A Note on Interests, Values, and the Use of Force

The recent presidential election campaign intensified a public debate that began in earnest in November 1984 when Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger delivered his famous National Press Club speech on the use of force. That debate has evolved over the years. It began as a discussion of whether force should be withheld only for real war or also used for coercive diplomacy. Though this issue persists, the debate has come to focus primarily on whether force should be reserved for the defense of interests as opposed to the promotion of values. At one end of the spectrum are strict constructionist Weinberger doctrinaires, many of them military professionals, who believe that force should not be used either for diplomacy or value promotion--that it should be employed only to protect the United States and its allies from direct military threats. At the other end are those who believe that force is an indispensable tool of diplomacy and a legitimate if highly circumstantial means of promoting democracy, halting genocide, and restoring order in conditions of anarchy

Law and economics · Political science · Sociology · Use of force · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Military and Defense Studies

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