The Just War Tradition

Abstract

The Just War Tradition has provided a framework for thinking about warfare for well over 2,000 years. While the exact details may vary a little, the core ideas are shared across religious and secular culture, underpinning international law. However, should responses to terrorist activity, or ‘hybrid’ attacks, perhaps involving predominantly nonlethal methods such as subversion, cyber, or economic attrition, really be regarded within such a framework, when many people would not consider such a context to represent war at all? This paper argues that despite its name, by concentrating on harm in a broader sense rather than its purely lethal manifestation, the type of moral reasoning that the Just War Tradition represents can actually be applied to a much broader set of contexts than might initially be imagined. This means that the Just War Tradition remains a useful guide even when the exact status of the situation may be considered unclear.