The Principles of a Just War

2014-10-06T12:48:07-04:00

1. The right to go to war
Just cause
The reason for going to war needs to be just and cannot therefore be solely for recapturing things taken or punishing people who have done wrong; innocent life must be in imminent danger and intervention must be to protect life.

Comparative justice
While there may be rights and wrongs on all sides of a conflict, to overcome the presumption against the use of force, the injustice suffered by one party must significantly outweigh that suffered by the other.

Competent authority
Only duly constituted public authorities may wage war. A just war must be initiated by a political authority within a political system that allows distinctions of justice. Dictatorships or deceptive military actions are typically considered as violations of this criterion.

Right intention
Force may be used only in a truly just cause and solely for that purpose. Correcting a suffered wrong is considered a right intention, while material gain or maintaining economies is not.

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 and viable alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted or are clearly not practical.

Proportionality
The anticipated benefits of waging a war must be proportionate to its expected evils or harms.

2. Right conduct in war
Distinction
The acts of war should be directed towards enemy combatants, and not towards non-combatants caught in circumstances they did not create. Prohibited acts include bombing civilian residential areas that include no legitimate military targets, committing acts of terrorism and reprisal against civilians, and attacking neutral targets. Moreover, combatants are not permitted to attack enemy combatants who have surrendered or who have been captured or who are injured and not presenting an immediate lethal threat or who are parachuting from disabled aircraft with the exception of airborne forces or who are shipwrecked.

Proportionality
Combatants must make sure that the harm caused to civilians or civilian property is not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated by an attack on a legitimate military objective.

Military necessity
An attack or action must be intended to help in the defeat of the enemy; it must be an attack on a legitimate military objective, and the harm caused to civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

Fair treatment of prisoners of war
Enemy combatants who surrendered or who are captured no longer pose a threat. It is therefore wrong to torture them or otherwise mistreat them.

No evil means
Combatants may not use weapons or other methods of warfare that are considered evil, such as mass rape, forcing enemy combatants to fight against their own side or using weapons whose effects cannot be controlled such as nuclear/biological weapons

3. Ending a war
Just cause for termination
A state may terminate a war if there has been a reasonable vindication of the rights that were violated in the first place, and if the aggressor is willing to negotiate the terms of surrender. These terms of surrender include a formal apology, compensations, war crimes trials and perhaps rehabilitation. Alternatively, a state may end a war if it becomes clear that any just goals of the war cannot be reached at all or cannot be reached without using excessive force.

Right intention
A state must only terminate a war under the conditions agreed upon in the above criteria. Revenge is not permitted. The victor state must also be willing to apply the same level of objectivity and investigation into any war crimes its armed forces may have committed.

Public declaration and authority
The terms of peace must be made by a legitimate authority, and the terms must be accepted by a legitimate authority.

Discrimination
The victor state is to differentiate between political leaders, military leaders, combatants and civilians. Punitive measures are to be limited to those directly responsible for the conflict. Truth and reconciliation may sometimes be more important than punishing war crimes.

Proportionality
Any terms of surrender must be proportional to the rights that were initially violated. Draconian measures, absolutionist crusades and any attempt at denying the surrendered country the right to participate in the world community are not permitted.

Response by CW5 Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 6 at 2014 1:31 PM

2014-10-06T13:31:57-04:00

PFC Eric Minchey, what's your source of these principles?

Response by SPC David S. made Oct 6 at 2014 2:26 PM

2014-10-06T14:26:10-04:00

My principles or War are not that complex.

1. If someone is being an asshole make then stop being an asshole.

Certainly all things must be bound by reason but in war I prefer to go straight for the jugular and use all means necessary to end it swiftly. As far as Rule 11 all things in war other than cup of coffee are evil means and even that's questionable. Although many say it and try to practice it you can't kill someone with kindness. War is an evil and ugly thing bound by rules or not.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 6 at 2014 2:29 PM

2014-10-06T14:29:08-04:00

What is your point?

Response by MSG Brad Sand made Oct 6 at 2014 2:47 PM

2014-10-06T14:47:57-04:00

Yes, these are important considerations for those making policy and sending our armed forces to war. As soldiers, we go where we are ordered, when we are ordered and do what needs to be done.

Response by COL Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 31 at 2014 3:14 PM

2014-10-31T15:14:08-04:00

http://www.usna.edu/Ethics/_files/documents/HehirPg1-28_Final.pdf

I recommend to you Rev J. Bryan Hehir, the President of Catholic Charities USA, as a definitive authority on this subject. Father Hehir speaks to the war colleges and academies. Link above will provide you one of his presentations.

Also recommend the account of Thucydides, The Prince, and Mere Christianity.

This relates to the debate on the nature versus the character of war and also now how nuclear weapons and terrorism have acted to change both. I personally would argue that as humans we have not caught on yet to this concept.

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Response by 1LT Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 2 at 2014 6:06 PM

2014-11-02T18:06:33-05:00

Read Micheal Waltzer's Just and Unjust Wars. In summary of his argument:

I claimed that Michael Walzer’s assertion that soldiers are morally equal -that they are not responsible for ad bellum considerations- is incorrect. Soldiers do indeed possess a level of ad bellum responsibility. To prove this claim, I examined the concept of willing participation and the underlying principles of moral equality itself, eventually differentiating between moral and political responsibility for wartime justice. In the process, I relied on the concept of echelonment as an indicator both of willing participation and, correspondingly, of responsibility for ad bellum considerations. Furthermore, I claim that this alteration to Walzer’s system of justice does not greatly affect its structure. I end with a suggestion regarding how men can be punished that have different mixtures of justice and injustice with respect to both ad bellum and in bello justice.
There exists a spectrum regarding soldiers’ participation in war. Some are more willing participants, some are less. The degree to which they willfully participate in war determines, directly, their moral responsibility for its ad bellum justification. If a soldier, at any level, is fully committed to the cause and gives his full assent to it, he can be held accountable for an ad bellum consideration because he contributes all he can to the cause of the war. If the war is just, he should be commended; if unjust, condemned.
Willing participation is not readily clear, however, either for outside observers or, sometimes, to soldiers themselves. The standard I introduce to demonstrate, with reasonable variance, the level of a soldier’s willingness to participate in a war is the echelon at which he operates and contributes to the war effort. The higher the echelon, the more willing his participation. Hence, officers and administrative enlisted soldiers are, at higher levels, responsible for the ad bellum causes of a war. Men with rank have other options for employment –they can resign if they like- if they stay, they stay at their own moral and physical peril. Hence, if there are just and unjust sides of a war, there are just and unjust soldiers inside it. Soldiers that seek the just end freely and willingly are just soldiers, while free and willing unjust ones are not. Wherever they fall, soldiers are not morally equal if some seek justice. The willing participation of soldiers invalidates their moral equality to one another.
Furthermore, the concept of moral equality invalidates itself. Walzer claims that the common traits which bind the soldier class together engender an equality amongst them. Examining these traits, we can see that the activity in which they participate, the type of loyalty they share, and the alienation to which they subject each another are predicated on the moral divisions between them. The causes which separate them are the causes for wars. What soldiers share is an opposition to one another based on the end which their political communities desire. Insofar as these ends can be just and unjust, soldiers are not equal. Precisely because they exist as soldiers in service to a cause, they are not equals.
This state of inequality does not destroy the deontological system of prohibitions and permissions which governs actions in bello, however. All soldiers are still bound by their prohibition against killing noncombatants, unless those noncombatants propagate or sustain the forces on the unjust side of a war. They are still permitted to kill one another because that is their job. Their responsibilities ad bellum entail a greater duty to consider earnestly the justice of the cause for which they fight – a duty which every leader ought to take seriously. Furthermore, we –the United States and other Western liberal countries- have already forced a liberal system of international governance onto the world, some would say unjustly. Effectively, we have fought unjustly for a just end. We need not be afraid of admitting that there are some just combatants and some unjust. This fear would extend from concern that we are justifying ideological crusading by admitting the qualifying effect of ad bellum considerations on in bello constraints. However, the only crusade that could be justified by this system is one that perpetuates the system itself. The only crusaders allowed are ones that wish to preserve the system of justice.
Furthermore, the responsibility which soldiers can hold is of two separate types. Some hold moral responsibility for ad bellum considerations – just or unjust, the soldiers are morally responsible according to their willing participation in the war. Others hold political accountability for these considerations. This type of responsibility is demonstrable and requires evidence provided within a political authority structure to prove culpability and assign punishment. Effectively, it requires an articulated legal system. All soldiers that are politically accountable are morally culpable.
However, some soldiers exist in complicated situations of justice. For instance, Erwin Rommel fought justly for an unjust cause while Arthur Harris fought unjustly for a just cause. They possess responsibility for their actions and the actions of their country. However, if they demonstrated a willing desire to separate themselves from their country’s injustice, they can be free from political accountability, given sufficient evidence. While it is more difficult to determine, it may also release them from moral responsibility for the community’s maligned will as well.
Overall, I wanted to prove that soldiers are not full moral equals. I sought to demonstrate this from Michael Walzer’s perspective without wholly rejecting his approach or greatly modifying his system. The argument I make in these pages seems accurately to reflect the complexity of their real-world situation. When there are just and unjust sides to a war, then the soldiers therein are either just or unjust. They bear responsibility according to the justice of their cause and their willing participation in it. However, this overarching moral inequality does not completely invalidate the moral rules which govern their actions with respect both to each other and to noncombatants. On the contrary, respect for justice on both sides can qualify their guilt in such a way that even unjust soldiers can be politically exonerated from punishment. In the final analysis, the inequality permitted by the system serves only to protect the system itself anyway, so wholesale injustice is still prohibited. Walzer’s system –though modified- remains.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 4 at 2014 2:14 PM

2014-11-04T14:14:24-05:00

Jus in bello - Jus ad bellum