“A virtue must be our own invention, our most necessary self-expression and self-
defense: any other kind of virtue is merely danger…‘Virtue,’ ‘duty,’ the ‘good in itself,’
the good which is impersonal and universally valid – chimeras and expressions of
decline, of the final exhaustion of life…The fundamental laws of self-preservation and
growth demand the opposite – that everyone invent his own virtue, his own categorical
imperative.”— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist
Nietzsche’s quote cuts to the heart of the current unipolar international system.
The United States is now the hegemon, and it is creating its own laws, its own virtue.
Instead of working within traditional norms and constraints, the U.S. is dictating norms
for the rest of the world. Current U.S. foreign policies stretch over many issues
including trade, foreign aid and military force. Yet, this last topic deserves special
attention. Due to this new unipolar system, the United States possesses “unparalleled
military strength and great economic and political influence.”
asymmetric gain in power, it is imperative to examine U.S. foreign policies, especially
those having to do with the use of force.
The United States National Security Strategy (NSS) is the foremost document on
U.S. military foreign policy. It outlines the state’s commitments, policies and beliefs
about its military agenda. In September of 2002, the Bush administration put forth the
NSS, and its pages outline issues ranging from terrorism to capitalism. This relatively
short document (33 pages) indicates military intentions to the American people and the
This paper examines the current NSS in light of the just war tradition. However,
it is not within this paper’s scope to examine every claim the NSS makes; instead we will
examine the NSS’ particular notions about the preemptive use of force. This paper
juxtaposes the implicit and explicit assumptions in the NSS to the traditional
1
White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, (2002).
2
The current NSS is not substantively different than the 2002 version.
2
Convention