Time and Its Effect on “The Just War”

by Kim Morrison

Philosophy is not an easy topic to wrap one’s mind around, at least not for me. However, when I chose to read the article by Wells I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to follow his philosophy on “The Just War” despite all the philosophy terminology and conspicuous use of words not used in everyday conversation. Although I suspect some of you probably do know the meaning of casuistry, I actually had to look it up in the dictionary. (By the way it is defined as “specious or overly subtle reasoning intended to rationalize or mislead.) The reason I could follow his philosophy, when he was speaking English of course, is due to his comparison between medieval and modern warfare. I’m not a history major but I am fascinated with the history of the British monarchy. I have read several books written by a very talented woman named Alison Weir. The time and effort she takes in doing her research is astounding and the bibliographies of her books can be seven or more pages in length. What was pertinent to my understanding while reading Wells’ article are Weir’s vivid descriptions of battles fought during the period of which she is writing. With my amateur knowledge of British history, current awareness of modern warfare, and the rather ambiguous conditions of the “just war” doctrine I will examine the affects of time on the “just war.”

As we learned in class last week there are seven conditions a war must meet for it to be called “just.” The list provided by Joseph McKenna is as follows: “(1) the war must be declared by the duly constituted authority; (2) the seriousness of the injury inflicted on the enemy must be proportional to the damage suffered by the virtuous; (3) the injury to the aggressor must be real and immediate; (4) there must be a reasonable chance of winning the war; (5) the use of war must be a last resort; (6) the participants must have right intentions; and (7) the means used must be moral.” As the reader can see there is a difference between McKenna’s list and the one we used in class. McKenna’s list has conditions three and seven while our list in class had “just cause” and “noncombatant immunity.” The differences are slight but possibly significant and may have grounds for further investigation. For the purpose of this paper, however, I will refer to McKenna’s list and examine the two conditions that time seems to have had the most significant affect upon.

Condition 1: the war must be declared by the duly constituted authority. In medieval England the “duly constituted authority” was of course the monarch. The sovereign could declare war whenever it was necessary to defend the realm or, on several occasions, his or her reign. The reigning monarch was advised by a council on matters of state. If their sovereign wanted to wage a war, the council could make appeals to him, or her, based on the advantages and disadvantages of waging that war. However, the monarch made the decision whether or not to wage war, and in some instances, did so against the advice of the council. With no organized military force, the men of the realm were at the monarch’s disposal to use in waging a war. Just picture a little boy playing with a bucket of those little green toy soldiers.

Unfortunately, that same image can be applied to modern warfare, the only difference now is that those little green soldiers are part of an organized military. Today’s modern war is still decided by the “duly constituted authority” only there is, most often, more than one person involved in making the decision. The president of the United States can only declare war if it is okayed by Congress first. And yet that image of a little boy playing with toy soldiers still persists because the American public has no real control in whether or not the troops are sent to war, how long they will be there, how many times they will have to go back, or numerous other heartbreaking scenarios. Protests against a war may receive attention but are hardly effective in bringing about any changes in this respect.

In both instances it is ignorant for a country’s citizens to believe that their leader (or leaders) is completely competent when making important decisions or that they really have the country’s best interest at heart. It is interesting to note however, that more often that not, a king (or a representative of the reigning queen) would command a group of soldiers himself, which could lend more strength to his cause. When has a president of the United States ever commanded a battalion of troops during wartime? Only thing I have seen in my lifetime is a president’s ability to serve Thanksgiving dinner.

Condition 6: the participants must have right intentions. This condition seems to be the most ambiguous of the seven and Wells incorporates the immunity of noncombatants into this condition making it an even more loaded condition. First of all, who can say with unquestioned authority that one country has the right intentions while another country does not? Apparently no one can be that unbiased to begin with and those who are unbiased do not usually have that type of authority. In the 16^th century, Spain’s attempted invasions of England may have had the right intentions to Spain but certainly not to England. As for an unbiased judge in the situation it definitely could not have been France. They were waiting for the outcome and making preparations for offering loyalty to the winner. In modern times Switzerland was, and has been, neutral through several wars. The country tends to be unbiased but obviously did not have the authority to decide which country had the right intentions in the wars fought around it.

Even with the dispute over who had the right intentions, in medieval times it was generally accepted that deaths of noncombatants were to be avoided at all costs. Chivalry, a dying art. Battles were usually fought in large fields or meadows that were away from areas with a significant population of noncombatants. In battles fought between Englishmen on opposing sides, an army’s commander would order his soldiers that only the nobles of the opposing side were to be killed. This may seem odd but it was a brilliant strategy. The title of the dead noble could be stripped from his family and given to another on the winning side and the soldiers whose lives were spared were generally absorbed into the army of the winner. People in power with the same goals and a larger army improved odds of winning an entire war more likely, whether or not that side had the right intentions upon entering the war. In some cases these orders may not have been heard by all before a conflict began or they were even ignored. When this happened the results could be devastating. An entire enemy army could be nearly annihilated in the course of a battle. But no matter the devastation to the enemy’s army or one’s own, the civilian population was to be left unharmed. Accidental deaths did occur on some occasions and sometimes they were hardly accidental. Some commanders would allow their army to sack an enemy town or city with few limits on what they were and were not allowed to do. Stealing, raping women and girls, and generally terrorizing the citizens were among the exploits of an invading army. Many commanders forbade their soldiers to sack a town or city they intended to occupy but sometimes those orders were not followed. Even with the occasional rape and pillage of a town, deaths of civilians were to be avoided. This was also rather easily accomplished because of the limitations of the weapons used at the time. You couldn’t aim at a target that you couldn’t see, much less make an accurate hit. That is until now.

In modern wars chivalry seems to have gone out the window. Wells states that “[m]odern war is total at least in the sense that there are no innocents,” (p. 826). How else would the United States have been able to drop bombs on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima? If the government had believed that there were innocent people in those cities the bombs could never have dropped. This calls into question how responsible a nation is for the decisions of its leaders. Were the Japanese civilians really responsible for their leaders’ decision to bomb Pearl Harbor? Are the civilians of the Middle East responsible for 9/11? In a modern war it is apparently hard to tell where the line between the guilty and the innocent is to drawn or if should even be drawn at all. Another problem that adds to this dilemma is the fact that those that should be innocent, are not as much as they should be. A young Iraqi boy is harmless enough until he is given an automatic machine gun and learns how to plant roadside bombs. I don’t know about you but I would like to know how the present situation in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been handled in 1942. Would the United States have bombed Baghdad and Kabul without batting an eyelash? Also, the United States was not accused of trying to cleanse the world of the Hindus or Buddhists by bombing Japan and was considered a proportional response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor but now it seems any similar bombing attempt would be regarded as the beginning of the ethnic cleansing of Muslims and, in all likelihood, be regarded as a crime against humanity. Is the increasing concern with being politically correct inhibiting the ability of a country to wage a “just war”? This is where the different interpretations of the conditions of a “just war” come into play. In my opinion, time has definitely taken its toll on how those conditions are interpreted, how they are applied to different situations, and the impact different beliefs of the world have on them.

In choosing Wells' article as my paper topic I never realized I would end up having so many questions about the way modern wars have been conducted. The conditions laid out by McKenna are obviously not all adhered to and those that are adhered to are left to the interpretations of those using them. Wells observed that applying these conditions to modern war isn't as easy as it may seem. After examining the effect that the passage of time has had on these conditions and the ways in which they are applied to justify a war, I agree with him. It would seem that the condtions of a "just war" need another revision.