Can intervention to the territory of a foreign souvereign state be called "defense"?

Question

If yes, where then defense ends and occupation starts? What are defferences between them?

Especially when damages of defence users are much less than these of their targets since the same beginning.

hq3 answer frightens me a bit. USA has very exceptional military capacity. Should that be a good reason for some others to start a "defense"?

Answer 1

you have a good point. in pretty much all instances, invading the enemy territory is considered an offensive maneuver, not a defensive one.

Answer 2

Yes it can be Defense.
For example :
let's say there are 2 bordering countries.
Country A starts to mass large amounts of troops on the border with a clear intention to invade country B.
Country B does not want war. However, when they see that they are in IMMINENT danger of attack -- they strike A first.
This kind of attack is pure self-defense.

The second question is MUCH harder.
Say in the previous scenario the country B won. Now they are occupying country A. B wants to withdraw as soon as possible, yet they are afraid that as soon as they leave A will attack again. They keep up the occupation. To make thing worse the occupation makes B even more hated. So the longer they occupy the country A the more danger they feel. Yet they are afraid to withdraw.... They are in a viscous circle.
Now at what point will such situation stop being defense? And keep in mind that A wanted to attack first.
I don't know, this is very hard. Arguably, you can say that it as a defense all the way through.

Answer 3

This is a very diffcult subject to understand and explain because when one compares to, case by case, it beocmes a great tragedy. So I can put it like this "The intevention is done for the sake of protecting a popular government and invited at the consent of the people to ptrotect them, a foreign power can be permitted to enter in the specified locations where the actual assistance is required. The intervening body should be entering without any hidden agenda and cappitalisation of the situation for their personal/individual offices.

Now defense can be expained with reference to the above as
follows:
To Protect the country of origin, from any extrenal agression, internal natural and man made calamities without supporting any one at the order of the head of the nation.

When the same defense leaves the borders of the coutry of origin, it respects or has to respect the local laws, regulations etc and prevents any one harming the locals by either using force or without force.

Rest you have to assume based on this.

Answer 4

If a sovereign territory threatens to harm the people of another sovereign territory, then the latter territory must defend its people. If that means invading the other country and cutting the problem off at its' source, then that operation, even though offensive in nature, is still defensive in intention.

Answer 5

Intervention in another state can be defense if that state is planning to invade the intervening state or is sponsoring an insurgent or guerilla group that is sowing violence in the injured state. It is acceptable under the rules of International Law.