When is war justified?

[Dachs]

I don't know what most of those nouns mean, but you'll have a hard time convincing me any classical wars were particularly moral. Lemme guess, a king and a bunch of people who had no choice about being there fought against another king and another bunch of people who had no choice about being there?

No.

A king - Antigonus Gonatas - had had control of the ancient port of Athens, Piraeus, which was critical to the economic and political life of the city and which essentially functioned as a garrison for the Macedonians to control the city. Chremonides, the man who functioned essentially as the most influential in the Athenian democracy, contracted an alliance with Areus of Sparta and several other Greek states, along with Ptolemy III of Egypt, and then attacked the Macedonian occupiers...so a democracy attacked a king who had rightful control of certain territories (granted by treaty) because those territories - "the Fetters of Greece" - were occupied by a garrison that was subjecting Athens to the Macedonian will.

 

[Arwon]

Isn't that still just a bunch of rich dudes fighting about money and power?

 

[Dachs]

Isn't that still just a bunch of rich dudes fighting about money and power?

Actually, much of the Athenian aristocracy, insofar as one existed, was pro-Macedonian...

 

[Arwon]

Don't get me wrong here, all I'm really contending is that in the pre-modern world the conditions for a moral war didn't really exist, it just wasn't structurally possible. The world was structured in such a fundamentally unjust way that any possible war was just going to be between competing powerful groups, at the expense of all the poor bastards they made fight their wars for them.

What's changed really is that we have a somewhat more just political order now, less of a tendency to focus on wars of acquisition and conquest and extermination, wars fought in the name of a king and his mighty dick.

So we have this new order, coupled with states that can do worse things than they could ever do before. Without modern genocide and modern humanitarian intervention, I don't think a just war is possible. At least, not beyond the obvious "fight back if you're attacked" thing, which I'm not sure always makes you morally superior anyway. It can just make you the bastard who didn't start it instead of the bastard who did.

 

[holy king]

the only justified war is revolution.

 

[Winner]

Let's stick to the medieval (ok, early modern) definition of a just war

Seriously: there is no general guideline. Most people agree that when a government is genocidal or threatens other countries in a very serious way, an intervention to stop this behaviour is justified.

Of course it depends heavily on if you want to define it from democratic point of view or not. Democracies tend to believe that almost any war against undemocratic country is in some way just, if it is also executed in a just way (no firebombing of the civilians and things of this sort).

 

[Gustave5436]

(no firebombing of the civilians and things of this sort).

Of course, in total war, there are no civilians.

 

[Arwon]

Let's stick to the medieval (ok, early modern) definition of a just war

Seriously: there is no general guideline. Most people agree that when a government is genocidal or threatens other countries in a very serious way, an intervention to stop this behaviour is justified.

Of course it depends heavily on if you want to define it from democratic point of view or not. Democracies tend to believe that almost any war against undemocratic country is in some way just, if it is also executed in a just way (no firebombing of the civilians and things of this sort).

But even the inventors of the concept ignored it!

...and it was a pretty weak and strange doctrine anyway. Anyone ever read Francisco de Vittoria's justifications of Spanish subjugation of the natives of the Americas?

 

[Archbob]

1. When a nation is a threat to another nation so for self-defense
2. When a nation is a failed state and order needs to be restored for security purposes (Somalia, Pakistan etc...)
3. When a nation is committing genocide (Sudan, Rwanda, etc..)

Those are the main one's I can think of.

You left out "when a nation just wants to conquer someone else".

I mean 'justified' is vague term. People will have different meanings. In reality, its just if you have a big enough war club to beat the other guy without all the rest of the world getting on your case too much. Morally, its more complicated than that. The problem is, no one person can dictate morality.

 

[Lord Parkin]

What definition of justified are we using?

I'd say that war is justified when you are the one defending, not being the aggressor.

That doesn't mean I don't think that any aggressive wars should ever be fought. (Although I'm yet to be convinced of the merits of most of the ones in history.) It simply means that it is never possible to fully justify a war when you're the aggressive one doing the invading in the first place.

 

[El_Machinae]

I believe it's morally justifiable in order to defend your populace from another populace. Like in most cases of self-defense, it's moral to use the minimum necessary force and immoral to use force beyond that. Practically, it's a hellishly difficult thing to use the minimum necessary force.

Unlike more micro situations of self-defense, a war will have a cost in 'innocent lives' and so if you fail to use the minimum necessary force, then you're murdering innocent people. Usually a country will use more than the necessary force out of laziness. If this is true, then it's actually murder.

With regards to human rights, I believe that there's value in placing humanitarian aid into zones of crisis. If your aid workers will be attacked, then there's value in protecting them using force.

Theoretically, a defensive war can be justified (i.e., a 'strike first'), but it's hellishly tough because you have a hard time proving that the deaths were necessary. You can only 'prove' that an attack is necessary if you're attacked first, unfortunately.

 

[Jazzmail]

I believe it's morally justifiable in order to defend your populace from another populace. Like in most cases of self-defense, it's moral to use the minimum necessary force and immoral to use force beyond that.

Which may result in losing the war, with all the atrocities that may follow.

When faced with an agressor it's better for the defending nation to use every means at it's disposal until the war is clearly won (or lost).
Hell, the international community may respond better to a quick scorched earth strategy than a long drawn out skirmish. This applies to aggressors aswell.

WW2 would've been lost if the allies hadn't bombed german cities to piles of rubble. Killing the civilians isn't the aim perse, but making them unproductive is.

War is total.

This is why Irag and Somalia and other peacekeeping missions are ineffective, because the motivation is lacking. There's too much too high costs and too little to gain, so you take half measures. This is what you get when nations go out to do things for oppressed foreign people out of "charity".

In self-defense no cost is too high. Wars can only be fought and won with self-interest as a motivation.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yes, it may result in losing the war. Practically, nearly everyone chooses to overcompensate for fear of undercompensating. And history is fairly kind to some overcompensation.

War need not be total, however. No self-defense needs to be 'total'. In most self-defense scenarios, the goal is to use reasonable force and not much more.

 

[Jazzmail]

In most self-defense scenarios, the goal is to use reasonable force and not much more.

Only if the perp badly underestimated his target. This would be the case of the mugger taking on a martial artist who is in total control of the situation.
Else it's bash the attacker's head in with no regrets. You can stop when the attacker is disabled.

 

[MobBoss]

Um, not killing people and raping and pillaging and taking their stuff so your king can feel like he has a big dick?

Who says its only about that?

What if its to secure better lands/resources that would also benefit the people?

 

[El_Machinae]

Only if the perp badly underestimated his target. This would be the case of the mugger taking on a martial artist who is in total control of the situation.
Else it's bash the attacker's head in with no regrets. You can stop when the attacker is disabled.

Why not continue after disablement and kill him? Go after his family and friends next? Burn his business and the businesses of people he owed money to?

Because self-defense doesn't warrant total war. It only warrants sufficient force. You're already acknowledging this, because you know it's wrong to execute an unconscious attacker. I'm not saying your only moral option is to use insufficient force. The goal is to use sufficient force. And that it's immoral to use overwhelming force if it's not necessary.

 

[Jazzmail]

Why not continue after disablement and kill him? Go after his family and friends next? Burn his business and the businesses of people he owed money to?

You don't because you already saved yourself before that point.

Because self-defense doesn't warrant total war. It only warrants sufficient force. You're already acknowledging this, because you know it's wrong to execute an unconscious attacker.

I acknowledge that there can be an END to total war. That's when you've won. While the war is still going on there should be no relenting.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, yes, you continue to defend yourself as long as it is necessary.

 

[Zebra 9]

Ok who decides minimum necessary force? The trouble is that it is nearly impossible to decide this. You never know when you're forces will make a mistake, and you never know when the other side will out do you ([wiki=Battle_of_Thermopylae]Battle of Thermopylae[/wiki]).
I'm of the opinion that a quick war is more humane. Wars that drag on prevent people from rebuilding and tend toward starvation, disease, and more deaths. A quick war normally results in more collateral damage and civilian deaths, but it doesn't cause as much long term suffering.
From this you can probably tell I'm a give it all you got type of person, and if there is a problem with my logic just let me know and I might agree with you.

 

[Agent327]

In defense of the people of the nation, whether by brutal repression or genocide.

In defense of your attacked allies.

In defense of a neutral nation.

That's about it. The third option would require a request by that nation for aid/support.

Example: the War on Iraq was definitely not justified, as it's pretext was proven false (and international support for it limited - until after the fact, when a new status quo had arisen).

People's personal feelings about this matter are irrelevant: justified war is a matter of international law and jurisprudence. (Any other war violates such law.)