First Strike: America, Terrorism, and Moral Tradition
Mark Totten
Abstract
Can the use of force first against a less-than-imminent threat be both morally acceptable and consistent with American values? This book offers an in-depth, historical examination of the use of preemptive and preventive force through the lens of the just war tradition. Although critical of the United States' incursion into Iraq as a so-called preemptive war, the book argues that the threat posed by terrorism nonetheless demands careful consideration of when the first use of preemptive force is legitimate. The moral tradition, it concludes, provides a principled way forward that reconciles Amer ... More
Can the use of force first against a less-than-imminent threat be both morally acceptable and consistent with American values? This book offers an in-depth, historical examination of the use of preemptive and preventive force through the lens of the just war tradition. Although critical of the United States' incursion into Iraq as a so-called preemptive war, the book argues that the threat posed by terrorism nonetheless demands careful consideration of when the first use of preemptive force is legitimate. The moral tradition, it concludes, provides a principled way forward that reconciles American values and the demands of security.
Keywords:
just war,
Iraq,
preemptive force,
preventive force,
terrorism,
security,
United States,
moral tradition,
American values,
preemptive war
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780300124484 |
| Published to Yale Scholarship Online: October 2013 |
DOI:10.12987/yale/9780300124484.001.0001 |
