This leadoff piece examines the ethics of intervention in light of recent policy and academic debates on the subject. It proceeds from an examination of the reasons for intervention today to an assessment of the moral and legal traditions governing intervention and also provides a review of selected cases of intervention recently confronting U.S. foreign policy.

The three ethical positions Laberge outlines are: (1) “Rawlsian ethics,” which are distinct from the ethics of Immanuel Kant and John Rawls himself; (2) the position of Michael Walzer adapted from J. S. Mill; and (3) the position most recently articulated by the Canadian philosopher Howard Adelman on the “Anglo-American” debate, which developed out of Walzer's position. These three positions, Laberge writes, are “an ethics of human rights, ethics of the right to a historical community, and an ethics of peace

Barnett argues that the United Nations, by operating on the principle of the consent of the parties, can encourage the development of a more stable and cooperative security architecture. The articulation and transmission of norms and the establishment of mechanisms can encourage transparency in interstate and internal matters. After the Cold War some entertained the possibility of increasing United Nations involvement in security affairs and making it a muscular security organization. Such visions, however, outstripped either what the United Nations was immediately capable of accomplishing or what the member states were willing to support. These developments demand a more pragmatic assessment of the United Nations to learn what it can do well, what it cannot do well, and how it can become more effective.

Roth argues that much of the current discourse on the diffusion of democratic norms is misleading and that only a realistic assessment of the progress of societies in transition will focus attention on the problems that remain to be solved. Only in this way will normative evaluation contribute to progress in the achievement of democratic ends.

Tesón critiques a recent article by John Rawls in which Rawls extends his acclaimed political theory to include international relations. Tesón first summarizes Rawls' theory and then presents a critique. With this essay, Rawls joins an already vigorous scholarly reaction against traditional state-centered models of international law and relations. When measured against such models, Rawls' theory of international law moves in the right direction in assigning a role, albeit a modest one, to human rights and political legitimacy. However, to the extent that Rawls' effort purports to be a rational reconstruction of international law for our new era (as he certainly intends it to be), it fails to capture central moral features of the international order. His proposal is still too forgiving of serious forms of oppression in the name of liberal tolerance. The theory thus falls short of matching the considered moral judgments prevailing in today's international community. Moreover, it fails Rawls' own test of epistemic adequacy.

The debate over nuclear proliferation has generated a large literature, but this literature does not adequately address the moral issues. A moral analysis of proliferation must go beyond concerns of international security. In this essay, Lee addresses the following questions: (1) Does nuclear proliferation make the world a more dangerous place; that is, does it increase security? (2) Is it morally permissible for a nonnuclear state to acquire nuclear weapons? (3) What are morally permissible actions for states trying to keep other states from acquiring nuclear weapons?

In a critique of international deontology, Hardin discusses the forms that moral reasoning might take—from rationalist actor theory to Kantian proceduralism to ad hoc Kantianism—and the relation of Kant's dictum to the institutional nature of much of international affairs. He then relates this discussion to three quite different general policy issues: nuclear deterrence, intervention, and international redistribution.

Donaldson argues that agreeing with Hardin to banish deontological justifications from international discussion amounts to abandoning the power of deontology to interpret political intent and to establish hard limits on political behavior. The moral language of deontology may not be sufficient for the moral interpretation of international affairs, he admits, but does turn out to be necessary.

We have to explain not only why there is so much difference between cultures on ethical questions, but also why there is so much concurrence at a general level. If the most basic ethical values are objective and cultures use those basic building stones to construct implicit ethical arguments in the form of secondary and tertiary values, then we have an explanation for both similarities and differences. The base-line core is shred; the upper tiers differ by culture. Requiring cross-cultural concurrence not only separates out core values from secondary ones, but also provides a check that a whole culture has not gone awry due to local circumstances. Without some form of objectivity, there is no firm grounding other than taste for criticizing whatever happen to be another culture's values, or even for reforming one's own. Without objectivity there is no firm grounding for moral objections to someone from a different culture - such as Hitler or Idi Amin.

As Smith points out, Reinhold Niebuhr's political ethic is closely linked to his philosophy of history. This view of history blends a dualistic understanding of human nature and rigorous contingency of experience - all sobered by a creative sense of tragedy. Niebuhr's modest sensibility was forged amid the early catastrophes of the century and fell on fertile ground early in the Cold War. But in the ironic wake of that superpower struggle there is much in Niebuhr's anitriumphalism to commend to today's international relations theorists and practitioners. Following Augustine, Niebuhr offers no escape from the complexities and contingencies of history, but neither does he view history as gloomily fixed. Rather, Niebuhr's complex and often contradictory sense of historical destiny reflects a sober hope for a more just and peaceful world order.

Review essay of “Diplomacy,” by Henry Kissinger; “Truman,” by David McCullough; and “The Downing Street Years,” by Margaret Thatcher.