Just War Research Articles

Blood Rites Theory: Is it an Alternative to Hegemonic War Theories?

Developing a history of socialization to warfare, Ehrenreich reminds us of the possible roots that made humans turn from prey to predators. using the prehistorical sociopolitical developments initially from bands, tribes to chiefdoms and states, Ehrenreich tries to link the causes of war to these social mutations linked to symbolism and “blood rites” portraying it as a males’ activity. Although it seems that the approach is appealing as a constructivist or a social teleology with a feminist affinity, it fails however to grasp the causes of hegemonic wars. this paper addresses this dimension while defending the idea that the (neo)realist approach is still of relevance when approaching causation of modern warfare.

Environmental Just Wars: Jus ad Bellum and the Natural Environment

ABSTRACTWar is bad for the environment, yet the environmental ramifications of warfare have not been widely addressed by just war theorists and revisionist philosophers of war. The law and legal scholars have paid more attention to protecting nature during armed conflict. But because the law focuses invariably on rules mitigating the conduct of hostilities rather than on objective justice of cause, environmental jus ad bellum has been explored even less extensively than environmental ethics in war. Setting out with the presumption against the use of force and its exceptions, this article considers whether environmental harm can trigger a new justification for war, at whose behest, and what might be a proportionate response to aggressive or negligent harm to nature. Force is clearly justified against military attacks. Where environmental harm is not caused by military aggression, proportionality points towards a response short of war. Full‐scale warfare will likely be counterproductive in protecting nature. This is less true if war is fought by drones destroying specific targets, or by cyber‐war, or by alternatives (or supplements) to war such as boycotts, ‘lawfare’, and ‘information/media warfare’. Responding in ways that minimize harm to nature also helps demonstrate ‘right intention’.

In Between Digital War and Peace

ABSTRACT The world can be divided into a digital sphere and a physical sphere. Within the realm of the physical sphere, Michael Walzer’s Just War Theory stands as a prominent framework for understanding the ethics of warfare. Is his theoretical framework also applicable to the digital sphere? This article studies whether elements of Walzer’s theory can be adapted to the context of digital conflict. Walzer divides countries into zones of peace, zones of war, and in-between zones. A country could then, for example, be a physical zone of peace but a digital zone of war. This article explores in which ways the defining characteristics of the different zones can be found in the digital sphere. It concludes that the digital sphere should mostly be seen as an in-between zone, with the problem of very unclear borders. Regarding Walzer’s theory, while it offers valuable insights when applied to the digital sphere, difficulties arise, underscoring the necessity for further research to refine the principles of just war within the digital sphere.

War and Socio-Ecological Implications in the Poetry of Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin

This paper examines the horrors of war on man and the environment and holds that there is no justification for war. The paper maintains that those who encourage war have generally never experienced its disastrousness. From a New Historicist perspective, the paper explores how survivors or victims of war become indifferent and develop attitudes of apathy towards life as they are continually haunted by the fear of the imminent outbreak of another war in which they could die. Consequently, these war victims develop a pessimistic perception of life and contravene its norms. From an ecocritical standpoint, the paper explores how these survivors ruthlessly exploit nature, out of frustration, and deliberately carry out activities that endanger the flora and fauna.

Decentring the West? Civilizational solidarity and (de)colonization in theories of the Russia-Ukraine War

ABSTRACT Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a growing literature promoting the Ukrainian national cause, framed in decolonial terms, has influenced public discourse about the Russia-Ukraine War in the West. Filtered through the activist interpretation of cultural epistemologies, with their emphasis on the centring and decentring of knowledges, the war has been imagined primarily as a colonial emanation of a Russian narrative. We argue that the heavily moralized notion of epistemological and mental decolonization has impeded critical investigation into the degree of responsibility for, and the NATO powers’ involvement in, the Russia-Ukraine War. In order to attain a rigorous analysis of all actors’ motives and rationalities, we argue for the need to understand the conflict's structural and historical dimensions, and thus to draw from the classical, structural approaches to analysing imperial power that predate the cultural turn.

A Return to Right Intention in the Just War

ABSTRACT It has been argued that the criterion of right intention adds nothing in just war theory – that it is subsumed by other conditions on just war. It has also been argued that there is no tenable reading of the criterion at all, and in particular that taking it as a positive requirement on the state's motives is after all incoherent in a way that would make it impossible to satisfy. This article gives an action-theoretic analysis of (one central understanding of) the criterion and uses it to examine arguments that have been offered for the strong negative claims above. It is shown that none of these arguments succeed. Our endeavor brings welcome clarity and understanding to our own ideas about the criterion.

Islam and the Ethics of War: Deconstructing Jihad through the Principle of Humanism in Theological Discourses

Islam and the Ethics of War: Deconstructing Jihad through the Principle of Humanism in Theological Discourses

The ethics of war and peace settlement: Philosophical approaches in the context of the Russia-Ukraine War

The ethics of war and peace settlement: Philosophical approaches in the context of the Russia-Ukraine War

КОНФУЦИАНСКАЯ ЭТИКА ВОЙНЫ В КОНТЕКСТЕ ДРЕВНЕКИТАЙСКОГО МИФА О ТРАНЗИТЕ ВЛАСТИ

The paper analyzes ethical views on war held by the authors of the classical Confucian treatises, Lunyu and Mengzi, in the context of their attitude towards the characters of the ancient Chinese power transition myth. In terms of ethics of war, Mengzi differs from Lunyu in the following aspects: prioritization of justice over political order; emphasis on legitimacy, not legality; people-orientedness over norm-orientedness; development of the jus in bello discourse; permissibility of rebellion, which entails positive assessment of Wu-wang’s campaign, and critique of its objectors, Boyi and Shuqi.

Evaluation Of The 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation in The Light of Jus Cogens Rules

Shortly after the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus, the events initiated by Makarios’ attempts to amend the constitution, which escalated into internal conflicts and external interventions, culminated in Turkey’s military intervention. The effects of this intervention continue to persist today. Due to this characteristic, it has been the subject of many studies; however, it has not been evaluated in terms of the jus cogens rules, which express the universally accepted principles of international law, and the stages of the just war theory. To address this need, the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation, a long-standing international issue, has been examined within the framework of the jus cogens rules of international law, considering the three phases of just war theory: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. This examination aims to determine the level of compliance with jus cogens international law norms in the historical and political context of the Cyprus issue, as well as the developments before, during, and after the 1974 Peace Operation. Consequently, it has been determined that the 1974 Peace Operation adhered to the jus cogens rules of international law to the maximum extent. In the source review, a balanced selection of sources was made to objectively evaluate the assessments of both the Turkish and Greek Cypriot sides on the issue. This study is qualitative in nature, employing both inductive and deductive methods.‎

Gender, War, and Religion: Feminist Perspectives on Pathways to Just Peace

Starting with clashes between Western and Ukrainian feminists, this article discusses basic questions from an intersectional perspective on the relation between gender, war and religion. In the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine, how should a gender-sensitive peace ethics look? Among feminists, as in religious communities, we find radical pacifist positions next to and sometimes conflicting with approaches that draw on traditions of “just war” and/or “just peace.” After discussing the different approaches in Christian tradition, including Eastern traditions, and describing the imperialist nature of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the author highlights the importance of engaging feminist theories of war and militarism in the analysis and how they resonate with practices on the ground in Ukraine. The feminist lens demands attention for the full reality of war, for women’s multilayered agency in war, and for the genderedness of discourses and practices surrounding war heroism and war traumas. Based on such considerations and arguments, the article proposes five “principles” for a feminist political theology on war and peace, as a contribution to the ongoing scholarly debate. Markers on a feminist-theological pathway to just peace may include: reconsidering the notion of sacrifice; fearlessly bringing theology into religious diplomacy; nothing for Ukraine without the voices of Ukrainian women; embracing a paradigm of human security instead of state security; and the remaining challenge to imagine a common future with the enemy beyond the current evil of destruction.

Can Two Opposing Narratives Be Equally Valid? Reflections on Zreik’s Reflections on the War in Gaza

Abstract The article critically examines the arguments of Raef Zreik regarding the 2023 war in Gaza. It first analyzes the use of the concept of narrative in defending political causes and actions. It shows that due to their subjective nature two opposing narratives can be equally valid as long as they satisfy conditions of internal coherence and fidelity to the facts. It then shows that Zreik’s argument of ‘fragmentation’ is double edged and cannot be used for laying full responsibility on Israel. It then proceeds to criticize the claim that Zionism is a colonialist enterprise and shows that Zionism does not consist of all the basic characteristics of colonialism. Finally, it analyzes the common argument of self-defense as the only justification of starting a war and shows the limitation of such an argument in a theory of war, mainly because in most wars both sides have the right to defend themselves, including the allegedly unjust party. All that remains after showing the weakness of most arguments for this or that side to the conflict is the conclusion that compromise is the only way out of the deadlock, having the virtue of being pragmatic rather principled.

PUTIN AND BIDEN’S SPEECHES ON THE RUSSIAN INVOLVEMENT IN UKRAINE: DIALOGUE AND POLEMICS

Throughout the world’s long tradition with war, it has often been raised as a question whether any war was worth waging, and if so, when and how? The reply to this philosophical maze of extreme convictions differs depending on whom you ask. In this present article, we tackled the ideological differences that lead to the discrepancies between answers given by Russia and the United States of America. For this, we took as primary sources the speeches of 24 February 2022 that Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden made on Russia’s immediate involvement in Ukraine. We tried to look for dialogic clash over the choice of diction as a major ideological stance, relying on Michael Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism and his notions of hidden polemics and parody to illustrate the condemnation of the war on one end and its justification on the other. The aim was to extrapolate the themes tackled and their sequence by referring to the just war theory in its three divisions jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum which together structure the ancient practice of the art of war in its distinct phases. Biden and Putin heavily bid on these notions to give their viewpoints legal and ethical legitimacy and convince the international community of their just causes. Through this study, we found that the presidents stylized their speeches to follow each other’s, giving responses in an implicit and tacit manner, which we uncovered as hidden polemics in their styles of diction. We have also discovered that both presidents evoked their nemesis’ violation of the just war theory and defended their own just cause and respect for international regulation. This study falls within the field of discourse analysis that is a key element in understanding politics on the levels of presidential speeches.

Theories of War and the African context: Whither strategic theory?

Theories of War and the African context: Whither strategic theory?

The Good Muslim as a Quest for Jus Post Bellum in a Nation in Transition

This paper explores the search for justice after the war in Tahmima Anam’s novel, The Good Muslim. The novel deals with the aftermath of ‘the Liberation War of Bangladesh’ in the 1970s and early 80s, when the country was gravely suffering from famine, consecutive murders of their prominent leaders, political upheavals, natural disasters, and paralyzed democratic norms in the hands of a Dictator Hussein Muhammad Ershad. In such a context, Maya Haque, the protagonist of the novel, and an erstwhile freedom fighter continues writing and fighting for modern education, justice for the rape victims of the war, and democracy in the country. The study analyzes narrative data from the novel to see how the female characters struggle for justice after the war. For this purpose, it uses Larry May’s insights on ‘jus post bellum’. May has proposed six criteria for post-war justice, including ‘reconciliation’ and ‘rebuilding’, to maintain lasting peace in a post-war society. The novel entails these conditions and brings transitional justice to the fore of discourse through the literary creation. The paper claims that the protagonist is not only raising her voice for certain characters in the novel, rather she is constantly contributing to the broader issue of jus post bellum, which has been the most important, yet the most ‘neglected’ topic in just war theories. The article concludes with the idea that a fictitious work like The Good Muslim can be a good voice for the voiceless and a loud and clear advocacy for justice after the war. It can contribute to maintaining law and order and build up lasting peace preventing further violence in a postwar society.

ABSURDITY AND THE LOSS OF WAR ETHICS IN THE NOVELS OF PETRO MARKO AND ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Topic Absurdity and the loss of war ethics in the novels of Petro Marko and Ernest Hemingway, war is presented as a state of madness and meaninglessness by those who invented it. We find this unequal human conflict where real life and literary motivation interweave with each other, in the novels of Petro Marko between Italians and Albanians, while Ernest Hemingway talks about the absurdity of the Italian-Austrian war and the war between Francoists and Republican forces of volunteers from all over the world. Two writers and two fighters who experienced great challenges during these conflicts, transformed and immortalized all the experiences, ideas, perspectives, and worldviews of this war into works of art, thereby creating their original universe. Otherworld and European authors also wrote novels on the subject of war, such as Erich Maria Remarque, known for his famous work Nothing New on the Western Front, published in 1929. Remarque himself was on this front for ten days and saw it for namely the futility and inequality of war. The war lost him forever, the aura of honor he had until then.

Just War Theory and the Russia-Ukraine War

Just War Theory and the Russia-Ukraine War

The Theories of war in practice: possible outcomes and means for the termination of war. Case study: Russian war against Ukraine

Purpose: is to anticipate the termination of the Russia-Ukraine war considering the underlying causes on the basis of main war termination theories. Method: comparative analysis, and synthesis. Findings: The length of a war is typically unpredictable due to the intricate interplay of elements that affect its duration. Initial assessments often underestimate the enemy's capabilities, resolve, and adaptability. Understanding these factors can help in devising strategies to prevent or shorten wars. In historical records, the majority of military operations, campaigns, and wars have exceeded their anticipated duration. What causes the wars to linger longer than anticipated? What variables or elements, in general, affect the duration of wars? These are some of the most frequently considered questions by the researchers. In this regard wars need to be categorized based on their features in order to make sense of how long they should last. The scale and ferocity of wars differ. Some wars lasted only a few days, while others lasted for years or even decades. Some wars were fought between two nations, while others involved multiple nations, some others had a worldwide scope. Limited engagements occurred in some wars, while others left massive amounts of destruction in their wake. While many nations rally their entire population for war, some do not believe it is necessary. In the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, the article illustrates the main points of war theories concerning the origins and end of a conflict, supports the connection between them, and emphasizes the variables and elements that influence the duration of the war. The authors try to anticipate the termination of this war based on various factors. Theoretical implications: The paper enhances our understanding of key concepts of theories of war provide a framework to understand the various dynamics and outcomes of conflicts, including how they begin, unfold, and eventually end. The Russia-Ukraine war serves as a contemporary case study to explore these theories in practice. The paper provides new insights for understanding the variables and elements that influence the duration of the war and offer various lenses to comprehend and address the war, suggesting a multifaceted approach that includes military, diplomatic, economic, and socio-cultural strategies. Practical implications: Examining the practical implications of the theories of war in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war involves understanding how these theories translate into real-world strategies and actions that can lead to the termination of the war. The paper highlights that military, diplomatic, economic, and socio-cultural strategies must be integrated to address the complex dynamics of the conflict and pave the way for a sustainable peace. Value: The study offers significant value in understanding, predicting, and potentially resolving wars in the example of Russia-Ukraine war and provides multiple lenses through which to analyze the war, devise strategies, and anticipate outcomes.

How are narratives sacralised? Russian dogma on the war in Ukraine

ABSTRACT The article analyses how the Russian official representation of the war in Ukraine has been sacralised and then applied to the identity-building strategy. Sacralisation is considered a way to legitimise politics by attributing transcendental meaning and significance to it. This paper suggests a framework for identifying the use of sacralisation techniques and discusses the potential applications of the sacralised war narrative lying beyond the justification of war. It is shown that the Russian representation of the war, once sacralised, has codified the ideological leitmotifs of the last decades. It has built a holistic and comprehensive cognitive schema grounded in pre-constructed identity beliefs and ideas. The state of war allowed the establishment of this framework in a top-down way. Thus, the article claims that discursive sacralisation not only justifies warfare but can also intensify identity politics.

Pemikiran Etika Perang Imām al-Shawkānī: Analisis Teori Just War dan Relevansi Konflik Israel-Palestina

This research analyzes Imām al-Shawkānī’s thoughts on war ethics within the Just War theory perspective, using the book “Nayl al-Awṭār.” The Israel-Palestine conflict is seen as an example of the abuse of power in just war ethics to the detriment of Palestinian civilians. Just War theory emphasises justice, proportionality and protection of civilians, yet Israel's military operations often violate these principles. Imām al-Shawkānī's thought in Nayl al-Awṭār had an Islamic perspective that emphasised justice and humanity in war. Integrating Just War principles with al-Shawkānī's ethics of war can provide a strong ethical framework to evaluate military actions in the Israel-Palestine conflict and seek a more just solution. Through a library research method and descriptive analysis, this study aims to contribute to the explanation of the connection between religion, ethics, and armed conflict, while promoting international peace and justice. Its practical implications highlight the significance of strengthening Islamic values in facing foreign cultural dominance, while its contemporary relevance underscores the necessity of upholding international law and human rights conventions in addressing armed conflicts. Thus, this research not only provides new insights into the ethics of war in Islam but also highlights the importance of actions to uphold humanity and justice in global armed conflicts.