The end of the Cold War, followed by the so-called unipolar moment (moment in historical terms but lasting more than a decade) and ensuing period of turmoil characterised by the attempts to realise or impose competing visions of the future world order (uni-polar versus multipolar, balance of powers versus imperial model), has seen the increasing use of military force of various modalities and for different purposes.

One of the objectives of the use of military force may be to preempt a potential adverserial military attack (preemptive self-defence) or to prevent an emergence of a situation that may in future put in danger vital interests of a State (preventive use of force). First, it is one of those topics that necessitate some clarification of terminology used. Especially as the title doesn’t speak, for example, of preemptive self-defence but preemptive military action, which may include, beside self-defence, actions with humanitarian aims, i.e. so-called humanitarian intervention not to stop an ongoing but to prevent an imminant genocide. If we speak of preemptive use of military force authorised by the Security Council, I wouldn’t find much problems with that (overstepping the mandate given by the Security Council may be an issue; this is what happened when NATO, for example, acting under the humanitarian mandate given by the Security Council, actively participated in 2011 in the overthrow of Colonel Gadaffi in Libya).

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