Jus ad vim: The morality of military and police use of force in armed conflicts short of war

Michael Walzer introduced the term jus ad vim – the just use of force short of war – in contrast with, or perhaps to complement, the well-established notion of the just war, jus ad bellum and its correlative notion, jus in bello (Walzer 2006). The intuitive idea is that there are circumstances in which military force needs to be used yet full-blown war can be avoided, and in these circumstances a different confi guration of moral principles is required; hence the constitutive principles of jus ad vim will differ somewhat from the constitutive principles of jus ad bellum or, at least, the application of the same principles will differ given the difference in contexts (Braun and Brunstetter 2013). Moreover, these circumstances include not only ones in which states are to use force against other states, but also ones in which states are to use force against non-state actors, such as terrorist groups, outside its own territory. The US use of drone strikes against terrorists in the disorderly jurisdic-tion of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan is a case in point.