Self-Defence, Defence and Pre-Emption
| Date | 01 September 2004 |
| Published date | 01 September 2004 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.2004.00218.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Self-defence, Defence and Pre-emption
Laurie Calhoun
Harvard University
Military supporters and critics often find each others’ positions on war preposterous. The diver-
gent attitudes of these two groups may derive from their view about the analogy, or lack thereof,
between war and self-defence, an issue recently highlighted by the controversial question of ‘pre-
emption’. In general, bombing campaigns conducted abroad are better understood as pre-emptive
acts of war than as literal acts of ‘self-defence’. The support by governments of the weapons export
trade is also difficult to reconcile with the ‘self-defence’ interpretation of war. Accordingly, those
who reject ‘pre-emptive defence’ on the grounds that it exceeds the parameters of ‘self-defence’
should, in consistency, oppose bombing campaigns and the exportation of weapons as well.
Consider
(1) An abrupt sound awakens you in the middle of the night. Stepping quietly out
of your bedroom into the hall, you see someone with a bag and a gun standing by
the front door. Terrified, you reach into the drawer of a cabinet nearby and take
out the gun hidden there. The trespasser turns towards you, surprised by the noise.
You aim at and shoot the intruder, who falls to the floor.
(2) Your next-door neighbour seems suspicious to you. He comes and goes only
at night, often carrying large parcels into and out of his house, and you have heard
rumours that he has a criminal record. One evening he sees you observing him
from your porch. Concerned that he may at some point in the future attempt to
harm you and your family, you decide to take action. Later that night you remove
your loaded gun from its hiding place and don a black trench coat, gloves and hat
before moving with dispatch towards your neighbour’s house. You slip quietly
through the front door and tiptoe upstairs to the room with a light on, where you
find him sitting at a desk with his back turned. Raising your revolver, you take aim
and fire. The man drops to the floor, dead. You return home, put the gun away
and go back to bed, feeling safe at last.
Many will insist that you would be justified in wielding a gun in the first but not
the second case. While the first use of force can be understood as ‘self-defence’, in
the second scenario such an interpretation seems far-fetched. Our laws permit
people to defend themselves from acts of violent aggression, but not to execute
suspects who seem to pose a potential threat. One may of course wonder whether
the trespasser in the first case would actually use his gun. But the fact that the
person has already committed a crime, by stepping on to private property with the
evident intention of committing another crime, provides reasonable grounds for
believing that he may well make use of the gun, should what he takes to be the
need arise. Still, even justified self-defence has limits, admitting only such action
as is necessary to protect oneself from the aggressor, which often does not require
© Political Studies Association, 2004.
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
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L A U R I E C A L H O U N
killing anyone. Stopping the trespasser in case (1) probably would not require him
to die, and people who wield excessive force in ‘self-defence’ are indicted for
crimes.1
Despite their differences regarding war, many advocates and critics of the military
will agree that literal self-defence as depicted in case (1) above is morally permis-
sible. War supporters and critics alike may insist that, when directly faced with a
deadly threat, it is morally permissible to defend oneself against the aggressor, and
even to use deadly force, if necessary.2 Given that war supporters and critics affirm
the prima facie wrongness of destroying human life, how can we explain their
seemingly incommensurable views about war? The answer may lie in the views of
military critics and supporters regarding the analogy, or lack thereof, between mil-
itary action and literal self-defence. While military supporters appear to believe
that the moral permissibility of self-defence directly implies the moral permissibil-
ity of war, critics deny that this is the case.
‘National defence’ versus ‘self-defence’
Military supporters may suppose that because theirs is the received view, it is obvi-
ously coherent. The long-standing ‘just war’ tradition is upheld by the political
leaders and populace of nearly all modern nations. Given the unwavering moral
and monetary support by the populace of virtually any initiative containing the
word defence, military spokesmen have no pressing practical reason to take seri-
ously the concerns of critics. What reasonable person could oppose defence? It is
this idea that leads supporters of the military to dismiss out of hand those who
dissent from national military policy, concluding that some people simply cannot
be reasoned with. It is this idea that leads many voters to reject political candidates
who do not publicly express support of the military.
People who do not believe in the rational justification of the institutional recourse to
deadly force tend not to look favourably upon the military, and those who choose
freely to enlist probably believe in the possibility of a morally permissible war.3
Within the establishment are found more and less ‘hawkish’ advocates of military
action, but soldiers rise in the ranks through obeying the orders of their superior offi-
cers. Principled opponents to war are thus excluded from dialogue at the outset and
have little to no effect upon the policies adopted and actions taken by administrators
in the highest echelons of government. For ‘the experts’ in international politics are
those officers, diplomats and representatives either appointed or elected to serve the
nation by people who embrace the received view, and how ‘defence’ is to be carried
out is determined by those employed by the Department of Defence. Ask a hawk
what to do during times of apparently...
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