Ius ad bellum refers to the notion of "just war," or more precisely, "the right to wage war." The concept of Ius ad bellum was first introduced by Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-420). He redefined the radical pacifism of early Christians by outlining reasons that would justify war (Walzer, 2002). This redefinition was crucial, as he transformed Christianity from a pacifist religion to one that would wage war against non-believers. Although Augustine insisted that the Christian soldier fought with "a down-cast demeanour, without anger or lust" (Walzer, 2002, 925) this paradigmatic shift opened up the possibility of fighting religiously motivated wars or waging crusades.
From today's perspective, it becomes evident that the notion of "just war" was abused by Christian leaders and monarchs to lead brutal wars, which from today's perspective, would not be considered "just." By the same token, one could argue that the Vietnam War fought by the United States as a war intended to intercept the spread of Communism, was not a "just war" (Nadel, 1995). These two examples, however, nicely illustrate two significant problems inherent in the notion of "just war": for one, "just war" has frequently been used as a merely rhetoric means by politicians and heads of government to justify any war, and secondly, what we perceive of as "just" strongly depends on cultural, historical, and ideological context.
The latter assumption is based in a postmodernist perception of the world. One of the basic assumptions of postmodernism is the notion that absolute truth does not exist. Moreover, with regard to power and discourse, postmodernism maintains that there no independent standard for determining which of the many competing narratives that describe an event or constitute a value system is the true one. Postmodernism acknowledges that various, sometimes incompatible versions of the "truth" exist simultaneously. This is in so far relevant...