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Preventive intervention, though an old practice, has recently come under widespread discussion due to concerns about international terrorism and the potential availability to rogue states or terrorists of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). With the 2003 war in Iraq, the Bush administration made preventive intervention part of United States military policy. In a recent issue of Ethics & International Affairs, Allen Buchanan and Robert Keohane argued that the preventive use of military force may be justified in some circumstances. In this essay I take issue with their argument.

A comment on Allen Buchanan & Robert Keohane's "The Preventive Use of Force: A Cosmopolitan Institutional Proposal" (2004) challenges their position that some circumstances may justify a preventive use of military force. It is argued that any credible moral justification for the preventive use of military force would have to show how that targeted state "could be morally liable for attack when the aggression said to justify the attack is expected rather than actual," a justification not provided by Buchanan & Keohane. An examination of deontological & consequentialist arguments supporting the view that preventive intervention is not morally justified is followed by a discussion of Buchanan & Keohane's response to both arguments. Special attention is given to the possibility that rogue states or terrorists might acquire/use weapons of mass destruction, & the need to distinguish between an isolated military strike & a war leading to regime change, as well as between preventive intervention & humanitarian intervention. J. Lindroth

The debate over nuclear proliferation has generated a large literature, but this literature does not adequately address the moral issues. A moral analysis of proliferation must go beyond concerns of international security. In this essay, Lee addresses the following questions: (1) Does nuclear proliferation make the world a more dangerous place; that is, does it increase security? (2) Is it morally permissible for a nonnuclear state to acquire nuclear weapons? (3) What are morally permissible actions for states trying to keep other states from acquiring nuclear weapons?

Considers the danger of nuclear proliferation, the moral limits of antiproliferation policy, and delegitimation of nuclear weapons, from the perspective of the interests of humanity as a whole.