CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

As a side-issue, but closely related to this, it is worth considering the impact on
American preparedness to take the lead in future; the difficulties encountered as a result
of the Iraq war – internationally but also domestically – not to mention the cost, both
material and in US lives, might risk a US return to relative isolationism which could be
as disadvantageous to the world as US unilateralism. Matthew Parris suggests that
wrongful intervention
has besmirched, by misapplication, a decent philosophy of muscular great-power
diplomacy of which the civilised world may have future need. … …
The horrors and mistakes of the First World War contributed mightily to the
reluctance to fight another, feeding the mood for appeasement. The shame of
the Holocaust may have dulled moral sensibilities to the mistakes Israel is
making in the Middle East. The collapse of America’s calamitous engagement
in Vietnam frightened a generation in the West off the more interfering approach
we should have taken to sinister or corrupt forces developing in the Third
World. 153
In this context it is worth pondering whether, had the Iraq war not taken place, Western
nations might have felt more minded to intervene to prevent what the US recognised as
genocide in Darfur in 2004. 154*
The final issue to consider, from the international perspective, is that of hegemonic
leadership. It was suggested in Chapter 1 (see p58) that it pays any hegemon, however
powerful, to act in such a way as to minimise challenges to his hegemony. For, as the
Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci noted, the distinction between hegemony and
domination is that the former is based on consent and the latter on coercion. 155 G John
Ikenberry notes:
The Bush Administration’s war on terrorism, invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq,
expanded military budget, and controversial 2002 National Security Strategy
have thrust American power into the light of day – and, in doing so, deeply
unsettled much of the world.
… …
Power is often muted or disguised, but when it is exposed and perceived as
domination, it inevitably invites response. 156
* A fuller discussion on humanitarian intervention is undertaken in Chapter 3.
116