CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

Although beyond the scope of this thesis to delve further, it is right to acknowledge that
the foregoing discussion of humanitarian intervention has focussed exclusively on the
kinetic force of military intervention. It has not considered economic or other forms of
interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states and we should perhaps note that
the use of economic sanctions can be more damaging – and less true to traditional jus in
bello principles of discrimination and proportionality – than direct military action.
Having argued that just war principals can offer a broad but useful guide in moral
decisions to intervene, it is right to conclude this section with an exhortation from the
US Catholic Bishops, that just war principals be used holistically and not selectively, to
guide moral discussion and not to validate a political agenda:
During the last decade, there has been increasing focus on the moral questions
raised by the just-war tradition and its application to specific uses of force. We
welcome this renewed attention and hope our own efforts have contributed to
this dialogue. We also recognize that the application of these principles requires
the exercise of the virtue of prudence; people of good will may differ on specific
conclusions. The just-war tradition is not a weapon to be used to justify a
political conclusion or a set of mechanical criteria that automatically yields a
simple answer, but a way of moral reasoning to discern the ethical limits of
action. Policy-makers, advocates and opponents of the use of force need to be
careful not to apply the tradition selectively, simply to justify their own
positions. Likewise, any application of just-war principles depends on the
availability of accurate information not easily obtained in the pressured political
context in which such choices must be made. 169
3.4 Preventive and Pre-emptive action
If humanitarian intervention has been the principal debate of jus ad bellum in the current
era, then it is closely seconded by the issue of pre-emptive or preventive self-defence.
We should first establish the difference between prevention and pre-emption. Writing
at the end of the 1950s, Bernard Brodie 170 offered an understanding of the terms that,
despite his use specifically in relation to nuclear war, can usefully serve a more general
purpose. Brodie defines a preventive attack as ‘a premeditated attack by one country
against another, which is unprovoked in the sense that it does not wait upon a specific
aggression or other overt action by the target state, and in which the chief and most
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