The Gamble of War: Is It Possible to Justify Preventive War? (Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy)

Does the preventive use of force meet the criteria for just war that prevail (or should prevail) in a democratic system? Or does it endanger the legal and ethical traditions that characterize the history of Western military ethics? This book analyzes the justification of preventive war in contemporary asymmetrical international relations. It focuses on the most crucial aspect of prevention: uncertainty. Luck plays a significant role in these hazardous preventive wars, with unforeseen and sometimes unforeseeable consequences. This book investigates whether the role of uncertainty in preventive war making can be harmonized with a normative account of prevention. It builds a new framework where the role of luck—whether military, political, moral, or normative—is a corrective to the traditional approaches of the just war tradition.