The book examines the complex and contested moral and legal issues of preventive warfare.

In response to the 9/11 attacks and continuing threats of mass- casualty terrorism, the United States has adopted a new security strategy that emphasizes anticipatory actions, including preventive war. Prevention, undertaken in the absence of an act of aggression or an imminent threat, is prohibited by modern conceptions of just war and international law. Many critics of the strategy fear that any legitimization of preventive war would endanger international stability. But an examination of the relevant ethical issues from the perspective of just war doctrine reveals contradictions within a blanket prohibition of preventive war. Preventive "strategic interventions" against illiberal regimes -- states that correlate with the threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction -- parallel humanitarian interventions in that they have an ethical basis in the relationship between human rights and the right of state sovereignty. A widely accepted minimum standard of human rights, incorporated into new international institutions and/or an explicit revision of the definition of just war, could serve as an ethical boundary for both preventive wars and humanitarian interventions. The formal qualification of prevention and its merger with humanitarian goals could bring enhanced international legitimacy and support to preventive actions by the United States and its allies. (51 refs.)

An account of war ethics sensitive to the historical just war theory, informed by the contemporary concerns of war.

With the ending of the strategic certainties of the Cold War, the need for moral clarity over when, where and how to start, conduct and conclude war has never been greater. There has been a recent revival of interest in the just war tradition. But can a medieval theory help us answer twenty-first century security concerns? David Fisher explores how just war thinking can and should be developed to provide such guidance. His in-depth study examines philosophical challenges to just war thinking, including those posed by moral scepticism and relativism. It explores the nature and grounds of moral reasoning; the relation between public and private morality; and how just war teaching needs to be refashioned to provide practical guidance not just to politicians and generals but to ordinary service people. The complexity and difficulty of moral decision-making requires a new ethical approach - here characterised as virtuous consequentialism - that recognises the importance of both the internal quality and external effects of agency; and of the moral principles and virtues needed to enact them. Having reinforced the key tenets of just war thinking, Fisher uses these to address contemporary security issues, including the changing nature of war, military pre-emption and torture, the morality of the Iraq war, and humanitarian intervention. He concludes that the just war tradition provides not only a robust but an indispensable guide to resolve the security challenges of the twenty-first century.

How We Fight: Ethics in War contains ten groundbreaking essays by some of the leading philosophers of war. The essays offer new perspectives on key debates including pacifism, punitive justifications for war, the distribution of risk between combatants and non-combatants, the structure of 'just war theory', and bases of individual liability in war.

Is a nation ever justified in attacking before it has been attacked? If so, under precisely what conditions? This volume of new, specially commissioned chapters provides the most definitive assessment to date of the justifiability of preemptive or preventive military action.

The Ethics of War traces how different cultures involved in present conflicts have addressed problems over the centuries. Distinguished authors reflect how the Greco-Roman world, Byzantium, the Christian just war tradition, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and the Geneva Conventions have addressed recurrent ethical issues of war. Cutting edge essays by prominent modern theorists address vital contemporary issues including asymmetric war, preventive war, human rights and humanitarian intervention.