Legitimacy is of crucial importance when intervention is undertaken. Values and Weapons looks at the determinants of legitimacy for the US and Europe for using military force. Arguing that the non-intervention norm is weakened by the advent of terror groups in failed states as well as by so-called humanitarian intervention, it looks at how legitimacy is constituted. International law matters very much to Europeans, in the form of a UN mandate; but public opinion matters more. In the...
More DescriptionLegitimacy is of crucial importance when intervention is undertaken. Values and Weapons looks at the determinants of legitimacy for the US and Europe for using military force. Arguing that the non-intervention norm is weakened by the advent of terror groups in failed states as well as by so-called humanitarian intervention, it looks at how legitimacy is constituted. International law matters very much to Europeans, in the form of a UN mandate; but public opinion matters more. In the US, national law and interests are more important. The development of a norm that calls for a 'duty to protect', so-called humanitarian intervention, has paved the way for intervention also into so-called 'failed' states. Sovereignty has been redefined so that democracy is a requirement which makes it much easier to intervene into non-democratic states. Examining the interventions into Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, the author shows that legitimacy varies in the different phases of war.