Monday, December 29, 2008

Casus Belli

A question that I have been batting around for the last two days is: what constitutes as casus belli? In some ways I don't think it is a relevant question, or more to the point, there might not be such a thing as a casus belli in a sub-conventional conflict. But if there were (what does that even mean?) what would such an incitement look like?

1 comment:

Yehuda said...

Zev, It seems to me that you mean to ask, "what is a legitimate cause of war?" Because wars (whether conventional or not) can, and have, been caused by many things. My question to you would be, "what kind of legitimation are you looking for?" I suspect that if you define your standards of legitimation the answer to your question will follow immediately. The only problem will be that countries often don't care whether things are legitimate or not, or have different standards by which to judge whether what they do is legitimate. When Russia attacked Georgia, I doubt the word "legitimate" was on their minds at all.