Gun laws and war

Most states in the United States allow citizens to use a gun to defend themselves. When you can use a gun for self defense is subject to restrictions. The most common restriction is that when you use a gun for self defense it must be in response to an imminent perceived threat of bodily harm. That is to say, a reasonable person in your situation, must believe that they are about to lose life or limb.

In his article "Government, War and Libertarianism", the Cato Institutes Justin Logan states

In the international arena, it is important to note that security—the first-order concern of any state—is ultimately contingent on a state’s ability to defend itself.

So should a state be subject to the restriction that it only go to war when it perceives an imminent threat to the loss of life of its citizens?

This is the position of Randy Barnett in his book The Structure of Liberty. Barnett states that this is a reasonable restriction

because of the enormous knowledge problem that would be confronted if we were to permit self defense actions prior to a threat becoming imminent.

There are two key points to the restriction.

1. There must be a perceived threat, one that a reasonable state would make given the same information the available prior to going to war.
2. And the perceived threat must be imminent.

In light of these two key point lets take a look at some recent actions by the United States government.

The war in Iraq
So, is the war in Irag justifiable as self defense? Was there a perceived threat? We know that the United State Government believed that Iraq possessed Chemical and Biological weapons. But were they threating to use them against the United States? Not that the public was informed of. Were they giving them to terrorists, and training the terrorists on how to use them? Again, not that the public was informed of. So the war in Iraq fails to meet the criteria of self defense.

The war in Afghanistan
What about the invasion of Afghanistan? Was the Afghan government threating the United States? Not directly, but they were harboring agents (Usama Bin Laden and associates) who were threating the United States. They were providing areas for them to train in the use of arms in order to wage war against the United States. So it can be argued that a threat existed.

Was the threat imminent? This is a harder question to answer. We do know that Special Forces were in Afghanistan prior to the main invasion. If there was an imminent threat in Afghanistan it is conceivable that these forces could and would address it with use of deadly force. But the overall invasion was a slower process and not designed to eliminate an imminent threat. So the main invasion was not justifiable as self defense.

But was it justifiable? It was designed to capture fugitives that killed citizens of the United States. The threat from these fugitives was real, if not imminent. The United States Governments actions can be justified by looking at the September 11th attacks as murder and the Afghan government as an accomplice to the crime.