Your thoughts?
Based on your description you don’t understand ‘just war theory’ very thoroughly, to be quite honest.
Here is a (very brief) statement of the theory from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2309:
The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
there must be serious prospects of success;
the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Also, Michael Walzer is one of the most profound contemporary thinkers on the issue of ‘just war theory’ and his book Just and Unjust Wars is about as valuable a tome on the subject as you will find.
The wiggle room which has been manipulated in ‘just war theory’ lies in that last sentence from the Cathechism: “The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good,” or, in short, being declared by a proper authority. Obviously there is a complex set of conditions encompassed in the former statement that need to be properly assessed, which is what makes it so succeptible to simple manipulations of form as expressed by my summation.
So as far as some notion of ‘just war theory’ being interventionist or condoning world policing, even in the sole defintion I have provided it should be clear that ‘just war theory’ finds interventionism, much less world policing, to be morally repugnant and unjustified to say the least. As far as being anti-war, I think the only person who could not find the ‘just war theory’ to be anti-war is the person who believes that no war is ever justified. I personally find that kind of proposition absurd.
I also found an interesting exposition on ‘just war theory’ here at these forums, although I haven’t digested the discussion well enough to comment on it.