Just War Theory

Description

Brian Klaas:

“The problem of ethics in combat has preoccupied thinkers for as long as humans have been killing one another in systematic combat. There is evidence of early incarnations of just war principles as far back as ancient Egypt, though it was largely assumed that the Pharaoh’s fighting would, by definition, be just. Ancient Hindu texts prohibit the use of barbed or poisonous weapons and specifically outlaw the use of violence against those who are weak, elderly, or have given up on the battlefield.

In the West, philosophers from Augustine to Aquinas have long argued about what makes wars just, but one of the most influential premodern thinkers on the topic was the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius. His 1625 work, De jure belli ac pacis, or On the Law of War and Peace, furthered one of the most important distinctions in what would later become called just war theory: the separation between just causes for wars and just conduct during war.

In the modern era, the canonical development of that separation was articulated by Michael Walzer, one of the pre-eminent living philosophers of warfare, who taught since the early 1960s at Harvard and Princeton. Walzer’s 1977 book, Just and Unjust Wars, remains the standard starting point for understanding just war theory.

Walzer, like many classical just war theorists before and since, argues that it is essential to differentiate between jus ad bellum (right to war) and jus in bello (justice in war).”

(https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/just-war-theory-and-the-philosophers)

Characteristics

Brian Klaas:

“While definitions vary, some of the key principles that are widely agreed to give a country the right to war are:

* Just Cause: Wars may only be legitimately started for certain reasons. An act of aggression intended to seize territory is unacceptable, whereas responding to aggression in self-defense, protecting innocent civilians in imminent danger, and so on, are frequently cited as examples of just causes. As we’ll return to later in evaluating Israel, intent matters.

* Last Resort: In an ideal world, wars would only be started after all alternative diplomatic and non-violent pathways are exhausted. Additionally, warfare is not a binary—war or not war. Instead, there are near-infinite varieties of types of warfare, and the principle of last resort suggests that warfare would be most just if it only escalated over time after less drastic attacks were tried rather than going straight to, say, nuclear bombs.

* Probability of Success: It is considered unjust to start a war that has zero chance of achieving the just cause. In theory, if you knew with certainty that an act of state violence would achieve nothing, it wouldn’t be permissible to kill people in pursuit of that fool’s errand. (This criterion is philosophically interesting and intersects with my research—particularly that on risk, uncertainty, chance, and chaos theory—because forecasting during the march to war is often the lovechild of wishful thinking and divination.)

Once a war has begun, according to classical Just War Theory, the focus shifts to jus in bello, or justice in war. Specifically, combatants must follow these principles:

* Discrimination: Extensive efforts must be made to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants in order to avoid killing non-combatants. (Philosophers of war accept that some innocent civilians will inevitably get killed in warfare, but the principle refers to both intent and probability estimates of civilian deaths).

* Military Necessity: Any attack must have a legitimate target and a legitimate military objective that is essential to achieve the just aims of the war. If the same goal can be reached with less violence or destruction or through another comparable means, then the military action would be unjustified.

* Proportionality: This is one of the trickiest principles to pin down, but the idea is that one should not engage in violence that creates disproportionate harm relative to achieving a legitimate military objective. For example, most would agree that blowing up an apartment block to kill a rank-and-file enemy soldier would be disproportionate, as would using nuclear weapons in almost every scenario imaginable.

* No Means Mala in Se (Evil in Themselves): While moral philosophers rarely make absolutist claims, most agree there should be a much stronger principle against particularly objectionable tactics, such as mass rape, ethnic cleansing, depraved treachery (such as disguising combatants as Red Cross personnel), mass starvation of civilians, and using weapons that cannot be controlled once they are deployed (such as biological pathogens).”

(https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/just-war-theory-and-the-philosophers)