Abstract
This Article explores the efficacy of the international rules that determine when resorting to force is appropriate, jus ad bellum. It does so by comparing the elements that presently determine the legality of a state’s decision to use force, as the international legal community generally interprets them, with the motivations that actually underlie such a decision. In doing so, this Article seeks to provide part of the foundation on which an alternative use of force regime, one that takes account of how states actually behave, can be built. Part II of the Article lays out the current jus ad bellum rules structure. Part III discusses basic realist assumptions about state behavior and introduces three realist inspired foreign policy strategies—balance-of-threat preponderance, balancer of last resort, and selective engagement—that identify instances in which the United States should use force and help explain and predict American decisions to do so. Part IV addresses and attempts to illuminate the disconnect between the U.N. Charter-based rules structure governing the use of force and actual state practice by examining five recent U.S. decisions to resort to force—Gulf War I, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Gulf War II. Each American action is evaluated in terms of its legality and its consistency with the three realist foreign policy strategies.
Recommended Citation
Fisher, W. Jason
(2007)
"Force, International Law, and American Foreign Policy,"
Florida Journal of International Law: Vol. 19:
Iss.
1, Article 2.
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/fjil/vol19/iss1/2