The first part of this article sets out with a comprehensive overview of today's most dominant conceptions of what makes up the political discourse from a semiotic point of view and goes on to show the difference between argumentation and persuasion. This analysis is used in the second part for a further specification of one possible way how to realize arguing that is justifying. Subsequently, the article systematizes typical patterns of justification for selected acts of war of the 20th and 21 st century which politicians as representatives of different political systems repeatedly make use of, in order to gain agreement to enforce their aims of action. The fourth part, finally, discovers characteristic strategy types, which on the one hand intent to realize cognitive-rational conviction and on the other hand pseudo argumentative persuasion.