National Defence and Political Independence

Abstract

Abstract Virtually everyone agrees that standard principles of interpersonal morality justify national defence against major aggressors aiming at genocide or enslavement. Do such principles also justify defensive war against ‘lesser’ or ‘purely political’ aggressors aiming solely at a state’s political independence and/or territory integrity? Although ‘reductivists’ maintain that national defence in such cases generally is justified by interpersonal morality, ‘exceptionalists’ argue that special principles for states are required to justify this sort of defensive war. This chapter examines several issues: What difference does it make if a lesser aggressor issues a conditional threat to use proportionate violence only if its demands are violently resisted? When would waging a war of national defence against lesser aggression satisfy the proportionality requirement? Do all or only some kinds of states have moral rights of national defence? How might principles of interpersonal and interstate morality be combined in a unified approach to justifying national defence?