NATO's out-of-area operations, Just War and game theory

Is war an obsolete mechanism of regulating disputes among political actors? If so, what explains why it is still a common theme within our current system of international affairs? Is there more than the mere necessity of protecting territorial interests beyond the decision of waging a conflict? To what extent the moral and humanitarian justifications behind interventions are able to secure a peace international environment?
The present thesis takes momentum from the necessity of finding an answer to such crucial questions and to comprehend the way states and international institutions conceive conflict today. In particular, it aims to understand how NATO, the current most relevant actor in the field of security, has been conceiving war, whose perceived essence has been evolving considerably over time and how it still believes in the potentiality of armed interventions to provide with peace and stability.
However, the idea of investigating on the topic has been incubated by the fieldtrip to Brussels offered by the Master program where I had the chance the visit of NATO Headquarters and to exchange opinions with experts on the field (both working for NATO and not). On the other hand, the course in Rational Choice, Game Theory & International Relations has inspired and encouraged me to conduct more study on the topic by adopting the fascinating game theoretical approach.
The goal is to understand the meaning and the value of “just war” today with the ultimate need of comprehend what determines NATO‟s evaluation of the lawfulness of an intervention. In order to pursue such goal, Chapter 1 will introduce an historical digression on the discipline of just war which will be articulated around three main motifs: the religious, the political and the moral justification. Starting from the Grecian idea of justice and from the early forms of just war within the Roman tradition, it will introduce the concept according to the Christian, Jewish and Islamic belief. Furthermore, it will be shown how the theory was interpreted by scholars such as Machiavelli and Grotius and how it has been
influenced and shaped by historical events, from the Westphalian peace to the Paris Peace Conference, which gave birth to the League of Nations. The first chapter will conclude its analysis with a final remark on the essence of just war today and it will give space to a brief observation on how the major Schools of International Relations – namely, Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism – conceive conflicts.
Chapter 2 will constitute the way through which it will be possible to approach the core subject of the thesis: NATO and its ius ad bellum. The section will focus its attention on the causes, motivations and goals employed by the Organization to present its actions as lawful. Moreover, the analysis will continue with the study of two main sources of legitimization of the Alliance: the exogenous source will be constituted by the constraints to operate deriving from the United Nations, while the endogenous source will concern NATO‟s decision-making procedure.
In the third chapter it will be illustrated how the arguments sustaining the North Atlantic operations have been experiencing a shift from the political toward the moral sphere and evidence will be provided through the cases of the Yugoslavian War and Libya.
Finally, Chapter four will devote its attention to how the political and the moral value, together with the cost of intervening have been playing a role in the Alliance‟s process of decision-making. This will be illustrated through two examples in which the Organization decided not to interfere – the conflicts in Rwanda and in Georgia – and through some game theoretical models which will allow us to build a general outline for NATO‟s decisions.