The Wartime Justification Trajectory: A Dynamic Approach to Justifying Wars in the 21st Century
Journal: Politics and Governance
Year: 2025

This article proposes a new framework, the “wartime justification trajectory,” for understanding how military interventions are justified and contested over time. Rather than treating legitimacy as something decided only at the start of a war, the model views it as a shifting process shaped by events on the ground, political rhetoric, and public reaction. The wartime justification trajectory outlines four phases—initial justification, conflict dynamics, social reactions, and post-conflict evalua