Ethiopia's Neoconservative Intervention

The Latest from the NYTs

Ethiopia has justified involvement in Somalia's civil war along lines that are remarkably similar to the US justification of the war in Iraq. Neoconservative foreign policy promotes the notion that nations are justified in going to war pre-emptively to stave off threats to their own national security. To the casual observer this may not appear to be an extreme position, the actual implications, however, are far reaching and destabilizing. Not to mention the fact that it flies in the face of over 2,000 years of Just War theory, dating back to Cicero in the first century BC (and Greek influence before that) and later popularized by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the 13th Century AD. The idea of a pre-emptive was allows the aggressor to interpret any form of threat or provokation as justification for armed conflict.

When the US used this justification for the War in Iraq it is my fear that we opened pandora's box by undermining any objective criterion for judging the validity of an armed conflict. (A Just War must meet a variety of criterion that makes violent resistance the lesser of two evils). The United States, and by extension the current international dialogue, no longer has firm moral footing for comdemning or shaming any war. For now our Executive is content to use this to our advantage, in this case tacitly supporting Ethiopia's pre-emption. A quick military victory will likely be short-lived, however, as the sources of the strife are intensified and the opponent rallies assistance to it's cause and learns to fight better.

The case may be that some degree of pre-emption may be necessary in a world of WMDs. If this is the case there must be criterion, hopefully based upon real, verifiable evidense. Realists have a point in arguing that states act in their own interests. However, over the long term it may be in the interests of states to adhere to norms of behavior (like individuals) in order to stabilize the global community of states (as within nations).

Merry Christmas. May there be one less Jihad, namely on the Horn of Africa.