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State against the territory of another State" and "the

blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed

forces of another State."  Including those actions under

"aggression" will reduce the military options available to

the United States by outlawing preemptive strikes and the

kind of naval blockade President Kennedy employed during the

Cuban Missile Crisis.  That could effectively tie the hands

of U.S. policymakers.  As Department of Defense spokesman

Kenneth Bacon explains, "What we're concerned about is that

the court not be set up in a way that gives it very broad

authority to pursue a vague definition of aggression that

could be confused with legitimate defensive action to pro-

tect our national security interests or the national securi-

ty interests of other countries who back the idea of setting

up an international criminal court."21  Moreover, in a

three-page memo circulated to foreign military attachés in

March 1998, the Pentagon stated that

we are concerned that an ICC lacking appropriate

limits and checks and balances could be used by

some governments and organizations for politically

motivated purposes. . . . We understand the laud-

able intent of some who would support the inclu-

sion of the offense of "aggression" in the stat-

ute.  However, this offense is necessarily politi-

cal in nature, and its inclusion only encourages

use of the court as a political tool.22

What is more, notes Freedom House president Adrian

Karatnycky, if the final ICC statute also includes "attacks

against nonmilitary targets" in its definition of war

crimes, "U.S. officials worry that American peacekeepers

could be brought up on charges if their operations result in

civilian casualties," especially if "the U.S. military could

be investigated at the behest of such rogue states as Libya

or Iraq, against whom the United States has been involved in

hostilities that have resulted in the loss of civilian

life."23

The Potential for a Jurisdictional Leviathan

Some proponents of the ICC want "terrorism" and "inter-

national drug trafficking" to be added to the court's pur-

view.24  But the U.S. Department of Justice worries that

that could end up interfering with the crime-fighting opera-

tions of its Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug En-