The Moral Obligation of Missile Defence? Preventive War Argumentation and Ballistic Missile Defence Advocacy

This article aims to assess the moral arguments that have been propounded for missile defence in the post-Cold-War era and to evaluate how these relate to those made for the ‘pre-emptive’ use of military force. Specific attention is paid to the argument that contemporary missile defence constitutes a form of moral obligation for the United States, a position explicitly advocated by just war theorist James Turner Johnson. Drawing on critiques of similar arguments made in the 1980s, the assumptions of this position are critically assessed. Finally, the article asserts that the general reconfiguration of imminent threats in recent US security strategy gives sustenance to the moral argumentation for missile defence as much as it does the anticipatory use of force more broadly understood, indicating how the two overlap and intersect in this regard.