I note that while most of the examples seem reasonable, the Dictator instance seems to stand out: by accepting the trumped-up prospector excuse as admissible, the organisation is agreeing to any similarly flimsy excuse that a country could make (e.g. the route not taken in The Sports Fan). The Lazy Student also comes to mind in terms of being an organisation that would accept such an argument, thus others also making it.
(Hm… I wonder if a valid equivalent of the Grieving case would be if the other country had in fact launched an easily-verifiable full-scale offensive large enough to necessitate occuptation in order to stop it and protect the attacked country.)
While in the other cases, the decision-makers seem to maintain consistency regarding their possessed priorities, in the Dictator case it looks as though the only way the decision-maker can be said to have made the right decision is if one assumes the organisation only cares about public approval (a spin favourable to them) and does not in fact care whether or not countries invade each other based on transparent lies.
On a slightly related note, if a country/entity were so stupid/paranoid that it in good faith invaded countries left and right for flimsy reasons, it would be in appropriate keeping with such a decision-making organisation’s stated goals to take it down as a mad dog (-equivalent) before it did any more harm to law-abiding countries/entities.
A different interpretation might require the prospector case to in fact be very unlikely, a near-miracle that the dictator leaped on as an unhoped-for opportunity rather than as one of any number of possible {grounds for unjustified action} that would certainly have come up sooner or later if one waited long enough.
Thinking intuitively, though, even if every country freezes its borders in terror to prevent any movements being declared as casus belli, there are all sorts of as-easy-to-see-through things that could be done instead… (Mostly involving forgery/bribery/baseless lying, granted.)
I note that while most of the examples seem reasonable, the Dictator instance seems to stand out: by accepting the trumped-up prospector excuse as admissible, the organisation is agreeing to any similarly flimsy excuse that a country could make (e.g. the route not taken in The Sports Fan). The Lazy Student also comes to mind in terms of being an organisation that would accept such an argument, thus others also making it.
(Hm… I wonder if a valid equivalent of the Grieving case would be if the other country had in fact launched an easily-verifiable full-scale offensive large enough to necessitate occuptation in order to stop it and protect the attacked country.)
While in the other cases, the decision-makers seem to maintain consistency regarding their possessed priorities, in the Dictator case it looks as though the only way the decision-maker can be said to have made the right decision is if one assumes the organisation only cares about public approval (a spin favourable to them) and does not in fact care whether or not countries invade each other based on transparent lies.
On a slightly related note, if a country/entity were so stupid/paranoid that it in good faith invaded countries left and right for flimsy reasons, it would be in appropriate keeping with such a decision-making organisation’s stated goals to take it down as a mad dog (-equivalent) before it did any more harm to law-abiding countries/entities.
A different interpretation might require the prospector case to in fact be very unlikely, a near-miracle that the dictator leaped on as an unhoped-for opportunity rather than as one of any number of possible {grounds for unjustified action} that would certainly have come up sooner or later if one waited long enough.
Thinking intuitively, though, even if every country freezes its borders in terror to prevent any movements being declared as casus belli, there are all sorts of as-easy-to-see-through things that could be done instead… (Mostly involving forgery/bribery/baseless lying, granted.)