The 'Good War' after September 11

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5774410
AutoresPeter Augustine Lawler (University of Manchester, autor de correspondencia), Peter Lawler
Año2002
Volumen37
Número2
Páginas151-172
Fecha de publicación2002-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaGovernment and Opposition (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0017-257X • E-ISSN: 1477-7053
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/1477-7053.00092
OpenAlexW2002554468
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas12

Rather Than Signalling The End Of War, As Many Liberal Minds had hoped, the end of the cold war has seen 'hot' war moving firmly to centre-stage, while at the same time presaging a reclassification of its predominant forms and purposes. Since 1990 there has been a rash of what Kaldor calls 'new wars'. Although often highly localized, they confound settled understandings of inter-state or civil war by virtue of the diverse range of protagonists involved, the issues over which they are fought, and their consistently brutal impact upon civilians. A virtual revolution in media technology has also made such wars publicly visible to an unprecedented degree. In spite of the fact that new wars are often fought without recourse to the most sophisticated or destructive of military technology, the horrific impact upon populations caught up in them has clearly assaulted public sensibilities worldwide and generated a chorus of demands that something should be done about them. Consequently, the political and ethical dimensions of going to war in response to such threats have also moved in from the periphery to the centre of public and intellectual debate. As Walzer has recently observed, the 'chief dilemma of international politics is whether people in danger should be rescued by military forces from outside'. From the point of view of the key members of the international community at least, armed 'humanitarian intervention' is no longer just a form of war but has become virtually synonymous with permissible war itself

Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Global Security and Public Health · War, Ethics, and Justification