hebrew, Greek, and to a lesser
degree imperial Roman civilizations serve as the wellsprings of the afore-
mentioned ‘conversation’ concerning the question of what makes the
resort to (rather than the conduct of) war ‘just’.2 Perhaps the earliest
recorded narratives concerning the defining criteria for a ‘just war’ can be
found in the Torah as well as some of the foremost surviving works
of classical Greece. Within the Hebraic tradition, the inherent virtue of
the pursuit of justice in the temporal sphere stemmed from the degree
to which such a pursuit both furthered social harmony and forestalled
divine retribution. This emphasis on justice in social relations tran-
scended the Jewish nation and tended toward universality, at least in
20 Selling a ‘Just’ War
God does not treat one person differently from another. He loves all
people. He expects us to behave the same way. Treat everyone fairly,
even foreigners and strangers.
all social endeavors—namely, war. That the quest for justice even in the
midst of war should be taken up and sustained by these ancient societies
speaks to a vitally important thread running through and connecting the
Hebrew and Greek traditions with modern liberal sensibilities. What is
reflected even in these earliest installments of the just war ‘conversation’
is the emergence of belief in the possibility of securing justice amidst war
through the cultivation of, and adherence to, a collective morality or
common set of moral standards. While the Hebrews and Greeks differed
in their conception of how such an outcome might obtain (with the
Hebrews relying heavily on the prospects of divine retribution, and the
Greeks appealing to rationality and discourse), they shared the idea that
pursuing justice in any and all circumstances, even (if not especially) in
war, is a vital duty of the warrior that must not be neglected.4 This time-
less proposition originating in the West with the Hebrew and Greek civ-
ilizations has had preponderant influence on the development of norms
and law pertaining to conduct in wartime, from The Republic and the
Talmud to the Geneva Conventions and beyond.
taining peace and order according to the dictates of the divine and
eternal law) that catalyzed just war theory. Indeed, the origins of what
we would today recognize as a theory of the ‘just war’ can be located in
Augustine’s notion of ‘the Two Cities’, in which justice can only be
gained in the temporal sphere through the measured and ethical conduct
of statecraft (Phillips, 1984). Aside from providing the first tangible ele-
ments of just war theory, Augustinian thought on the morality of war
represents an important new direction in the just war tradition. Because,
as Augustine stated, ‘we can make use of the peace of Babylon to steel
ourselves in the pursuit of the City of God’, justice in civic life remains
worth pursuing (Augustine, tr. Walsh et al., 1958). However, Augustine
also contended that justice in the midst of war, or in any other social
endeavor, must be seen as an ideal rather than something that is truly
attainable. So it was that the father of classical just war theory operated
from a basic presumption that justice in war is likely to be elusive.
In the Augustinian tradition, while justice is an objectively discern-
able virtue, it is also in practical terms a state of affairs that is imperfect
and incomplete at best. In seeking to reconcile the apparent contra-
diction of a simultaneous adherence to a discernable objective standard
of justice with a recognition of the impossibility of meeting that stan-
dard (a contradiction which has remained central to the just war ever
since), Augustine proffered a formula for the just war as one expressly
limited by purpose, authority, and conduct. In spite of the apparent
contradiction noted above (or perhaps because of it), Augustine crafted
a set of criteria that at once were definitive and clear, yet also allowed
for room for interpretation on the part of those in a position to imple-
ment them. Augustine stressed that war properly conducted must be
led by rulers of nations, who by virtue of their position are obliged to
maintain peace and pursue justice (Augustine, tr. Walsh et al., 1958).
Such rulers may prosecute war to revenge wrongs and undo injustices,
but never in the spirit of vengeance (ibid.). In this sense it is possible to
interpret Augustine not only as an important figure in the promul-
gation of a set of definitive proscriptions related to the conduct of war
(e.g., the ‘just war theory’), but also as an important contributor to the
decidedly more nebulous ‘conversation’ that is the just war tradition.
In taking up and advancing Augustinian thought, Aquinas offered a
degree of clarification and elaboration befitting his prominent association
with just war theory. Under the heading ‘Of War’ in Part II, Question 40
in his 13th century masterwork Summa Theologica (Aquinas, tr. Sullivan,
1952), Aquinas specified three clear and irrefutable conditions for waging
a just war that would not only remain the central tenets of just war
24 Selling a ‘Just’ War
theory, but a lodestar for the just war tradition. In order to possess any
such claim, a ‘just war’ must: (a) stem from legitimate authority received
from the sovereign; (b) originate from a just cause; and (c) be guided by a
rightful intention, so that the advancement of virtue is the sole purpose
of going to war. Further to these criteria, Aquinas exhausts the poss-
ibilities of what might legitimately fall under each heading, as well as that
which should be expressly excluded, providing a clear and expansive
blueprint for the conduct of a virtuous and divinely sanctioned war
(ibid.). It is chiefly the latter of these three criteria (right intent) that
represented a major point of departure from Augustinian thought,
through the doctrine of ‘double-effect’; e.g., the idea that acts may have
two sets of consequences, both intended and unintended, both of which
should be accounted for within any calculus pertaining to the war-
decision (Aquinas, 2002).
In stating these general precepts of the just war and fleshing out
their underlying propositions, Aquinas was seeking to explore the
possibilities of his distinction between Human and Natural Law on the
one hand and Eternal Law on the other. Though the resort to war if
not its very existence reflects humanity’s fallen condition, the poss-
ibility that a war can be conducted justly is consistent with Aquinas’
scholastic belief that humans can and should strive through the use of
reason and intellect to discipline Human Law (laws enacted by govern-
ments) to the strictures of Natural Law (humanity’s best attempt at
replicating Eternal Law in the temporal sphere). To that end, Aquinas’
contribution to the just war tradition was pivotal not only for the speci-
ficity it leant to just war theory, but also for the degree to which it incor-
porated into the just war conversation a philosophical consideration of the
possibility for human rationality to discern universal normative and legal
standards relative to the conduct of war.
Though Aquinas’ unique contributions to both the theory of the just
war and the social conversation enveloping it should not be over-
looked, it is also important to acknowledge the extent to which the
narrative he advanced was faithful to that which he had inherited from
his forebears within the Roman church. Like Augustine, Aquinas labored
intensively to sustain the notion that the pursuit of justice in social
relations including war is a worthwhile endeavor. To the extent that
Aquinas was able to deliver an explicit set of criteria dedicated to that
end, in which a just war is one waged as a last resort, he largely suc-
ceeded. At the same time, Aquinas categorically rejected the idea that
any perfect or complete attainment of justice in concert with the pros-
ecution of war was possible; in modern lexicon, when it comes to war
Entering the Just War Conversation 25
A maturing conversation
The neo-scholastics
In seeking to advance a clear and irrefutable set of conditions defining
a ‘just war’, Augustine and Aquinas greatly advanced just war theory.
Yet it was only through the subsequent contributions of the medieval
theorists such as Francisco de Vitoria (1492–1546) and Francisco Suárez
(1548–1617) that a comprehensive theory of a just war defining and
extending the parameters of legitimacy relative to the war-decision emerged.
Neo-scholastics such as Vitoria and Suárez sought to encapsulate and
refine the work of Augustine and Aquinas in light of the sweeping social
transformations wrought by the Reformation and, later, the Enlighten-
ment. Their efforts were primarily aimed at further edification of the
moral and ethical duties attendant in commissioning various forms of
war, development of the ‘prudential’ aspects of the jus ad bellum con-
vention for use (with some discretion) by decision-makers, and acknow-
ledgement of the dilemmas associated with war’s initiation (and, later, its
conduct) within a changing social environment (Johnson, 1975).
One embodiment of this important turn in the just war tradition was
the moral distinction drawn between ‘defensive’ and ‘offensive’ wars.
Reflecting the iterative nature of the just war conversation, this dis-
tinction was not new, receiving attention in both Hebrew and Roman
thought; what was new was the extent to which the medievalists
openly acknowledged and contended with the moral indeterminacy
associated with each. On the former score, defensive wars were defined
as military responses prompted by an armed attack against a pacific and
innocent society; these, medieval just war theorists contended, require no
special moral justification, as their legitimacy was self-evident (Vitoria,
1991). The practical implications of this conclusion were nothing less
than revolutionary, since the logical extension, writ large in Vitoria’s
De Indis et De Jure Belli, was that non-Christian sovereign authorities (such
as the indigenous peoples of the Americas) could wage ‘just wars’ they
were prompted by self-defense (Vitoria, 1917). Suárez’s reaffirmation that
26 Selling a ‘Just’ War
all peoples and nations had a basic right to defend themselves furthered
this unprecedented recasting of the just war tradition towards a con-
cern with the pursuit and conduct of war even relative to those peoples
generally considered ‘beyond the pale’.5
No less problematic was the subject of ‘offensive’ wars, defined by
the medievalists as an armed response to some perceived (rather than
actual) injury. It was through the introduction of the notion of ‘offen-
sive’ wars that medieval theorists ushered into the conversation the
possibility that a pre-emptive war launched by ‘legitimate’ authorities
is not ipso facto just, as was alleged relative to the Crusades.6 In defining
‘legitimate’ offensive wars as those representing an extension of self-
defense, the neo-scholastics infused into the just war tradition height-
ened debate over the notion and relative merits of retributive justice as
well as that of the ‘punishment of evil’ (or of non-believers) as a legitimate
casus belli.7
The distinction drawn by the neo-scholastics between defensive and
offensive wars highlights the degree to which they sought to confront
the trend of ecclesiastical authorities appropriating just war theory for
the purposes of justifying ‘offensive’ wars against opponents outside
Christendom, and to reclaim the original, restrictive orientation of just
war theory in the process. While they retained the Augustinian con-
ception that the only just cause for war was righting a previous wrong,
the neo-scholastics also drew from the philosophical complexity of Aquinas
in contending that not all wrongs provided sufficient grounds for war.
Further, while retaining the Augustinian contention that sovereigns rather
than subjects are responsible for ascertaining what constitutes a ‘just’
cause for war, they asserted that sovereign authorities are not and cannot
always be certain of what is just or unjust (Johnson, 1975; Norena, 1975).
These efforts by medieval just war theorists to contest the appro-
priation of the just war tradition to support military adventurism were
not rooted in a concern with theological or theoretical purity, but rather
pragmatism. In the end, the goal of the neo-scholastics was the pre-
servation of the influence of the Church and its teachings on social
behavior in the face of extant challenges.8 This pragmatic objective was
especially important with regard to the conduct of war, as a moral
quandary that was long subject to Church dictates. With challenges to
papal authority emanating from the Holy Roman Empire beginning in
the 11th century, and proliferating throughout much of medieval Europe
after the Reformation, the neo-scholastics feared that the era of theo-
logical jurisprudence was coming to a close, with weighty matters such
as the question of what makes a war ‘just’ no longer the sole province
Entering the Just War Conversation 27
Raison d’état
With the state emerging as the central vehicle of political authority in
the Treaty of Westphalia (an arrangement repeatedly reaffirmed there-
after, including at the Congress of Vienna), deliberation over the justice
of the war-decision was effectively banished from legal and political dis-
course. What emerged was something close to a tautology sparked by the
fusion of popular and state sovereignty in liberal thought and practice.
States were both the most powerful and most legitimate form of political
32 Selling a ‘Just’ War
authority; ipso facto, they should be able to act as they see fit, since
as powerful and legitimate representatives of the nation, their actions
would naturally be ‘just’ to the extent they reflected the popular will.
Within an international political environment where the construct of
‘the state’ possessed independent, unrivaled, and more or less unques-
tioned status, power, and responsibilities, the jus ad bellum convention
and the type of moral inquiry it represented possessed little relevance
(Forsyth, 1992).
The pre-eminent position afforded to the nation-state within the
second iteration of the ‘law of nations’ informed and affirmed the doc-
trine of raison d’état that dominated the war-decision and deliberation
about war throughout the 19th and early 20th century. It also reflected
the degree to which war, formerly a contest of honor and skill as well
as a display of power launched by vassals at the behest of monarchs
and waged through the proxy of knights and mercenaries, had come to
be harnessed under the yoke of the modern state. The emergence of
the state to a position as the primary unit of political organization
in the international system is closely intertwined with the evolution
of modern warfare; consider, for instance, such 19th century develop-
ments as the formation of professional standing armies to wage war,
the creation of public sector finance and the establishment of per-
manent systems of taxation to fund those armies and their military
campaigns, and especially the introduction of the convention of raison
d’état as a sufficient justification for war (Mann, 1993). It is yet further
affirmed by the degree to which the very authority of the state depended,
as Weber (1958) contended, on the possession of a monopoly on the
legitimate employment of organized violence.10 By virtue of possessing
this ‘monopoly’, the state was able to secure its interests and protect its
sovereignty while also advancing its position as the central actor on the
world stage—and by extension, the sole legitimate source of authority
over the war-decision.
Given the centrality of violence in the formation and evolution of
the modern state, it is not hard to envision how war came to be seen as
little more than another policy instrument in the toolkit of statesmen
(Clausewitz, 1984). The archetype of the Clausewitzian ‘old’ war held
that wars were the product of rational calculation. Political leaders
utilized the tools of the state over which they presided (professional
standing armies and national economies of scale) to deploy over-
whelming force against similarly organized opponents in a contest over
some discernable national interest(s). This dominant representation elim-
inated the need for deliberation about war (moral or otherwise) beyond
Entering the Just War Conversation 33
charge were radical British liberals such as H.N. Brailsford, J.A. Hobson,
T.H. Green, and David Lloyd George, all of whom identified the chief
foreign policy concern of Britain and indeed all liberal societies as the
duty of defending and expanding liberal values, including national
self-determination. Contradicting the admonitions of Mill, Bentham,
and Richard Cobden on the dangers inherent in foreign intervention
(admonitions which Hobson rejected and Brailsford condemned as a
‘sterile and impracticable ideal’; Leventhal, 1974), British liberals were
particularly eager to employ force across the Continent in the face of per-
sistent challenges to liberal ideals by barbarous (Ottoman) and backward
(Russian) empires (Dangerfield, 1997).
In the American context, this radical liberal internationalism took
root in the jingoistic ‘New Whiggery’ that defined American foreign
policy in the latter half of the 19th century, linking imperial ambition
with liberal ideology (Hartz, 1955; Bukovansky, 2002). The sense of
natural duty ascribed to a dynamic liberal republic such as the United
States provided the ideological firmament necessary to transform the
US into a major world power after the Spanish-American War, while at
the same time exposing the peculiar contradiction of a liberal society
bent on expanding its ideals through force of arms. As in Gladstone’s
England, appeals to the just war tradition in constructing an argument
in favor of the use of force (rather than one seeking to limit it) helped
reconcile this contradiction. President McKinley, in promoting war
with Spain over Cuba in 1898, rooted the debate in moral universalism,
contending the necessity of the war stemmed from ‘obligations we can-
not disregard’ (McKinley, 1898; quoted in Hunt, 1987: 38). More explic-
itly, control of the spoils of this obligation (annexation and control of
Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines) represented a ‘great trust’ carried
by the nation ‘under the providence of God and in the name of human
progress and civilization’ (ibid.). Similarly, turn-of-the-century Senator
Albert Beveridge (R-Indiana) argued in favor of a moral duty to undertake
the Spanish-American War to subdue and defeat the ‘infidels to the gospel
of liberty’ (Beveridge, 1908).13
In light of this radical liberal appropriation of the just war tradition,
‘just causes’ were readily advanced in conjunction with the war-decisions
of the late 19th and early 20th century, including (but not limited to)
the use of force to promote self-determination for the Serbs and Bul-
garians living under Ottoman rule, the liberation of Italy from Austrian
control, and the ‘civilization’ of Cuba and the Philippines. So it was that
liberal statesmen could condemn imperialism while participating in
the Boxer Rebellion and the Boer War, champion international peace
36 Selling a ‘Just’ War
action rather than arguing for its limitation. Prompted largely by revul-
sion to the internal nature of fascist regimes as well to their increas-
ingly belligerent conduct in foreign relations, Western liberals returned
anew to the language and logic of jus ad bellum as a means to justify
the use of force. Even before the Nazi assault on Poland that sparked
World War II, such appeals demonstrated a broader resonance and greater
potential for majority support than did preceding efforts to recycle the
just war tradition into a framework to constrain war. This was due in
no small part to the growing perception that confronting fascism was
a moral duty in that it was the only hope for a lasting peace.15 Indeed, as
Howard (1978) contends, it was largely the pangs of liberal conscience
alongside a militant dedication to the correction of injustice through
whatever means necessary that closed the book on pacifism after Hitler’s
dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.
World War II represented a historical watershed in the just war ‘conver-
sation’. Throughout the first half of the century, the linkage between
moral deliberation and the use of force was used instrumentally by
Western liberal states as a means of justifying an activist, messianic liber-
alism committed to demonstrating the dangers of non-intervention. Even
the horrors of World War I only led to a temporary abatement in this
practice, with the aberration of the counter-point of the 1920s pass-
ing quickly away with the advent of the fascist threat in the 1930s.
Undoubtedly due to this gradual buildup of moral justifications for the
use of military force by Western liberal democracies throughout the first
four decades of the 20th century, World War II proved to be the most
prominent example of a modern war sustained by direct and frequent
appeals to the just war tradition (Walzer, 1977). The prominence of this
representation of the war is borne out both by the degree to which it
remains the ‘gold standard’ for a just war in the Western popular ima-
gination, as well as by the extent of historical revisionism and myth-
making which has obscured the evident fact that, in just war terms, the
war was one of the least justly prosecuted wars in history (ibid.).
In the view of Allied leaders and publics alike, the war itself was
justified by transgressions against the ‘law of nations’ by the Axis powers
(both in their internal and external conduct). Those transgressions, ubiq-
uitous and chilling on the part of the Axis powers, allowed for an exceed-
ingly convincing case to be made that the conditions precipitating the
war were ‘just’ in accordance with the ad bellum convention (though
perhaps the most ‘just’ of the war’s just causes, the systematic atrocities
carried out against Jews and others by the Nazi regime, hardly registered
in the calculations of the Allies to declare war). This claim was crucial
Entering the Just War Conversation 39
The influence of the just war tradition on the ‘law of armed conflict’
generated after World War II was also evident in the Charter’s explicit
articulation of the (limited) possibility for exceptions to the rule of
non-intervention. Such exceptions were only permissible in conjunc-
tion with authorization from the Security Council, as mandated under
Article VII. Extending the sole custodial obligation to attend to threats
to ‘international peace and security’ to the Security Council is parti-
cularly significant, since it reflects the intention of the UN’s architects
to embed within the Security Council the ‘competent’ or legitimate
authority of a sovereign—an authority crucial to the classical (natural
law-based) interpretation of just war theory, and one that had been long
missing from the just war ‘conversation’ (Claude, 1961; Nardin, 1992).20
Accordingly, and in line with classical translations of the ad bellum
convention, the use of force was held out as acceptable and legitimate
in two primary instances: in self-defense by the victim of an attack,
Entering the Just War Conversation 41
and in collective defense of the victim of that attack by other (or all)
states.
The reliance on the jus ad bellum convention even in articulating
possible exceptions to the principle of non-intervention further con-
veys the impact of the just war tradition in advancing and shaping the
‘law of armed conflict’ as well as prevailing norms concerning the use
of force in the post-World War II international system (Gray, 2008).
Reflecting the changed perception of the UN’s (primarily Western liberal)
architects toward the war-decision, the institution of the United Nations
and the international order it seeks to promote remain prime embodi-
ments of the return of the jus ad bellum convention in a restrictive sense
to international political discourse and to the ongoing effort to con-
strain the use of force by states. Rather than drawing from the just
war tradition instrumentally to provide moral ‘cover’ for the pursuit
of messianic liberalism and/or raison d’état, the explicit intention of
the UN’s architects in rehabilitating the restrictive version of the jus ad
bellum to international law and organization was to provide a (secular)
natural law basis for the definition and provision of collective security.
In doing so, they hoped to provide a moral and legal basis for the pre-
vailing view that, in the future, attempts to alter the status quo or
advance the interests of the state through the unsanctioned use of
force should be considered illegal and worthy of sanction (Cohen,
1989). As such, one can safely conclude that the just war tradition
helps underpin a legal and normative framework that has survived the
Cold War and which remains largely intact today, shortcomings and
challenges to it notwithstanding.
that metaphor seeks to describe. Still, in the end, the modern resur-
gence of the just war tradition undoubtedly has much to do with its
relevance and perceived utility for the politics of signification and the
reconciliation of the war-decision with the professed values of liberal
societies. As an instrument for that reconciliation, it is to the process
of framing, and specifically the mechanism of the ‘just war frame’, that
I now turn.
3
Framing, Foreign Policy, and
Just Wars
While extant changes in the views of liberal societies toward the prac-
tice of war suggest that the utility and by extension the practice of war
could or perhaps should be in jeopardy in the United States (and poten-
tially other liberal societies), this is clearly not the case. The origins of
the reason it is not, I contend, can be found in the continued prom-
inence of the just war tradition and the discursive forum it provides
for considerations of and arguments for war’s continued legitimacy.
Yet beyond that sustained and even resurgent ‘conversation’ concern-
ing the acceptable conditions for war in modern liberal societies, it is
the concerted effort of foreign policy decision-makers to tap into that
tradition in seeking to ‘frame’ decisions to go to war that provides the
crucial animus for war’s persistence and prominence.
As the analytical device at the heart of this research, framing occupies
a crucial space as a bridge between foreign policy decisions and society,
in the process telling us much about the reciprocal interplay between the
two. In seeking to systematically investigate the constellation of ideas,
values, beliefs, and symbols that decision-makers rely on in order to frame
(and legitimize) the decision to employ military force in response to for-
eign policy crises, the concept of framing provides a logical starting point.
What are frames? How are they made and used, and to what end? How
do they differ in their defining characteristics and effects—and how do
we evaluate them, particularly within a foreign policy context?
Defining frames
46
Framing, Foreign Policy, and Just Wars 47
Process models
As frames lie at the heart of a process by which ‘…people develop a
particular conceptualization of an issue or reorient their thinking about
an issue’ (Chong and Druckman, 2007: 104), the manner in which frames
are constructed itself demands attention, if for no other reason than to
gain purchase as to how and why that conceptualization or reorientation
is advanced. Perhaps not surprisingly, views of frame construction vary in
accordance with the prevailing view of what is important about frames
from a functional standpoint. For instance, Scheufele (1999) offers a ratio-
nal and orderly conception of the framing process, with frames advanced
sequentially along the trajectory of frame building (introduction) and
setting (consolidation), proceeding through individual-level filtering and
processing, and finally circulating back from audiences to the media and
opinion leaders who originated the frame. Such a linear depiction is
Framing, Foreign Policy, and Just Wars 53
tive to consider the criteria by which frame applications can be and are
evaluated.
The application of any frame (irrespective of content) is first dictated by
the perception of its authors and articulators that it will be well received
in the target audience(s) to which the frame is directed. In this vein,
Chong and Druckman (2007) advance three key conditions which frame
authors and articulators must (and do) take into account: the considera-
tion(s), concept(s), or idea(s) which lie at the heart of the frame and make
up its message must already be stored in individual memories; they must
have ‘activation potential’ (meaning, they must be readily accessible by
those individuals); and they must be relevant or applicable to the situ-
ation at hand (e.g., to the ‘real world’ empirical problem, solution, or
strategy around which the framing agent seeks to construct mean-
ing). Not surprisingly, in seeking to effectively satisfy these three con-
ditions, framing agents often resort to symbols, ideological appeals, or
other heuristic devices as a supplement to (or even in lieu of) the direct
delivery of substantive information. As Chong and Druckman conceive of
it, the application of a frame is decidedly contingent on the alignment of
these three conditions, in point of fact resembling art as much as science:
…people draw their opinions from the set of available beliefs stored
in memory. Only some beliefs become accessible at a given moment.
Out of the set of accessible beliefs, only some are strong enough to be
judged relevant or applicable to the subject at hand. Framing can work
on all three levels, by making new beliefs available about an issue,
making certain available beliefs accessible, or making beliefs applicable
or ‘strong’ in people’s evaluations. (Chong and Druckman, 2007: 111)
Credibility
As Downs (1957) notes, the credibility of leaders is an essential consid-
eration taken into account by the public when seeking reliable cues on
complex issues, serving as a shortcut that reduces information-gathering
costs. Frame credibility is in actuality a dual phenomenon, reflected both
in the degree to which the intended audience(s) finds the content or
message of the frame credible, as well as to by the level or extent of
the credibility of the architects of the frame among audience members.
56 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Obviously, these two conditions are closely intertwined, and indeed the
credibility of frame architects might even be considered a necessary
(though not sufficient) and logically a priori requirement for assessing the
credibility of any frame in application. If we are to understand those who
construct and advance a frame as in some sense ‘moral entrepreneurs’
(Zald, 1996: 269), or even merely policy entrepreneurs involved in the
‘politics of signification’, then it would seem that the credibility of the
claim-maker in the view of the audience is essential to the credibility of
the claim being advanced.4
In seeking to operationalize credibility with respect to the importance
of frame architects, Lupia (2000) rightfully points to two critical consider-
ations: one, that the target audience(s) must believe that the frame archi-
tect(s) possess knowledge about what considerations are most relevant to
the issue(s) at hand; and two, that the target audience(s) believe that the
architect(s) can be trusted to reveal what he/she/they actually knows with
respect to that issue (or issues). Thus, the credibility of the frame architect
is derived from perceptions that she or he is an authority on the issue or
subject at hand––but at the same time, an authority that is perceived to
operate in a forthright manner, and one who is not entirely motivated by
self-interest.
In light of the substance of the frame itself, two factors must be taken
into account when evaluating frame credibility. The first is the internal
harmony of the claims, ideas, beliefs, or values advanced by a frame (e.g.,
frame consistency). Not surprisingly, a frame advancing incompatible or
even contradictory information is unlikely to make the grade, such that
the audience is likely to discredit it out of hand. The second relevant
factor with respect to the substantive credibility of a frame is the degree
to which those claims, ideas, beliefs, and values central to the frame (the
frame’s ‘message’) comport with and are verified by the actual events
in the ‘real world’ that they are designed to filter, interpret, and organize
in meaningful, and meaning-filled, ways (e.g., empirical credibility). In
evaluating the credibility of frames on these grounds, we are reminded of
the significant role for agency in the framing process, at both ends of that
spectrum. If frames reflect an effort to construct social knowledge, the
knowledge they project must be both logically coherent and empirically
grounded in the judgment of the intended audience(s) in order to serve
that function.
Salience
A second, and closely related, criterion for evaluating any frame is the
relative salience of the frame under examination. The first determinant
Framing, Foreign Policy, and Just Wars 57
Dynamism
The third major consideration in assessing the application of a frame is
the level of dynamism it does or does not exhibit. To a much greater
degree than the preceding criteria (credibility and salience), this con-
sideration attempts to capture the extent to which a frame’s content
can be (and is) manipulated by the frame architect, thereby reflecting
58 Selling a ‘Just’ War
the idea that frames are not static but evolutionary. There are two
parallel axes on which frame dynamism can be evaluated: inclusivity/
exclusivity and flexibility/rigidity. As Benford and Snow (2000) point
out, frames that demonstrate greater inclusivity (that is, frames that fea-
ture a message with the potential for wide applicability across multiple
social strata, including race, class, gender, and age) and greater flexibility
(e.g., frames with a message that can be adapted to accommodate diver-
gent strains within the target audience, without losing features contribut-
ing to their credibility and salience) are more likely to attain (and retain)
the resonance necessary to achieve ‘master frame’ status (discussed in
greater detail below). Conversely, a frame constructed in such a fashion
that it is saddled with intrinsic limitations (whether in the potential appeal
of its particular signification, or in the potential for that signification to
be modified) is unlikely to attain that degree of resonance.
In this way, the extent to which a frame can be or is adapted to accom-
modate a broader audience without losing the essence of its signification
is a crucial measure of its utility. Further, as Swart (1995) suggests, frame
dynamism is intricately linked to credibility and especially salience; it
stands to reason that the more adaptive the frame is in application, the
more likely audience members will identify consistencies and continuities
between their own beliefs and experiences and those highlighted by the
frame. Suggesting the iterative and reciprocal aspects of effective framing,
the more dynamic the frame (that is, the more inclusive and flexible
it proves to be in application), the greater chance it has for achieving
fidelity with the relevant prevailing cultural narrative; its very adaptation
increases its prospects for survival, resonance, and by extension its chances
to reinforce (or revise) that narrative.
Limits to effectiveness
As Benford and Snow (2000: 618–619) point out, frames which attain and
retain high levels of salience are viewed as thoroughly credible, and per-
haps most importantly are open to the prospect of revision. Such frames
are dynamic and adaptable enough to be considered ‘master frames’. Those
frames that do attain ‘master frame’ status demonstrate a combined elas-
ticity and breadth such that they are thought to subsume other, more
limited and targeted frames and appeal to a far-reaching swath of society,
as a function of their resonance throughout the prevailing socio-historical
milieu in which they were introduced and in which they operate. Few
frames can be said to attain and sustain such a lofty and rarified position,
with even strongly resonant frames rarely achieving the unique and
tenuous balance of message and messenger credibility, overlap with the
Framing, Foreign Policy, and Just Wars 59
As Fiss and Hirsch (2005: 31) point out, through a fusion of the concern
with the cognitive processing and decision-making process of individuals
involved in ‘sense-making’ with an explicit recognition of the role of
structural factors in shaping that endeavor, frame analysis allows us to
explore the politics of signification with respect to the affirmative war-
decision in a novel but contextually sensitive way. The construction and
application of a frame for application to the affirmative war-decision, as
with any policy decision, may be undertaken for various purposes. Most
prominent among these are: forging a shared understanding of some
problem or situation; making attributions about the causes of or sources
of said problem or situation; articulating a response to that problem or
situation, and; urging members of the audience to which the frame is
being applied to act, typically in accordance with that articulated, favored
response (Benford and Snow, 2000).
64 Selling a ‘Just’ War
just war theory but also the larger narrative tradition enveloping them
within liberal societies, the supposition that a signifying frame drawn
from and dependent on the centuries-old theory of a just war plays the
predominant role in the legitimization of the use of force within American
society appears wholly plausible and worthy of further consideration.
Yet as the preceding consideration of the just war ‘conversation’ also
illustrates, the notion of a ‘just’ war, like the practice of war in general,
is a social construct central to and largely produced and shaped by that
very conversation. In dispensing with the understanding of the just
war as an objective theoretical proposition (and the fixed and rigorous
standards ostensibly associated with such a proposition) and instead
embracing the evolutionary and inherently social (read: subjective)
nature of the ‘just war’, it follows that a ‘just’ war is any war waged in
accordance with the standards that the majority of the members of the
society in question perceive or accept as legitimate. As such, one must
acknowledge (as just war thinkers dating at least to Augustine have)
that the representation of what constitutes a legitimate and socially
permissible war within the just war tradition, while central and essen-
tial to that tradition, has never been sacrosanct in application (Wells, 1969).
If we accept the logical proposition of constructivist theory expressed in the
pithy slogan ‘anarchy is what states make of it’ (Wendt, 1992), and infuse
that proposition with an equivalent appreciation for the empirical reality
that war is a frequent by-product of the permissive conditions entailed
by the anarchical structure of the international system, then it stands to
reason that the social practice of war (including, if not especially, the pre-
sentation of a rationale for the decision to go to war) is defined by an
inter-subjective understanding primarily directed by the state and its
leaders (Finnemore, 2003).6
While just war theory itself is arrayed around paramount concerns with
the circumstances in which the decision to go to war may be justified
(the ad bellum criteria), the parameters of acceptable and unacceptable
conduct during war (the in bello criteria), and the just termination and
settlement of war (the post bellum criteria), the just war tradition is better
understood as a bellweather reflecting the prevailing social norms envelop-
ing the practice of war at any given time period. In other words, if the
specific criteria associated with just war theory have remained essentially
constant over the centuries, the application of those standards (which is
the chief concern of this research) can be and has been renegotiated in
conjunction with changing social practices, conditions, and structures
(O’Driscoll, 2008). It is precisely this social (and, by definition, subjective
and mutable) dimension of the just war tradition that makes the just war
66 Selling a ‘Just’ War
tice to defend the hegemonic order and rules undergirding it, parti-
cularly when challenges to that order or rules occur in an overt sphere
of US interest (Windsor, 1984).8 Within the hegemonic power frame,
the affirmative war-decision represents a paramount service over which
the US enjoys a monopoly or near-monopoly, but from which other
states benefit. As Leurdijk notes, the use of military force by the US
throughout the 20th century tended to be advanced in conjunction
with established and publicly articulated doctrines helping to ‘…for-
mulate more or less explicitly the conditions of interference in the
internal affairs of other states…frequently their geographical sphere of
action can also be inferred from them’ (1986: 201).
Finally, a third alternative framing of the affirmative war-decision
within the American foreign policy context rests on notions of ideo-
logical conflict, with the decision to employ military force framed in
terms suggestive of a zealous desire to spread liberal, free-market demo-
cracy combined with the perceived need to convey resolve to real
or potential adversaries (Kegley, 1994; Katz, 1991; Huntington, 1987).
Even a hardened realist such as Morgenthau conceded that ideology
provided a unique and compelling frame for the decision to employ
military force, noting that ‘…interventions serving national power inter-
ests have sometimes been masked by the ideologies of communism
and anti-communism’ (1967: 428). The English school theorist Hedley
Bull advanced a similar point, arguing that wars ‘have and will always
be fought to promote ideological objectives…in the post-1945 period
[they] have been fought to advance communism and its inverse and to
liberate peoples from colonial rule…resort to war to spread an ideology
has typically taken the form of intervention’ (1977: 188–189). Within
the American context, typical applications of this frame are associated
with the embrace of the economic and military leadership of the Western
alliance after World War II, with the bold pronouncements of the Truman
and Reagan Doctrines concerning the legitimate use of American military
might representing convincing (if anecdotal) evidence to that effect.
The possibility that frames other than those derived from the just war
tradition might be employed within the context of contemporary American
society to affix meaning and legitimize the decision to use military force
highlights an important ‘wrinkle’ in this analysis. If framing can be under-
stood as a process used to ‘sell’ major foreign policy decisions (such as
the decision to go to war) to domestic audiences, this begs the question
as to what (if any) frame is most effective—and, by extension, what ideas,
values, beliefs, and symbols populate that frame. By investigating not
whether but rather how the just war frame is applied in conjunction with
70 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Frame function
What explains the broad and enduring resonance and appeal of a
seemingly antiquated construct such as the ‘just war’ within contem-
porary American society, such that it can be translated into a palatable
frame affixed to such a controversial and high-stakes decision? The
answer to this question resides in the Aristotlean notion of praxis and
its importance to the concept of natural philosophy, an endeavor pur-
sued by Aristotle in seeking answers to timeless concerns including
(at least in a rudimentary sense) the defining conditions of a ‘just war’
(Hamburger, 1951). In a philosophical departure from his mentor
Plato, Aristotle contended that universal concepts such as justice could
be divined in the particular (e.g., within the defined parameters of
71
72 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Frame components
At its core, the just war tradition is concerned with the very same
dilemma as the decision-makers who draw upon it to frame the war-
decision—defining the conditions that make war legitimate and accept-
Analyzing the Just War Frame 73
able for the society considering or embarking upon war. Unlike other
prevailing representations of the war-decision, the just war tradition
meets a manifest need by providing a clear, appealing, and culturally
resonant mechanism for defining the use of force as an acceptable,
legitimate, and perhaps even obligatory exercise. As such, it provides
the intellectual, rhetorical, and moral firmament needed to ‘frame’ war
as an appropriate, legitimate, and even desirable ‘solution’ to some
extant problem or problems confronting society. What then does that
frame consist of?
par with the goals prompting the use of force. Lacking definitive empir-
ical referents, the prudential criteria resonate deeply in the internalized
logic of the decision-maker, and thus relate to the thought processes and
calculations of the actors contemplating the use of force rather than the
public representation of the conditions or characteristics legitimizing war
in the view of those actors (Johnson, 1999). While fully relevant from the
standpoint of an abstract morality, such concerns next to impossible to
analyze empirically.3
Because they speak directly to the concerns of this research and are
easier to operationalize and empirically analyze, the basic criteria of the
jus ad bellum (just cause, competent authority, and right intention) pro-
vide the form and content for the just war frame. Causes of war are gener-
ally established publicly by the protagonist, while legitimate sanctioning
authority is (at least in the historical period of concern here), typically
a matter of public record; even the most potentially problematic of the
three (right intention) can be gauged at least to some degree by assessing
the statements of decision-makers prior to committing military force. As
such, these three criteria are at once both strongly representative of just
war thinking relative to the war-decision, and equally as useful from the
standpoint of systematic empirical research.
Just cause
Possessing just cause is the first and arguably most important jus
ad bellum requirement. In essence it serves as the catalyst for war, since
logically the just cause condition must be satisfied before the actor(s)
contemplating the use of force can proceed to other considerations—an
observation first drawn by Aquinas in Question 40 of the Summa theo-
logiae (1952). The most common translation of ‘just cause’ is that of
self-defense in the face of aggression, with the latter representing an
unacceptable act both in customary and treaty law (including, but not
limited to, the UN Charter). This is hardly surprising, given the near
uniform agreement among just war theorists that unprovoked acts of
aggression by one state or political entity against another is unjust and
inherently provides the transgressed party or parties with a just cause
for military retaliation.4
This contention has been embedded, with the help of liberal thought,
into the norms and laws of the contemporary international political
system via an extension of the social contract idea(l).5 However, wide-
spread agreement about the ‘just cause’ of self-defense breaks down with
respect to the standard for aggression necessitating self-defense, undoubt-
edly as a function of the larger debate over what constitutes aggression in
76 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Competent authority
Aquinas was the first to focus extensively on authorization for the war-
decision, articulating the criterion establishing the rightful standard-
bearers of the awful responsibility to recourse by the sword. This endeavor
has remained front-and-center within the just war tradition, reflecting the
degree to which the just war tradition has been and remains concerned
with determining the source of legitimate authorization for the resort to
war, as well as the extent to which considerations of the common good
have factored into that determination. Beginning with the attempts of
classical just war theorists to yoke the war-decision to a divine purpose,
considerations of competent authority have held fast to the notion that
the war-decision is a matter suitable for consideration only by the supreme
political authority. Because the sovereign possesses the primary respons-
ibility to provide for the security and welfare of its subjects/citizens, includ-
ing their protection through force of arms when necessary, competent
Analyzing the Just War Frame 77
authority over the war-decision must necessarily and only reside with
the sovereign. Moreover, regardless of form, a true sovereign authority
has no superior, meaning that logically speaking no other authority is
qualified or even able to rule on the war-decision (Johnson, 1999).
In so demarcating legitimate agency over the war-decision, the crit-
erion of competent authority has proved instrumentally valuable to
existing and established sources of political authority, propelling the
social practice and societal perception of war toward centralization under
the guise of the state.8 With the ascent of liberalism and associated notions
of representative government and national self-determination, the com-
petency of the state to deal with the war-decision was only further rein-
forced. In the liberal view the right of the sovereign state to rule on
questions of war rests on the consent of the governed, consent typically
extended in conjunction with the state’s fulfillment of its own obliga-
tions via the social contract (Walzer, 1970). By virtue of the fact that it
governs in a transparent and accountable fashion, the most competent
authority for the war-decision in contemporary liberal thought is the
liberal republic. Conversely, the more removed a state is from this form
of governing arrangement, the less disposed it is to maintain its end of
the social contract—thereby undermining its claim to sovereignty and by
extension its competence to rule on matters of war, particularly if the
state in question is corrupt and rules arbitrarily (Weiss and Hubert, 2001).
The repository of competent authority over the war-decision has
clearly evolved over time from church to emperor to sovereign state to
liberal republic. What this suggests in light of the changing nature of
power and authority in the international system is the possibility of
emergent sources of competent authority apart from the state. Given
their composition as member-state organizations as well as their liberal
ideological bent, perhaps the strongest prospects in this vein are the
varied and expanding organs of regional, international, and supra-
national governance populating the contemporary international land-
scape. As embodied in the norms and institutions of the post-World
War II international system, the pre-eminence of the notion of col-
lective security makes it possible to advance a plausible claim that
political units residing ‘above’ the level of the state—most notably the
United Nations—possess some modicum of legitimate authority rela-
tive to the war-decision.9 Undoubtedly, the UN Security Council does
not possess sovereign authority as typically understood within the pur-
views of classical just war theory, nor is such authority embedded within
other international and regional governing organizations. Yet contem-
porary just war theorists have proven increasingly receptive to the idea
78 Selling a ‘Just’ War
that in the event that they reflect a broad consensus among their member-
states on the legitimacy of a particular application of military force, such
organizations may provide a supplementary source of competent authority
(Kelsen, 1964; Regan, 1996).10
Right intention
Satisfaction of the right intention criterion requires a concern with secur-
ing just outcomes on the part of those authorizing the resort to war. As
such, the resort to war cannot be considered legitimate if narrow self-
interest is paramount in the decision-making calculus, and subsumes, dis-
places, or otherwise unduly impacts considerations of justice inherent in
the other jus ad bellum criteria. Since the just war tradition has stemmed
from and continues to adhere to the idea that the practice of war is
always undesirable (even if it can be justified as a permissible last resort
in some cases), the decision to go to war must be accompanied by a pre-
vailing concern on the part of decision-makers with securing and pro-
moting just, orderly, and peaceful outcomes in advance of their decision
to commit military force.
As in the more prominent translations of ‘just cause’ discussed above,
the right intention criterion has historically been elaborated in a two-
dimensional fashion. In the negative sense, ‘right intention’ refers to the
avoidance of ill intent or motivation when launching a war; as Augustine
described it, the need to avoid ‘the passion for inflicting harm, the cruel
thirst for vengeance, an unpacific and relentless spirit…’ (Johnson, 1999:
33). Acting in accordance with right intention requires decision-makers to
eschew the naked use of aggression solely or chiefly in pursuit of national
interest, aggrandizement, or the extension of a particular ideology (Phillips,
1984). In its positive connotation, the criterion refers to a more proactive
goal, namely serving the ends of justice in the temporal sphere through
the use of force. In revisiting Augustine, ‘…true religion looks upon as
peaceful those wars that are waged not for motives of aggrandizement
or cruelty, but with the object of securing peace, of punishing evil, and of
uplifting the good’ (Johnson, 1999: 33).
While both the negative and positive translations of right intention
were initially developed to govern the conduct of individual warriors,
since Aquinas’ time it has been applied to the dispatch of the war-
decision by sovereign political authorities. Evaluation of the criterion
has proven a thorny problem, however, given the difficulty of accu-
rately gauging the intentions of statesmen relative to the war-decision.
This difficulty in discerning right intention has increased alongside the
increased opacity of the modern state, in which the intentional effects
of justice and interest calculations (not to mention the relationship
Analyzing the Just War Frame 79
Indicator Signification/Representation
Just cause
Competent authority
Right intention
Just cause
The notion of just cause is the catalyst for the jus ad bellum convention
in its conventional application as a war-decision law, representing a
necessary and sufficient condition for further deliberation and poten-
tial action. The most common translations of ‘just cause’ include the
defense of the innocent against wrongful attack, the reclamation of
persons, property, or other things of value which were wrongly taken,
and the punishment of fundamentally ‘evil’ acts against humanity (Walzer,
1977). The multiple forms that this catalytic criterion can assume sim-
ilarly require multiple translations when seeking to approximate the
place of ‘just causes’ relative to the framing of affirmative war-decisions.
The indicators introduced here as approximations of just cause there-
fore can be grouped in accordance with these three broad categories.
This aspect of the just cause criterion attests to the presence of a wrongful
attack against innocent parties, which in turn justifies the use of military
force in response. In light of this, a public representation of a ‘wrongful
attack’ on innocent parties is likely to hinge on assertions of a self-defense
imperative and/or the commission of a direct act of violence as the trigger
for a foreign policy crisis. Important as well to this representation of a just
cause are assertions of a significant discrepancy in power (including, but
not limited to, broad discrepancies in GDP, geographic size, military
expenditures, and so forth) between the actor(s) triggering a crisis and the
actor(s) targeted by that protagonist—such that those under attack are at
a demonstrable disadvantage, denoting them at least as disadvantaged
victims, if not ‘innocent’.
As noted above, the principle of just cause for a resort to war is most
often characterized (and possibly most easily understood) when that
cause is a defense against wrongful attack. Apart from defending the
‘innocent’, another important translation of just cause is as a means to
82 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Punishment of evil
– authoritarian/military regime involvement
– response to/punishment of ‘evil’
Competent authority
– Global authority
– Regional authority
– Target authority
Right intention
– last resort
– post-hoc satisfaction
– post-hoc tension
– formality of outcome
– pace of abatement
Analytical scope
and whether and to what extent it can be said that it is an effective means
for generating and sustaining broad societal support for war. Identifying
the extent of the application of the just war frame to affirmative war-
decisions, as well as variations in the degree to which different translations
of the frame are applied or not in particular cases, helps to go beyond
the anecdotal accounts that suggest (but by definition cannot ‘prove’) the
ubiquity of just war language and logic in contemporary American foreign
policy discourse.
Affirmative war-decisions
The central concern with how the just war frame is applied to the
decision to go to war necessitates difficult choices concerning what
to include and what to exclude from the present analysis. For starters,
it requires ruling out instances of major decision-events wherein the
prospect of war was considered but war did not actually occur. The
rationale for this decision is relatively straightforward; after all, it is war
and its social status, perceived legitimacy, and especially the effort to sell
it to domestic audiences by those launching it that are of chief concern
here. Therefore, examining the justification of the decision to go to war
through the application of the just war frame by default requires a narrow
purview in which only ‘affirmative’ war-decisions are relevant, and are
analyzed on an ex post facto basis for the degree to which they featured
the just war frame and its various components.
This makes sense not only from a logical standpoint, but also given the
object of concern to the just war frame and the ‘conversation’ from
which it is derived. The just war frame and conversation have little if any
relevance for actions short of war. Similarly, my interest in extending the
notion of framing to the war-decision stems from a logical assumption
that framing as a concept and process can shed new light on the manner
in which war is being ‘sold’ by decision-makers to domestic audiences.
Given that decision-makers can’t and don’t seek to frame or ‘sell’ actions
which they do not intend to undertake (they would seemingly have no
reason to), and since we can’t analyze the outcomes of events which did
not happen, the case for an ex post facto analysis of the just war frame
after the decision to go to war has been rendered seems clear.14
In focusing on only one branch of a dichotomous decision tree, the
approach undertaken here raises the possibility of selection bias relative
to the decision-events included (and excluded) from the analysis. That
potential selection bias is offset by the fact that this is not an analysis
of the causes or catalysts of the foreign policy decision from which that
decision tree springs (e.g., the resort to war), which is to be sure well-
Analyzing the Just War Frame 87
trod ground (James and Hristoulas, 1994; DeRouen, 1995; Wang, 1996;
Fordham, 1998; Meernik, 2001; Mitchell and Moore, 2002; Brulé, 2008;
Koch and Sullivan, 2010). Rather, this study attempts to foray in a less
traveled direction by examining the attempt to manage the effects of
that decision once it is made by those who made it, through the con-
struction of an appealing rationale to engender support for it. In return-
ing to the metaphor one final time, this analysis does not set out to
explain why the war (as opposed to ‘not-war’) branch of the decision-tree
is actualized, but rather how those who make that decision contend with
the related problem of how best to justify it to the domestic audience.
decision leaders to draw upon the just war tradition to garner support for
post-Cold War military engagements, typically with great success (Russett
and Starr, 1992; The Gallup Organization, February 1991). Such efforts,
which have long buttressed the decision to use military force have only
persisted and intensified since the end of the Cold War.15
Case selection
The determination to narrow the focus of this inquiry in the manner
outlined above has important ramifications for the design and exec-
ution of the research. The decisions to limit this study to affirmative
war-decisions rendered by US foreign policy decision-makers in response
to foreign policy crises occurring since the end of the Cold War, and to
solely analyze the application of the just war frame to those decisions,
are decisions which have direct ramifications for case selection—thereby
necessitating the formulation and application of several criteria used in
that process.
Primary criteria
The preliminary criteria used in determining the population of affirmative
war-decisions relevant for potential inclusion are that such decisions
must be made by the United States, and made since 1989.18 Beyond
that, two main selection criteria were employed to identify foreign
policy crises most relevant for this analysis; these criteria were that the
crisis must feature a direct, overt use of military force by the US and
that the US was a direct crisis actor. The former criterion is clearly crucial
to the execution of the research, in that excluding from potential con-
sideration decision-events in which the outcome was solely or primar-
Analyzing the Just War Frame 91
Secondary criteria
Having identified the general population of foreign policy crises per-
tinent to this analysis through application of the main selection criteria,
additional criteria were employed in order to winnow down this general
population to a more specific subset of cases that comport with the objec-
tives of this research. Where appropriate, these criteria feature a requisite
degree of variance in order to avoid selection bias. Whereas I see no prob-
lem in limiting a study of the just war frame only to cases of affirmative
war-decisions (in that the just war frame, like the tradition spawning it, is
solely concerned with war), other important factors associated with such
responses to foreign policy crises must necessarily be incorporated into
the research and allowed to vary.
One such factor is the geographic location/region in which the crisis
occurs. Analyzing cases of foreign policy crises occurring solely within
one geographic region (e.g., the Middle East) would equate with the
imposition of another limiting parameter on the study that might prove
counter-productive, in that any findings gleaned from the analysis
might be attributable to region-specific factors. Rather than seeking to
‘control’ for such potential variables, it seems more sensible to draw
upon cases which satisfy the two main selection criteria (US as direct
crisis actor; US employs overt direct military force) while also exhibiting
variance in terms of geographic dispersion.
Another secondary criteria in which intentional variance was crucial
was related to domestic politics; namely that of the Presidential adminis-
Analyzing the Just War Frame 93
any cases of crisis in which the triggering entity of the crisis was the US.
Logically, the concern with analyzing the framing of an affirmative war-
decision as a response to foreign policy crisis does not hold up if in fact
the US provoked the crisis. While the employment of the just war frame
relative to such cases would undoubtedly be worthy of further invest-
igation, the interest here in analyzing the construction of a rationale
around war-decisions in which American foreign policy decision-makers
retained a significant degree of discretion over the ‘choice’ to employ
military force necessitates excluding such cases from the present analysis.
The sole instance of a crisis occurring during the post-Cold War era
excluded on that basis was the IRAQ REGIME crisis (2002).24
In subjecting all foreign policy crises occurring since 1989 to the two
main selection criteria outlined above (direct overt use of military force
by US; US direct crisis actor) as well as evaluating those crises in light
of the secondary criteria identified here (variable geographic location
of crisis; variable party in power; crisis triggered by ‘grave’ threat; crisis
not triggered by US), three distinct foreign policy crises featuring affirm-
ative war-decisions presented themselves as profoundly appropriate
subjects for further inquiry: GULF WAR (1990–91); KOSOVO (1999);
AFGHANISTAN–USA (2001). In an aggregate sense all three cases meet
or surpass both the main and secondary conditions outlined above. Geo-
graphic variability is evident, with one crisis occurring in the Middle East,
one in the Balkans, and one in South-central Asia; so too do the crises
vary temporally across the period of study.25 Two cases featured affirmative
war-decisions by Republican Administrations (George H.W. Bush and
George W. Bush) and one by a Democratic Administration (Bill Clinton).
All three crises posed ‘grave’ threats in that they represented at a min-
imum a threat to US influence in the relevant regional subsystem and/or
global system (GULF WAR; KOSOVO), if not a threat of direct material
damage to the US (AFGHANISTAN–USA); additionally, none of the crises
were directly triggered by US actions. And, while all three cases featured
varying degrees of multilateral authorization and involvement, none
can be characterized as a predominantly multilateral operation; to the
contrary, the US was the catalyst for and operated with great latitude and
discretion in all three instances.
Research design
Methodology
The concern of this research with analyzing the socially constructed
notion of the ‘just war’ as the basis for a frame used to ‘sell’ war by US
Analyzing the Just War Frame 95
such as audience type and the chronology and evolution of the crisis on
the various dimensions of the frame (see Figure 4.1). This approach allows
for the generation of descriptive and inferential statistical data useful
for grounding and contextualizing the analysis of frame application. The
evaluation of the application of the just war frame in these three instances
of US military intervention drawn from over 400 speech-acts will also
allow for conclusions concerning the utility of the just war frame, and
by extension the importance of the just war tradition, in and for contem-
porary American foreign policy and society.
5
The Gulf War: Desert Shield, Desert
Storm
Crisis summary
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 was the first major
foreign policy crisis of the post-Cold War era for the United States
(see Table 5.1). Largely catching the White House unaware, the Iraqi
Pre-crisis/Crisis
Post-crisis
99
100 Selling a ‘Just’ War
As noted above, evident signs of tension between Iraq and Kuwait were
either missed or ignored by the Bush Administration prior to the crisis,
likely as a result of prevailing assumptions in the Administration con-
cerning the prospects of continuing accommodation with Saddam (Hess,
2009). Indeed, 1990 began with the President’s hailing of the inclusion
of Iraq in the newly formed Arab Cooperation Council in a joint appear-
ance with President Ali Abdullah Salih of Yemen on 24 January. Even
Saddam’s oblique threat of a chemical weapons attack on Israel in April
inspired only a dismissal by the President and top aides (Smith, 1992). As
one would expect, the larger narrative surrounding events in the Gulf
changed significantly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. How did the Bush
Administration interpret those events, and more importantly project
their interpretations, through Presidential rhetoric?
Pre-crisis
The first official public reaction to the Iraqi invasion from the President
on the day of the attack was muted (Smith, 1992). Channeling the
pragmatism of realpolitik, Bush noted that the Administration ‘…view[ed]
the situation with the utmost gravity…and remain[s] committed to take
steps necessary to defend our longstanding, vital interests in the Gulf’,
while quickly shifting the focus to the recent release of an American
hostage in the Philippines (Bush, 1990a). Pressed by UPI’s Helen Thomas,
Bush seemed to dismiss the prospects of military action:
Later that same day, in a joint appearance with British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher at the Aspen Institute, Bush remained tempered in
response to a leading question from a reporter concerning Saddam Hussein:
region? Would you like to see him removed? And what can you do
about him? Mr. President, Saddam Hussein has been the source of
the most recent mischief in the region––nuclear triggers, missiles,
the big gun––as Prime Minister Thatcher knows about. Is he going
to be a constant source of problems there in that region?
These and other remarks by the President, Press Secretary Marlin Fitz-
water, and other top aides during the first week after the Iraqi invasion
repeatedly referred to that invasion as a ‘naked’ and ‘unacceptable’
aggression constituting a ‘flagrant violation of international law’ while
continually restating the conditions of an immediate and complete with-
drawal. All the while, the Administration steadfastly avoided any inti-
mation of war (‘just’ or otherwise), instead focusing on procedural matters
such as implementing sanctions, notifying Congress of the ‘national
emergency’, and engaging in coalition diplomacy.2
The discursive environment changed dramatically with the 8 August
1990 announcement of an initial deployment of over 50,000 US forces in
a defensive posture to Saudi Arabia. Bush opened that nationally televised
address with a claim of profoundly (and to that point in the crisis
unprecedented) moral dimensions, explaining his decision to commit
military forces at that early stage as a simple matter of right and wrong:
In the life of a nation, we’re called upon to define who we are and
what we believe…today as President, I ask for your support in a
decision I’ve made to stand up for what’s right and condemn what’s
wrong (Bush, 1990c; emphasis added).
The President then sought to drive this point home through invoking
historical analogy, likening the events in the Gulf to the concepts of
‘blitzkrieg’ and ‘appeasement’ on two occasions in that same address as
a means of justifying the commitment of American military force to
the defense of Saudi Arabia:
Less than a week ago, in the early morning hours of August 2nd, Iraqi
Armed Forces, without provocation or warning, invaded a peaceful
Kuwait. Facing negligible resistance from its much smaller neighbor,
104 Selling a ‘Just’ War
––
…our jobs, our way of life, our own freedom and the freedom of
friendly countries around the world are at stake…no one should
doubt our staying power or determination…a half century ago, our
nation and the world paid dearly for appeasing an aggressor who
should, and could, have been stopped. We are not going to make
the same mistake again (Bush, 1990d).
Well, today in the Persian Gulf, the world is once again faced with
the challenge of perfect clarity. Saddam Hussein has given us a
whole plateful of clarity, because today, in the Persian Gulf, what
we are looking at is good and evil, right and wrong. And day after
day, shocking new horrors reveal the true nature of the reign of
terror in Kuwait. In one hospital, dialysis patients were ripped from
their machines and the machines shipped from Kuwait to Baghdad.
Iraq soldiers pulled the plug on incubators supporting 22 premature
babies. All 22 died. The hospital employees were shot and the plun-
dered machines were shipped off to Baghdad. But you cannot pull
the plug on a nation. The invasion of Kuwait was without provoca-
tion. The invasion of Kuwait was without excuse. And the invasion
of Kuwait will not stand.
Crisis
The first major departure from this ‘trial balloon’ approach came in the
release of a Presidential Proclamation (6221) calling for a ‘National Day
of Prayer’ concerning the situation in the Gulf on 2 November 1990.
Issued in the interim between the Administration’s final decision to
increase troop strength to nearly 250,000 (a figure that would ulti-
mately reach over 500,000) for an offensive operation on 31 October
and the actual public announcement of that decision on 8 November,
that Proclamation represents a transition point in which the siren call
of the ‘just war’ waged to defend the moral and legal standards of the
civilized world was sounded loudly for public consumption:
Today the United States and, indeed, all civilized countries are being
challenged by a dictator who would brazenly deny the sovereignty
of other nations… Iraqi forces continue to occupy neighboring
Kuwait, terrorizing that nation’s citizens in an affront to inter-
national law and fundamental standards of morality. Scores of
U.S. civilians and citizens of other nations continue to be held hostage
under inhuman conditions in both Kuwait and Iraq. Thousands have
been made refugees fleeing from aggression in Kuwait and brutality in
Iraq. To deter further aggression, thousands of American service men
and women have been deployed and remain on duty in the demand-
ing climate of the Persian Gulf region… Let us pray for peace in the
Persian Gulf, and let us ask the Lord to protect all those Americans and
The Gulf War: Desert Shield, Desert Storm 107
people. It’s black and white. The facts are clear. The choice is
unambiguous––right vs. wrong.
The terror Saddam Hussein has imposed upon Kuwait violates every
principle of human decency. Listen to what Amnesty International
has documented. ‘Widespread abuses of human rights have been
perpetrated by Iraqi forces…arbitrary arrest and detention with-
out trial of thousands…widespread torture…imposition of the
death penalty and the extrajudicial execution of hundreds of
unarmed civilians, including children.’ Including children––there’s
no horror that could make this a more obvious conflict of good
vs. evil. The man who used chemical warfare on his own people––
once again including children––now oversees public hangings of
dissenters. And daily his troops commit atrocities against Kuwaiti
citizens.
This conflict started August 2nd when the dictator of Iraq invaded
a small and helpless neighbor. Kuwait––a member of the Arab
League and a member of the United Nations––was crushed; its
people, brutalized. Five months ago, Saddam Hussein started this
cruel war against Kuwait. Tonight, the battle has been joined. Some
may ask: Why act now? Why not wait? The answer is clear: The
world could wait no longer… While the world waited, Saddam
Hussein systematically raped, pillaged, and plundered a tiny nation,
no threat to his own. He subjected the people of Kuwait to unspeak-
The Gulf War: Desert Shield, Desert Storm 109
It began with Kuwait, but that wouldn’t have been the end. What
we’ve witnessed these last few weeks removed any last shred of
doubt about the adversary that we face: the terror bombing, without
military value––the terror bombing of innocent civilians with those
Scud missiles; the brutal treatment––that brutal, inhumane treat-
ment of our POW’s; the endless appetite for evil that would lead a
man to make war on the world’s environment. All of us know what
we’re up against. All of you know why we’re there. We are there
because we are Americans, part of something that’s larger than
ourselves. Our cause is right. Our cause is just. And because it
is just, that world’s cause will prevail (Bush, 1991d; emphasis
added).
Seven months ago, America and the world drew a line in the sand. We
declared that the aggression against Kuwait would not stand. And
tonight, America and the world have kept their word. This is not a time
of euphoria, certainly not a time to gloat. But it is a time of pride: pride
in our troops; pride in the friends who stood with us in the crisis; pride
in our nation and the people whose strength and resolve made victory
quick, decisive, and just. And soon we will open wide our arms to wel-
come back home to America our magnificent fighting forces. No one
country can claim this victory as its own. It was not only a victory for
Kuwait but a victory for all the coalition partners. This is a victory for
the United Nations, for all mankind, for the rule of law, and for what
is right. Coalition forces fought this war only as a last resort… (Bush,
1991e).
0
1
2
3
4
0.5
1.5
2.5
3.5
/1 90
2 4.5
11 /19
/1 90
6
11 /19
/2 90
11 0/19
/2 90
4
11 /19
/2 90
8/
12 199
/2 0
/
12 199
/6 0
12 /19
/1 90
0
12 /19
/1 90
4
November 8, 1990–April 11, 1991
12 /19
/1 90
8
12 /19
/2 90
12 2/19
/2 90
6
12 /19
/3 90
0/
1
1/ 990
3/
19
1/ 91
7/
1/ 199
11 1
/
1/ 199
15 1
/
1/ 199
19 1
Figure 5.1 Speech-acts referencing ‘Iraq/Gulf War’—POTUS
/
1/ 199
23 1
date
1/ /199
27 1
/
1/ 199
31 1
/1
2/ 991
4/
1
2/ 991
8
2/ /199
12 1
/
2/ 199
16 1
/
2/ 199
20 1
/
2/ 199
24 1
2/ /199
28 1
/1
3/ 991
4/
1
3/ 991
8/
3/ 199
12 1
/
3/ 199
16 1
/
3/ 199
20 1
/
3/ 199
24 1
/
3/ 199
28 1
/1
4/ 991
1/
1
4/ 991
5/
1
4/ 991
9/
19
91
111
112 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Storm by President George H.W. Bush was the unevenness with which the
just war frame was employed throughout the crisis. This is conveyed in a
basic way through Figure 5.1, which indicates a surprising fact about the
President’s discursive treatment of the crisis—namely, that throughout
the 155-day period between the commitment of US military forces to the
Persian Gulf and the termination of the crisis for the United States, only
85 days (54 per cent) featured speech-acts by the President concerning the
Gulf crisis.
Still, it would be a mistake to conclude that within the realm of Pres-
idential speech the crisis in the Gulf was of little consequence. Whereas
scarcely more than one-half of all days during the crisis featured one or
more Presidential speech-act(s) referencing events in the Gulf, the variance
and magnitude of such references when they did occur was notable.
Indeed, on the 85 days during the crisis that did feature at least one
Presidential speech-act referencing the Gulf situation, the number of rele-
vant speech-acts ranged from a minimum of one to a maximum of four per
day. While it is clear events in the Gulf featured prominently in Presidential
rhetoric throughout the crisis (as one would intuit), the pattern was exceed-
ingly variable. As Figure 5.1 also conveys, there were several prominent
peaks in Presidential speech-acts which largely corresponded with major
events, including those undertaken by the President (e.g., Thanksgiving
visit to the troops stationed in Saudi Arabia; State of the Union address in
late January 1991) as well as those outside the President’s direct control
(e.g., passage of UNSC Resolution 678 in late November 1990; Shia and
Kurdish uprisings in mid-April 1991).
Frame content
The topic of concern is not the occurrence of speech-acts per se, but the appli-
cation of the just war frame through them. As was discussed in Chapter 4,
the set of speech-acts identified for analysis were coded on a dichotomous
basis for the presence or absence of 15 just war indicators indicative of the
just war frame, with those indicators reflecting the three basic criteria of the
jus ad bellum component of just war theory.9 In establishing a referential
baseline, it is important to note that 26 per cent (529/ 2055) of all possible
values of the 15 just war frame variables across these 137 cases of ‘speech-
acts’ were positive (meaning they did feature a reference to the just war indi-
cator in question). In examining the just war frame relative to 137 individual
‘cases’ (e.g., speech-acts), 78 per cent (107/137) of the total Presidential
speech-acts pertaining to the crisis in the Gulf featured two or more positive
values, 34 per cent (46/137) featured positive values in over a third (five or
more) of all possible just war indicators, and 19 per cent (26/137) featured a
majority (seven or more) of positive values across all 15 indicators.10
The Gulf War: Desert Shield, Desert Storm 113
among crisis actors and the second representing other crisis actors
as satisfied with the US military action. The former signification was
featured in only 8.7 per cent (12/137) of the speech-acts analyzed, the
latter 11 per cent (15/137). Together the relative infrequency of employ-
ment of these two signifiers speak to the largely indeterminate ending
to the crisis, which came in mid-April 1991 amidst the Shia and Kurdish
uprisings and Saddam’s bloody reprisals to them; such developments
likely mitigated against advancing claims of reduced tension and satis-
faction in the aftermath of the US military action. The other two least
frequent significations stemmed from ‘just cause’ considerations ren-
dering the military action as an act of self-defense and as a corrective
for a significant power discrepancy between original crisis actors. The
former was attempted in only 9.5 per cent (13/137) of relevant Presidential
speech-acts, the latter 11 per cent (15/137).
While it seems clear that in Presidential speech-acts concerned with
the crisis in the Persian Gulf in 1990–91 ‘just cause’ themes were the
most frequently employed component of the just war frame, the data
also suggests that the frame’s application exhibited ‘breadth’ (defined as
containing at least one just war signifier drawn from two different criteria
in any single speech-act) and to a lesser degree ‘totality’ (defined as con-
taining at least one just war signifier drawn from all three criteria in any
single speech-act). On the former score, 96 of 137 (70 per cent) of speech-
acts contained significations of the just war drawn from two of the three
ad bellum criteria, while 49 of 137 (36 per cent) reflected the ad bellum
criteria in totality (see Table 5.2). The fact that the large majority of
cases featured multiple translations of just war significations drawn
from different components of the ad bellum criteria suggests an inter-
active and mutually reinforcing relationship between and among signifiers
from the three different categories of jus ad bellum criteria—albeit with
‘just cause’ considerations providing a central point of orientation for
these interactions.
Just cause 16 JC * CA 31
Competent authority 7 JC * RI 8
Right intention 1 CA * RI 8
JC * CA * RI 49
Audience
Taking the full measure of the just war frame requires going beyond
merely looking at the frame in the abstract, requiring instead a consid-
eration of the interplay between the frame and the audience(s) to which
it was directed throughout the crisis. Before turning to consideration of
the interface between the just war frame and the various audiences
of concern (opinion-leaders, the media, the mass public), the highly
skewed distribution of Presidential speech-acts by primary audience
during the crisis must be emphasized.15 As depicted in Table 5.3, over
half (53 per cent, or 72/137) of all speech-acts concerning the crisis
were primarily directed at the press, a clear outlier. In concert with
the second most commonly targeted audience—opinion-leaders, the
primary audience in 23 per cent (32/137) of Presidential speech-acts
concerning the crisis—a picture emerges whereby the vast majority (over
three-fourths) of all Presidential speech-acts targeting a discernable
domestic audience were not directed at the mass public.
Having established a general sense of the target audience for Presidential
speech-acts concerning the affirmative war-decision in the Gulf War
crisis, it is worth turning to the interface between the just war frame
(as advanced through said speech-acts) and the domestic audience(s).
Doing so allows not only for a fuller appraisal of the application of the
just war frame during the crisis, but also for assessment of whether the
Administration’s favored strategy of targeting its message primarily at
the press holds up (and to what degree and in what way) when the
content of that message is the prevailing notion of the ‘just war’. In
looking at the broad groupings of frame indicators according to the
three basic criteria of jus ad bellum, in terms of the extensity (frequency
of employment across all audiences) of just war significations, ‘just
causes’ are far and away the most commonly employed, utilized more
Mass public 17
Press 72
Opinion-leaders 32
Foreign 9
Multiple 7
84
79
80
# of significations
68
60
44
40
33
21
18 18 19
20
14
7 5 6
4
0
Mass public Press Opinion-leaders Foreign Multiple
primary audience
‘territory seized’ signifier, which accounted for roughly 25 per cent (67/270)
of the aggregate total of just cause significations—meaning that, of all
possible ‘just causes’ associated with the affirmative war-decision by the
Bush Administration through Presidential speech-acts, it was the seizure
of Kuwaiti territory by Iraq which proved the most commonly cited. A
close runner-up in this regard accounting for 22 per cent (61/270) of all
just cause significations was the denotation of the US military engage-
ment as a response to, or corrective for, fundamentally ‘evil’ acts—often
(though not exclusively) referring to the mistreatment of civilians and
prisoners by Iraqi forces under the alleged orders of Saddam Hussein.
In terms of extensity of employment, the two aforementioned consid-
erations outweigh in importance the seizure of (US/coalition) property
or persons (19 per cent, 51/270), and easily surpass considerations such as
the precipitation of the crisis by an act of direct violence (12 per cent,
33/270), the responsibility of an authoritarian regime for the crisis (11 per
cent, 30/270), and the power discrepancy (6 per cent, 15/270) and self-
defense (5 per cent, 13/270) conditions. The relative lack of emphasis in
some of these areas compared to the ‘just causes’ of the abrogation of
territorial sovereignty and the perpetration of ‘evil’ acts is somewhat sur-
prising, especially considering the extent to which the dynamics of the
crisis would seemingly support a frame emphasizing the unprovoked
initial violence by Iraq, the culpability of Saddam’s authoritarian regime
for the crisis, and the clear ‘bullying’ scenario involving Iraq and Kuwait.
In looking at the intensity of signification by audience type, the seven
just cause significations depart in interesting ways from their general rate
of use. The major discontinuities are concentrated in five of the seven
just cause significations: ‘self-defense’, ‘direct violent crisis trigger’, ‘(US/
coalition) property/persons seized’, ‘authoritarian/military regime involve-
ment’, and ‘response to/punishment of evil’. The infrequent reliance on
the ‘self-defense’ claim (explained above as a function of the somewhat
abstract link between national interest and defense and collective secur-
ity) in general is an important qualifier on the importance of any evident
difference.16 Still, it is interesting to note the intensity of the ‘self-defense’
significations directed at opinion-leaders, which accounted for almost
70 per cent of the (few) occasions in which ‘self-defense’ was invoked in
Presidential speech-acts throughout the crisis. And, in proportional terms,
‘self-defense’ was invoked at more than twice the expected rate in speech-
acts directed at opinion-leaders, accounting for 11 per cent of the 84 total
‘just cause’ significations directed at that audience, as compared to an
expected value for ‘self-defense’ as a proportion of all just cause signi-
fications across all audiences of 5 per cent.17 In allusions to the ‘direct
The Gulf War: Desert Shield, Desert Storm 119
violent trigger’ to the crisis (e.g., the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August
1990), an almost perfectly inverted outcome relative to the proportional
use of this signification in speech-acts directed at the press (where it was
used less frequently than expected, 8 per cent compared to 12 per cent)
and those directed at opinion-leaders (where it was used more often,
17 per cent compared to 12 per cent) exists. With respect to the two
audiences most commonly subjected to the just war frame through Presi-
dential speech-acts, there was clearly greater emphasis on ‘just causes’ of
a more traditional national security orientation in the framing efforts
directed at opinion-leaders than those targeting the press.
The emphasis on the discrepancy in power between Kuwait and
Iraq (curiously, one of the least often employed ‘just cause’ significations)
and the territorial dimensions of the crisis (the most often employed
‘just cause’) occurred in almost exact proportion by audience as they did
across audience. This was decidedly not the case for references to the
seizure of property/persons (evident in references to detained US embassy
personnel in Kuwait), the responsibility of Saddam’s authoritarian regime
for the crisis, and especially the ‘evil’ acts perpetrated by Iraqi forces
(including documented mistreatment of civilians and coalition prisoners
in occupied Kuwait). The issue of seized and detained US and coalition
property and persons (especially embassy staffers) was a frequent theme
in speech-acts directed at the press, a target audience for roughly half
of all such significations (occurring at a slightly higher than expected
proportional rate, 22 per cent v. 19 per cent), and was by contrast down-
played as a theme in speech-acts directed at opinion-leaders (appearing
in only 14 per cent of cases, again compared to the baseline rate of
19 per cent).18
A bit more curious is the lower-than-expected reliance on the ‘author-
itarian regime as responsible’ meme in speech-acts directed at the public
(occurring in only 7 per cent of 44 such speech-acts). This stands in
contrast to the greater reliance on this frame element in speech-acts
directed at opinion-leaders (15 per cent, compared to the average inci-
dence rate of 11 per cent). This difference can undoubtedly be explained
statistically by the comparatively lower aggregate total of speech-acts
directed at the mass public (n=44) than those directed at opinion-leaders
(n=84). Nonetheless, the finding that the clear ‘just cause’ represented by
the provocation of the crisis by an inarguably authoritarian and highly
repressive regime was rarely employed to ‘sell’ the affirmative war-
decision, and furthermore that this also did not serve as the basis for a
more extensive and frequent use of the just war frame for consumption
by the mass public, is striking. So too is the further confounding finding
120 Selling a ‘Just’ War
40 CA3
35
# significations
30
26
25
20
15 14 14
11
10
5 5
5 4 4
2 2 2
1 0 0
0
Mass public Press Opinion-leaders Foreign Multiple
primary audience
25 RI2
RI3
RI4
20 19 RI5
# significations
15
13
11 11
10
8
7
6 6
5
5
2 2 2 2
1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0
Mass public Press Opinion-leaders Foreign Multiple
primary audience
The Gulf War: Desert Shield, Desert Storm 123
(63 per cent, or 79/126) that were directed at the press.19 Still, the
finding that nearly seven in ten of all allusions to the affirmative war-
decision as a ‘last resort’ were directed at the mass public and opinion-
leaders, and that such allusions were accordingly far less frequent
in communications with the press, seems theoretically significant. The
other major disparity stemming from analysis of the intensity of
the right intention variables comes with regard to claims concerning
the (affirmative) contribution of the US military engagement to the
abatement of the crisis. The aforementioned (skewed) nature of the
distribution of the population of ‘right intention’ significations not-
withstanding, the claim that the use of force contributed positively to
crisis abatement was advanced on only one occasion to opinion-leaders,
accounting for only 6 per cent of all ‘right intention’ significations
directed at that audience. This is all the more striking when compared to
a baseline rate of 23 per cent, and to the 28 per cent of all right intention
significations directed at the mass public reflecting this claim.
Temporal dynamics
In seeking to evaluate whether there was a substantive evolution in the
attempt to ‘sell’ the affirmative war-decision as the crisis unfolded, the
last of the three main components of this analysis takes into account
the temporal dimension of the just war frame’s application. To the
extent that the 155 day period between the commitment of US mil-
itary force to the Persian Gulf and the termination of the crisis for the
US was a dynamic rather than static phenomenon, it seems worth con-
sidering whether (and if so, how) the application of the just war frame
to ‘sell’ the war-decision changed in conjunction with extant changes
in the crisis (and the US military engagement) itself. Two primary and
related factors were taken into account as a means of assessing this
relationship: first, whether and to what extent any ‘chronological clus-
ters’ (defined here as the occurrence of five or more just war signi-
fications per day for a period of three or more consecutive days) emerge
in the body of speech-acts issued over the duration of the crisis, and
second, whether these clusters (if they occur) can be explained by, or
at least understood in relation to, the evolution of the crisis and the
emergence of any major developments in it.20 In other words, this
component of the analysis seeks to determine whether the just war
frame was especially prominent at any temporally bound juncture(s) of
the crisis, as well as (potentially) why.21
The general assessment of the just war significations by time is broken
down in monthly increments, as depicted in Figure 5.6. In examining
124 Selling a ‘Just’ War
the entire period of the US military engagement in the Gulf War crisis
(spanning from 8 November 1999 through 11 April 1991), roughly
21 per cent (112/529) of all just war significations rendered in Presidential
speech-acts occurred in November 1990, 9 per cent (48/529) in December
1990, 25 per cent (132/529) in January 1991, 20 per cent (106/529)
in February 1991, 17 per cent (88/529) in March 1991, and 8 per cent
(43/529) in April 1991. If one employs the daily average of 3.4 signi-
fications per day as a benchmark, the total number of just war signi-
fications consistently exceeded expectations in four months of the crisis,
with two notable exceptions in December 1990 and March 1991. Decem-
ber featured an especially low number of significations, accounting for
fewer than half (46 per cent) of the expected value for that month (based
on the average daily rate for the entire crisis).22
As Figure 5.6 also indicates, the conditions used to define a ‘chrono-
logical cluster’ outlined above (occurrence of five or more just war signi-
fications per day for a period of three or more consecutive days) were
fully satisfied on three occasions in the Gulf War crisis: 21–23 November
1990; 25 February–2 March 1991; and 5–7 April 1991. These 12 days
accounted for 24 per cent (128/529) of all the just war significations
advanced through Presidential speech-acts during the entire 155-day
period. In terms of total significations, the first cluster (21–23 November)
proved the largest, with 60 just war significations occurring in nine sep-
arate speech-acts over a period of just three days (accounting for 11 per
cent of the total number of significations advanced throughout the
crisis).
The large number of significations populating the 21–23 November
1990 ‘cluster’ were transmitted in a series of relatively open exchanges
with the press scattered throughout the President’s trip abroad to
cultivate allied support (which included a stop at the CSCE summit in
Paris, a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, and
with Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad in Geneva) and especially in three
Thanksgiving Day (22 November) addresses to US military forces sta-
tioned in Saudi Arabia. The emergence of this ‘cluster’ of just war signi-
fications dovetails with the actual implementation of the announced
decision (approximately two weeks prior, on 8 November) of a massive
military deployment to the Gulf, as well as with the need to begin the
process of ‘summit diplomacy’ that proved pivotal to the operation.
This cluster suggests that the case for the legitimacy of a looming
military confrontation with Iraq was considered a crucial part of coal-
ition building from an early juncture of the US intervention in the
crisis.
Figure 5.6 Chronological effects, by month (# JW significations—all criteria)
125
/2
/2
/2
/2
/2
/2
/2
/2
/2
/2
/3
/3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
126 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Figure 5.8
Figure 5.7
/4 9 0
12 /19 0 11 /19
/1 90
/5 9 1
12 /19 0 11 /19
/ 9 /1 90
12 6/1 0 2
/7 99 11 /19
12 /19 0 /1 90
/8 9 3
12 /19 0 11 /19
/1 90
12 /9/1 90 4
/1 9 11 /19
12 0/1 90 /1 90
/1 9 5
12 1/1 90 11 /19
/1 9 /1 90
12 2/1 90 6
11 /19
/1 99 /1 90
12 3/1 0 7
/ 9 11 /19
12 14/ 90 /1 90
/1 19 8
12 5/1 90 11 /19
/1 9 /1 90
9
12 6/1 90 11 /19
/1 9 /2 90
12 7/1 90 0
/ 9 11 /19
12 18/ 90 /2 90
/1 19 1
12 9/1 90 11 /19
/2 9 /2 90
12 0/1 90 2
/2 9 11 /19
12 1/1 90 /2 90
3/
/2 99 11 199
12 2/1 0
/ 9 /2 0
4
12 23/ 90 11 /19
/2 19 /2 90
12 4/1 90 5
/2 99 11 /19
12 5/1 0 /2 90
/ 9 11 /19
12 26/ 90 /2 90
/2 19 7
12 7/1 90 11 /19
/2 9 /2 90
12 8/1 90 8
just cause
/2 9
just cause
11 /19
12 9/1 90 /2 90
9
right intention
right intention
/3 99
12 0/1 0 11 /19
/3 99 /3 90
1/ 0 competent authority 0/
competent authority
19 19
90 90
right intention
competent authority
just cause
90
90
90
90
90
0
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
19
19
19
19
19
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
1/
3/
5/
7/
9/
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
25
27
29
31
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
1/
Figure 5.10 Just war significations by precept—February 1991
right intention
competent authority
just cause
91
91
91
91
91
91
1
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
19
19
19
19
19
9
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
1/
3/
5/
7/
9/
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
25
27
2/
2/
2/
2/
2/
2/
2/
2/
2/
2/
2/
2/
2/
2/
right intention
competent authority
just cause
0
91
91
91
91
91
1
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
99
19
19
19
19
19
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
/1
1/
3/
5/
7/
9/
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
25
27
29
31
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
3/
Figure 5.12 Just war significations by precept—April 1991
right intention
competent authority
just cause
0
91
91
91
91
91
91
91
91
91
1
99
99
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
/1
/1
1/
2/
3/
4/
5/
6/
7/
8/
9/
10
11
4/
4/
4/
4/
4/
4/
4/
4/
4/
4/
4/
The preceding results shed significant light on how the just war frame
was employed in a concerted effort to ‘sell’ the Gulf War within a dom-
estic context. This was especially evident in the attempt to focus the
132
Table 5.4 Distribution of just war significations by month* and criteria
November 1990 December 1990 January 1991 February 1991 March 1991 April 1991
*November 1990 = 23 days; December 1990 = 31 days; January 1991 = 31 days; February 1991 = 28 days; March 1991 = 31 days; April 1991 = 11 days
The Gulf War: Desert Shield, Desert Storm 133
Saddam tried to cast this conflict as a religious war, but it has nothing
to do with religion per se. It has, on the other hand, everything to do
with what religion embodies: good versus evil, right versus wrong,
human dignity and freedom versus tyranny and oppression. The war
in the Gulf is not a Christian war, a Jewish war, or a Muslim war; it is a
just war (Bush, 1991g).
At the same time, the results of the just war frame’s application also
reveal that even the most central and recurrent significations embed-
ded within the just war frame (not to mention less salient elements
of the frame) were advanced in a highly variable, inconsistent, and
even inchoate fashion by the White House. As was noted above, only
slightly more than half of the entire 155-day period between the dis-
patch of US forces to the Gulf in November 1990 and the termination
134 Selling a ‘Just’ War
ible for the inconsistent and inchoate application of the just war frame.
Certainly the mixed efficacy of the just war frame’s application in the
Gulf War cannot be attributed solely to the recurrence of ideational and
rhetorical themes deviating from the just war frame and the ideational
and rhetorical themes at its core. Nor can it be said that there is no over-
lap between representations of the Gulf War as ‘just’ in light of just war
theory and these competing memes. At times the speech-acts reflected
attempts to fashion that link, such as in the case of the ‘new world order’:
So, part of this new world order has been moved forward by a United
Nations that functioned. We might have still been able to stand up
and come to the assistance of Kuwait––the United States. I might have
said, ‘To hell with them. It’s right and wrong. It’s good and evil. He’s
evil; our cause is right,’ and, without the United Nations, sent a con-
siderable force to help. But it was an enhanced––it is far better to have
this collective action where the world, not just the Security Council
but the whole General Assembly, stood up and condemned it. So,
part of it is these more viable international organizations. And that is
where we are now (Bush, 1991f).
At the same time, it stands to reason that the high degree of variability
characterizing Presidential speech-acts during the crisis, in concert with
the reliance on themes which distracted from the just war signi-
fications, would certainly have an inhibiting and limiting impact on
the effectiveness of attempts to ‘sell’ the military engagement in the
Gulf as a ‘just war’, rather than as a war to demonstrate resolve against
a dictator, to exorcise the demons of Vietnam, or to realize the foreign
policy destiny of American exceptionalism.
Another observation stemming from the preceding analysis relates to
the manner in which efforts to ‘frame’ the Gulf War as a just war tran-
spired in practical and procedural terms. In yet another manifestation
of the resonance of the ‘Vietnam syndrome’, the Administration placed
a great emphasis (mostly through multiple Presidential letters) on for-
mally and routinely informing Congress of developments in the Gulf
as the US military engagement commenced and deepened throughout
November and December 1990. This effort can clearly be interpreted as
an attempt to head off any potential opposition from the legislative
branch (which proved problematic in the latter stages of the Vietnam
era) by framing the war for a particularly important group of opinion-
leaders using the just war frame (and in particular the signification of
the war-decision as a ‘last resort’) through a means which also signaled an
138 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Conclusion
six months, are well-documented (Peters, 2011a). For the most part this
dramatic erosion of popular support for the President has been attributed
to domestic factors, including a persistent economic recession, perceptions
of the Administration’s insufficient policy responses to it, and the involve-
ment of a prominent self-funded third-party candidate (Alvarez and Nagler,
1995). The evidence here, in light of the prevailing view that foreign
policy issues of all types generally exhibit lower overall salience than dom-
estic issues (Holsti, 2004), hardly permits challenge to this prevailing
consensus concerning Bush’s electoral defeat in 1992. Yet what it does
indicate is that the efforts to frame the Gulf War for domestic consump-
tion using the just war frame were inconsistent both in terms of applica-
tion and substance, and were directed at the press rather than the public
at-large. These two factors taken together almost certainly explain to some
degree the fleeting afterglow of the war for the President, if not his elec-
toral fortunes 18 months later.
6
Kosovo: Allied Force and the Noble
Anvil1
Crisis summary
One of the last and most dramatic acts in the saga of Yugoslavia’s
disintegration took place in Kosovo at the end of the 1990s. By that
time, the historical and cultural significance of Kosovo for Serbs (stem-
ming from the highly mythologized Battle of Kosovo in 1389) was
clearly at odds with the province’s ethnic composition; as of 1991, the
population was 90 per cent ethnic Albanian (Judah, 2000). In many ways
Kosovo was both a microcosm and exemplar of the tense dynamics per-
meating political life during the latter days of the Yugoslav federation.
Whereas the 1974 constitutional reform extending ‘autonomous pro-
vince’ status to Kosovo mollified the aspirations of some of the Albanian
majority, still others sought full republican status or even secession and
incorporation into a greater-Albanian federation (MccGwire, 2000). Such
tensions played out against the backdrop of economic collapse and
mounting ethno-nationalist sentiment across Yugoslavia’s major ethnic
groups, including the Serb population, in the 1980s (Ramet, 2002).
With the death of Tito in 1980, Kosovo was gripped in a seemingly
endless cycle of protests, riots, and martial law—with the Albanian
majority agitating for greater autonomy within or independence from
the Yugoslav federation, and the sizeable and vocal minority of 200,000
ethnic Serbs protesting subordinate status within Kosovo (ibid.). The
importance of Kosovo amidst a rising tide of Serbian nationalism in
the late 1980s provided a crucial window of opportunity for the con-
solidation of power by Slobodan Milosevic (Bowman, 2003; Judah, 2000).2
Milosevic’s skillful use of the ethno-nationalist ‘trump card’ beginning
notably with his infamous April 1987 Kosovo Polje speech facilitated
his rise from the ranks of middling Communist Party functionary to
141
142 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Pre-crisis
While direct clashes between the KLA and Serb forces were common-
place in the first half of 1998 and escalated dramatically throughout
the summer, the Clinton Administration remained disengaged from
public pronouncements concerning events in Kosovo throughout much
of the year. Kosovo was not mentioned in a public statement by the
White House until 4 March 1998. Throughout the remainder of the
spring, public statements by the President and top-level advisors desig-
nated Kosovo as an internal matter, offering little besides support for
direct negotiations between Milosevic and Rugova (Clinton, 1998a).
Kosovo: Allied Force and the Noble Anvil 145
Pre-crisis/Crisis
Post-crisis
their homes and cold weather coming, Milosevic must act imme-
diately to heed the will of the international community (Clinton,
1998e).
…All along our objectives have been clear: to end the violence in
Kosovo which threatens to spill over into neighboring countries
and to spark instability in the heart of Europe; to reverse a human-
itarian catastrophe in the making as tens of thousands of homeless
refugees risk freezing or starving to death in the winter; and to
seek a negotiated peace.
Such rhetoric continued apace into early 1999, with the President
drawing upon prominent installments of the deteriorating situation
∨
in Kosovo (such as the Racak incident) in enhancing the case for the
148 Selling a ‘Just’ War
legitimacy of action against the Serbs and of the cause of the Kosovar
Albanians:
Crisis
The Rambouillet talks provided the last opportunity for any public
articulation by the Administration that military action in Kosovo could
be avoided. With the outcome of the negotiations linked to the threat
of NATO action through a de facto ultimatum to Milosevic, even at that
point the prospects seemed fleeting. The likelihood of military action
as well as assertions of Serbia’s sole responsibility for that outcome
were central to the President’s statement of 23 February 1999, issued
jointly with French President Jacques Chirac:
This ‘last resort’ meme was only enhanced by the President’s reaction
after the collapse of the eleventh-hour talks in Paris on 18 March 1999:
In the month between end of the Rambouillet talks and the com-
mencement of NATO air sorties, the central theme of Presidential
speech-acts concerning the crisis remained that of Kosovo as a human-
itarian disaster of Serbia’s making (Clinton, 1999e).4 What did change
in the acceleration toward war was the additional emphasis placed on
the moral imperative for such action:
Now, roughly 40,000 Serbian troops and police are massing in and
around Kosovo. Our firmness is the only thing standing between
∨
them and countless more villages like Racak, full of people without
protection, even though they have now chosen peace. Make no
mistake, if we and our allies do not have the will to act, there will
be more massacres. In dealing with aggressors in the Balkans, hes-
itation is a license to kill…I will say again to Mr. Milosevic, as I did
in Bosnia: I do not want to put a single American pilot into the air.
I do not want anyone else to die in the Balkans. I do not want a
conflict. I would give anything to be here talking about something
else today. But a part of my responsibility is to try to leave to my
successors and to our country in the 21st century an environment
in Europe that is stable, humane, and secure (Clinton, 1999d).
The President continued to sound just war themes while also linking
them to narrower (realist) conceptions of the national interest as viol-
ence in Kosovo persisted (Clinton, 1999g). Perhaps the culmination of
Presidential speech-making in advancing the case for war through just
war language and concepts came in two separate public statements
announcing the launch of airstrikes on 24 March 1999:
We and our NATO Allies have taken this action only after exten-
sive and repeated efforts to obtain a peaceful solution to the crisis
in Kosovo. But President Milosevic, who over the past decade started
the terrible wars against Croatia and Bosnia, has again chosen
aggression over peace…He has rejected the balanced and fair peace
accords that our allies and partners proposed last month, a peace
agreement that Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians courageously accepted.
Instead, his forces have intensified their attacks, burning down
Kosovar Albanian villages and murdering civilians…Kosovo’s crisis
now is full-blown, and if we do not act, it will get even worse. Only
firmness now can prevent greater catastrophe later…
At the end of the 20th century, after two World Wars and a cold
war, we and our allies have a chance to leave our children a Europe
that is free, peaceful, and stable. But we must act now to do that,
because if the Balkans once again become a place of brutal killing
152 Selling a ‘Just’ War
––
Though his ethnic cleansing is not the same as the ethnic exter-
mination of the Holocaust, the two are related, both vicious, pre-
meditated, systematic oppression fueled by religious and ethnic
hatred. This campaign to drive the Kosovars from their land and
to, indeed, erase their very identity is an affront to humanity and
an attack not only on a people but on the dignity of all people.
Nine of every ten Kosovar Albanians now has been driven from
their homes, thousands murdered, at least 100,000 missing, many
young men led away in front of their families; over 500 cities,
towns, and villages torched. All this has been carried out, you must
understand, according to a plan carefully designed months earlier in
Belgrade…
154 Selling a ‘Just’ War
…There are those who say Europe and its North American allies
have no business intervening in the ethnic conflicts of the Balkans.
They are the inevitable result, these conflicts, according to some,
of centuries-old animosities…The truth is that for centuries these
people have lived together in the Balkans and southeastern Europe…
without anything approaching the intolerable conditions and con-
flicts that exist today. And we do no favors to ourselves or to the
rest of the world when we justify looking away from this kind of
slaughter…there is a huge difference between people who can’t
resolve their problems peacefully and fight about it and people who
resort to systematic ethnic cleansing and slaughter of people because
of their religious or ethnic background…And that is the differ-
ence that NATO—that our Allies have tried to recognize and act on.
Bringing the Kosovars home is a moral issue (Clinton, 1999l).
…Our objectives in Kosovo are clear and consistent with the moral
imperative of reversing ethnic cleansing and killing…many
Americans believe that this is not our fight. But remember why
many of the people are laying in these graves out here— because of
what happened in Europe and because of what was allowed to go on
too long before people intervened. What we are doing today will
save lives, including American lives, in the future. And it will give
our children a better, safer world to live in (ibid.).
Our reasons are both moral and strategic. There is a moral impera-
tive because what we’re facing in Kosovo is not just ethnic and
religious hatred, discrimination and conflict…America and NATO’s
military power cannot be deployed just because people don’t like
each other or even because they fight each other. What is going on
in Kosovo is something much worse and, thankfully, more rare:
an effort by a political leader to systematically destroy or displace
an entire people because of their ethnicity and their religious faith;
an effort to erase the culture and history and presence of a people
from their land. Where we have the ability to do so, we as a nation
and our democratic allies must take a stand against this. We do
have the ability to do so at NATO’s doorstep in Europe (ibid.).
…we have achieved a victory for a safer world, for our democratic
values, and for a stronger America. Aggression against an innocent
people has been contained and is being turned back. When I ordered
our Armed Forces into combat, we had three clear goals: to enable
the Kosovar people, the victims of some of the most vicious atroc-
ities in Europe since the Second World War, to return to their
homes with safety and self-government; to require Serbian forces
responsible for those atrocities to leave Kosovo; and to deploy an
international security force, with NATO at its core, to protect all the
people of that troubled land, Serbs and Albanians, alike. Those goals
will be achieved. A necessary conflict has been brought to a just and
honorable conclusion (Clinton, 1999o).
Though representative of both the pre-crisis and crisis stages, the pre-
ceding examples of rhetoric constitute neither a random sample nor a
full population of Presidential speech-making concerning Kosovo.
What these few (if telling) illustrations of the language and themes of
156 Selling a ‘Just’ War
4
#/day
0
9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
/1 99 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199 /199
4 8 4/1 4/5 4/9 /13 /17 /21 /25 /29 5/3 5/7 /11 /15 /19 /23 /27 /31 6/4 6/9
3/2 3/2 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5
date
Kosovo: Allied Force and the Noble Anvil 157
Frame content
The topic of concern here, of course, is not Presidential speech-making
per se, but the use of the just war frame through Presidential speech-
acts. To establish a referential baseline, it is important to note that only
7.5 per cent (190/2505) of all possible values of the 15 just war frame
variables distributed across 167 cases of Presidential speech-acts did in
fact feature a reference to the just war indicator in question. In exam-
ining the just war frame relative to these 167 Presidential speech-acts,
approximately 34 per cent (56/167) featured two or more just war signi-
fications, with no Presidential speech-act featuring positive values in even
as many as a third (five or more) of all possible just war indicators.
These general findings indicate the limited nature of the just war
frame’s application by the Clinton Administration in the Kosovo crisis.7
Further to this point is the finding that the average daily number
of just war significations in Presidential speech-acts throughout the
78-day crisis was 2.4, a figure that does not change much if one includes
only those days featuring speech-acts explicitly referencing the crisis.8
The maximum number of just war signifiers contained within any one
speech-act was four (which occurred on several occasions, though not
in conjunction with any especially noteworthy crisis event), with the
minimum (no reference to any of the 15 frame signifiers) occurring in
55 distinct speech-acts.9
In looking at the use of the just war frame only through the lens of
the three major criteria of the jus ad bellum (just cause, competent
authority, right intention) from which they are derived, the just cause
criterion (and the seven translations of it advanced here) clearly out-
strips the other two ad bellum criteria as a percentage of all observed
just war frame significations. All told, 62 per cent (118/190) of all
just war significations corresponded with ‘just cause’ considerations,
158 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Just cause 51 JC * CA 26
Competent authority 14 JC * RI 7
Right intention 4 CA * RI 3
JC * CA * RI 7
taining at least one just war signifier drawn from two different criteria
in any single speech-act), though clearly nothing remotely approaching
‘totality’ (defined as containing at least one just war signifier drawn from
all three criteria in any single speech-act). On the former score, 43 of 167
(26 per cent) of speech-acts contained significations of the just war drawn
from two of the three ad bellum criteria, while only seven of 167 (4 per
cent) reflected the ad bellum criteria in totality (see Table 6.2). The rela-
tively slight degree of breadth and near-absence of totality are clearly
functions of a disproportionate focus on relatively few translations of the
just war frame, at the exclusion of the vast majority of the indicators con-
tained within that frame. While this does not necessarily indicate that the
frame was weakly or ineffectively employed, it is clear that application
was highly selective.
Audience
Before considering the interface between the just war frame and the main
audiences of concern to this research (opinion-leaders, the media, the
mass public), the distribution of Presidential speech-acts according
to primary audience is worth noting.13 As Table 6.3 shows, over two-
thirds of all Presidential speech-acts during the crisis were directed at the
press and opinion-leaders. These speech-acts were distributed in almost
Mass public 24
Press 59
Opinion-leaders 58
Foreign 4
Multiple 22
identical proportion, with 36 per cent (59/167) targeting the press and
35 per cent (58/167) opinion-leaders. And, as was also the case in the pre-
ceding analysis of the Gulf War crisis, only a small minority of speech-
acts (14 per cent, or 24/167) were chiefly directed at the mass public.
In turning to the interface between the just war frame and the domes-
tic audience(s) through Presidential speech-acts, the extensity (frequency
of employment across all audiences) of just war significations shows
that ‘just causes’ were far and away the most commonly employed of
the three jus ad bellum categories. They were utilized more than twice as
often as signifiers associated with competent authority, and more than
five times as often as those associated with the right intention criteria
(see Figure 6.2). And, from the standpoint of intensity (the proportional
employment of just war significations relative to audience type), the
greatest prevalence of ‘just cause’ significations comes in conjunction
with speech-acts directed at opinion-leaders.
All told, 37 per cent of all just war significations (regardless of cate-
gorical type) advanced during the crisis were directed at opinion-leaders
(71/190), with 78 per cent of those significations reflecting ‘just causes’
(55/71). By contrast, just cause significations were less intensively employed
in speech-acts directed at the press (35 of 65, or 54 per cent, of all speech-
Just cause
50
Comp authority
Right intention
40
# of significations
35
30
21
20
17
13
11
10 9 8
4 5
3 3 2
3
1
0
Mass public Press Opinion-leaders Foreign Multiple
primary audience
Kosovo: Allied Force and the Noble Anvil 161
acts primarily targeting the press featured ‘just cause’ significations). The
significance of this finding is compounded when one considers that the
aggregate number of speech-acts directed at opinion-leaders and the press
were almost identical. This suggests a far more intensive emphasis on
framing using ‘just causes’ in those Presidential speech-acts directed at
opinion-leaders than in those aimed at the press.14
Conversely, appeals to ‘competent authority’ of any type were relied
on much more intensively in speech-acts directed at the press (32 per
cent, or 21/65) and mass public (34 per cent, or 11/32) and less so in
those aimed at opinion-leaders (18 per cent, or 13/71).15 In relational
terms, a roughly inverse relationship in emphasis by the ‘just cause’
and ‘competent authority’ criteria is apparent, with the former receiving
greater emphasis in communications with business, military, religious,
and professional elites and the latter greater emphasis in the media and
mass public. Finally, only 12 per cent (22/190) of all just war signi-
fications evident in Presidential speech-acts advanced during the crisis
stemmed from the five translations of ‘right intention’ advanced here.
The single most common audience to which these significations were
directed was the press, with right intention considerations accounting
for 14 per cent (9/65) of all just war significations targeting the press—
a total three times as high as those employed in speech-acts targeting
opinion-leaders.
Considerations of aggregate extensity and intensity beg the question
of which specific just war significations register most frequently within
the body of Presidential speech-acts concerning the commitment of US
military force to the NATO operation in Kosovo. Again, the concepts of
extensity and intensity allow for distinguishing these effects. With
respect to the extensity of the seven distinct translations of ‘just causes’
considered in this inquiry, Figure 6.3 conveys the degree to which the
emphasis on just causes was almost entirely propelled by significations
of the US military engagement as a ‘response to/punishment of evil’.
Fully 69 per cent (81/118) of the just cause significations identified in
the data were of this type. This means that of all ‘just causes’ associated
with the affirmative war-decision by the Clinton Administration through
Presidential speech-acts, the ‘evils’ associated with ethnic cleansing (typi-
cally linked to the alleged ‘Operation Horseshoe’ plan) were easily the
most commonly cited.
In light of this clear outlier, it is not surprising that the only other
‘just causes’ evident within the speech-acts analyzed appeared infre-
quently. To that end, 14 per cent (17/118) of the aggregate total of just
cause significations referenced the existence of a direct violent act as
Kosovo: Allied Force and the Noble Anvil 163
21
20
CA1
CA2
# of significations
15
13 CA3
10
10
2 2
1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0
Mass public Press Opinion-leaders Foreign Multiple
primary audience
Kosovo: Allied Force and the Noble Anvil 165
acts directed at the mass public (91 per cent, compared to a baseline rate
of 96 per cent).
The most infrequently employed of the three jus ad bellum criteria in
framing the case for war in Kosovo was right intention, which accounted
for roughly 12 per cent of all just war significations (see Figure 6.5). To
the extent that any of the five significations associated with the ‘right
intention’ criteria registered in the framing of the war-decision through
Presidential speech-acts, the key outlier came in references to the inten-
tion of positively contributing to crisis abatement. In the aggregate, signi-
fications to this effect comprised nearly 60 per cent of all right intention
significations. From the standpoint of intensity of application, the majority
of these framing efforts were directed towards the press, in fact account-
ing for 78 per cent of all right intention significations targeting that audi-
ence (compared to a ‘baseline’ or expected value of 59 per cent).
Temporal dynamics
The last of the three main components of this analysis takes into account
the temporal dimension of the just war frame’s application. The dynamic
context of the 78-day period between the commitment of US military
force to Operation Noble Anvil and the termination of the crisis for the US
7 RI1
7
RI2
6 RI3
RI4
5 RI5
# of significations
3
3
2 2
2
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0
Mass public Press Opinion-leaders Foreign Multiple
primary audience
166 Selling a ‘Just’ War
*March 1999 = 8 days; April 1999 = 30 days; May 1999 = 31 days; June 1999 = 10 days
Kosovo: Allied Force and the Noble Anvil 173
application was extremely low. For instance, although slightly more than
one-third (34 per cent) percent of the Presidential speech-acts concerning
the crisis featured multiple (two or more) references to essential notions
of a ‘just war’, none exhibited a sufficient level of references to that end
(five or more) to be considered as primarily oriented around the just war
frame; a third of those speech-acts featured no reference to any of the
15 signifiers at all. Whether one considers the aggregate total of just war
significations advanced during the 78-day crisis, the average daily rate of
just war significations, or the lack (with one exception) of any chrono-
logical ‘clustering’, it is safe to conclude that the application of the
just war frame through Presidential speech-acts in the Kosovo case was
generally weak.21
The primary exception to this characterization was the concentrated
emphasis of the Clinton Administration on framing the affirmative war-
decision as legitimate through Presidential speech-acts coupling the
use of force with (a) the ‘just cause’ of responding to/punishing ‘evil’
and (b) the ‘competent’ authority derived from the operation’s asso-
ciation with NATO and support received from various regional (European)
institutions. Together, these two signifiers appeared in more than three-
fourths of all crisis-related speech-acts (49 per cent and 29 per cent,
respectively), and accounted for over two-thirds of all just war signi-
fications advanced in Presidential speech-acts throughout the duration
of the crisis (43 per cent for ‘response to/punishment of evil’; 25 per
cent for ‘regional authority’). At the same time, it bears noting that this
concentrated effort in terms of frame emphasis was not matched by
any similarly concentrated focus on target audience, with 36 per cent
of all speech-acts directed at the press, 35 per cent at opinion-leaders,
and the remaining 29 per cent split amongst the mass public, foreign
audiences, and mixed/multiple audiences. Finally, the relative lack of
attention paid at ‘framing’ the war-decision for the mass public, which
was the target of only 12 per cent of Presidential speech-acts concern-
ing the crisis, as in the Gulf War crisis seems in many ways to affirm
the ‘cascade model’ of framing introduced by Entman (2004)—in which
the presumption holds that the frame representation(s) can and do
effectively ‘trickle down’ from elite constituencies to the public at-large.
In appraising the application of the just war frame in the Kosovo
crisis in comparison to the preceding analysis of the Gulf War, impor-
tant dissimilarities appear. The first is the much lower overall volume
of just war frame significations featured in Presidential speech-acts.
This is made all the more noteworthy when taking into account that
the total number of Presidential speech-acts concerning the Kosovo
174 Selling a ‘Just’ War
crisis exceeded those in the Gulf crisis. These findings together clearly
support the characterization of a diminished overall reliance on the
just war frame in the Kosovo crisis. There was also a near perfect inver-
sion of target audience, with the Clinton Administration in the Kosovo
crisis directing far more of its efforts at framing the war-decision
toward opinion-leaders (35 per cent, compared to 23 per cent) and rela-
tively less towards the press (36 per cent, compared to 53 per cent) than
was the case with its predecessor.
Also worth pointing out is the difference in proportional emphasis
by jus ad bellum criterion; whereas in the Gulf War ‘just causes’ accounted
for about half of all frame applications, with ‘competent authority’ and
‘right intention’ almost evenly splitting the other half, there is a decided
tilt toward ‘just causes’ (62 per cent) in the Kosovo crisis, almost entirely
at the expense of ‘right intention’ (12 per cent); ‘competent authority’
significations accounted for 26 per cent of all frame applications (roughly
the same proportion as in the Gulf War case). The diminished emphasis
on ‘right intention’ considerations in the framing of the war-decision
in the Kosovo crisis is curious to say the least, given the extent to which
(as discussed above) Operation Allied Force/Noble Anvil was publicly framed
as a corrective to the ‘evil’ acts of ethnic cleansing perpetrated upon the
Kosovar Albanian population by the Milosevic regime.
Outside the narrower bounds of the just war frame, the efforts of the
Administration (and in particular Secretary of State Madeleiene Albright)
to draw upon historical parallels to the Holocaust as a means of legitimiz-
ing the operation further underscores the confounding and seemingly
counter-productive lack of attention paid to making the case that the US
and NATO action was intended to leave Kosovo, and by extension the
Balkans, a better place (Smith, 1998; Zenko, 2001). It seems hard to ima-
gine that this lack of emphasis on ‘right intentions’ in the Presidential
rhetoric translates into a true lack of concern among US and European
decision-makers with the fate of Kosovo after the operation, especially in
light of the continuing NATO and UN presence there. Yet from the stand-
point of frame application, it is apparent that the Clinton Administration
did not view communicating the merits of the intentions driving the act
of war as vital, or even necessary, in ‘selling’ the case for war to domestic
audiences.
One possible explanation for the differential points of emphasis evid-
ent in the use of the just war frame in the Kosovo crisis compared to the
Gulf War is the close approximation of the ideal type of the ‘new war’
(Kaldor, 2007) that the former embodied. Whereas self-defense, the seiz-
ure of territory, and the seizure of (US) property and/or persons were rele-
Kosovo: Allied Force and the Noble Anvil 175
vant to the crisis in the Persian Gulf and as such were frequently
employed features of the framing of Operation Desert Shield/ Storm, the
realities of Kosovo—an intra-state conflict catalyzed by identity and
involving irregular forces and third party intervention (by the US/
NATO)—were in fact much different. Accordingly, the appeal and utility
of the more traditional (i.e., statist) aspects and features of the just war
frame were obviated, explaining their irrelevance and, accordingly, absence
from efforts to frame the intervention in Kosovo as legitimate.
A final point of departure in appraising the use of the just war frame
in Kosovo as compared to the Gulf War concerns the temporal dimen-
sion of the crisis. Whereas the Gulf crisis featured an uneven rate of
just war significations by month and an evident disjuncture between
the use of the just war frame and developments in the crisis that seem-
ingly would (or would not) merit the frame’s use, the Kosovo crisis
embodied a more steady and even ‘normal’ (in population distribution
terminology) trajectory. As was shown above, the use of the frame on
a monthly basis gradually ramped up as the crisis unfolded, peaking at
the height of military hostilities (in April 1999), and declining steadily
after that, as the crisis began to stabilize and later drawn toward ter-
mination. Certainly this trajectory can be explained at least in part by
the lower overall rate of application of the just war frame in the Kosovo
crisis, and beyond that by the relative de-emphasis on ‘just causes’
(which, logically, are of greater concern and thus likely to have greater
traction earlier in the military engagement).
In seeking to draw a broad and general conclusion concerning the
application of the just war frame in this case on the basis of the results
generated here, the efforts of the Clinton Administration to ‘frame’ the
decision to employ military force in response to the crisis in Kosovo
through Presidential speech-acts revolved chiefly around a fusion of
the various ‘evils’ perpetrated by the Milosoevic regime and the author-
ity accruing to the United States via NATO and other region-specific
institutions to correct those ‘evils’. This fed into a concentrated and narrow
framing effort—with the former point of emphasis (just causes) dis-
proportionately directed at opinion-leaders, and the latter (competent
authority) to the press. Whereas these two aspects of the frame were
the clear outliers in terms of application, there was a clear tilt in emphasis
on the morally reprehensible aspects of the ethnic cleansing campaign
in speech-acts directed at opinion-leaders (accounting for 49 per cent
of all allusions to ‘evil’ advanced during the crisis), and conversely on
the authorization for a military response in those directed at the press
(accounting for 44 per cent of all such significations).
176 Selling a ‘Just’ War
Conclusion
In all, NATO aircraft flew over 37,000 sorties in the 78-day air cam-
paign; at the end of the campaign about 1100 aircraft were parti-
cipating, with the United States contributing about 725 (Bowman, 2003).
Of the total aircraft, about 535 were strike aircraft, with the US account-
ing for 323 of that total; the only NATO fatalities associated with
Operation Allied Force/Operation Noble Anvil were two US Apache heli-
copter pilots killed in a training accident in Albania (ibid.). The results
of the preceding analysis do nothing to challenge the conclusion that
the use of the just war frame by the Clinton Administration in relation
to that force deployment and the decision that produced it was weak
in the aggregate, and where it did occur, highly concentrated. How-
ever, they do lend needed context, underscoring an important if nuanced
element in the relationship between the weak and limited application
of the just war frame in the Kosovo crisis on the one hand, and the
restrained and limited discursive handling of the crisis by the President
on the other. In light of that relationship—and in relation to the Gulf
War case in particular—it would seem that the muted and concen-
trated use of the just war frame in the Kosovo crisis suggests a greater
sense of intentionality, prudence, and careful manipulation on the part
of the Clinton Administration in terms of frame emphasis and applica-
tion than was true of the George H.W. Bush Administration.
Whereas one of the take-away conclusions of the analysis of Presi-
dential rhetoric and the use of the just war frame in the Gulf War in the
preceding chapter was the volatile and incoherent nature of both the
frame application and Presidential speech-acts more generally, the same
cannot be said of the Clinton Administration’s treatment of the Kosovo
crisis. In terms of Presidential speech-acts, much more was being said
about the Kosovo crisis (2.1 speech-acts per day) on a more consistent
basis (only ten days lacked a speech-act) and in much less time (78 days)
than was true of the Gulf War (0.88 speech-acts per day; 70 days lacking
a speech-act in a 155-day crisis). Yet all of the measures of frame applica-
tion introduced here—whether related to content, audience, or timing—
indicate that the just war frame was employed consistently less often (as
evinced by the appearance of just one ‘chronological cluster’) and in a
much more limited and targeted way. Similarly, whereas the framing of
the war-decision in the Gulf War featured not only a volatility and inco-
herence in the use of the just war frame but also the emergence of tan-
gentially related but also competing memes (Munich; Vietnam syndrome;
‘New World Order’) within Presidential rhetoric, there was no such
deviating from message in the Kosovo crisis.
Kosovo: Allied Force and the Noble Anvil 177
Crisis summary
180
Afghanistan: Enduring Freedom and Infinite Justice 181
Pre-crisis/Crisis
Post-crisis
The decision to employ military force in Afghanistan was the first major
volley in the ‘global war on terrorism’ (GWOT) by the Bush Adminis-
tration. The nature of the Afghanistan crisis, which lacked any perceptible
buildup and was triggered suddenly and without provocation by the 9/11
attacks (continuing from that date through the perceived expulsion of
the Taliban from Afghanistan in mid-December 2001) makes it imposs-
ible to consider Presidential rhetoric in ‘pre-crisis’ and ‘crisis’ components
(as in the two preceding case studies). Instead, the primary intent here lies
in providing and appraising samples of Presidential rhetoric concerning
the GWOT leading up to the military engagement in Afghanistan in
Afghanistan: Enduring Freedom and Infinite Justice 183
order to take into account the larger narrative context in which the US
military intervention in Afghanistan was embedded.
In his televised address to the public on the evening of September 11,
2001, President George W. Bush quoted Psalm 23 in his first concrete
reaction to the attacks. In doing so, he gave early voice to the theme of
‘good versus evil’ that would become the centerpiece of the GWOT in the
months (and years) to come:
…America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon
for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep
that light from shining. Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst
of human nature (Bush, 2001a; emphasis added).
I see things this way: The people who did this act on America are
evil people. As a nation of good folk, we’re going to hunt them
down…and we will bring them to justice (Bush, 2003; emphasis
added).
In this trial, we have been reminded, and the world has seen, that
our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave.
We see our national character in rescuers working past exhaustion;
in long lines of blood donors; in thousands of citizens who have
asked to work and serve in any way possible. And we have seen our
national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. […] In these acts,
and in many others, Americans showed a deep commitment to one
another, and an abiding love for our country. Today, we feel what
Franklin Roosevelt called the warm courage of national unity. This
is a unity of every faith, and every background (Bush, 2001b).3
…In the face of today’s new threat, the only way to pursue peace is
to pursue those who threaten it (Bush, 2001e).
Those who hate all civilization and culture and progress, those who
embrace death to cause the death of the innocent, cannot be ignored,
cannot be appeased. They must be fought (Bush, 2001f).
Nor is our war against global terrorism a war against the people
of Afghanistan. The Afghan people are victims of oppression and
misrule of the Taliban regime. There are few places on Earth that
face greater misery. One out of every four children dies before the
age of 5 in Afghanistan. It is estimated that one in every three chil-
dren in Afghanistan is an orphan. Almost half suffer from chronic
malnutrition; millions face the threat of starvation. The situation is
so bad, so bad, that we read about 3-year-old children in Afghan-
istan who weigh less than the average newborn in America. We’re
trying to get food to starving Afghans. In contrast, the Taliban regime,
those who house the evildoers, has harnessed international aid—
harassed international aid workers and chased them out of their
country.
This continuing theme was taken up in explicit just war terms empha-
sizing both the ‘just cause’ of responding to evil and the ‘last resort’
nature of that response in mid-October addresses to business leaders
in Sacramento, CA and workers at the Dixie Printing and Packaging
Corporation in Glen Burnie, MD:
We are fighting for the security of our people, for the success of
our ideals, and for stability in large parts of the world. We fight evil
people who are distorting and betraying a great religion to justify
their murder. Our cause is just. We will not tire. We will not falter,
and my fellow Americans, we will not fail (Bush, 2001i; emphasis
added).
must hand over the Al Qaeda leadership which hides in your country.’
I said, ‘You must free those who you illegally detain in your country.’
And I said, ‘You must destroy the camps that have been used to train
the terrorists.’ And they had time to respond, and they didn’t respond
positively, and therefore, they’re paying a price….Our military is
conducting a campaign to bring the terrorists to justice, not to harm
the Afghan people. While we are holding the Taliban Government
accountable, we’re also feeding Afghan people. You need to be proud
of the United States military. It’s doing its job. It is slowly but surely
encircling the terrorists so that we’ll bring them to justice…justice will
be done (Bush, 2001j; emphasis added).
3
#/day
0
01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01
/ 7/20 0/20 3/20 6/20 9/20 2/20 5/20 8/20 1/20 /3/20 /6/20 /9/20 2/20 5/2018/20 1/20 4/20 7/2030/20 /3/20 /6/20
10 10/1 10/1 10/1 10/1 10/2 10/2 10/2 10/3 11 11 11 11/1 11/1 11/ 11/2 11/2 11/2 11/ 12 12
date
Frame content
As in the preceding two case studies, the topic of concern here is not
the speech-acts themselves but rather how the just war frame was
employed through them. The set of speech-acts identified for analysis
here were coded on a dichotomous basis for the presence or absence of
15 just war indicators indicative of the just war frame, with those indi-
cators reflecting the three basic criteria of the jus ad bellum component
of just war theory.9 In establishing a referential baseline, it is important
190 Selling a ‘Just’ War
to note that 22 per cent (290/1305) of all possible values of the 15 just
war frame variables across these 87 cases of ‘speech-acts’ were positive
(meaning they did feature reference to the indicator in question).
In examining the just war frame relative to individual ‘cases’ (e.g.,
each speech-act), 83 per cent (72/87) of the speech-acts related to
Afghanistan issued by the President during the duration of the US mil-
itary engagement featured two or more positive values, 24 per cent
(21/87) featured positive values in over a third (5 or more) of all just
war indicators, and 4.5 per cent (4/87) featured a majority (7 or more)
of positive values across all 15 indicators.10 Further compelling is the
finding that the average daily number of just war significations in
Presidential speech-acts throughout the 62-day crisis was 4.7.11 The
maximum number of just war signifiers contained within one speech-
act was 11 (the President’s 10 November 2001 address to the UN General
Assembly in New York), with the minimum (no reference to any of the
15 frame signifiers) occurring in eight cases.12
In scrutinizing these 15 indicators in conjunction with the three
major criteria of the jus ad bellum (just cause, competent authority,
right intention) from which they are derived, it is evident that the just
cause criterion (and the seven translations of it advanced here)
significantly outstrips the other two ad bellum criteria as a percentage
of all just war frame significations observed in the speech-acts analyzed
here. Fully 60 per cent (173/290) of all just war significations cor-
responded with ‘just cause’ considerations, compared to 12 per cent
(36/290) for ‘competent authority’ and 28 per cent (81/290) for ‘right
intention’.13 To that end, three of the four most frequently employed
frame signifiers (of the 15 considered) reflected just cause considerations
in framing the US military action respectively as: a response to the
involvement of an authoritarian regime in the crisis in 55 per cent of
the cases (48/87); a response to or punishment of ‘evil’ in 45 per cent
of the cases (39/87); and a response dictated by the fact that the crisis
was triggered by an act of violence (the 9/11 attacks) in 39 per cent of
the cases (34/87). The only exception among the most frequent frame
signifiers were allusions to the US military engagement as reflecting a
‘right intention’ by contributing positively to the ‘pace of abatement’
of the crisis, which occurred in 41 per cent of the speech-acts analyzed
(36/87). Similarly, the signification of the use of force as reflecting a
‘right intention’ by positively contributing to a formal outcome with
which all parties were satisfied was also relatively frequent, appear-
ing in 33 per cent of all speech-acts (29/87).14 With respect to the
competent authority criterion, allusions to global authority for the US
Afghanistan: Enduring Freedom and Infinite Justice 191
Just cause 18 JC * CA 11
Competent authority 1 JC * RI 23
Right intention 4 CA * RI 1
JC * CA * RI 21
Audience
Apart from analyzing the content of the just war frame in application,
it is important to again take into account the audience(s) to which that
frame application was directed. Before turning to the interface between
the just war frame and the various audiences of concern in this research
Afghanistan: Enduring Freedom and Infinite Justice 193
shows, ‘just causes’ are the most frequently employed regardless of audi-
ence—with the sole exception being speech-acts directed at multiple
audiences. The greatest prevalence of ‘just cause’ significations comes in
conjunction with speech-acts directed at the press (which is to be expected,
by virtue of the press being the most common target audience). How-
ever, it is also worth noting that in terms of concentrated intensity ‘just
causes’ make up a significantly greater proportion of all just war signi-
fications advanced in speech-acts directed at the mass public and opinion-
leaders.
Whereas allusions to ‘just causes’ in some form occurred in 57 per cent
(65/114) of all Presidential speech-acts concerning Afghanistan and directed
at the press during the crisis, similar allusions occurred in 73 per cent
(43/59) of all Presidential speech-acts directed at the mass public, and
77 per cent (27/35) of all speech-acts directed at opinion-leaders. It would
appear that while the press was the primary target for Presidential speech-
acts, and appeals to ‘just causes’ were commonplace within those speech-
acts, the relative degree of emphasis on the ‘just’ cause(s) for the affirmative
war-decision in Afghanistan was much greater in speech-acts directed
at the public and opinion-leaders. Conversely, whereas overall signi-
fications linked to the ‘right intention’ criterion were relatively fewer
than those associated with ‘just cause’, they appeared most frequently
(30 per cent, or 34/114) in speech-acts directed at the press, and less
so in those directed at the public (22 per cent, or 13/59) and opinion-
leaders (17 per cent, or 6/35). Finally, appeals to ‘competent authority’
were exceedingly rare irrespective of target audience, occurring in 13 per
cent (15/114) of the speech-acts targeting the press, and far fewer in
the other two instances.17
Such considerations raise the question of which specific just war signi-
fications were employed most often within Presidential speech-acts con-
cerning the affirmative war-decision in Afghanistan. Figure 7.3 depicts a
number of important findings with respect to the various translations of
‘just causes’ considered here. The first finding of note is that the classic
condition of a ‘significant power discrepancy’ between the target and
trigger of a crisis is invalidated here; it is never invoked during the crisis,
no doubt as a result of the fact that the crisis was triggered by an act of asym-
metric warfare (the 9/11 attacks) in which relative power runs counter
to the classic ‘bullying scenario’, thereby rendering such a signification
irrelevant and illogical. Power discrepancy aside, there is a great degree of
variability in the deployment of the ‘just cause’ significations by audience
type, both in terms of extensity (frequency of use across all audiences)
and intensity (proportionality of use by audience).
Afghanistan: Enduring Freedom and Infinite Justice 195
Allusions to the ‘direct violent crisis trigger’ (the 9/11 attacks) proved to
be slightly more frequent in speech-acts directed at the press than other
audiences (25 per cent, as compared to an average of 20 per cent). Con-
versely, efforts to link the affirmative war-decision to acts of ‘evil’ were less
common in speech-acts directed at the press (15 per cent, as compared to
23 per cent on average). In speech-acts directed at opinion-leaders, other
discontinuities appear; references to the affirmative war-decision as an act
of ‘self-defense’ and as a response to the ‘direct violent crisis trigger’ of
9/11 fell below the average (occurring only in 7 per cent of all speech-acts
in which at least one ‘just cause’ was invoked), whereas reference to the
appropriation of US property and persons was greatest (in 22 per cent of
speech-acts, versus the average across all audiences of 14 per cent).19
Just war significations by audience type according to the ‘competent
authority’ and ‘right intention’ criteria are more difficult to interpret. This
is especially true with respect to the three ‘competent authority’ signi-
fications, which as noted previously were individually and collectively
the least frequently observed in the data by a wide margin (accounting
for only 12 per cent of all just war significations). That caveat notwithstand-
ing, it is clear that competent authority significations clustered on two
audiences (press and foreign), with the claim to global authority for the
affirmative war-decision by far the most common and almost exclusively
directed at those two audiences (see Figure 7.4).
6
# significations
4
4
3 3
3
2 2 2
2
1 1 1
1
0 0 0 0
0
Mass public Press Opinion leaders Foreign Multiple
primary audience
Afghanistan: Enduring Freedom and Infinite Justice 197
Temporal dynamics
The last of the three main components of this analysis takes into account
the temporal dimension of framing, in seeking to evaluate whether there
was a substantive evolution in the effort to ‘sell’ the affirmative war-
decision as the crisis unfolded. As in the preceding chapters, two features
of the frame’s application were taken into account: first, whether and to
what extent any ‘chronological clusters’ (the occurrence of five or more
just war significations per day for a period of three or more consecutive
days) can be discerned over the duration of the crisis, and second, whether
these clusters (if they occur) relate in any way to the temporal evolution
of the crisis and the occurrence of any major developments through-
out it.21 Once again, this component of the analysis seeks to determine
whether the just war frame was especially prominent at any particular
time(s) of the crisis—and if so, why.22
The general assessment of the just war significations in their totality
by time is depicted on a monthly basis in Figure 7.6. In the aggregate,
during the entire period of the crisis roughly 43 per cent (124/290) of all
just war significations rendered in Presidential speech-acts were arti-
culated in October, 50 per cent (144/290) in November, and 7 per cent
(22/290) in December. In large part these figures reflect the distributional
pattern of the 62 days of the crisis, which began a full week into October
and terminated in the first week of December. Still, if one uses the 4.7 daily
average of just war significations as a benchmark, the total number of
just war significations occurring in October and November exceeded
Afghanistan: Enduring Freedom and Infinite Justice 199
expectations for each month (117 and 141, respectively) while the total
number of just war significations occurring in December fell well short
of the projected total (33).
As Figure 7.6 also indicates, the conditions used to define a ‘chrono-
logical cluster’ as outlined above (occurrence of five or more just war
significations per day for a period of three or more consecutive days)
were fully satisfied on three occasions, each occurring within the first
30 days of the crisis—from 7–12 October, 19–21 October, and finally from
30 October–1 November. These 12 days accounted for 30 per cent (88/290)
of all the just war significations advanced through Presidential speech-
acts during the entire 62-day crisis, with 17 per cent of all just war signi-
fications advanced during the crisis (48/290) occurred during the initial
‘cluster’ of 7–12 October. That ‘cluster’ was typified by a range of speech-
acts issued directly by the President including (but not limited to) prime-
time news conferences, public appearances with foreign leaders such as
Chancellor Schröeder and Lord Robertson, and a memorial service at the
Pentagon. This ‘cluster’ of just war significations advanced in conjunction
with the initial commitment of the US to war is clearly suggestive of the
launching of a multi-pronged rhetorical offensive through application of
the just war frame to the affirmative war-decision.23
Other notable peaks that fell just short of the conditions established
for a ‘chronological cluster’ include the profound spike in just war signi-
fications (40 in total, accounting for 14 per cent of all such significations
during the crisis) on 9–10 November centered around the President’s
address to the UN General Assembly, and a peak (14 significations, spread
across 3 speech-acts) on 19 November 2001 corresponding with the begin-
ning of Ramadan. Other near-clusters occurred from 26–29 November
2001 attributable in part to a large number of speech-acts concerning the
rescue of American aid workers in Afghanistan as well as the first reported
battlefield casualty) and from 4–6 December 2001, as the US-led military
engagement approached the apparent completion of its appointed task of
defeating the Taliban.
In returning to the categorical schema of the jus ad bellum by which the
significations of the ‘just war frame’ are organized, other interesting pat-
terns emerge with respect to the application of the frame over the dura-
tion of the crisis (see Figures 7.7, 7.8, and 7.9). Aside from a concern with
the chronological clustering of speech-acts and the apportionment of the
just war frame within those clusters, it is also worth considering the evo-
lution of the frame’s application in broad relief. This is again captured in
three distinct but overlapping ways: on a discrete basis, in which the total
number of all just war significations advanced in a given month of the
202 Selling a ‘Just’ War
crisis), 12 per cent of all significations in November, and a scant 4.5 per
cent of all significations advanced in December. Somewhat more telling
with respect to the temporal dimension of the frame application is the
significant and persistent increase in the prevalence of ‘right intention’
significations as the crisis unfolded. Whereas the ‘right intention’ indi-
cators were invoked sparingly (and on par with the ‘competent author-
ity’ indicators) in October, accounting for 19 per cent of all just war
significations in the first three-plus weeks of the crisis, they were nearly
twice as common as the crisis persisted into November (34 per cent)
and December (36 per cent).
Shifting to a focus on the distributive characteristics evident within the
data underscores these apparent patterns in the temporal dynamics of the
frame’s application, while also suggesting others. The termination of the
crisis for the US on 7 December 2001 makes characterizations of that
month difficult. Still, the general pattern suggested above—in which just
cause significations are consistent (and consistently prevalent) through-
out the crisis and right intention significations increased in importance as
the crisis wore on—both hold true. With respect to the total number
of ‘just cause’ significations advanced throughout the entire crisis, 47 per
cent occurred in October, 45 per cent in November, and 8 per cent in
December; the equivalent percentages by month for ‘right intention’
significations are 30 per cent in October, 60 per cent in November, and
10 per cent in December. The main point of departure from the discrete
assessment above, however, comes with respect to the ‘competent author-
ity’ criteria. The much less frequent invocation of ‘competent authority’
significations (viz. just cause or right intention) notwithstanding, it is
important to note that there is almost no distinguishable pattern in the
total number of those significations, which are split almost evenly by
month (50 per cent in October, 47 per cent in November, 3 per cent in
December). If anything, there is a slight frontward tilt towards the early
phase of the crisis, in that half of all ‘competent authority’ significations
during the crisis occurred in the (25 days) of October.
The interactions of time and substantive emphasis evident within the
application of the frame provide further reaffirmation of these general
patterns (see Table 7.4). Taking both time and criteria into account, it is
clear that the application of the just war frame to the affirmative war-
decision in the Afghanistan crisis in the fall of 2001 featured a strong
emphasis on the ‘just causes’ precipitating the use of force from the very
outset of the crisis (an emphasis which was sustained throughout the
crisis), little concern with significations of competent authority for the
military action, and a gradual but perceptible increase in the emphasis
Afghanistan: Enduring Freedom and Infinite Justice 203
efforts to ‘sell’ the war in Afghanistan, but also to the profound and
variable effects of audience type on the application of frames and the
politics of signification.
Conclusion
The preceding analysis of the just war frame’s application in the Persian
Gulf War, the NATO intervention in Kosovo, and the US-led invasion of
211
212 Selling a ‘Just’ War
into the analysis—what held constant in both cases was the lack of any
semblance of other potentially competing frames. As such, the credibility
of the frame itself as well as that of its chief articulators was enhanced in
the process.
Frame transmission
key elites including, but not limited to, the media (ibid.). The cascade
effect refers to the process by which the frame’s content is received,
filtered, and reproduced for mass consumption by elite audiences—as
well as the reverberation of the frame back to the ‘top’ in a series of
feedback loops.
At the heart of the cascade model is the insight that effective frames
are, and must be, culturally sustained and reinforced. This is a con-
dition that requires adjustment of the frame when needed, and beyond
that necessitates the constitutive involvement of opinion-leaders other
than the frame’s primary architects. The use of the just war frame to
‘sell’ the decision to employ military force in the Persian Gulf, Kosovo,
and Afghanistan for the most part confirms the ‘cascade model’ of
framing, though to a diminished degree over the span of the three
cases. In terms of transmission, perhaps the overriding and most com-
pelling feature of the just war frame’s application in the Persian Gulf
War and in Kosovo was the degree to which the mass public was by-
passed in favor of the media and, to a lesser extent, other opinion-leaders
(business leaders, religious authorities, military officers). In both cases, a
sizable majority of speech-acts concerning the crisis as well as speech-acts
employing the just war frame targeted these audiences, with the public
at-large much less likely to be the primary target for Presidential speech-
acts concerning the crisis, or for efforts at ‘selling’ the affirmative war-
decision via the just war frame.
From the standpoint of frame transmission, such findings can clearly
be interpreted as supporting Entman’s cascade model. However, this
pattern was not replicated in the Afghanistan case, in which the ratio of
both Presidential speech-acts and just war frame significations by audi-
ence type tilted to a greater degree in the direction of the mass public.
In making the case for a US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the George
W. Bush Administration (unlike its predecessors) relied much more heavily
on direct appeals to the public at-large, while placing relatively less emphasis
on speech-making and frame transmission aimed at the media and other
opinion-leaders. While the exploratory nature of this analysis does not
allow for any compelling conclusion or interpretation of this finding rela-
tive to Entman’s cascade model, it is clear that within the bounds of this
study, the Afghanistan case stands as an outlier in terms of frame transmis-
sion and target audience. Whether that outlier status is a simple outgrowth
of the mass public trauma gripping American society in the aftermath of
9/11, or rather is indicative of a broader shift away from the cascade effect
in framing within the context of US foreign policy would seem a question
worthy of further and more finely calibrated analysis.
Conclusion: Selling a Just War 221
As this book was completed in the summer of 2011, the US was involved
in yet another military intervention in response to a crisis, as part of a
NATO operation (‘Operation Unified Protector’) contributing to the end
of Moammar Gaddafi’s four decades of autocratic rule in Libya. And yet
again a sitting US President has turned to the language of moral obliga-
tion and the concepts of just war theory as a means of framing the deci-
sion to use military force. Announcing the beginning of Allied air sorties
over Libya on 18 March 2011, the President outlined the rationale driving
the decision:
Instead of respecting the rights of his own people, Qadhafi chose the
path of brutal suppression. Innocent civilians were beaten, impris-
oned, and in some cases killed. Peaceful protests were forcefully put
Conclusion: Selling a Just War 223
Now, the United States did not seek this outcome. Our decisions
have been driven by Qadhafi’s refusal to respect the rights of his
people and the potential for mass murder of innocent civilians…So
I’ve taken this decision with the confidence that action is necessary
and that we will not be acting alone. Our goal is focused, our cause
is just, and our coalition is strong (Obama, 2011a).
It’s true that America cannot use our military wherever repression
occurs. And given the costs and risks of intervention, we must always
measure our interests against the need for action. But that cannot
be an argument for never acting on behalf of what’s right. In this
particular country, Libya, at this particular moment, we were faced
with the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. We had a unique
ability to stop that violence: an international mandate for action,
a broad coalition prepared to join us, the support of Arab coun-
tries, and a plea for help from the Libyan people themselves. We
also had the ability to stop Qadhafi’s forces…without putting American
troops on the ground.
look over the past four administrations, what has been remarkable, in
addition to the two wars, long wars, that we’re involved in, are how
many of these brushfire operations we have either gotten into or not
gotten into. We did not in Rwanda. President Clinton said that was a
mistake. We have in Libya. What is lacking here is any kind of frame-
work for deciding when American military force will be used. We have
gone through four administrations—we’re in the middle of the fourth
administration—since the end of the Cold War. And what I think is
needed right now is what I would call an Obama doctrine, which lays
out a framework for intervention or nonintervention. And that would
help the American people, certainly people like myself, understand
why we get involved, when we get involved and how much we will
get involved. And that kind of context has been lacking for the better
part of 20 years (PBS, 2011b).
Yet in the same way that we can and should think of the decision to go
to war as one that impacts all of society, in the process rejecting the
splendid isolation of decisions rendered for raison d’état by monarchs
and liberals alike, so too does this study of the framing of that decision
suggest that we would also reject the notion that the decision to go to
war and the ‘selling’ of that decision are wholly distinct entities.
Of course the effort to frame a decision to go to war by America’s polit-
ical leadership as ‘just’ hardly makes it so. But the collision between
a deeply embedded social behavior such as war and a fundamentally
socially constructed concept such as legitimacy does provide decision-
makers with the opportunity to frame it as such—an appealing prospect
to those responsible for such a high stakes decision. Indeed, if the effort
to frame the decision to go to war is effective enough, that decision (and
the war that ensues) is likely to be perceived and received as legitimate by
a substantial segment of the society in question—including, quite poss-
ibly, those making it. This construction of legitimacy makes successful
conduct of the war infinitely more likely by enhancing both the appeal
of the decision and those responsible for it. This was undoubtedly the
‘endgame’ sought by the three Presidential Administrations (George H.W.
Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush) in their employment of the just
war frame to advance the three major military intervention decisions
analyzed here. And, irrespective of the effectiveness of their efforts, the
extensive and intensive employment of the just war frame to ‘sell’ the
legitimacy of decisions to employ military force in responding to foreign
policy crisis suggests that the framing of that decision and the decision
itself are inextricably linked in ways that are likely to remain important
for many years to come.
Notes
Chapter 1 Introduction
1 Armed conflict of all types increased by a factor of three during the period
1960–1992 (Human Security Centre, 2010).
2 See, among others, Pearson (1973), Small and Singer (1982), Levy (1983),
Tillema (1991), Pearson and Baumann (1993–1994), Bercovitch and Jackson
(1997), Huth (1998), Regan (2002), Hegre (2004), Lacina (2004), and SIPRI
(2010) for a sampling of such empirical research.
3 Not inconsequential here is the article of faith at the heart of liberal thought
that human rationality can be directed toward the mutually reinforcing ends
of personal and social progress, a belief that resonates to varying degree
within all liberal societies. On the question of war, this faith in rationality is
especially crucial, in that it underpins the allegedly transformative effects of
Kant’s ‘asocial sociability’ upon the domestic and eventually international
arena—as well as the associated supposition that the rule of law and the devel-
opment of non-violent mechanisms for dispute resolution can supplant the
‘war of all against all’ that typifies an anarchical international system (Doyle,
1986; Dixon, 1994; Russett and Oneal, 2001).
4 Indeed, since the end of World War II the United States has inarguably occu-
pied a unique geopolitical position as the sole enduring military superpower as
well as the leader and guarantor of liberalism and self-appointed champion of
the ‘free world’, in essence rendering US foreign policy during this period an
effort to consummate what Wittkopf et al. (2003), Jentleson (2010), and others
have famously referred to as a marriage of ‘power and principle’.
5 From this perspective, resorting to war is understood to constitute a breakdown
in the implicit code of conduct presumed to govern relations between nations,
and as such an undesirable outcome that violates common and shared stan-
dards of humanity. One can discern strains of this view and the universalism
that underpins it in such disparate sources as Hammurabi’s Code, Kant’s three
Definitive Articles, or Rawls’ ‘Law of Peoples’.
6 Narrowly, the resort to war may obviate or liquidate the war’s objectives before
they can be secured. From a wider vantage point, the resort to war may create
additional enemies, weaken material capacity and capabilities, or undermine
the ideals and values of the society in question (or some combination of the
three). On the merits of constraining war on account of the material benefits
associated with doing so, the contribution of classical utilitarians like Bentham
(1798) and Mill (1859) are especially noteworthy.
228
Notes 229
ing a just order after the war’s conclusion (the jus post bellum precept). How-
ever, as neither speaks directly to the war-decision and the ex ante rational-
ization of that decision, these components of the theory and tradition largely
fall outside the bounds of this research and are not systematically examined or
discussed.
2 Roman proscriptions on war, advanced in accordance with fetial law (jus
fetiale), were important early sources of just war thinking. In this respect, the
efforts of Cicero to harness war solely to the purpose of defense of empire
should not be overlooked. Cicero was especially instrumental in sustaining the
earliest antecedents of the just war tradition, particularly as concerns the feas-
ibility and merits of a universal standard of conduct in war (see Bellamy, 2006).
At the same time, relative to social practice, Roman contributions to the just
war ‘conversation’ had significantly less impact on the war-decision than did
those of Hebrew and Greek civilizations. Furthermore, the contributions of
imperial Roman society to this ‘conversation’ have not translated to modern
liberal societies to a similar degree (no doubt due to liberal sensibilities con-
cerning overt imperial dominion and conquest); hence, the diminished empha-
sis here.
3 Other pretexts, such as to take vengeance, to gain advantages for the polis,
or to maintain authority over those unfit to rule themselves, stemmed from
the Platonic conception of a natural social order and the duties of the
philosopher-king to preserve or restore them (see Hamburger, 1951).
4 Even such a critical empiricist and utilitarian as Hume—while certainly at
odds with, say, Locke with regard to the presumed primacy of natural law
and associated notions of justice over human relations—asserted that the
central importance of justice to society is so unquestioned that undertaking
to prove it would be an utterly superfluous activity (Aiken, 1970).
5 This is reflected thematically in the intellectual labors of the neo-scholastics
(especially Vitoria) to define and extend standards concerning the treat-
ment of the indigenous peoples in the conquest of the ‘New World’, as well
as those within the African diaspora swept up in the brutal and inhumane
practice of slavery, and to hold sovereigns as well as conquistadors to
account for their conduct relative to those standards (Ballis, 1937; Vitoria,
1991).
6 It is important here to acknowledge the role of the Crusades relative to the just
war tradition and ‘conversation’. Clearly the Christian holy wars launched in
order to reunify the Western and Eastern Christians and ‘liberate’ Jerusalem
(and, earlier, Moorish Spain) reflect the fundamental just war precept of ‘legit-
imate authority’ to the extent that they were defined (and perceived by their
protagonists) as directly commanded by God, through the papacy. At the
same time, other ad bellum precepts (such as just cause) received relatively less
emphasis, while the brutal atrocities committed exposed the lack of any con-
cern with just conduct in relations with non-Christians, bearing little resem-
blance to any form of in bello restraint associated with the just war theory or
the larger just war tradition surrounding it. Whereas Walters (1973) is correct
in identifying that, by virtue of reflecting the potential for the abuse of just
war precepts, the holy war doctrine underpinning the Crusades was part of
(rather than antithetical to) the just war tradition, it is also clear that the era
of the Crusades themselves contributed little to the ‘conversation’ of what
230 Notes
constitutes a ‘just’ war, beyond papal authority. As such, while the nexus of
just war theory and the Crusades is a hugely significant and important one,
it falls largely outside the particular bounds of this research.
7 As Johnson (1975) suggests, these attempts at clarification were certainly influ-
enced by the unsatisfactory results of the Crusades and by prompting of the
neo-scholastics’ religious benefactors who wished to consolidate the authority
of Church after those disastrous campaigns.
8 In light of this objective, the medieval theorists confronted a difficult chal-
lenge; namely, that of seeking to harmonize religious authority with the rise of
a class of professional statesmen with little interest in adhering to the will
of the church or doing its bidding. As direct appeals to divine sanction or for-
mative theological teaching were no longer effective, medieval just war theo-
rists instead appealed to a common moral standard rooted in the essence of
humanity (Boyle, 1992). For example, Vitoria repeatedly and explicitly exhorted
political authorities to abide by a jus gentium, while Suárez took a similar tack,
insisting that ‘…a ruler’s right to make war must have at least some relation to
natural law’ (Vitoria, 1991; Suárez, quoted in Taylor, 1979: 248).
9 With the decision to wage war left to the devices of statesmen, to the extent
that the just war tradition retained any credence within the ‘second’ law of
nations, it was due to its incorporation of the jus in bello criteria in the effort to
regulate war’s conduct. The amenability of particular interpretations of the
in bello precepts of proportionality (of means) and discrimination to the pro-
motion of a state-based system in the 18th and 19th centuries, and to the pos-
itive law doctrine which supported that system, is evident in the codification
of in bello principles into formal laws of war such as the 1868 Declaration of
St. Petersburg (Reichberg, 2002).
10 Internally, such a monopoly underwrote the very authority of the state, as
violence could be (and was) used to thwart potential internal challenges
to ruling elites, while simultaneously allowing for any such challenges to be
framed by agents of the state as inherently illegitimate—allowing for the con-
solidation of state power. At the same time, the ‘Weberian monopoly’ also
allowed, and indeed encouraged, ‘the state’ to employ violence to defend
national interests and advance national objectives relative to other states, or
even to divert attention from domestic problems by initiating armed conflict
with ‘enemies’.
11 The durability of the ancien regime in French political life, continuing national-
ist and revolutionary sentiment in France, rapid industrial transformation, and
the specter of eclipse by a unified Germany after defeat in the France-Prussian
War all combined to make social cohesion the Third Republic’s primary con-
cern (Shirer, 1969). It was in this context that Adolphe Thiers, the first presi-
dent of the Third Republic, called republicanism the form of government that
divides France the least. France had, of course, played a pivotal role as pro-
genitor of the idea of popular revolution, an idea culminating in the Revo-
lutions of 1848 that had engulfed the Continent. Yet France also had been
the object of revolutionary scorn after backsliding into the Second Empire
(1851–1870). France differed from Britain or the United States in that liberal-
ism faced more entrenched internal challenges and did not enjoy the relative
unbroken upward trajectory it did in British or American society (Bernard and
Dubief, 1985). This made advocating the export of liberal ideals through
Notes 231
force—which the Jacobins had argued for a century earlier—a far less natural
proposition for the Third Republic, a regime attempting to govern a moribund
society that largely desired a return to monarchy (ibid.). Whereas France too
boasted an expansionist agenda during the late 19th and early 20th century
in places such as Indochina and North Africa, for these reasons and others the
war-decision was chiefly legitimated through appeals to national glory and
mission civilisatrice rather than liberal ideology (Logue, 1983).
12 This radical liberal internationalism, which was frequently translated into
wars of ‘national liberation’ encouraged from without rather than organically
generated from within, speaks of a return to an earlier proactive strain in the
just war tradition which envisioned the articulation of the prudential criteria
as little more than a means to advance a foreordained social order through
military force.
13 Beveridge’s ‘March of the Flag’ speech singularly captures the degree to which
moral legitimization was applied to the burgeoning project of American empire,
and the war-decision in general: ‘Shall the American people continue their
resistless march toward the commercial supremacy of the world? Shall free
institutions broaden their blessed reign as the children of liberty wax in
strength until the empire of our principles is established over the hearts of all
mankind? Have we no mission to perform—no duty to discharge to our fellow
man? Has the Almighty Father endowed us with gifts beyond our deserts, and
marked us as the people of His peculiar favor, merely to rot in our own selfish-
ness, as men and nations must who take cowardice for their companion and
self for their deity…shall we be as the man who had one talent and hid it,
or as he who had ten talents and used them until they grew to riches. And
shall we reap the reward that waits on the discharge of our high duty as the
sovereign power of earth?’ (ibid.)
14 Indeed, perhaps the ultimate incongruity of post-Enlightenment modernity is
the reality that it is an age at once defined by the rational pursuit of ‘progress’
as well as by wars of striking frequency and increasing destructiveness, draw-
ing upon the full resource endowments of the nation and the state and prompted
and sustained by competing ideologies that countenance war in all-or-nothing
terms (Kaldor, 1999).
15 The Popular Front in France, led by Leon Blum, was instrumental in this regard,
arguing against non-interventionism despite significant internal challenges from
the Right and external opposition by the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments
in Britain.
16 At the same time, this exceedingly convincing case does not change the fact
that the conduct of the war by the Allies as well as the Axis powers was
morally repugnant. The explicit policy of the Royal Air Force to target civilian
population centers in Germany (adopted in 1942 and persisting for the
remainder of the war), the fire-bombing of Dresden, and the twin detonations
of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki come to mind as ready exam-
ples confirming the unjust nature of the prosecution of the war (relative to the
just war criteria) from the Allied side.
17 Because this research is focused on the war-decision relative to the just war
tradition, it is possible to limit consideration here to the jus ad bellum consid-
erations alone. However, I openly acknowledge that in the same way that such
a narrowed focus impedes the ability of decision-makers and the public
232 Notes
at-large to appraise the ‘justice’ of any war, so too does it limit the ability to
draw broader conclusions about the behavior of states relative to the just
war theory or the standards of ‘legitimacy’ relative to the prosecution of war
that it seeks to advance.
18 The allowance for self-defense is codified in Article 51 of the UN Charter,
which stipulates the ‘…inherent right of individual or collective self-defense
if an armed attack occurs…until the Security Council has taken measures nec-
essary to maintain international peace and security’. The privileged moral
position extended to self-defense within the just war tradition dates at least as
far back as Augustine, at least in the case of response to armed attack. Attempts
at more expansive articulations of the self-defense exception (i.e., where armed
attack does not occur, but appeals to ‘self-defense’ are made—see the British
and French justification of the use of force during the Suez crisis, various Israeli
military forays into neighboring Arab states, or the US attack of Iraq in 2003)
have been met with mixed reviews by just war theorists.
19 The full text of the Charter can be found at: http://www.un.org/aboutun/
charter/.
20 While the explicit attempt by the UN’s framers to confer competent authority
on the Security Council diverges from the traditionally statist orientation of
just war theory, the logic is the same. Since the international agreement estab-
lishing the United Nations Organization had recognized legal status, and since
the principles espoused by the UN Charter concerning the use of force, while
imperfect, were not manifestly unjust, than in just war terms that body pos-
sessed (and possesses) the right to serve as a legitimately recognized authority
able to sanction acceptable uses of force and prohibit unacceptable ones as it
saw fit.
21 Though in other respects, such as his contention the traditional basis of
just war theory in the universality of natural law should be replaced by a
robust emphasis on advancing and defining individual rights, Walzer’s take
is decidedly less orthodox.
through many possible frames. In this portrayal, people turn to elites for
guidance and they are thus selective about which frames they believe—they
only believe frames that come from sources they perceive to be credible.’
5 Among some notable examples of frames interpreted as sufficiently represen-
tative of this ‘master frame’ status in the view of those who most closely
study framing are the rights frame (Williams and Williams, 1995; Valocchi,
1996), the injustice frame (Gamson et al., 1982; Carroll and Ratner, 1996), and
the hegemonic frame (Blum-Kulka and Liebes, 1993).
6 The advancement of such a decidedly constructivist interpretation of what con-
stitutes a ‘just war’ should not be interpreted as a rebuke of the concrete and
measurable concepts and propositions at the heart of just war theory or the
tradition subsuming it. Indeed, nothing could be further from the truth. With
respect to the central focus of this research (the war-decision) as well as the
conduct and termination of war, the just war tradition has clearly promulgated
and sustained a set of enduring moral and ethical standards. From the neces-
sary (but not sufficient) catalytic criterion of ‘just cause’ through concerns with
proportionality and discrimination on the battlefield and the proper dispatch
of the vanquished after the war’s cessation, those standards have remained con-
sistent and coherent even amidst centuries of efforts to apply them in a social
context; there is, in fact, a ‘there’ there. Yet it is the applied dimension of the
entire just war enterprise, and the mutability that defines that application,
which makes just war theory and the narrative tradition enveloping it particu-
larly useful for this analysis.
7 Setting the tone for centuries of American foreign policy to come, Paine argued
that the otherwise vile institution of war provided a legitimate means to advance
the cause of national liberation—including, of course, the revolution against
imperial Britain to which he was committed. Paine contended that the lib-
eration of society from the domination of oppressive and illegitimate state
power was a moral duty. Drawing upon an expanded notion of self-defense and
making an explicit appeal to natural law (both prominent features of the just
war narrative before and since), he argued that it was in the common interest
of humanity, and in the particular interests of liberal society, to aid threatened
nations in repelling invasion and throwing off the yoke of colonial rule (Keane,
1995).
8 Modelski defines the sphere of influence as ‘an area in which one great power
assumes exclusive responsibility for the maintenance of peace…it denotes a
situation in which one power has acquired a monopoly or near-monopoly for
its services to that area’ (1972: 156).
2 Reichberg (2002) contends, with appeals to Kant, that Johnson’s ‘basic’ criteria
are what really differentiate the just war tradition from cosmopolitanism. I would
extend this characterization of the basic category further, in contending that
they also distinguish the just war tradition from the idealism of the ‘just peace’
view as well.
3 Doing so would require unfettered access to a small handful of powerful indi-
viduals who are not only nearly impossible to interview, but who are highly
likely (for a variety of reasons) to have difficulty accurately recalling their
thought processes relative to such considerations, and (again, for a variety
of reasons) may even in some cases intentionally obfuscate their logic and
reasoning should they be able to recall it accurately. Distortion and/or deception
concerning the decision and the event precipitating it is always possible; in
few (if any cases) is one individual the only actor with significant impact on
major decisions such as overseas military deployments; such events are rare
and beyond the reach of most researchers, and even when they occur within
the ‘fog of war’ usually leave one with as many questions as answers. Added to
these logistical obstacles is the more fundamental problem that even if the
interested researcher were to gain access in order to attempt to evaluate the
presence, absence, and relative weight of such criteria, because these criteria
turn on assessing the resonance of moral considerations within the perception
and cognition of individual decision-makers contemplating war, any findings
they produce are necessarily idiosyncratic to the individual concerned and the
cognitive and psychological processes by which they operate. As such, any
broader generalizations (such as I seek here) would be difficult if not impossible
to draw.
4 Walzer, for example, contends that the ‘self-help’ principle has historically
been considered the paramount example of a legitimate use of force; even
Mill’s entrenched opposition to external interference in the affairs of a sover-
eign nation explicitly leaves a place for self-defense and self-determination
(Walzer, 1977: 87–88; Mill, 1859).
5 As Walzer (1977: 53–55) notes, the right of states to territorial integrity and
political sovereignty are derived from the rights of individuals to build a
common life and depend on the consent of their members. To the extent that
a state seeks to and/or succeeds at protecting the lives and interests of its
individual constituents, it should remain beyond (aggressive) challenge by any
other state or states.
6 For example, just cause resulting from an act of aggression can ostensibly be
responses to a physical assault (e.g., a violation of territory), but could plaus-
ibly be extended to include aggressive verbal overtures (e.g., the impugning of
national honor or threats to national sovereignty), trade embargoes and sanc-
tions (acts of aggression against economic activity), and other less direct
provocations (Regan, 1996).
7 Far less consensus exists with respect to those revisions to the strict legalist
translation of ‘just cause’ introducing the prospects of a just use of military force
in anticipation of probable acts of aggression, as a mechanism of counter-
intervention, and as a means of assistance in the cause of national liberation.
While Walzer’s attempt to chronicle such revisions proved vital to the post-
Vietnam War effort at revising just war criteria to fit contemporary dilemmas,
the extent of disagreement within the just war tradition over the specification
Notes 235
ing a resort to war (Butler, 2007). However, the extent to which the resort
to war was a fait accompli—as reflected in the reality that the crisis itself was
precipitated by the US—renders the case too idiosyncratic for inclusion in a
comparative, multi-case study research design.
25 There is a clear and not insignificant ‘gap’ between the Gulf War (1990–1991)
and the Kosovo (1999) cases. I attribute this inter-regnum to two factors: one,
the disproportionate effect of the Somalia debacle and the subsequent issuance
of Presidential Decision Directive 25 in 1994, which expressly limited US mil-
itary intervention during the middle years of the Clinton presidency; and two,
the limitations associated with the self-imposed requirement of variance in
party in power, which require selection of a case occurring during the Clinton
years which also satisfies the other primary and secondary selection criteria.
26 ‘Speech-acts’ were readily available from a variety of sources, including (but
not limited to) official government websites associated with the Office of the
White House, Department of State, Department of Defense, National Archives
and Records Administration (NARA), and so forth, including both current and
archived sites (maintained both by the agencies themselves, as in the case of
the Department of State, or through use of the Internet Archive search tool).
Particularly valuable were the extensive web-based collections maintained by
NARA (archives.gov), DOD (DefenseLINK), and the Department of State (Office
of the Historian, as well as the Foreign Relations of the United States, or FRUS,
archive housed by the University of Wisconsin) and the FOIA Electronic
Reading Room maintained by the Central Intelligence Agency. Several acad-
emic and other non-governmental collections were invaluable as well, again
including (but not limited to): the database maintained by the American
Presidency Project at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and in partic-
ular the ‘Papers of the Presidents’ archive; the holdings of the Miller Center of
Public Affairs at the University of Virginia; the National Security Archive,
maintained at George Washington University; the Cold War International
History Project (CWIHP) based at the Woodrow Wilson International Center
for Scholars; and the various national security-related documents and state-
ments available at the Federation of American Scientists website. For less readily
available ‘speech-acts’, archival research was utilized requiring multiple in-
person visits to the National Archives I and II (Washington, D.C. and College
Park, MD, respectively), the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.) and the
Pentagon Library (Arlington, VA).
27 Speech-acts attributed to the White House Press Secretary, as a constituent of
the Executive Office of the President and a direct public outlet of the President,
were also considered relevant for inclusion.
28 Secondary concerns include the need for parsimony as well as consistency in
the analysis. On the former score, the already extensive array of indicators within
the just war frame lend a significant degree of breadth and potential variability
to the analysis; seeking to conduct that analysis for multiple foreign policy
principals (such as the Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense,
National Security Adviser) would be unwieldy, at least within the bounds of
a single inquiry. On the latter, the significant variability in the cases selected
with respect to the decision-making authority and more importantly (for this
analysis) public profile of these foreign policy principals has the potential to
undermine the analysis; for instance, the role of Vice President Cheney in
238 Notes
populations such as college students and the press that had proven crucial
sources of opposition to the war effort a generation hence.
8 For a description of how relevant ‘speech-acts’ by the President of the
United States were collected for this case, see Chapter 4, note 26.
9 A combination of computer-based and human coding was used in arriving
at the determination of the presence/absence and relative weight of these
indicators in the data collected for each case. In the latter instance, inter-
coder reliability estimates (reached through simple correlation tests) met or
exceeded a threshold parameter of 0.8 in all cases (Lombard et al., 2002).
10 In total, 88 per cent (120/137) of Presidential speech-acts featured at least one
just war signification, though in the interests of a conservative approach to the
analysis I view the presence of two or more significations a better estimate of
minimal significance for the frame.
11 Indeed, if one eliminates the 70 days in which no Presidential speech-acts
concerning Iraq and the Gulf occurred, the average number of just war signi-
fications per day exceeds six (6.22).
12 The mean value of just war signifiers per speech-act was 3.86, with a standard
deviation of 3.04.
13 This differential is robust, even if one controls for the fact that the just cause
criterion had more potential observations per speech-act than the competent
authority and right intention criteria (seven, versus three and five respectively).
14 The magnitude of the standard deviation across all 15 just war signifiers
(23.32) can largely be accounted for by the prominent outlier of the ‘global
authority’ variable, as the variance across the other 14 signifiers (independent
variables) is not significant.
15 These 137 cases of Presidential speech-acts were coded for ‘primary target audi-
ence’ in accordance with considerations including (but not limited to): the
venue in which the speech-act was delivered, formal or intentional references
or allusions to one or more audiences within the speech-act, and the delivery
mechanism of the speech-act itself (e.g., press conference, speech, televised
appearance, etc.). Inter-coder reliability estimates (reached through simple cor-
relation tests) relative to the determinations of primary target audience met
or exceeded a threshold parameter of 0.8 in all cases (Lombard et al., 2002).
The audience category ‘opinion-leaders’ includes business and religious leaders,
the legal community, and members of the military; the category ‘foreign’ refer to
instances where the speech-act is primarily directed at a non-American audience;
the category ‘multiple’ includes those speech-acts in which multiple audiences
were targeted to a degree in which it was impossible to determine a primary and
secondary audience(s).
16 Additional speech-acts directed at foreign (non-US) and multiple audiences
were also accounted for in the data, though for the most part they reside
outside the bounds of this research and provide only minimal contextual
information. In this case (Gulf War) in particular they are relatively inconse-
quential, accounting (combined) for approximately 10 per cent of all 270
just war significations in Presidential speech-acts. Apart from their infre-
quency, it is also worth noting that the seven ‘just cause’ considerations were
in rough proportion to the average across all audiences both for speech-acts
directed at a foreign audience and those in which the primary audience was
indeterminate.
240 Notes
17 It is also worth noting the finding that claims of ‘self defense’ occurred in a far
lower than expected proportion in speech-acts directed at the press—the most
commonly targeted domestic audience—thereby providing further evidence
of the claim that its abstract quality rendered it of seemingly little use to the
Administration, particularly relative to its most frequently targeted audience.
18 Interestingly, the degree of reduced emphasis relative to the general baseline
in speech-acts directed at opinion-leaders was, in proportional terms, even
greater than the enhanced emphasis evident in those directed at the press; the
marginal difference was made up by a slightly greater than expected resonance
in speech-acts directed primarily at a foreign audience—a difference perhaps
explained by the Administration’s perception of the likely sensitivity of for-
eign audiences to a perceived violation of diplomatic custom and norms of
diplomatic immunity.
19 The relatively small number directed at the other two audiences (14 per cent,
or 18/126, in each instance) requires conditioning any strong conclusions about
an enhanced emphasis in either case.
20 With respect to the conditions defining a ‘chronological cluster’, it should be
pointed out that the average daily number of just war significations contained
in Presidential speech-acts concerning the Gulf crisis was 3.4; hence, the
notion of the ‘cluster’ rests on the idea of a sustained level of just war
significations above the daily average for the crisis.
21 In light of the focus on the temporal dimension of the crisis and its possible
effects on the just war frame, days were employed as the unit of analysis. This
required a slight manipulation of the data, such that days featuring more than
one Presidential speech-act were aggregated along with the data pertaining to
the 15 translations of the just war frame.
22 While the actual number of just war significations advanced in March 1991
fell short of the expected value of 105, the total number actually advanced
that month (88) equates to about 84 per cent of the expected figure—making
the shortfall in December 1990 all the more striking.
23 The third cluster, occurring from 5–7 April 1991, minimally exceeds the thresh-
old both in terms of duration and significations per day. Featuring 18 total signi-
fications distributed over five total speech-acts, the essence of this ‘cluster’ was a
public effort by the White House to disavow any responsibility for encouraging
the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings which engendered brutal reprisals by Saddam’s
regime—as reflected in the emphasis on ‘response to/punishment of evil’ and
various right intention significations within this cluster.
24 In proportional terms (by month), the distribution of right intention signi-
fications hews closely to the larger fluctuations in speech-acts and total signi-
fications, with one major exception—March 1991. That month, which featured
a relatively low number of speech-acts and just war significations, at the same
time accounted for the single largest percentage of right intention signi-
fications (25 per cent of all right intention significations advanced during the
crisis were advanced in March 1991). This outcome was undoubtedly a func-
tion of the impending termination of the crisis and in particular the successful
expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, events which triggered repeated signi-
fications in Presidential speech-acts affirming the association between the
decision to use military force and the pursuit of ‘right intentions’ such as a
formal outcome and crisis abatement.
Notes 241
25 This point was stated explicitly by others in the Administration as well; see,
for example, NSA Brent Scowcroft’s September 1990 assertion that ‘This [the
crisis] represents the first test of our ability to maintain global or regional
stability in the post-Cold War era’ (Drew, 1990).
20 Also relevant here are the relatively high number of speech-acts (eight) featuring
one or more frame significations during this three day period.
21 One key qualifier here is the muted overall response to the crisis by the
President, irrespective of the frame. It is worth recalling here that the total
number of Presidential speech-acts concerning the crisis (167) translates to
an average of slightly more than 2 speech-acts per day; further, ten of the
78 days during the crisis featured no Presidential speech-act concerning the
crisis at all.
22 Impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives concluded 19 December
1998, while those in the Senate drew to a close on 12 February 1999.
agencies coordinate their efforts to bar from the United States all aliens who
meet any of the following criteria: aliens who are representatives, members or
supporters of terrorist organizations; aliens who are suspected of engaging in
terrorist activity; or aliens who provide material support to terrorist activity
(Ashcroft, 2001a).
5 In a wide-ranging interview with Tim Russert of NBC News, Vice President
Dick Cheney unequivocally situated the 9/11 attacks relative to this struggle
between civilization and barbarism: ‘I think the world increasingly will under-
stand what we have here are a group of barbarians, that they threaten all of
us, that the US is the target at the moment, but one of the things to remember
is if you look at the roster of countries who lost people in the bombing in New
York, over 40 countries have had someone killed or have significant num-
bers missing…so it’s an attack not just upon the United States but upon, you
know, civilized society’ (Cheney, 2001).
6 The fact that Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty (a.k.a., the NATO Charter)
was invoked in support of the first out-of-area offensive deployment in NATO’s
history in Afghanistan further underscores both the wide appeal of self-defense
as a legitimate grounds for war as well as the degree to which 9/11 and the
GWOT were understood in that light.
7 A representative sampling of this rationale was provided by Undersecretary of
State Marc Grossman, ‘I believe that Security Council resolution 1368 that was
passed on the 12th of September, offers all of the legal basis and requirement
that we need, in addition to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which is
the right of self-defense. And we believe the United States was attacked on the
11th of September and that we have a right of self-defense in this regard’
(Grossman, 2001).
8 See Chapter 4, note 26 for an accounting of data collection procedures
employed in identifying and obtaining relevant ‘speech-acts’ by the President
of the United States employed in this analysis.
9 A combination of computer-based and human coding was used in arriving at
the determination of the presence/absence and relative weight of these indi-
cators in the data collected for each case. In the latter instance, inter-coder
reliability estimates (reached through simple correlation tests) met or exceeded
a threshold parameter of 0.8 in all cases (Lombard et al., 2002).
10 An even more robust 91 per cent (79/87) of Presidential speech-acts featured
at least one just war signification, though in the interests of conservatism in
analysis I view the presence of two or more significations a better estimate of
minimal significance for the frame.
11 Furthermore, if one rules out the 14 days in which no Presidential speech-
acts concerning Afghanistan occurred, then the average number of just war
significations in days in which Presidential speech-acts concerning Afghanistan
were rendered was just over 6 (6.04).
12 The mean value of just war signifiers per speech-act was 3.3, with a standard
deviation of 2.0.
13 This differential is robust, even if one controls for the fact that the just cause
criterion had more potential observations than the competent authority and
right intention criteria.
14 The mean value for all 15 indicators of the just war frame was 19.3, with a stan-
dard deviation of 15.2. There was one prominent outlier in the data that
Notes 245
accounts for the magnitude of the standard deviation estimate; namely, the
just cause signifier ‘Significant power discrepancy between trigger and target’.
This long-standing translation of just cause within just war theory intended to
reflect the classic ‘bullying scenario’ in which a resort to war would be jus-
tifiable to defend a weaker party from a stronger belligerent was never invoked.
Its total lack of appearance within the application of the just war frame to the
affirmative war-decision in Afghanistan is seemingly a by-product of two factors,
one logical and the other political. On the former score, the clear asymmetry
in power in favor of the US in the crisis makes painting a scenario in which the
‘victim’ was weaker implausible. On the latter score, the Bush Administration’s
perception of the gains to be had in portraying the Taliban regime as illegit-
imate and lacking a base of support within Afghan society (and al-Qaeda as
uninvited and unwelcome intruders in Afghanistan) mitigated against such a
portrayal.
15 ‘Target state authority’ was completely absent from the data in the early stages
of the crisis; as the military campaign progressed (and cooperation between US
special forces and Northern Alliance forces increased), the Northern Alliance
received occasional acknowledgements in Presidential speech-acts as the right-
ful and legitimate political authority within Afghanistan.
16 These 87 cases of Presidential speech-acts were coded for ‘primary target audi-
ence’ in accordance with considerations including (but not limited to): the
venue in which the speech-act was delivered, formal or intentional references
or allusions to one or more audiences within the speech-act, and the delivery
mechanism of the speech-act itself (e.g., press conference, speech, televised
appearance, etc.). Inter-coder reliability estimates (reached through simple cor-
relation tests) relative to the determinations of primary target audience met or
exceeded a threshold parameter of 0.8 in all cases (Lombard et al., 2002). The
audience category ‘opinion-leaders’ includes business and religious leaders, the
legal community, and members of the military; the category ‘foreign’ refers to
instances where the speech-act is primarily directed at a non-American audi-
ence; the category ‘multiple’ includes those speech-acts in which multiple
audiences were targeted to a degree in which it was impossible to determine a
primary and secondary audience(s).
17 However, it should be noted that appeals to ‘competent authority’ were
somewhat more frequent in speech-acts directed primarily at a foreign
audience, appearing in 21 per cent (11/53) of all such speech-acts—though
at the same time remaining the least cited of the three jus ad bellum criteria
even in speech-acts intended for consumption by non-US audiences.
18 The employment of the ‘property/persons seized’ signification can be explained
largely by allusions to the loss of life and property associated with the 9/11
attacks, as well as to a high profile episode involving the detainment of
two young American relief workers by the Taliban during the crisis. Apart
from the ‘power discrepancy’ translation of ‘just cause’ which (as men-
tioned above) was never employed, the ‘territory seized’ translation was also
very sparingly used, on only three occasions—all early in the crisis, in
conjunction with Presidential speech-acts portraying the 9/11 attacks as
attacks on the territorial integrity of the United States. Clearly this signi-
fication was rendered irrelevant as the military engagement in Afghanistan
proceeded.
246 Notes
Conclusion
1 Of course, this ‘subversion’ can prove dangerous if it leads to the fetishization
of the frame itself. As Chong and Druckman (2007) point out, strong and cul-
turally embedded frames may draw their effectiveness from the heuristic func-
tion they provide rather than direct information about a problem, event, or
decision. In such cases, the rationale for a policy comes to be associated with
and advanced through a particular frame only because that frame is known to
resonate with one or more audiences of concern, not because the frame conveys
useful or relevant knowledge.
Bibliography
Aiken, Henry David (ed.). 1970. Hume’s Moral and Political Philosophy. New York:
Free Press.
Allen, Barbara, Paula O’Loughlin, Amy Jasperson and John L. Sullivan. 1994. ‘The
Media and the Gulf War: Framing, Priming, and the Spiral of Silence’, Polity,
27(2): 255–284.
Alvarez, R. Michael and Jonathan Nagler. 1995. ‘Economics, Issues and the Perot
Candidacy: Voter Choice in the 1992 Presidential Election’, American Journal
of Political Science, 39(3): 714–744.
Anheier, Helmut K., Friedhelm Neidhardt and Wolfgang Vortkam. 1998. ‘Move-
ment Cycles and the Nazi Party: Activities of the Munich NSDAP, 1925–1930’,
American Behavioral Science, 41: 1262–1281.
Aquinas, Thomas. 1952. Summa Theologica. Translated and revised by
Fr. D.J. Sullivan. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.
Aquinas, Thomas. 2002. Political Writings. Translated by R.W. Dyson. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Arend, Anthony C. and Robert J. Beck. 1993. International Law and the Use of
Force: Beyond the UN Charter Paradigm. London/New York: Routledge.
Aristotle. 1962. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated, with introduction and notes by
Martin Ostwald. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill.
Ashcroft, John. 2001a. News Conference with Immigration and Naturalization
Service Commissioner James Ziglar and Steve McCraw, newly appointed direc-
tor Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, Department of Justice Conference
Center. October 31, 2001.
Ashcroft, John. 2001b. Testimony of the Attorney General to House Committee
on the Judiciary, United States Congress. September 24, 2001.
Aslan, Reza. 2009. How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of
the War on Terror. New York: Random House.
Aspen Institute, The. 1996. Managing Conflict in the Post-Cold War World: The
Role of Intervention. Report of the Aspen Institute Conference, August 2–6,
1995, Aspen, Colorado. Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute.
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. 1958. The City of God. Translated by G.G. Walsh,
S.J., D.B. Zema, S.J., G. Monahan, O.S.U., and D.J. Honan; V.J. Bourke (eds)
New York: Image Books-Doubleday.
Austin, John Langshaw. 2005. How to Do Things with Words (2nd ed.). Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Azar, Edward E. 1990. The Management of Protracted Social Conflict: Theory and
Cases. Aldershot: Dartmouth.
Baker, Howard H. Jr. 2001. Remarks of the Ambassador, Japanese Observance
Ceremony for Victims of Terrorism in the U.S. September 23, 2001, Tokyo.
Baker, James A. III. 1995. The Politics of Diplomacy. New York: Putnam.
Balibar, Étienne. 2010. ‘Marxism and War’, Radical Philosophy, 160: 9–17.
Ballis, William. 1937. The Legal Position of War: Changes in its Practice and Theory
from Plato to Vattel. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
247
248 Bibliography
Beveridge, Albert. 1908. ‘The March of the Flag’, The Meaning of the Times.
Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill-Co., Inc.
Biddle, Stephen. 1996. ‘Victory Misunderstood: What the Gulf War Tells Us
about the Future of Conflict’, International Security, 21(2): 139–179.
Bishai, Linda. 2004. ‘Liberal Empire’, Journal of International Relations and Develop-
ment, 7: 48–72.
Blair, Tony. 1999. ‘Doctrine of the International Community’, speech delivered to
Economic Club of Chicago, 22 April 1999. Available on-line at: http://www.pbs.
org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june99/blair_doctrine4-23.html. Last accessed
2 May 2011.
Bloch, Ruth H. 1985. Visionary Republic: Millennial Themes in American Thought,
1756–1800. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana and Tamar Liebes. 1993. ‘Frame Ambiguities: Intifada
Narrativization of the Experience by Israeli Soldiers’, in Framing the Intifada:
People and Media, ed. A.A. Cohen and G. Wolsfeld, pp. 27–52. Norwood, NJ:
Ablex.
Boulding, Kenneth E. 1956. The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Bovard, James. 2004. The Bush Betrayal. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bowman, Steve. 2003. Kosovo and Macedonia: U.S. and Allied Military Operations.
Congressional Research Service Issue Brief # IB10027 (8 July 2003). Washington,
D.C.: Congressional Research Service, U.S. Library of Congress.
Boyer, Mark A. and Michael J. Butler. 2005. ‘Public Goods Liberalism: The Prob-
lems of Collective Action’, in Jennifer Sterling-Folker (ed.) Making Sense of Inter-
national Relations Theory, pp. 75–91. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Boyle, Joseph. 1992. ‘Natural Law and International Ethics’, in Terry Nardin and
David R. Mapel (eds) Traditions of International Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Brecher, Michael and Jonathan Wilkenfeld. 2000. A Study of Crisis. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Bromley, Mark. 2007. United Nations Arms Embargoes: Their Impact on Arms Flows
and Target Behaviour (Case study: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 1998–2001).
Stockholm: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Brulé, David J. 2008. ‘Congress, Presidential Approval, and U.S. Dispute Initiation’,
Foreign Policy Analysis, 4(4): 349–370.
Buchanan, Allen. 2006. ‘Institutionalizing the Just War’, Philosophy & Public Affairs,
34(1): 2–38.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce. 1981. The War Trap. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Bukovansky, Mlada. 2002. Legitimacy and Power Politics: The American and French
Revolutions in International Political Culture. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Bukovansky, Mlada. 2007. ‘Liberal States, International Order, and Legitimacy:
An Appeal for Persuasion over Prescription’, International Politics, 44(2–3):
175–193.
Bull, Hedley, Benedict Kingsbury and Adam Roberts. 1990. Hugo Grotius and
International Relations. New York: Clarendon Press.
Bull, Hedley. 1977. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics.
London: Macmillan.
250 Bibliography
Bull, Hedley. 1979. ‘Recapturing the Just War for Political Theory’, World Politics,
43: 588–599.
Bull, Hedley (ed.). 1984. Intervention in World Politics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Burke, Anthony. 2004. ‘Just War or Ethical Peace? Moral Discourses of Strategic
Violence after 9/11’, International Affairs, 80(2): 329–353.
Burke, Kenneth. 1989. On Symbols and Society. Ed. Joseph Gusfield. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Bush, George H.W. 1990a. ‘Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters on the
Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait’, 2 August 1990.
Bush, George H.W. 1990b. ‘Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With
Reporters in Aspen, Colorado, Following a Meeting With Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom’, 2 August 1990.
Bush, George H.W. 1990c. ‘Address to the Nation Announcing the Deployment
of United States Armed Forces to Saudi Arabia’, 8 August 1990.
Bush, George H.W. 1990d. ‘Remarks to Department of Defense Employees’,
15 August 1990.
Bush, George H.W. 1990e. ‘Remarks at the Annual Conference of the Veterans
of Foreign Wars in Baltimore, Maryland’, 20 August 1990.
Bush, George H.W. 1990f. ‘Remarks at a Republican Party Fundraising Luncheon
in North Kingstown, Rhode Island’, 20 August 1990.
Bush, George H.W. 1990g. ‘Remarks to Officers and Troops at Hickam Air Force
Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii’, 28 October 1990.
Bush, George H.W. 1990h. ‘Proclamation 622—For a National Day of Prayer,
November 2, 1990’, 2 November 1990.
Bush, George H.W. 1990i. ‘The President’s News Conference on the Persian Gulf
Crisis’, 8 November 1990.
Bush, George H.W. 1990j. ‘Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters Following
Discussions With Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom
in Paris, France’, 19 November 1990.
Bush, George H.W. 1991a. ‘Open Letter to College Students on the Persian Gulf
Crisis’, 9 January 1991.
Bush, George H.W. 1991b. ‘Address to the Nation Announcing Allied Military
Action in the Persian Gulf’, 16 January 1991.
Bush, George H.W. 1991c. ‘Proclamation 6243—For a National Day of Prayer,
February 3, 1991’, 1 February 1991.
Bush, George H.W. 1991d. ‘Remarks to Community Members at Fort Stewart,
Georgia’, 1 February 1991.
Bush, George H.W. 1991e. ‘Address to the Nation on the Suspension of Allied
Offensive Combat Operations in the Persian Gulf’, 27 February 1991.
Bush, George H.W. 1991f. ‘Interview With Middle Eastern Journalists’, 8 March
1991.
Bush, George H.W. 1991g. ‘Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National
Religious Broadcasters’, 28 January 1991.
Bush, George W. 2001a. Statement by the President in his Address to the Nation,
11 September 2001. Office of the White House.
Bush, George W. 2001b. President’s Remarks at National Day of Prayer
and Remembrance, the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., September 14,
2001.
Bibliography 251
Carroll, William K. and R.S. Ratner. 1996. ‘Master Framing and Cross-Movement
Networking in Contemporary Social Movements’, Sociological Quarterly, 37(4):
601–625.
Carruthers, Susan L. 2000. The Media at War: Communication and Conflict in the
Twentieth Century. London: Macmillan.
CCGA (Chicago Council on Global Affairs) 2006. Global Views 2006 – The United
States and the Rise of China and India. Available at: http://www.thechicago-
council.org/UserFiles/File/POS_Topline%20Reports/POS%202006/2006%20Ful
l%20POS%20Report.pdf. Last accessed 12 November 2010.
CCGA. 2010. Global Views 2010 – Constrained Internationalism: Adapting to New
Realities. Available at: http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/UserFiles/File/POS_
Topline%20Reports/POS%202010/Global%20Views%202010.pdf. Last accessed
12 November 2010.
Chatterjee, Deen K. and Don E. Scheid (eds). 2003. Ethics and Foreign Intervention.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cheney, Richard B. 2001. Interview on Meet the Press with Tim Russert, September 16,
2001. Transcript available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20011113222819/ http://
www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/ vp20010916.html
Chesterman, Simon. 2003. Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and
International Law. New York: Oxford University Press.
Chong, Dennis and James N. Druckman. 2007. ‘Framing Theory’, Annual Review
of Political Science, 10: 103–126.
Christopher, Paul. 1994. The Ethics of War and Peace: An Introduction to Legal and
Moral Issues. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
CIDCM (Center for International Development and Conflict Management). 2010
(July). International Crisis Behavior Dataset, version 10 (1918–2007). Data available
at: http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/icb/. Last accessed 9 November 2010.
Cienki, Alan J. 2004. ‘Bush’s and Gore’s Language and Gestures in the 2000
US Presidential Debates: A Test Case for Two Models of Metaphors’, Journal of
Language and Politics, 3(3): 409–440.
Clark, Ian. 2005. Legitimacy in International Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Claude, Inis L. Jr. 1961. ‘The Management of Power in the Changing United
Nations’, International Organization, 15: 219–235.
Clausewitz, Carl von. 1984. On War. Edited and translated by Michael Howard
and Peter Paret. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Clinton, William J. 1998a. ‘Statement on the Situation in Kosovo’, 13 May 1998.
Clinton, William J. 1998b. ‘The President’s News Conference With Prime Minister
Romano Prodi of Italy’, 9 May 1998.
Clinton, William J. 1998c. ‘The President’s News Conference With European Union
Leaders in London, United Kingdom’, 18 May 1998.
Clinton, William J. 1998d. ‘Joint Statement on the Situation in Kosovo’, 2 September
1998.
Clinton, William J. 1998e. ‘Statement on the United Nations Security Council
Resolution on Kosovo’, 23 September 1998.
Clinton, William J. 1998f. ‘Remarks in New York City on the Situation in Kosovo’,
12 October 1998.
Clinton, William J. 1999a. ‘Statement on the Situation in Kosovo’, 16 January 1999.
Clinton, William J. 1999b. ‘The President’s News Conference with President
Jacques Chirac of France’, 19 February 1999.
Bibliography 253
Entman, Robert M. 2004. Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and
U.S. Foreign Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Evans, Mark. (ed.). 2005. Just War Theory: A Reappraisal. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
Fager, Charles E. 2002. ‘A Pacifist Perspective’, in D.R. Smock (ed.) Religious
Perspectives on War: Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Attitudes Toward Force, pp. 39–52.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace Press.
Falk, Richard. 2001. ‘Defining a Just War’, The Nation, 29 October 2001. Avail-
able on-line at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011029/falk. Last accessed
30 October 2009.
Falk, Richard. 2004. ‘Legality to Legitimacy: The Revival of the Just War Framework’,
Harvard International Review, 26(1): Spring 2004.
Feldmann, Linda. 2004. ‘Presidents as Communicators in Wartime’, 16 April
2004, The Christian Science Monitor. Last accessed 6 October 2008 at http://www.
csmonitor.com/2004/0416/p03s01-uspo.html.
Fiala, Andrew. 2008. The Just War Myth: The Moral Illusions of War. Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Finnemore, Martha. 2003. The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs About the
Use of Force. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Finnis, John, Joseph M. Boyle, Jr. and Germain Grisez. 1987. Nuclear Deterrence,
Morality, and Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fiss, Peer C. and Paul M. Hirsch. 2005. ‘The Discourse of Globalization: Framing
and Sensemaking of an Emerging Concept’, American Sociological Review, 70: 29–52.
Fitzsimons, David M. 1995. ‘Tom Paine’s New World Order: Idealistic Inter-
nationalism in the Ideology of Early American Foreign Relations’, Diplomatic
History, 19: 569–582.
Flint, Colin and Ghazi-Walid Falah. 2004. ‘How the United States Justified its
War on Terrorism: Prime Morality and the Construction of a “Just War”’,
Third World Quarterly, 25(8): 1379–1399.
Fordham, Benjamin. 1998. ‘Partisanship, Macroeconomic Policy, and U.S. Uses
of Force 1949–1994’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 42(4): 418–439.
Fordham, Benjamin. 2002. ‘Another Look at Parties, Voters, and the Use of
Force Abroad’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 46(4): 572–596.
Forsyth, Murray. 1992. ‘The Tradition of International Law’, in Traditions of
International Ethics, ed. by Terry Nardin and David R. Mapel. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Foster, Dennis M. and Palmer, Glenn. 2006. ‘Presidents, Public Opinion, and
Diversionary Behavior: The Role of Partisan Support Reconsidered’, Foreign
Policy Analysis, 2(3): 269–288.
Freedman, Lawrence and Efraim Karsh. 1995. The Gulf Conflict, 1990–1991:
Diplomacy and War in the New World Order. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Freedman, Robert O. (ed.) 1993. The Middle East after Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait.
Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.
French, Shannon E. 2005. The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Warrior Values Past
and Present. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Frohmann, Bernd. 1994. ‘Communication Technologies and the Politics of Post-
modern Information Science’, Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science,
19(2): 1–22.
256 Bibliography
Fukuyama, Francis. 1989. ‘The End of History?’, The National Interest (Summer
1989).
Gallup Organization, The. 1991. The Gallup Poll Monthly, February 1991 (no. 305).
Princeton, N.J.: The Gallup Poll Organization.
Galston, William A. 2002. ‘The Perils of Preemptive War’, Philosophy and Public
Policy Quarterly, 22(4): 2–6.
Gamson, William A. 1995. ‘Constructing Social Protest’, in H. Johnston and
B. Klandermans (eds) Social Movements and Culture, pp. 85–106. London:
Routledge.
Gamson, William A. and Andre Modigliani. 1989. ‘Media Discourse and Public
Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach’, The American Journal
of Sociology, 95(1): 1–37.
Gamson, William A. and David S. Meyer. 1996. ‘The Framing of Political
Opportunity’, in Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald
(eds) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities,
Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, pp. 275–290. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Gamson, William A., Bruce Fireman and Steven Rytina. 1982. Encounters with
Unjust Authority. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.
Gates, Robert M. 2010. ‘Helping Others Defend Themselves: The Future of
U.S. Security Assistance’, Foreign Affairs, 89(3): 2–6 (May/June 2010).
Gause III, F. Gregory, Fareed Mohamedi, Afshin Molavi, Wayne White and
Anthony H. Cordesman. 2007. ‘The Future of the Middle East: Strategic
Implications for the United States’, Middle East Policy, 14: 1–28.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Gelpi, Christopher, Peter D. Feaver and Jason Reifler. 2009. Paying the Human
Costs of War. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
George, Alexander L. and Bennett, Andrew. 2005. Case Studies and Theory
Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
George, Alexander L. and Timothy McKeown. 1985. ‘Case Studies and Theories
of Organizational Decision-Making’, Advances in Information Processing in
Organizations, 2: 21–58.
Gleditsch, Nils Petter, 2008. ‘The Liberal Moment Fifteen Years On’, International
Studies Quarterly, 52(4): 691–712.
Glennon, Michael J. 1999. ‘The New Interventionism: The Search for a Just
International Law’, Foreign Affairs, 78(3): 2–7.
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Goodwin, Jeff and James M. Jasper. 1999. ‘Caught in a Winding, Snarling
Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory’, Sociological Forum,
14: 27–54.
Gordon, Michael R. and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor. 1995. The Generals’ War: The
Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.
Gouldner, Alvin W. 1970. The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York:
Basic Books.
Gray, Christine. 2008. International Law and the Use of Force (3rd ed.). Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Grossman, Marc. 2001. Interview by Under Secretary of State with London-based
journalists of Arab dailies, October 19, 2001 (digital video conference), Washing-
Bibliography 257
Hoffmann, Matthew J. 2007. ‘My Norm is Better than Your Norm: Contestation
and Norm Dynamics’. Paper presented at the 48th Annual International Studies
Association Convention, Feb–March 2007, Chicago, Illinois.
Hoffmann, Stanley. 1984. ‘The Problem of Intervention’, in Hedley Bull (ed.)
Intervention in World Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hoffmann, Stanley. 2003. ‘America Goes Backward’, New York Review of Books
(12 June 2003).
Holsti, Ole R. 1996. Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press.
Holsti, Ole R. 2004. Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy (revised ed.). Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Howard, Michael. 1978. War and the Liberal Conscience. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.
Howard, Michael (ed.). 1979. Restraints on War: Studies in the Limitation of Armed
Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Howard, Michael. 1994. ‘Constraints on Warfare’, in The Laws of War: Constraints
on Warfare in the Western World, edited by Michael Howard, George J. Andreo-
poulos and Mark R. Shulman. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Hudson, Kimberly A. 2009. Justice, Intervention and Force in International Relations:
Reassessing Just War Theory in the 21st Century. London: Routledge.
Hudson, Natalie F. and Michael J. Butler. 2010. ‘The State of Experimental Research
in IR: An Analytical Survey’, International Studies Review, 12(2): 165–192.
Human Security Centre. 2010. ‘Human Security Brief 2009/10’. Human Security
Centre, Simon Fraser University. Available at: http://www.hsrgroup.org/human-
security-reports/20092010/overview.aspx.
Hunt, Michael H. 1987. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Hunt, Scott A., Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow. 1994. ‘Identity Fields:
Framing Processes and the Social Construction of Movement Identities’, in
E. Laraña, H. Johnston and J. Gusfield (eds) New Social Movements: From Ideology
to Identity, pp. 185–208. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1987. ‘Patterns of Intervention: America and the Soviets
in the Third World’, National Interest, 7: 39–47.
Hurd, Ian. 1999. ‘Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics’, International
Organization, 53(2): 379–408.
Hurd, Ian. 2007. ‘Breaking and Making Norms: American Revisionism and Crises
of Legitimacy’, International Politics, 44: 194–213.
Hurrell, Andrew. 2002. “There are No Rules’ (George W. Bush): International
Order after September 11’, International Relations, 16(2): 185–204.
Huth, Paul K. 1996. Standing Your Ground: Territorial Disputes and International
Conflict. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Huth, Paul K. 1998. ‘Major Power Intervention in International Crises, 1918–1988’,
Journal of Conflict Resolution, 42: 744–769.
Ignatieff, Michael. 2001. Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond. London: Macmillan.
IICK (Independent International Commission on Kosovo). 2000. Kosovo Report:
Conflict, International Response, Lessons Learned. New York/London: Oxford
University Press.
Ikenberry, G. John. 2006. Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition: Essays on American
Power and World Politics. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Bibliography 259
Iyengar, Shanto and Donald R. Kinder. 1987. News That Matters. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus and Stuart J. Kaufman. 2007. ‘Security Scholars for a
Sensible Foreign Policy: A Study in Weberian Activism’, Perspectives on Politics,
5(1): 95–103.
Jackson, Richard. 2005. Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and Counter-
terrorism. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
James, Patrick and Athanasios Hristoulas. 1994. ‘Domestic Politics and Foreign
Policy: Evaluating a Model of Crisis Activity for the United States’, The Journal
of Politics, 56: 327–348.
James, Patrick and Jean-Sébastien Rioux. 1998. ‘International Crises and Linkage
Politics: The Experiences of the United States, 1953–1994’, Political Research
Quarterly, 51(3): 781–812.
Jasper, James M. 1997. The Art of Moral Protest. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Jentleson, Bruce W. 1992. ‘The Pretty Prudent Public: Post Post-Vietnam American
Opinion on the Use of Military Force’, International Studies Quarterly, 36(1):
49–73.
Jentleson, Bruce W. 2010. American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the
21st Century (4th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton.
Jentleson, Bruce W. and Rebecca L. Britton. 1998. ‘Still Pretty Prudent: Post-
Cold War American Public Opinion on the Use of Military Force’, Journal of
Conflict Resolution, 42(4): 395–417.
Johnson, James T. 1975. Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Johnson, James T. 1981. Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Johnson, James T. 1987. The Quest for Peace: Three Moral Traditions in Western
Cultural History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Johnson, James T. 1999. Morality and Contemporary Warfare. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Johnston, Hank. 1995. ‘A Methodology for Frame Analysis: From Discourse to
Cognitive Schemata’, in H. Johnston and B. Klandermans (eds) Social Movements
and Culture, pp. 217–246. London: Routledge.
Jones, Dorothy V. 1992. ‘The Declaratory Tradition in Modern International Law’,
in Terry Nardin and David R. Mapel (eds) Traditions of International Ethics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Judah, Tim. 2000. The Serbs: History, Myth, and the Deconstruction of Yugoslavia.
New Haven: Yale University Press.
Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2003. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious
Violence. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kagan, Robert. 2008. ‘The September 12th Paradigm: America, the World, and
George W. Bush’, Foreign Affairs, 87(5): 25–39 (Sept/Oct 2008).
Kahneman, Daniel and Amos Tversky. 1979. ‘Prospect Theory: An Analysis of
Decisions under Risk’, Econometrica, 47: 313–327.
Kahneman, Daniel and Amos Tversky. 1984. ‘Choices, Values and Frames’, American
Psychologist, 39: 341–350.
Kaldor, Mary. 1999. New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
260 Bibliography
Kaldor, Mary. 2007. New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (2nd ed.).
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1905. Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay, 1795. Translated with
introduction and notes by M. Campbell Smith. London: S. Sonnenschein.
Katz, Mark N. 1991. ‘Beyond the Reagan Doctrine: Reassessing U.S. Policy toward
Regional Conflicts’, Washington Quarterly, 14(1): 169–179.
Kaufman, Stuart J. 2006. ‘Symbolic Politics or Rational Choice? Testing Theories
of Extreme Ethnic Violence’, International Security, 30(4): 45–86.
Keane, John. 1995. Tom Paine: A Political Life. London: Bloomsbury.
Kegley, Charles W. Jr. 1994. ‘How Did the Cold War Die? Principles for an
Autopsy’, Mershon International Studies Review, 38: 11–41.
Kellner, Douglas. 2003. From 9/11 to Terror War: The Dangers of the Bush Legacy.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Kelsen, Hans. 1964. The Law of the United Nations: A Critical Analysis of Its Funda-
mental Problems. New York: Frederick A. Praeger.
Kennan, George F. 1951. American Diplomacy, 1900–1950. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Kennedy, David. 2006. Of War and Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Kinder, Donald R. and Lynn M. Sanders. 1990. ‘Mimicking Political Debate with
Survey Questions: The Case of White Opinion on Affirmative Action for Blacks’,
Social Cognition, 8(1): 73–103.
King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry:
Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Kissinger, Henry A. and James A. Baker III. 2011. ‘Grounds for U.S. Military
Intervention’, The Washington Post, 8 April 2011.
Klandermans, Bert and Sjoerd Goslinga. 1996. ‘Media Discourse, Movement Public-
ity, and the Generation of Collective Action Frames: Theoretical and Empirical
Exercises in Meaning Construction’, in Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and
Mayer N. Zald (eds) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Oppor-
tunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, pp. 312–337. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Klandermans, Bert. 1997. The Social Psychology of Protest. Oxford: Blackwell.
Klopfenstein, Bruce. 2006. ‘Terrorism and the Exploitation of New Media’, in
Anandam P. Kavoori and Todd Fraley (eds) Media, Terrorism, and Theory: A
Reader, pp. 107–120. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Koch, Michael T. and Patricia Sullivan. 2010. ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?
Partisanship, Approval, and the Duration of Major Power Democratic Military
Interventions’, Journal of Politics, 72: 616–629.
Krauthammer, Charles. 1990. ‘The Unipolar Moment’, Foreign Affairs, 70(1): 23–33.
Krauthammer, Charles. 2002. ‘Is This the Way to Decide on Iraq?’, The Washington
Post, 20 September 2002, p. A29.
Krieger, Heike (ed.). 2001. The Kosovo Conflict and International Law: An Analytical
Documentation 1974–1999. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kristof, Nicholas D. 2002. ‘Playing with Fire’, The New York Times, 13 December
2002, p. A39.
Kubal, Timothy J. 1998. ‘The Presentation of Political Self: Cultural Resonance and the
Construction of Collective Action Frames’, Sociological Quarterly, 39(4): 539–554.
Bibliography 261
Lacina, Bethany. 2004. ‘From Side Show to Centre Stage: Civil Conflict after the
Cold War’, Security Dialogue, 35(2): 191–205.
Lake, David A. 2006. ‘American Hegemony and the Future of East-West Relations’,
International Studies Perspectives, 7: 23–30.
Lake, David A. 2009. Hierarchy in International Relations. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press.
Lakoff, George and Evan Frisch. 2006. Five Years after 9/11: Drop the War Metaphor.
Berkeley, CA: Rockridge Institute.
Lambeth, Benjamin F. 2001. NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational
Assessment. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Lang, Daniel G. 1985. Foreign Policy in the Early Republic: The Law of Nations and the
Balance of Power. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Larson, Eric V. 1996. Casualties and Consensus: The Historical Role of Casualties
in Domestic Support for U.S. Military Operations. Santa Monica, CA: RAND
Corporation.
Lawler, Peter. 2002. ‘The “Good War” After September 11’, Government and
Opposition, 37(2): 151–172.
Lebow, Richard Ned. 1981. Between Peace and War: The Nature of International
Crisis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Leng, Russel J. 1993. Interstate Crisis Behavior 1816–1980: Realism vs. Reciprocity.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leonard, Eric K. 2007. Establishing an International Criminal Court: The Emergence
of a New Global Authority? Georgetown University Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy, Pew case #258.
Lepgold, Joseph and T.J. McKeown. 1995. ‘Is American Foreign Policy Exceptional?
An Empirical Analysis’, Political Science Quarterly, 110(3): 369–385.
Leurdijk, J. Henk. 1986. Intervention in International Politics. Eisma B.V. Publishers:
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.
Levanthal, F.M. 1974. ‘H.N. Brailsford and the Search for a New International
Order’, in A.J. Anthony Morris (ed.) Edwardian Radicalism, 1900–1914: Some
Aspects of British Radicalism. London: Routledge.
Levy, Jack S. 1983. War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495–1975. Lexington:
University Press of Kentucky.
Levy, Jack S. 1988. ‘Domestic Politics and War’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History,
18(3): 653–673.
Linklater, Andrew. 1995. ‘Neo-realism in Theory and Practice’, in K. Booth and
S. Smith (eds) International Relations Theory Today. University Park, PA: Pennsyl-
vania State University Press.
Little, Douglas. 2002. American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East
since 1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Logue, William. 1983. From Philosophy to Sociology: The Evolution of French Liberalism,
1870–1914. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.
Lombard, Matthew, Jennifer Snyder-Duch and Cheryl Campanella Bracken. 2002.
‘Content Analysis in Mass Communication: Assessment and Reporting of Inter-
coder Reliability’, Human Communication Research, 28: 587–604.
Lu, Catherine. 2002. ‘Justice and Moral Regeneration: Lessons from the Treaty of
Versailles’, International Studies Review, 4(3): 3–25.
Luard, Evan. 1988. Conflict and Peace in the Modern International System. London:
Macmillan.
262 Bibliography
Lupia, Arthur. 2000. ‘Evaluating Political Science Research: Information for Buyers
and Sellers’, PS: Political Science and Politics, 33: 7–13.
Luttwak, Edward N. 1995. ‘Toward Post-Heroic Warfare’, Foreign Affairs, 74(3):
109–122 (May/June).
Mann, Michael. 1993. The Sources of Social Power, Volume 2: The Rise of Classes
and Nation-States, 1760–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McAdam, Doug. 1994. ‘Culture and Social Movements’, in Enrique Larana, Hank
Johnston and Joseph R. Gusfield (eds) New Social Movements: From Ideology to
Identity, pp. 37–38. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
McCarthy, John D., Jackie Smith and Mayer N. Zald. 1996. ‘Accessing
Public, Media, Electoral, and Governmental Agendas’, in Doug McAdam, John
D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald (eds) Comparative Perspectives on Social
Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings,
pp. 291–311. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MccGwire, Michael. 2000. ‘Why Did We Bomb Belgrade?’, International Affairs,
76(1): 1–23.
Mearsheimer, John J. 1994. ‘The False Promise of International Institutions’,
International Security, 19(3): 5–49.
Mearsheimer, John J. 2011. Why Leaders Lie: The Truth about Lying in International
Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Meernik, James D. 1996. ‘United States Military Intervention and the Promotion
of Democracy’, Journal of Peace Research, 33(4): 391–402.
Meernik, James D. 2001. ‘Domestic Politics and the Political Use of Military
Force by the United States’, Political Research Quarterly, 54(4): 889–904.
Meernik, James D. 2004. The Political Use of Military Force in U.S. Foreign Policy.
Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Mellow, David. 2006. ‘Iraq: A Morally Justified Resort to War’, Journal of Applied
Philosophy, 23(2): 293–310.
Mermin, Jonathan. 1999. Debating War and Peace: Media Coverage of U.S. Intervention
in the Post-Vietnam Era. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Miles, Matthew B. and A. Michael Huberman. 1994. Qualitative Data Analysis:
An Expanded Sourcebook (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Mill, John Stuart. 1859. ‘A Few Words on Non-Intervention’, in J.S. Mill, Dissertations
and Discussions (1873). New York: Holt & Company.
Miller, Arthur H. 1999. ‘Sex, Politics, and Public Opinion: What Political Scientists
Really Learned from the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal’, PS: Political Science and
Politics, 32(4): 721–729.
Miller, Judith and Laurie Mylorie. 1990. Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the
Gulf. New York: Random House.
Miller, Richard B. 2000. ‘Humanitarian Intervention, Altruism, and the Limits of
Casuistry’, Journal of Religious Ethics, 28(1): 3–35.
Milton-Edwards, Beverley and Peter Hinchcliffe. 2001. Conflicts in the Middle
East Since 1945. Abington (UK): Psychology Press.
Mintz, Alex, Steven B. Redd and Arnold Vedlitz. 2006. ‘Can We Generalize from
Student Experiments to the Real World in Political Science, Military Affairs,
and International Relations?’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50(5): 757–776.
Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin and Will H. Moore. 2002. ‘Presidential Use of Force
During the Cold War: Aggregation, Truncation, and Temporal Dynamics’,
American Journal of Political Science, 46(2): 438–452.
Bibliography 263
O’Brien, William V. 1979a. U.S. Military Intervention: Law and Morality. Washington,
D.C.: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University.
O’Brien, William V. 1979b. ‘Review of Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument
with Historical Illustrations’, Political Science Quarterly, 94(1): 190–191.
O’Driscoll, Cian. 2008. The Renegotiation of the Just War Tradition and the Right to
War in the Twenty-First Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
O’Hanlon, Michael E. 2002. ‘A Flawed Masterpiece’, Foreign Affairs, 81(3): 47–63.
Obama, Barack H. 2011a. ‘Remarks on the Situation in Libya’, 18 March 2011.
Obama, Barack H. 2011b. ‘Address to the Nation on the Situation in Libya’,
28 March 2011.
Obama, Barack H. 2011c. ‘Statement on the 17th Anniversary of the Genocide
in Rwanda’, 7 April 2011.
Oliver, Pamela E. and Hank Johnston. 2005. ‘What a Good Idea! Ideologies and
Frames in Social Movement Research’, in H. Johnston and J.A. Noakes (eds)
Frames of Protest: Social Movements and the Framing Perspective. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Orend, Brian. 2000. ‘Michael Walzer on Resorting to Force’, Canadian Journal of
Political Science, 33(3): 523–547.
Orend, Brian. 2002. ‘Justice after War’, Ethics and International Affairs, 16(1):
43–56.
Orend, Brian. 2006. The Morality of War. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.
Osgood, Robert E. and Robert W. Tucker. 1967. Force, Order, and Justice. Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins Press.
Page, Benjamin I. and Robert Y. Shapiro. 1992. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of
Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pappas, Nickolas. 1995. Plato and the Republic. London: Routledge.
Parker, Geoffrey. 1994. ‘Early Modern Europe’, in The Laws of War: Constraints on
Warfare in the Western World, edited by Michael Howard, George J. Andreopoulos
and Mark R. Shulman. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Patterson, Eric. 2005. ‘Just War in the 21st Century: Reconceptualizing Just War
Theory after September 11’, International Politics, 42(1): 116–134.
Patterson, Eric. 2007. Just War Thinking: Morality and Pragmatism in the Struggle
against Contemporary Threats. Lanham, MD: Lexington.
Pattison, James. 2008. ‘Just War Theory and the Privatization of Military Force’,
Ethics & International Affairs, 22(2): 143–162.
Patton, Michael Q. 1990. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods (2nd ed.).
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Payne, Richard J. 1995. The Clash with Distant Cultures: Values, Interests, and Force
in American Foreign Policy. Albany: SUNY Press.
PBS. 2011a. ‘The Gulf War: Oral History – The Commanders’. Available on-line
at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/schwarzkopf/2.html.
Last accessed 10 June 2011.
PBS. 2011b. ‘Hart Calls for Obama Doctrine; Coleman Predicts “Trouble” if
Gadhafi Stays’, PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer, 23 March 2011. Available on-line
at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june11/libya3_03-23.html. Last
accessed 13 June 2011.
Pearson, Frederic S. 1973. Patterns of Foreign Military Intervention, 1948–1967.
University of Missouri-St. Louis Center for International Studies, Occasional
Paper 731.
Bibliography 265
Regan, Patrick M. 2002. Civil Wars and Foreign Powers: Outside Intervention in
Intrastate Conflict. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Regan, Richard J. 1996. Just War: Principles and Cases. Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press.
Reichberg, Gregory. 2002. ‘Just War or Perpetual Peace?’, Journal of Military Ethic,
1(1): 16–35.
Rengger, Nicholas. 2002. ‘On the Just War Tradition in the Twenty-First Century’,
International Affairs, 78(2): 353–363.
Rice, Edward E. 1988. Wars of the Third Kind: Conflict in Underdeveloped Countries.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Risse-Kappen, Thomas. 1991. ‘Public Opinion, Domestic Structure, and Foreign
Policy in Liberal Democracies’, World Politics, 43(4): 479–512.
Robinson, Eugene. 2011. ‘Dazed and Confused by the Libyan Mandate’, The
Washington Post, 24 March 2011.
Rodin, David. 2005. War and Self Defense. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Rosato, Sebastian. 2003. ‘The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory’, American
Political Science Review, 97: 4 (November): 585–602.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1970. ‘The State of War’. Reprinted in Murray G. Forsyth,
H.M.A. Keens-Soper and P. Savigear (eds) The Theory of International Relations:
Selected Texts from Gentili to Treitschke. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Rozell, Mark J. and Clyde Wilcox (eds). 2000. The Clinton Scandal and the
Future of American Government. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University
Press.
Rudé, George. 1980. Ideology and Popular Protest. New York: Knopf.
Rumsfeld, Donald H. 2001a. Briefing by the Secretary of Defense, and Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gen. Richard Myers) on Operation Enduring Freedom.
The Pentagon, Arlington VA, October 7, 2001.
Rumsfeld, Donald H. 2001b. Remarks of the Secretary of Defense at a Memorial
Service in Remembrance of Those Lost on September 11th. The Pentagon, Arlington,
VA, October 11, 2001.
Russett, Bruce M. and Harvey Starr. 1992. World Politics: The Menu for Choice
(4th ed.). New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.
Russett, Bruce M. and John Oneal. 2001. Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Inter-
dependence, and International Organizations. New York: Norton.
Russett, Bruce. 1993. Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War
World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Salter, Mark. 2002. Barbarians and Civilization in International Relations. London:
Pluto Press.
Scheufele, Dietram A. 1999. ‘Framing as a Theory of Media Effects’, Journal of
Communication, 49(1): 103–122.
Scheufele, Dietram A. and David Tewksbury. 2007. ‘Framing, Agenda Setting, and
Priming: The Evolution of Three Media Effects Models’, Journal of Communication,
57(1): 9–20.
Schneider, William. 2005. ‘About that Cowboy Rhetoric…’, The Atlantic, 25 January
2005.
Scott, Andrew M. 1982. The Revolution in Statecraft: Intervention in an Age of
Interdependence. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Shattuck, John. 2003. Human Rights Wars and America’s Response. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Bibliography 267
Shaw, Martin, 1999. ‘War and Globality: The Role and Character of War in the
Global Transition’, in Ho-Won Jeong (ed.) The New Agenda for Peace Research,
pp. 61–80. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Sheehan, Michael. 2008. ‘The Changing Character of War’, in John Baylis, Steve
Smith and Patricia Owens (eds) The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction
to International Relations (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Shirer, William L. 1969. The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the
Fall of France in 1940. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Simon, Herbert A. 1957. Models of Man: Social and Rational. New York: John
Wiley & Sons.
Singer, Peter. 2004. The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush.
New York: Dutton.
SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). 2010. SIPRI Year-
book 2010: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sjoberg, Laura. 2006. Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq: A Feminist Reformulation
of Just War Theory. Lanham, MD: Lexington.
Skocpol, Theda. 1985. ‘Cultural Ideology and Political Ideologies in the
Revolutionary Reconstruction of State Power’, Journal of Modern History, 57(1):
86–96.
Small, Melvin and J. David Singer. 1982. Resort to Arms. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Smith, Jean Edward. 1992. George Bush’s War. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
Smith, R. Jeffrey. 1998. ‘Men, Boys Taken Away in Kosovo’, The Washington Post,
7 September 1998, p. A17.
Smith, Tony. 2007. A Pace with the Devil: Washington’s Bid for World Supremacy
and the Betrayal of the American Promise. New York: Routledge.
Snidal, Duncan. 1985. ‘The Limits of Hegemonic Stability Theory’, International
Organization, 39(4): 579–614.
Sniderman, Paul M. and Sean M. Theriault 2004. ‘The Structure of Political Argument
and the Logic of Issue Framing’, in Willem Saris and Paul M. Sniderman (eds)
Studies in Public Opinion, pp. 133–165. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Snow, David A., E. Burke Rochford, Jr., Steven K. Worden and Robert D. Benford.
1986. ‘Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Parti-
cipation’, American Sociological Review, 51(4): 464–481.
Snow, David A. and Robert D. Benford. 1988. ‘Ideology, Frame Resonance, and
Participant Mobilization’, International Social Movement Research, 1: 197–218.
Snow, David A. and Robert D. Benford. 1992. ‘Master Frames and Cycles of
Protest’, in Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller (eds) Frontiers in Social
Movement Theory, pp. 133–155. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Snyder, Glenn H. and Paul Diesing. 1977. Conflict Among Nations: Bargaining,
Decision Making, and System Structure in International Crises. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Sobel, Richard. 2001. The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy Since
Vietnam: Constraining the Colossus. New York: Oxford University Press.
Solomon, Norman. 2005. ‘Judaism and the Ethics of War’, International Review
of the Red Cross, 87(858): 295–309.
Sorensen, Theodore C. 1994. ‘Foreign Policy in a Presidential Democracy’, Political
Science Quarterly, 109(3): 515–528.
Soroka, Stuart N. 2003. ‘Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy’, Harvard
International Journal of Press/Politics, 8(1): 27–48.
268 Bibliography
Stake, Robert E. 1995. The Art of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Steele, Brent J. 2007. ‘Liberal-Idealism: A Constructivist Critique’, International
Studies Review, 9(1): 23–52.
Suárez, Francisco. 1944. ‘On War’, in Selections from Three Works of Francisco Suárez,
vol. II, James B. Scott (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Swart, William James. 1995. ‘The League of Nations and the Irish Question:
Master Frames, Cycles of Protest, and Master Frame Alignment’, Sociological
Quarterly, 36(3): 465–481.
Swidler, Ann. 1986. ‘Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies’, American Socio-
logical Review, 51: 273–286.
Tannen, Deborah and Cynthia Wallat. 1993. ‘Interactive Frames and Knowledge
Schemas in Interaction: Examples from a Medical Examination/Interview’,
in D. Tannen (ed.) Framing in Discourse, pp. 57–76. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Tarrow, Sidney. 1993. ‘Cycles of Collective Action: Between Moments of Madness
and the Repertoire of Contention’, Social Science History, 17(2): 281–307.
Taylor, Telford. 1979. ‘Just and Unjust Wars’, in War, Morality, and the Military
Profession, ed. by Malham M. Wakin. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Taylor, Verta. 1999. ‘Gender and Social Movements: Gender Processes in Women’s
Self-Help Movements’, Gender and Society, 13(1): 8–33.
The Gallup Organization. 1991. The Gallup Poll Monthly, February 1991 (no. 305).
Princeton, N.J.: The Gallup Poll Organization.
The Los Angeles Times. 1990. ‘U.S., Soviets Join to Put Pressure on Iraq: Middle
East: Baker and Shevardnadze Call for a Worldwide Embargo on Arms Sales to
Baghdad’. Available on-line at: http://articles.latimes.com/1990-08-03/news/
mn-1368_1_soviet-union. Last accessed 22 December 2010.
Tillema, Herbert K. 1991. International Armed Conflict since 1945: A Bibliographic
Handbook of Wars and Military Interventions. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Tillema, Herbert K. and John R. Van Wingen. 1982. ‘Law and Power in Military
Intervention: Major States after World War II’, International Studies Quarterly,
26(2): 220–250.
Tilly, Charles A. 1993. ‘Contentious Repertoires in Great Britain, 1758–1834’,
Social Science History, 17: 253–280.
Tilly, Charles A. 1995. Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758–1834. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Tirman, John. 2010. ‘The Twenty Years War: Our Ventures in Iraq Sustain a
U.S. Frontier Myth’, The Boston Globe, 1 August 2010, p. C10.
Tjalve, Vibeke Schou. 2008. Realist Strategies of Republican Peace: Neibuhr, Morgen-
thau, and the Politics of Patriotic Dissent. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tucker, Robert W. 1960. The Just War: A Study in Contemporary American Doctrine.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Tucker, Robert W. 1971. The Radical Left and American Foreign Policy. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Tucker, Robert W. 1985. ‘Morality and Deterrence’, Ethics, 95(3): 461–478.
Tucker, Robert W. and David C. Hendrickson. 1992. The Imperial Temptation:
The New World Order and America’s Purpose. New York: Council on Foreign
Relations Press.
Tversky, Amos and Daniel Kahneman. 1981. ‘The Framing of Decisions and the
Psychology of Choice’, Science, 211: 453–458.
Bibliography 269
Valocchi, Steve. 1996. ‘The Emergence of the Integrationist Ideology in the Civil
Rights Movement’, Social Problems, 43: 116–130.
Van Der Molen, Gesina H.J. 1968. Alberico Gentili and the Development of
International Law: His Life, Work, and Times (2nd ed.). Leyden: A.W. Sitjhoff.
Vasquez, John A. 1993. The War Puzzle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vasquez, John A. 2004. ‘The Probability of War, 1816–1992’, International Studies
Quarterly, 48(1): 1–27.
Vattel, Emerich de. 1916. The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law
Applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns, translated
by Charles G. Fenwick. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution.
Veblen, Thorstein. 1945. An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of its
Perpetuation. New York: Viking Press.
Vitoria, Francisco de. 1917. De Indis et de Jure Belli: Reflectiones. Translated by
John Pawley Bate. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution.
Vitoria, Francisco de. 1991. ‘On the Laws of War’, in Anthony Pagden and Jeremy
Lawrence (eds) Vitoria: Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Von Hippel, Karin. 2000. Democracy by Force: U.S. Military Intervention in the Post-
Cold War World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Walters, LeRoy. 1973. ‘The Just War and the Crusade: Antitheses or Analogies?’,
The Monist, 57(4): 584–594.
Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Walzer, Michael. 1970. Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War, and Citizenship.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Walzer, Michael. 1977. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical
Illustrations. New York: Basic Books.
Walzer, Michael. 2002a. ‘The Triumph of Just War Theory (and the Dangers of
Success)’, Social Research, 69(4): 925–944.
Walzer, Michael. 2002b. ‘After 9/11: Five Questions about Terrorism’, Dissent
(Winter 2002): 5–16.
Walzer, Michael. 2004. Arguing About War. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wang, Kevin H. 1996. ‘Presidential Responses to Foreign Policy Crises: Rational
Choice and Domestic Politics’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 40(1): 68–97.
Weart, Spencer R. 1998. Never at War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight One Another.
New Haven: Yale University Press.
Weber, Max. 1958. ‘Politics as a Vocation’, in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology,
edited and translated by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, pp. 77–128. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Weimann, Gabriel. 1991. ‘The Influentials: Back to the Concept of Opinion
Leaders?’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 55: 267–279.
Weinfeld, Moshe. 1972. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Weiss, Thomas G. and Don Hubert (eds). 2001. The Responsibility to Protect: The
Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Ottawa:
International Development Research Center.
Wells, Donald A. 1969. ‘How Much Can the “Just War” Justify?’ The Journal of
Philosophy, LXVI(23): 819–829.
Wendt, Alexander. 1992. ‘Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction
of Power Politics’, International Organization, 46(2): 391–425.
270 Bibliography
Western, Jon. 2005. Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, The Media, and
the American Public. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Wilkinson, Paul. 1997. ‘The Media and Terrorism: A Reassessment’, Terrorism
and Political Violence, 9(2): 51–64.
Williams, Gwenyth I. and Rhys H. Williams. 1995. ‘“All We Want is Equality”:
Rhetorical Framing in the Father’s Rights Movement’, in J. Best (ed.) Images of
Issues: Typifying Contemporary Social Problems (2nd ed.), pp. 191–212. New York:
Aldine de Gruyter.
Williams, Ian. 2006. ‘The Semantics of Terror’, The Nation, August 12, 2006, http://
www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/terror_semantics. Accessed 12 October 2009.
Williams, Robert E. Jr. and Dan Caldwell. 2006. ‘Jus Post Bellum: Just War Theory
and the Principles of Just Peace’, International Studies Perspectives, 7(4): 309–320.
Windsor, Philip. 1984. ‘Superpower Intervention’, in Hedley Bull (ed.) Intervention
in World Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wittkopf, Eugene R., Charles W. Kegley, Jr. and James M. Scott. 2003. American
Foreign Policy: Patterns and Process (6th ed.). Wadsworth.
Woo, John. 2004. ‘War, Responsibility, and the Age of Terrorism’, 57 Stanford
Law Review, 793–823.
Woodward, Bob. 1991. The Commanders. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Woodward, Bob. 2002. Bush at War: Inside the Bush White House. New York:
Simon & Schuster.
Yin, Robert K. 2009. Case Study Research: Design and Methods (4th ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Yoon, Mi Yung. 1997. ‘Explaining U.S. Intervention in Third World Internal
Wars, 1945–1989’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 41(4): 580–602.
Zald, Mayer N. 1996. ‘Culture, Ideology, and Strategic Framing’, in Doug McAdam,
John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald (eds) Comparative Perspectives on Social
Movements, pp. 261–274. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zalman, Amy and Jonathan Clarke. 2009. ‘The Global War on Terror: A Narrative
in Need of a Rewrite’, Ethics & International Affairs, 23(2): 101–113.
Zarefsky, David. 2004. ‘George W. Bush Discovers Rhetoric: September 20, 2001
and the U.S. Response to Terrorism’, in Michael J. Hyde (ed.) The Ethos of Rhetoric.
Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press.
Zenko, Micah. 2001. Coercive Diplomacy before the War in Kosovo: America’s Approach
in 1998. Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Pew
case #252.
Zulaika, Joseba and William A. Douglass. 1996. Terror and Taboo: The Follies,
Fables, and Faces of Terrorism. New York and London: Routledge.
Index
271
272 Index