The Aria of War Justifications for the Pursuit of...

Introduction The end of the Cold War and attacks of 9/11 dramatically altered the landscape of United States national security endeavors. Gone was the singular, nearly tactile threat as presented by a major superpower, and in its place was the â€Å"amorphous nature of a terrorist opponent,† (Snow, 2014, p. 112). This novel threat defied easy definition or identification, and attacked in ways to which the U.S. had grown unaccustomed. Phrases like â€Å"asymmetrical warfare† and â€Å"war on terror† were used liberally by an executive branch wholly unprepared for mitigating such a threat, and exploited to justify any number of means to achieve an end that as yet remains elusive. With the threat now subsiding, and certain means of statecraft and defense†¦show more content†¦Even this is determined to be an â€Å"unprecedented war,† do the means of operating outside international law and norms justify the ends? The advantage of selective application of the Convention lies in the ability for an administration to be able to justify certain activities that otherwise would be unlawful. Colin Powell attempted point out this inconsistency in his appeal to various executive branch leadership by stating, â€Å"The United States and international community have consistently held Afghanistan to its treaty obligations and identified it as a party to the Geneva Conventions† (Caseldine-Bracht, 2006, p. 77). Insinuations of hypocrisy aside, the use of prisons outside the United States failed to place the use of harsh interrogation techniques beyond American culpability (Lowenthal, 2012, p. 286). These extraterritorial arrests have raised serious ethical and legal issues for intelligence officers and policymakers, as well as created discomfort with allies. In the end, the short-term advantage of circumventing international laws has resulted in the very real long-term repercussions of eroding U.S. credibility when attempting to intervene in states that abuse human rights. The Necessity of SIGINT vs Protection of Privacy The nature of terrorist threat combined with technologies that facilitate globalization resulted in both the necessity as well as the capacity to wage war and conduct intelligence operations in a new