By Christopher J Finlay

“Robert Mugabe”, a-birdie. used under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

The phenomenon of ‘coup d’état’ has recently forced itself back into public consciousness. After the ouster of Hosni Mubarak under pressure of the protesters in 2011, Mohamed Morsi’s politically illiberal but democratically elected government was overthrown by the Egyptian military in 2013. By 2014, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had stepped down as Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian armed forces to run successfully for President. July 2016 saw an unsuccessful coup attempt in Turkey against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by a faction within the military. And in November 2017, Zimbabweans awoke to see a man in military fatigues on the national television station reading out a prepared statement to inform the public that the military had seized control – but denying emphatically that it was engaged in a ‘coup’.

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By Christopher J. Finlay

Amongst those debating the justification for last December’s decision by the British government to join in the military intervention in Syria, some ask whether the UK is now engaged alongside its allies in a ‘Just War’. James Pattison, for instance, has argued that if we consider it properly, working through the key principles of what just war theorists call the ‘jus ad bellum’ (the justice of wars), it is not. The bombing of ISIS targets in Syria by the air forces of France, the USA, and now Britain, must be judged according to whether it pursues a ‘Just Cause,’ is motivated by the ‘Right Intention,’ and has a ‘Reasonable Prospect of Success.’ It does not, Pattison thinks, because war can be initiated only as a means of defence against the threat of international aggression or as part of a humanitarian intervention seeking to defend innocent people from those threatening violent harm within their own states. The threat of violence to individuals in Europe, Pattison suggests, is more immediately posed by ISIS sympathizers already living there than by the forces occupying cities across Iraq and Syria. And the plight of the many innocent people living under ISIS rule or fleeing it as refugees will only worsen as the air strikes intensify.

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