Asymmetric Wars, International Relations, and Just War Theory

Abstract

In this age of the overarching globalization and increased public sensitivity, conflict resolution is becoming more and more demanding both in terms of its goals and its techniques. The war has become almost forbidden, and old schemes of justifying wars no longer appear satisfying. Justifying war always seemed to be a hopeless task: at the same time impossible and necessary. Being tragic and often also absurd throughout the history, war is now facing the challenge of a change its very definition. Its nature of unpredictability and irreversibility, its constitutive rules of victory and defeat, seem to be in the process of an extensive change, with new aspects and issues emerging: criminalization of war, new ways of justifying military interventions, and a huge set of instruments of justifying “asymmetric wars”, “wars on terror”, pre-emptive and preventive wars, peace-making and peace-keeping activities, regime change strategies, etc. Just War Theory and its justificatory capacity is (again) at the crossroad: is it a new chance to further its development, or a sign of its end? These and other issues regarding contemporary debate about the war are worth further exploration from the philosophical point of view.