Instructions: Welcome to the Second trimester of POL 220. Please read these instructions carefully.
Your test consists of one essay question worth 100 points. Partial credit will be given. For the question you will be required to draft an essay. The length of the essay is to be between 1,500 and 2,000-words excluding title, heading, and works cited. This essay is to be typed and submitted via canvas by 11:10 AM on April 14th.
The essay is to be formatted using a formal citation style (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.) including a works cited page at the end. It is to be treated as a mini-paper.
AI (such as Chat GPT) may be used for research purposes but must be cited and/or quoted correctly. Please note, reliability of AI is inconsistent, it is highly encouraged to find a second source to verify the information. If you use information given by an AI, you are responsible for the authenticity of the source, and you can be penalized if it is inaccurate.
Question: Please select a concept from the list below.
- The Just War Doctrine
- The Theory of Aggression
- The Munich Agreement
- The Classic Argument for Pervention
- The Self-Help Doctrine
- Permissible Intervention (suspension of the ban on boundary crossing)
Next, pick a military action / response to a military action that has occurred in the current Iran conflict (this can include the weeks leading up to the first bombings in February 2026). Then, please take a concept from the list above that you believe is relevant to the action youve selected. If none of these doctrines and concepts work for you, you may contact me and ask if you can apply another concept to the action youve selected. I must approve this for it to be a valid essay.
The essay should:
- Define and explain the selected concept in general.
- Give appropriate context for the military action and / or the response to the military action at issue.
- Apply the standards of the concept to chosen military action.
- Conclude if the action conforms or fails to obey the selected doctrine.
The Just War Doctrine
- Just Cause: The reason for war must be morally sound, like self-defense against aggression, not conquest or wealth.
- Right Intention: The goal must be to restore a just peace, not to harm, punish, or seek revenge.
- Competent Authority: Only a legitimate governing body (like a state) can declare war, not private individuals.
- Last Resort: All peaceful alternatives, such as negotiation or sanctions, must be exhausted first.
- Reasonable Chance of Success: The war should not be a futile effort that causes unnecessary death and suffering.
- Proportionality: The good achieved by the war must outweigh the harm it causes.
- (Optional) Jus in Bello (Justice in War):Discrimination/Distinction: Violence must be directed only at combatants, not civilians or non-military targets.
The Theory of Aggression (Page 61-63)
- There exists an international society of independent states.
- This international society has a law that establishes the rights of its members above all, the rights of the territorial integrity and political sovereignty.
- Any use of force or imminent threat of force by one state against the political sovereignty or territorial integrity of another constitute aggression and is a criminal act.
- Aggression justifies two kinds of violent response: a war of self-defense by the victim and a war of law enforcement by the victim and any other member of the international society.
- Nothing but aggression can justify war
- Once the aggressor state has been militarily repulsed, it can also be punished.
The Munich Agreement (Page 68 69)
There might be a duty to seek peace at the expense of justice. Appeasement would involve a surrender to violence but it would not or might not involve absolute subjection to the rule of violence (the rule of men committed to the continual use of violence; this can mean genocide, terrorism, and enslavement). It is not a surrender once and for all to the rule of violence.
The Classic Argument for Pervention (Pages 76 78)
Keep due sentinel, that none of their neighbors do overgrow so as they become more able to annoy them, than they were. Francis Bacon
If a nation-states neighbors do overgrow then they must be fought, sooner rather than later, and without waiting for the first blow.
Summed up in 2 (3?) propositions (Page 77)
- That the balance of power actually does preserve liberties (of Europe) and is therefore worth defending even at some cost.
- That to fight early, before the balance tips in any decisive way, greatly reduces the cost of the defense, while waiting doesnt mean avoiding war but only fighting on a larger scale at worse odds.
- (Optional?) That the acceptance of propositions 1 and 2 is dangerous (not useful) and certain to lead to innumerable and fruitless wars whenever shifts in power relations occur; but increments and losses of power are a constant feature of international politics, ad perfect equilibrium, like perfect security, is a utopian dream.
The Self-Help Doctrine (Page 87)
Mill It is during an arduous struggle to become free by their own efforts that these virtues have the best chance of springing up.
The members of a political community must seek their own freedom, just as the individual must cultivate their own virtue. They cannot be set free, as he cannot be made virtuous, by external force. Self-determination is the school in which virtue is learned (or not) and liberty is won (or not). Intervention does not fail, more often than not, to serve the purposes of liberty; the issue is that given what liberty is, it necessarily fails.
Permissible Intervention (suspension of the ban on boundary crossing) (Page 90)
The ban on boundary crossing is subject to unilateral suspension, specifically with reference to three sorts of cases where it does not seem to serve the purposes for which it was established:
- When a particular set of boundaries clearly contains two or more political communities, one of which is already engaged in a large-scale military struggle for independence, that is, when what is at issue is secession or national liberation.
- When the boundaries have already been crossed by the armies of a foreign power, even if the crossing has been called for by one of the parties in a civil war, that is, when what is at issue is counter-intervention; and
- When the violation of human rights within a set of boundaries is so terrible that it makes talk of community or self-determination or arduous struggle seem cynical and irrelevant, that is, in cases of enslavement or massacre.
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