A Just War?

Ein großer Krieg läßt dem Land mit drei Armeen: eine Armee der Krüppel, eine Armee von Trauernder und eine Armee der Dieben. ("A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves") German proverb

It doesn’t take much imagination or serious contemplation to recognize that war is an awful, wasteful and stupid method of resolving conflicts of interest. It makes a mockery of the best efforts of humanity, turning libraries, science labs and hospitals into little shops of horror. Needless to say, it destroys countless lives.

“War is politics by other means,” the warrior-philosopher Carl von Clausewitz wrote. In one sense, this is a tautology: of course war represents the extension of power (politics are simply a struggle for power) from “peaceful” means. But as the Libertarian author, David Friedman, points out: “The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.” War really is the gross break down of rational communication, and represents the basest emotionalism human beings can muster. It is also a colossal waste of resources, not only the prosecution of war, but in it’s preparation. As Dwight Eisenhower said in a 1953 speech:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

In other words, war is purely an act of sin. Fortunately enough, most people can quickly see this to be the case. Unfortunately, it doesn’t remove the fact that there are people who don’t and often these are the people who seem to end up with their fingers on the “button”. This, of course, is the complicating factor; if everyone saw war as something entirely without merit, there’d be no need to talk about when war is justifiable.

So, can there be just wars?

My simple answer is no. I posit that war is always evidence of man’s fallen state and almost never engenders or encourages any of humanity’s redeeming qualities. While war can have “good” results, I grant you that (for example, new technologies and feelings of national unity and brotherhood), the costs for this "advancement" is high indeed.

There are things that may be worse than war, though: slavery, oppression, wanton destruction, among others. I don’t often agree with John Stuart Mill, but he does make a point when he says:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

So, while there are no just wars, there may be just causes in war. I use the Aquinas/Augustine criteria for determining whether participation in war can be ruled just, and throw in one of unknown origination. The warring faction must:

1. have a just cause, in a fully rational, philosophical sense


2. declare war through proper channels and with proper authority


3. fight with openly-disclosed and morally justifiable intentions


4. enter the war as a last resort


5. minimize the misery and destruction inflicted on the enemy, especially non-combatants


6. calculate a reasonable probability of success


7. (I would add): only enter the fight to re-establish peace

Obviously, I would need another essay to explain what my view of the meaning of each of these points, but suffice it to say, I posit that all of these points must be fulfilled with reasonable diligence before war is entered. My standards for evaluating a just war are very high; there simply has to be overwhelming evidence to support the justification for war.

In the end, there are things worth fighting for, even dying for. There are many examples of just causes in wartime (but I hold that to be a fairly uncommon thing). As a Christian, though, I wonder if there are things worth killing for.