Dr Shannon Ford1
1Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Biography:
Dr Shannon Brandt Ford is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Curtin University where he is Course Coordinator for the International Relations Major (BA) and the Master of International Relations and National Security programs. Selected publications include: “Ethical Exceptionalism and the Just War Tradition: Walzer’s Instrumentalist Approach and an Institutionalist Response to McMahan’s ‘Nazi Military’ Problem” in the Journal of Military Ethics, “Rights-based Justifications for Self-Defence: Defending a Modified Unjust Threat Account” in the International Journal of Applied Philosophy, and “Jus Ad Vim and the Just Use of Lethal Force Short-of-War” (2013) in the Routledge Handbook of Ethics and War.
Abstract:
The basic thrust of the criticisms of jus ad vim thus far, whether from the conventional just war or revisionist accounts, is that jus ad vim weakens key jus ad bellum standards while adding nothing to the jus in bello criteria of discrimination and proportionality. My argument, in contrast, is that moral justifications for the use of military force under jus ad vim are more nuanced than conventional just war thinking currently allows. It is reasonable, I argue, to recognise that situations of conflict short-of-war will require a range of moderated responses, including military options. To support my argument, I examine Australia’s armed intervention in the Solomon Islands, which helped subdue the civil unrest that had destabilised the country since late 1998. The Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was an armed peacekeeping operation that deployed in 2003 with a mix of police and military. This case is of particular interest because, prior to this, Australian authorities had strenuously ruled out the possibility of deploying any form of armed intervention. Yet if it is sometimes necessary to use military capabilities for a function that is something akin to a policing role, we should also acknowledge that there is a significant risk we end up transporting the ‘warrior mindset’ about using lethal force along with the military personnel, equipment and training. In such cases, jus ad vim improves on the conventional just war account alone for judging military force because it acknowledges the need for a ‘hybrid’ element. In other words, we should be aiming to confine the ‘dogs of war’ to the smallest range of cases possible and apply more appropriate and consistent constraints on the military when it operates outside of that context.