Normative War-Fighting and the New World Order

Abstract

Francis Fukuyama (1989, 1992) declaring the ‘end of history’ in 1989, and President George Bush (cited by Ross, 2002: 247), in a State of the Union Address in January of 1991, declaring a “New World Order ... to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind – peace and security, freedom and the rule of law” caused a great stir and helped revitalize debate in this area, but they were essentially referring to liberal tenets that were decades, or even centuries old. The basic liberal argument is that at some point the world radically changed, forcing a re-evaluation of the nature of international interaction. In the brave new liberal world, the logic of cooperation takes over from the logic of competition and survival of the fittest. The promotion of shared values and interests supersedes the pursuit of selfish national interest, morality is placed at the centre stage of statecraft, and the basic human concern for the well being of others makes progress possible. Liberal beliefs do not make war unthinkable, but do challenge traditional assumptions of when it is justifiable to wage war. There is no more dramatic manifestation of liberal leadership than so-called ‘normative war-fighting’ or militarized humanitarian intervention. J. L. Holzgrefe (Holzgrefe and Keohane, 2003: 18) defines humanitarian intervention as ‘the threat or use of force across state borders by a state (or group of states) aimed at preventing or ending widespread and grave violations of the fundamental human rights of individuals other than its own citizens, without the permission of the state within whose territory is applied’. The concept of normative war-fighting or militarized humanitarian intervention is herein used in the same way, but with an additional and deliberate emphasis on the role of the military and the decision-makers commanding their deployment. This paper assesses the degree to which the triumph of Western liberal states in the Cold War has led to a new kind of international system,