Just War Theory (tradition, choice, evolution, hell, theology)

[lilithu]

I have had war on my mind a lot lately. Not just because of the ongoing war in Iraq and the appearances of moving towards war with Iran, but because the UUA passed a Study Action Issue (SAI) on "Peace-Making" this summer. Which means that for the next four years we UUs are supposed to be thinking about our religious position on war and peace. Is war ever justified? Historically, UUs have not been pacifists. Unitarians favored the revolutionary and civil wars. However, over time, our denomination has leaned more towards pacifism.

Traditionally, there are three general schools of thought regarding war: 1) war is always wrong (pacifism), 2) war is wrong but sometimes necessary to combat a greater wrong (just war), and 3) war isn't wrong. The religious version of 3 is Holy war, and the non-religious version of 3 is the idea that war is good for the economy.

I personally have not been a pacifist. While I do not believe in violence to defend myself, I don't feel I have the luxury of my high-minded ideals when it comes to the well-being of others. Any time I entertain the notion of pacifism all I have to do is look to WWII and the concentration camps, and I can't imagine anything other than force being able to deal with that virulence. Sure, maybe over time other methods may have worked, but more time meant more people sent to the ovens.

But I'm not sure about just war theory either. Is there really such a thing as a just war? Just war theory has two components: jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The former refers to the criteria necessary to determine that the decision to fight the war is justified. The latter refers to the criteria necessary to determine that once justified the war is fought justly. In theory, you can fight a just war unjustly, and you can fight an unjust war justly. (Still with me?)

I've thought about jus in bello a lot, ever since the first gulf war and looking also at the lessons of vietnam, and I am pretty much convinced that it's impossible to fight a war justly. War is hell. And if you're trying to fight by some code of honor and the other side doesn't, you basically let your men get slaughtered, and draw out the conflict resulting in more deaths all around. I've decided that the only logical course of action in war is, once its declared, to go in with sufficient force to completely gut the enemy - remove any possibility of retaliation. Lest anyone think that cold-hearted, it is. But I would point out that to me that means that we don't enter wars lightly. That knowing what the consequences of declaring war are, we should examine the criteria for what we consider a just war, ie - a necessary war - very, very closely. Certainly more closely than our national leaders seem to be examining them.

Which brings us to jus ad bellum. There are between 5-7 agreed upon criteria for jus ad bellum:

• Just Cause: force may be used only to correct a grave, public evil, i.e., aggression or massive violation of the basic rights of whole populations
• Right Intention: force may be used only in a truly just cause and solely for that purpose
• Legitimate Authority: only duly constituted public authorities may use deadly force or wage war
• Proportionality: the overall destruction expected from the use of force must be outweighed by the good to be achieved
• Probability of Success: arms may not be used in a futile cause or in a case where disproportionate measures are required to achieve success
• Last Resort: force may be used only after all peaceful alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted.

The seventh criterion is controverisal:
Comparative Justice: while there may be rights and wrongs on all sides of a conflict, to override the presumption against the use of force the injustice suffered by one party must significantly outweigh that suffered by the other

(Note: I got these criteria from the web, but I didn't give attribution because the same criteria w/ explanations appear verbatim on several sites. Just google 'just war criteria'.)

Now, I see two problems with these criteria:

1) Given that I just said that I don't believe one can fight a war justly, it seems to me that we can never guarantee "proportionality." Nor can we guarantee "probablity of success" without resorting to "disproportionate measures." There is always a risk that the harm that we do while fighting the war will outweigh the harm that we sought to prevent.

2) What criteria do we use to decide that it really is a "last resort"? It seems to me that there is always something else that one can try other than war. Yet, we keep going into wars and claiming that we had no choice. So what does "last resort" really mean?

Basically at the moment, I am not a pacifist, but I am thinking that there is something seriously flawed with just war theory. I mean, if we have these stringent criteria, why is it that we keep going into war over and over again, thinking at the time that it is just, only to realize after the fact that it wasn't justified? It seems to me that as long as we think of war as an option we always seem to find a way to justify it.

Anway, I guess I'm wondering what you guys think of the criteria for jus ad bellum.

[Mike182]

i have some reserves about it, but some wars just have to be fought, and some limits have to be placed on how far one side can go in a way - thus i think Just War Theory is a good place to start.

i thought there was something about discrimination as well, that we should discriminate between the targeting of military targets and civilian targets...

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Mike182

i have some reserves about it, but some wars just have to be fought, and some limits have to be placed on how far one side can go in a way - thus i think Just War Theory is a good place to start.

i thought there was something about discrimination as well, that we should discriminate between the targeting of military targets and civilian targets...

That's within jus in bello - how you fight a war justly.

So there's the criteria for deciding whether it's justified to go to war in the first place (jus ad bellum), and the criteria for how one fights a war justly once we're at war (jus in bello).

[Mike182]

sorry, it's been a while since i've read up on just war

i think it's a good starting point, there may be things that are questionable, like in reality, are there hidden motives for war?

in a war time situation, the general public does not have all the information readily available to them, so we must trust that the authorities do have all the information and are making the best decision - thus there is plenty of room for a hidden agenda... i guess you could say we are forced into accepting the decision of our government in war time situations.

[James the Persian]

Originally Posted by shaktinah

2) war is wrong but sometimes necessary to combat a greater wrong (just war)

That's the Orthodox position but it's not the same as Just War theory. To posit simply that sometimes a war can be the lesser of two evils is not the same as saying that a war can actually be just. Orthodoxy has no equivalent of RC Just War theory at all and yet, as I said, if what you considered to be Just War were correct we would. The RC theology does not simply stop at saying all war is evil but sometimes may be less evil than the alternative but, rather, goes so far as to say that some war is good. An attitude that I cannot possibly share.

James

[Scuba Pete]

As much as I love peace, I have never seen this before. Thanks for bringing the dialogue out in the open.

Being the aggressor is almost always WRONG. There is no land that we need, and we definitely don't need the BS of a "pre-emptive strike".

However, defence is noble. Whether it is fighting off the aggression of others on your home land, or defending the weak who are being routinely "cleansed", this is the only valid reason to enter into armed conflict.

I would suggest that almost all wars have a right and a wrong side to be on. It has NOTHING to do with your race or nationality, and everything to do with why your side has engaged in this conflict. In the Afghanni war, we are the defenders and in the Iraqui war we are the aggressors.

[niceguy]

Originally Posted by NetDoc

I would suggest that almost all wars have a right and a wrong side to be on. It has NOTHING to do with your race or nationality, and everything to do with why your side has engaged in this conflict. In the Afghanni war, we are the defenders and in the Iraqui war we are the aggressors.

Then we have the possibility of switching position. Maybe an aggressor really want to back off and negotiate for peace but the now former defenders that are now on the offensive refuse to let them. An example for this where Japan in the end of WWII, trying desperatly to surrender but they where not allowed to until after the use of atomic weapons aginst Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

http://www.greenwych.ca/dulles.htm

Another example would be a guerilla movement that fight an opressive state but over time becomes more and more involved in simple terrorism, maybe even finacing their operations with drug trade. When that happens whe have a wrong/wrong side conflict until some reasonable people decides to stop shooting and negotiate something fair instead, like turning the country into a democracy and fight it out politically instead.