ABSTRACT
Legal systems and the political systems of which they are a part and which they seek to regulate are based upon the authoritative use of force. As for the effort to maintain a distinction between war and peace and a corresponding law of war and law of peace, it was all but eclipsed by the Cold War. In discussions about legal subjects, jurists are prone to statements on the order of "this is the law," followed by some formulation of legal principle. The Soviet Union, throughout the Cold War, and the United States, for more than a century, have claimed exclusive prerogatives to "protect" designated geographic perimeters, or critical defense zones. Though all uses of force are lamentable, the fact is that some may serve, in terms of aggregate consequences, to increase the probability of the free choice of peoples about their government and political structure.
