New Interventionist Just War Theory

A Critique

Jordy Rocheleau

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000482751
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book offers a systematic critique of recent interventionist just war theories, which have made the recourse to force easier to justify.

The work argues that these theories, including neo-traditionalist prerogatives to national leaders and a cosmopolitan human rights paradigm, offer criteria for war that are insufficient in principle and dangerous in practice. Drawing on a plurality of moral considerations, the book recommends a modified legalist national defense paradigm, which includes an atrocity threshold for humanitarian intervention and a legitimate authorization requirement. The plausibility of this restrictive framework is applied to case studies, including the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ongoing targeted killing, and possible interventions in Syria and elsewhere. Various arguments which seek to loosen the criteria for war are also systematically analyzed and criticized.

This book will be of much interest to students of just war theory, military history, ethics, political philosophy, and international relations.

Part I Ethical constraints on recourse to war: jus ad bellum vs realism and neo-traditionalism

1 Just war theory and the ethical restraint of war

DOI: 10.4324/9781003105381-1

1.1 The triumph and limits of just war theory

In the modern world, governments cannot undertake military operations without defending them as morally justified. These justifications, in turn, inevitably use terms such as “just cause,” “last resort,” and “proportionality,” derived from just war theory. As its terminology has become part of the public vernacular, the just war discipline has developed extensively in the years since Walzer’s seminal Just and Unjust Wars. Analytical philosophers provide increasingly precise accounts of the rights and responsibilities at stake in warfare (McMahan 2009; Lango 2014).

However, this “triumph of just war theory” (Walzer 2004) has not succeeded in preventing dubious armed interventions and the proliferation of preventive and punitive strikes. In practice, a moral argument is limited in its ability to overcome realist and militarist impulses. Leaders face pressures to act quickly and decisively when considering military force, without the constraint of moral reflection. For the public, existential threats promote a narrowing of concern to self and community, crowding out critical analysis and a broader sense of moral obligation. During an international conflict, the publics tend to rally to support their own forces regardless of their prior independent moral judgments of the merits of the case. Politicians, themselves under nationalistic sway, are eager to respond to a public demanding strong action and condemning weakness. Bill Clinton learned as president that it is “better to be strong and wrong than weak and right,” a lesson that seems to be internalized by each new administration and Congress.¹

Insofar as jus ad bellum terminology is used to justify the use of force, it may amount to moral “window dressing” for states and leaders to rationalize their self-interested realpolitik. At the same time, as I outlined in the Introduction, just war theory has, in turn, shifted in directions that make it conducive to the justification of force. Critically responding to this just war interventionism is the central theme of this book. However, before we get to those debates, I note that intellectually, as well as in unstated political motives, realism remains an influential competitor for just war theory. Among military and political strategists and historians, it remains the main lens of analysis. Realism has received a recent cultural boost, with the rise of nationalist movements reacting to discontents with cosmopolitan liberal universalism. Realists argue either (1) that, factually, states and other international actors are motivated by their own interests rather than moral considerations in international relations and the use of force in particular, or (2) that, normatively, states should act according to national interest rather than moral principles in international relations, including the use of force (Coates 2007). Many accept a combination of factual (or descriptive) and normative (or prescriptive) realism. For reasons I articulate in the next section, both realist theses should be rejected.

1.2 Realism and the justification of war

The starting point for just war theory is that war is only justified if it satisfies ethical conditions. Thus, just war theory is essentially opposed to realism’s assertion that warfare must be guided by power and interest rather than morality. Because of realism’s historic prevalence, its ongoing pull, and its relation to just war theory, it will be helpful to explain the realist view and why it must be rejected here.

Variations of realism have been defended by numerous thinkers, including political philosophers Machiavelli and Hobbes, historians E.H. Carr and John Mearsheimer, political scientists Hedley Bull and Hans Morgenthau, and diplomats Henry Kissenger and George Kenan. Its classic statement comes from the History of the Peloponnesian War in which Thucydides has Athenian generals justify their takeover of Melos and threatened (and ultimately executed) genocide against the Melians with the statement that in war, “the strong take what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

Realists frequently cite military strategist Carl von Clausewitz’s dictum that “war is nothing but a continuation of politics by other means” to explain their view that a state is justified in going to war when and only when doing so furthers its own interests.² A preventive war to weaken a potential adversary or replace its government with one more friendly to one’s own aims – which ordinary morality would condemn as aggression – would be justified on the realist view so long as the prospective benefits to the aggressor outweigh the costs.³ For realists, the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was justified if it could have been expected to further US interests, independently of the culpability of the Hussein regime or the welfare and will of the Iraqi people.⁴ On the other hand, a humanitarian intervention, like that in Kosovo or a proposed one to stop the genocide in Rwanda, should not be undertaken if it could not be expected to benefit the intervener on balance.

Several arguments are used to support realism. A frequent rhetorical move, with a kernel of underlying argument, is that war is a realm of “necessity” rather than choice. This implies that when it comes to life and death struggles, we must react automatically, without pausing for principled reflection and analysis. War is entered under duress so that moral choice and responsibility are impossible and inapplicable. Indeed, war frequently seems inevitable, especially as we look at it in hindsight as the product of an escalating conflict.

Nonetheless, it is simply false to describe wars as outside the realm of choice. Groups of people decide to go to war. Marshaling and deploying forces takes planning and deliberation. Moreover, the use of force is usually recognized as a weighty decision and undertaken after consideration of its likely effects and possible alternative courses of action. Strategic debate among realists about the timing and manner of fighting wars shows that even they view war as a matter of rational deliberation and not outside human agency. As Walzer (1977, 8) comments in his critique, realism frequently trades on the ambiguity of the term “necessity,” which “doubles the parts of inevitability or indispensability.” War, as I just argued, is never inevitable. It might be indispensable for certain ends, but this assumes there are no other feasible means to those ends. We can also ask whether the ends, such as preserving or capturing a piece of territory or weakening a rival, are themselves morally indispensable – or otherwise sufficient to justify war. Reflection on these matters puts us in the ethical realm of just war theory, so the rhetoric of “necessity” cannot consistently establish realism as an amoral alternative.

A second argument for realism derives from a social contract conception of the purpose and limits of government. Hobbesian realists argue that states are formed to further the rights and well-being of their citizens. If a government pursues the welfare of or even takes care to respect the rights of foreign nationals, it oversteps its mandate and contravenes its purpose.

However, the pursuit of national interest is not the sole purpose of government, to the exclusion of all considerations of the lives of non-citizens. Even if – as seems eminently plausible – furthering the welfare of the state itself is a predominant purpose of government, it cannot justify violating the rights of foreign citizens. Although realists write as if moral obligations have no place in war, the realist doctrine itself presupposes the moral responsibility to maintain the promises implicit in the social contract, which is to say it presupposes the moral validity of promises prior to the establishment of government. Yet, if people have the right to have contractual promises kept, they certainly also have other rights, including the rights to life and liberty. The principled realist rejection of obligations to foreign nationals is contradictory and unjustifiable.

Furthermore, as others have noted, the realist’s central concept of a “national interest” to be pursued in international relations is rarely defined and collapses into ambiguity upon analysis. Realists sometimes write as if the national interest is limited to state survival, a ridiculously unambitious view of the aim of government. In fact, national survival is rarely at stake in international relations. For example, an intervention in Rwanda would have cost the US and Europeans some money and casualties but would not have placed their existence in jeopardy. States with relatively generous foreign aid policies, such as Canada, do not thereby place themselves in existential crisis. On the other hand, although the US military response to Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terror attacks are thought of as paradigmatically justifiable acts of self-defense, the refusal to respond with force probably would not have led to the overthrow of the United States. A broader, somewhat more plausible view of the national interest adds other material interests, especially furthering the state and its citizens’ economic interests. However, a purely materialistic view of national well-being is still overly narrow, as people have values and ideals beyond financial success. Citizens generally do not expect their governments to maximize their material welfare at the expense of all moral obligations, particularly those of human rights to life and liberty, nor would they be justified if they did. Any plausible view of the national interest includes the pursuit of moral values and principles, which in turn includes not waging war without ethical justification (Welch 2000).

A second Hobbesian argument for amoral realism asserts that, given the anarchical state of international relations, nations cannot safely act upon any principle other than self-interest. Thus, even if one thought it desirable to have states take into account each other’s well-being, one might think that, without assurance that other states will reciprocate, it is too dangerous to act on these moral ideals. Without a world government enforcing international norms of non-aggression or requiring mutual assistance, each state is susceptible to attack by others.

However, it is not correct to depict international society as a Hobbesian state of nature. States do not risk their own existence by failing to take advantage of others’ weaknesses or by making small sacrifices of their own interest for the benefit of others. This is partly because of their geographic separation and relative independence – states are not as vulnerable to attack as individuals in an anarchical territory. More basically, the international system is not anarchical. There is a well-developed body of international law governing armed conflict (Cassese 2005). States recognize moral and legal obligations to each other. They can be taken to the ICJ and sanctioned for violations, and their leaders can be tried at the ICC. Although sanctions are less regular in international than domestic law, violations of treaty obligations and other norms undermine a state’s standing and can lead to less favorable international treatment, such that norms have teeth as well as moral force behind them. In response to aggression, states can exercise “collective defense” by joining on the side of an attacked party, as Allied forces did in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and North Korea’s invasion of the South. The UNSC can also authorize armed intervention in response to “threats to international peace and security” short of aggression.

Contrary to realism, it is more accurate to say that states cannot afford to ignore their moral obligations than that they cannot observe them. States regularly take into account morality in their international relations and military decision-making. The common practice of financial assistance to other states suggests this. Recent interventions, such as those in Somalia, in Serbia over Bosnia and Kosovo, and most recently in Libya, appear to be motivated in large part by the desire to provide humanitarian assistance. In general, as Walzer argues, political and military officials do not justify their actions in terms of power politics but rather provide moral justifications and attempt to defend their actions against moral criticisms. They are forced to explain why their wars are “necessary” or, in any case, “justifiable” terms that refer to moral principles. This is especially true of democratic states but holds even for authoritarian states, which have to maintain the ideological support of their people, as well as a degree of international cooperation, to function. Of course, these defenses are sometimes cynical rationalizations for selfishly or nationalistically motivated military acts. Yet, even moral window-dressing shows the necessity and efficacy of moral discourse, the requirement of attempting to persuade the public of one’s moral war plans. Not everything can be defended as moral. The more people are able to engage in the analysis of arguments regarding the morality of war, and the more they demand their governments fight morally, the more efficacious moral arguments become. International behavior and concepts of moral justification make realism implausible (Walzer 1977, 15–20).

There is a more moderate, reasonable form of realism. This theory is skeptical about our ability to achieve moral norms in war and argues that the pursuit of seemingly moral or just goals tends to cause more harm than good. This sort of realism is found in the thought of Morgenthau, Kissinger, and Niebuhr. These thinkers correctly note that the moral pursuit of ideological ends from the Crusades to recent efforts to spread democracy and free markets by force tend to backfire. Taking into account the imperfection of the world and barriers to the pursuit of the greater good through force can lead to a wise caution regarding taking up arms. This realism is not strictly amoral since it is underpinned by a sort of utilitarianism, potentially incorporating universalistic concern for non-nationals along with the citizens of the decision-making state. However, the idea that it is morally better not to pursue moral goals inevitably leads to contradictions, as it may be possible to conceive moral aims which are achievable at relatively minor costs. While realism is correct to reject a crusading moralism that verges into militarism in its violent pursuit of its ideals, it is much less plausible when it is ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I: Ethical constraints on recourse to war: jus ad bellum vs realism and neo-traditionalism
• Part II: Defense of a legalist just cause threshold
• Part III: Just war procedures and application
• Index