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Barack Obama As Just War Theorist: The Libyan Intervention, Harry Van Der Linden
Barack Obama As Just War Theorist: The Libyan Intervention, Harry Van Der Linden
Harry van der Linden
President Barack Obama has clearly placed himself in the just war tradition, and so we may ask how successful has President Obama in fact been as just war theorist? His justification of the recent NATO intervention in Libya shows that the record is at best mixed. More broadly, Obama’s failure as just war theorist is at least partly a failure of the theory itself: as long as this theory does not address issues of “just military preparedness,” it will fail to place real constraints on American resort to military force.
Barack Obama, Resort To Force, And U.S. Military Hegemony, Harry Van Der Linden
Barack Obama, Resort To Force, And U.S. Military Hegemony, Harry Van Der Linden
Harry van der Linden
Just War Theorists have neglected that a lack of “just military preparedness” on the side of a country seriously undermines its capability to resort justly to military force. In this paper, I put forth five principles of “just military preparedness” and show that since the new Obama administration will seek to maintain the United States’ dominant military position in the world, it will violate each of the principles. I conclude on this basis that we should anticipate that the Obama administration will add another page to the United States’ history of unjust military interventions.