CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

In summary, then, even a strong power must exercise restraint in the occasions and
manner of its use of force. In short, it must use force when there is a broad acceptance
of its justification for so doing, and its forces must act justly. To breach either of these
restrictions is to undermine international standing. This both impacts on the ability to
gather together international coalitions of support, which even the most powerful nation
requires for sustained military operations, and it impacts on a nation’s international
authority. Moral Authority is undermined and legitimacy questioned, in turn reducing
the ‘soft power’ which in the complex modern world is a critical adjunct to traditional
hard power. A distrusted hegemon risks challenge to its authority and leadership,
increasing the material costs of its action, giving its position the appearance of coercive
domination rather than cooperative hegemony and, in the long-term, putting that
position at risk.
2.3.2 Relevance at the National Level
This section will examine why justification (in cause and conduct) matters at the
national level. Of course, as was noted at the beginning of the last section, there is
considerable overlap and interaction between the levels, but the focus of this section
will be the how perceptions of justification/non-justification impact on domestic
politics.
Going to war has often been used by governments as a way of diverting public opinion
from an unsatisfactory domestic situation. This is an accusation that has been levelled
at all types of administration. Indeed, some even accused George Bush of using the
‘War on Terror’ and subsequent attack on Iraq as a diversion from a faltering economy
and government culpability for the September 11 terrorist outrages. But it is more often
levelled at autocracies such as the Argentine military junta that ordered the 1982
military attack on the Falkland Islands. As that government found, success is critical.
For a democracy, though, there is a greater issue. According to the Democratic Peace
Thesis 161 , democracies are averse to war, generally, but are particularly unlikely to go to
war with one another. The thesis is summarised thus by G John Ikenberry:
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