Just War Research Articles

The Warfare Ideology of Ordeal: Another Form of Just War Thinking? Theory and Practice from the Early Middle Ages

ABSTRACT Studying the military thinking and military history of the Middle Ages, one can observe several forms of warfare ideologies. Three of these ideologies are the holy war ideology, the ideology of ordeal (or iudicium Dei), and the traditional just war theory. Every such ideology has the common characteristic of a stronger or weaker link to concepts of a Christian God, religion, or church. Beyond this common characteristic, the ideologies differ from each other in some key respects. The holy war ideology applies first and foremost the concept of God, traditional just war theory applies the concept of justice, and the ideology of ordeal relies on both the concepts of God and justice. This article presents the ideology of ordeal as a form of just war thinking, and describes its features through historical examples, through its essence, and in contrast to other ideologies.

How conventional arms control failures caused the Russo-Ukraine War

ABSTRACT What role did conventional arms control (CAC) agreements failures play in Russia's decision to invade Ukraine? Using a process tracing and counterfactual mixed methodology analyzing Russia's invasion motivations, this article attempts to answer the question by assessing Russian strategic policies, proposals, and arms control agreements. These demonstrate that Russia, seeing its sense of “indivisible security” being violated, sought to adjust or establish new CAC agreements to address a growing conventional military imbalance between NATO and Russia. Having failed to establish a fixed and stable conventional military balance through CAC, and as Ukraine edged closer to NATO membership, Russia resorted to the use of force shortly after their December 2021 proposals were not accepted. The article concludes by suggesting that this case supports arms racing and arms-control related causes of war theories, and that dissonant perceptions of the actual or ideal military balance can lead to conflict.

Technology and the Civilianization of Warfare

AbstractThe Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates the crucial role of technology in modern warfare. The use of digital networks, information infrastructure, space technology, and artificial intelligence has distinct military advantages, but raises challenges as well. This essay focuses on the way it exacerbates a rather familiar challenge: the “civilianization of warfare.” Today's high-technology warfare lowers the threshold for civilian participation in the war effort. A notable example is the widespread use of smartphone apps by Ukrainian civilians, who thereby help the armed forces defend against Russian aggression. Through the lenses of international humanitarian law, conventional just war theory, and revisionist just war theory, this essay evaluates the normative dimensions of such civilian participation. The analysis shows that civilians can lose their legal protections when they use these apps to directly participate in hostilities, and this loss of immunity can be justified by Michael Walzer's conventional just war theory. Revisionism, however, puts the justness of the war at the forefront, and so sheds doubt on the moral liability of Ukrainian civilians. Considering the broader implications, including the blurring combatant-civilian distinction, indicates that such civilianization of warfare should not be welcomed; the risks will often outweigh the benefits. At a minimum, states ought to exercise restraint in mobilizing civilians and inform them of the implications of their actions.

Analogy between Modern Project Management Theory and Sunzi Art of War: Chapters 1 to 4

This article scrutinizes the analogy between modern project management theory and Sunzi Art of War (or “Sunzi” for short in this abstract) by comparing and contrasting them and identifying the similarities and dissimilarities between them. It is revealed that similarities overwhelmingly exceed dissimilarities at least by the numbers of ideas in the two philosophies. To be specific, Sunzi’s decision on war versus no war is comparable to modern project selection, both being worth prior rigorous contemplation and thus analysis. Sunzi’s analysis is analogous to key success factor (KSF) analysis or strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis commonly adopted in modern project management. Sunzi reiterates the criticality of performing analysis prior to any warfare in the same way as modern project management accentuates analysis for the purpose of project selection. Sunzi analyzes war in a quantified manner somewhat akin to the cost-benefit analysis commonly employed in modern project selection. Sunzi assumes the increase of fixed costs with time just as modern project management does. Sunzi’s practice of “team building” resembles modern project management’s. Sunzi regards victory in war as the objective of top priority in a way similar to defining project objectives and establishing project priorities in modern project management. Sunzi pays heed to the satisfaction and other psychological statuses of the soldiers as much as modern project management does. Sunzi prefers to fight wars only after conducting thorough analysis to predict favorable outcomes of the wars, whereas modern project managers likewise would proceed with any projects only after performing systematic analysis for project selection to predict favorable outcomes. Sunzi believes in managing the military by means of the rule of law and discipline, which modern project management is premised on. Sunzi contends that everything in war has to be measured, estimated, calculated, and probability-based, which is exactly the kind of positivism and scientific approaches upheld by modern project management. Having said this, Sunzi’s insistence on “doing it right once” disagrees with a few modern project management methodologies. Also, the approaches to implement the ideas differ between the two philosophies.

The Role of International Law and Diplomacy in Inter-State Relations: Implications for Afghanistan and American War Relations

This study examines the role of international law and diplomacy in interstate relations, with implications for American-Afghanistan relations. Specifically, the study sets out to interrogate whether US war relations on terror in Afghanistan has reduced terrorism in the country; ascertain how US counter-terrorism strategic relations in Afghanistan undermined jus in bello principles of proportionality and discrimination; and determine how US strategy failure in its Afghanistan’s relations undermined its reconstruction and peace-building efforts. By adopting the Just War Theory (JWT), the paper analysed the dynamic nature of US-Afghanistan relations, following the 9/11 attacks, with findings revealing that the US had an incoherent strategy in its war relations in Afghanistan, which ultimately led to its failure to restore peace, promote democracy and human rights.

Introduction: Ethics and the War against Ukraine

Now in its third year, the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine remains at the very top of the international security agenda. This conflict has largely refocused the West's attention away from the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In February 2022, German chancellor Olaf Scholz went so far as to declare that the invasion signaled a zeitenwende, or “dawn of a new era.”1 Russia's aggression and the threat of having to fight a peer or near-peer competitor raises difficult questions, many of which are ethical in nature. The essays gathered in this roundtable seek to provide answers to some of those questions. They are the result of a workshop I organized for the King's College London Centre for Military Ethics in October 2023. One of my ambitions for this workshop was to put leading academics working on the ethics of war into discussion with military practitioners, making sure to include Ukrainian voices. I was very fortunate to succeed in these objectives, and I am convinced that the published essays have benefited enormously from our conversations.

Ukraine, ideology, and arms: Coming to terms with just war theory

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has challenged the ideals of peace that I and many other left-wing critical intellectuals hold dear. By the end of the 18th century, Immanuel Kant argued that the realist law of peoples and the idea of just war should be superseded by the idea of perpetual peace, and, fortunately, the principled opposition to war was institutionalized in the United Nations in the 20th century. However, when the aggressor has already taken possession of huge swathes of territory, calls for peace may be suspected of ideological bias. The right to defend yourself is almost universally recognized, but a military counter-offensive to reconquer lost territory is not merely defense but itself aggression, and thus an act of war. Many of us, however, want to support such efforts in Ukraine, and what is worrying is that this places us on a slippery slope, reopening the possibility of justifying war. As I will argue, this is nevertheless the path we must take, thus accepting the possible justification of war and the possible justification of specific activities and armaments but not others. We should take more seriously the justice of war, with all the specific normative challenges that this implies.

The Re-Examination of the Israel-Hamas War in the Light of the Just War Theory

The Re-Examination of the Israel-Hamas War in the Light of the Just War Theory

Economic Sanctions and Just War Theory in advance

Economic Sanctions and Just War Theory in advance

Suing for Peace at Any Cost? Reading the Parable of the Two Kings (Luke 14.31–2) in Times of War

AbstractThe paper re-examines the parable of the king pondering about engaging in war with a more powerful enemy (Luke 14.31–2), focusing on questions commonly asked in antiquity and still relevant today with respect to war and suing for peace. These regard the cause of the war and the reasons for fighting, the tension between bravery and wisdom, the circumstances that may contribute to the defeat of a superior army and the costs of peace making. I explore this parable in the context of other Lukan passages touching on the topic of war and peace. I challenge the assumption that Luke was a pacifist, and I argue that the parable cannot provide answers to contemporary questions about the ethics of peace and war.

Strategies, Symbols, and Subjectivities: The Continuities between War Rape and Lesbo-Phobic Rape

AbstractResearch into war rape has shown that rape is not incidental to the general violence of war but is instead an integral part of war strategies. Such research makes it clear that in the context of war, rape serves to injure women on an individual level, but has the more strategic effect of fracturing communal bonds. Similarly, the growing body of research investigating the reasons for, and consequences of, the rape of lesbian women, indicates that these rapes have far-reaching consequences for lesbian communities and serves to reinforce patriarchal heteronormativity. While there is much research around both war and lesbo-phobic rape, the aim of this paper is to bring this research together in order examine lesbo-phobic rape through the lens of war rape theory. This paper aims to show how both “forms” of rape appear to hinge on the meanings assigned to women during peacetime and how both lead to the destruction of individual victims and their communities, while bolstering the subjectivities of the perpetrators and increasing the bonds of those complicit in such violence. The use of the theoretical understandings of war rape thus enriches the understandings of lesbo-phobic rape and shows that there are many continuities between the two.

Trapped values of education and threat to national security in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine

The strong democratic nations tend to follow UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) while weak states choose the way of war for immediate self-affirmation. This destructive way is an insurmountable obstacle for SDGs tracking as a whole and primarily in the educational sector. Despite the influence of “the Fair War Theory”, the war is perceived as a source of destructive aggression, deaths, destructions, violence and moral degradation. Any war is aimed at the occupation of territories when the occupation regime uses vari-ous instruments and the collaborationism is the most widespread. Within the scope of this article the educational collaborationism is subject to a special analysis as it plays one of the major roles in creating an effective occupation system. We do not aim at providing the comprehensive consideration and interpretation of the phenom-enon of “Educators’ Collaborationism”, as well as the identification and detailed ex-planation of the entire spectrum of its destructive consequences. The purpose is to articulate the mentioned phenomenon within the problem of using education as a tool of occupation and threat to the national security of the occupied state. The methodological design of the study is based on a situational approach, which em-phasizes the importance of considering a number of factors influencing the changes in the educational process during the occupation, as well as the identification of situational variables that affect the level of access to higher education (HE), its quali-ty and content on the occupied territories. The method of qualitative case-study re-search made it possible to formulate certain generalizations about this phenomenon and its effect on HE in particular. It was found out that in the temporarily occupied territories education is used as a tool to strengthen and legitimize the occupation regime. Among the key agents there are also the occupiers’ assistants from the educational sector. The analysis of spe-cific situations gives reason to claim that the conscious, voluntary cooperation of educators with the enemy provokes the erosion of the ethical principles of educa-tion, its degradation and blocks the SDGs accomplishing. Such activity has negative consequences as it aggressively denies managerial autonomy, the right for academ-ic freedom and other components of quality HE and other SDGs as they all are inter-linked. Unfortunately, we are to admit that the educational transformative occupation causes total paralysis and even erosion of the national education system in the tem-porarily occupied Ukrainian territories. Therefore, the consequences of the implemen-tation of educational transformative occupation should determine the directions of the processes of de-occupied territories education restauration.

Ethics of Conflict, Violence and Peace – Just War and a Feminist Ethic of Care

This paper critically examines Just War Theory and its philosophical foundations, which are conventionally positioned in opposition to pacifism and nonviolent conflict. This paper, however, takes the view that both, Just War Theory as well as pacifism and nonviolent conflict, are equally necessary and complementary approaches to living with the possibilities and tragedies of the human condition. Its approach is grounded in feminist theory and methodology and their connections with Galtung’s models of violence and peace. The paper argues that the weaknesses of Just War Theory are intrinsic to the concept and its intent. The inherent contradiction of Just War Theory being that it intended to translate universal moral principles into reality, which makes them context dependent. Fundamentally, Just War Theory is derived from an ethic of justice ultimately centred on the right to use violence and kill. The right is conditional but means that a path to peace inevitably starts from death. An ethic of care is a philosophy where feminist thought meets pacifism and nonviolent conflict. It starts from the creation of life and charts paths to positive peace through the nurture of the conditions for lives in dignity. If we seek to contain the destructive and give space to the creative aspects of the human condition and understand its two extremes, life and death, in their relation to human agency, better we need to complement the traditional ethic of justice (of war and violence) with an ethic of care.

AUTONOMOUS WEAPON SYSTEMS AND THE JUST WAR THEORY: CHALLENGES AND IMPLICATIONS

Autonomous weapon systems (AWS) present a formidable obstacle to the application of just war theory in international law. While just war theory has long served as a framework for assessing the moral and legal justification of armed conflict, the lack of human control over the use of force in AWS creates unique ethical and legal challenges. This article investigates the effects of AWS on just war theory in international law, including the application of jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria. It discusses the benefits and drawbacks of AWS, the current legal framework for these systems, and the difficulties associated with applying just war theory criteria to AWS. The article concludes with recommendations for future research and policy development to address these challenges, including the need for additional research, the development of clear legal frameworks, international cooperation and coordination, public participation and awareness, and research on alternative approaches to the use of AWS in armed conflict. By addressing these concerns, researchers can work toward a future in which the development and use of AWS are consistent with the principles of the just war theory and international law

Just Wars Theory as a Key Element of Germany’s New Sonderweg

The article traces the evolution and key characteristics of the German Sonderweg – Germany’s special path starting from the end of the 19th – the middle of the 20th century. The article considers geopolitical, ideological, and historical reasons for its emergence, transformation, and the specificity of its normative constitution, designed to morally justify the use of military force as an indispensable lever for Germany to achieve its goal of creating a “German Europe.” We develop a hypothesis of a possible remake at the beginning of the 21st century of a new German Sonderweg, focused on creation of the “European Germany,” stemming from liberalism and just war theory. It is demonstrated that Zeitenwende, announced in 2022, facilitated the possible resort to arms and made militant solution of political dilemmas a reality again. The discourse analysis of the German political speeches makes it possible to claim that the political elites in Germany are preconcerted with normative justification of the possible war. The article considers two major lines of transformation of the contemporary just war theory and their possible implication in the German military and defense policy. One of these is the emergence of human rights paradigm of the just war doctrine, another – the growing tendency of the theory to stick to national cultural tradition instead of moral universalism. The combination of the two tendencies may trigger an array of very special and unpredictable normative developments of the military policy in Germany. The further movement alongside the idea of jus ad bellum may provoke specific national perceptions of the justice of the war, which may merge the idea of just war with traditional German realism if not militarism. This tendency may lure Germany into a trap of, what we term, “human rights militarism.” To what extent the trap is viable depends on the normative constitution of the key elements of Sonderweg.

Environmental Ethics of War: Jus ad Bellum, Jus in Bello, and the Natural Environment

The conduct of hostilities is very bad for the environment, yet relatively little attention has been focused on environmental military ethics by just war theorists and revisionist philosophers of war. Contemporary ecological concerns pose significant challenges to jus in bello. I begin by briefly surveying existing literature on environmental justice during wartime. While these jus in bello environmental issues have been addressed only sparsely by just war theorists, environmental jus ad bellum has rarely been tackled within JWT or the morality of war. In line with the theme of this special issue, I focus my discussion of war and the natural environment primarily on the jus ad bellum level. I set out with the presumption against the use of force, and its possible exceptions. The principal question raised is whether environmental harm can trigger a new justification for war. Beyond just cause, I consider what might be a proportionate response to “environmental aggression,” or negligent harm to nature. The use of force is clearly justified in response to military attacks, against the natural environment or otherwise. Where harm to nature or its inhabitants are not caused by military aggression, just war theory criteria point in favor of responding via measures short of war. Finally, I suggest that responding by means that are not themselves harmful to nature serves to fulfill the further jus ad bellum criterion of “right intention.”

A ‘Just Cause’ or ‘Just A Cause’: Perils of the Zero-sum Model of Moral Responsibility for War

In this paper the author aims to explain the consequences of the implicit application of the zero-sum game model of distribution of moral responsibility for war, i.e., for causing war, within the context of the dominant perspective of modern-day ethics of war – Just War Theory. The main criterion of the jus ad bellum concept of Just War Theory, “just cause,” recognizes the possibility of only one “cause” of war, and every attempt to further analyze and investigate deeper causes of war is automatically perceived through the zero-sum lens, as an attempt to justify or excuse the unjust side in war. No such thing happens when analyzing other, extremely morally troubling and disturbing phenomena as we invest significant effort into attempting to explain evil without this effort ever being understood as a justification attempt. The author demonstrates how the described approach in Just War Theory prevents us from fully understanding war, and thus implicitly from how to normatively prescribe human actions in and regarding war. The author also asserts that this perspective actually represents a presupposition concerning the possibility of justness of war. The author concludes that, in order to fully understand war and properly morally evaluate it, ethics of war must adopt a non-zero-sum model of distribution of moral responsibility and acknowledge the existence of a wide variety of causes of war.

Combating International Cyber Conflict: A Healthy Just War and International Law Analysis of NATO and Indonesian Policies

This study explores the policies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Indonesia in the context of international cyber conflict, analyzing their alignment with just war theory principles and international legal norms. By applying just war theory principles and international law, this study aims to analyze the responsible conduct of states in the realm of cyber warfare, fostering a more secure and stable international environment. This study employs a qualitative analytical method, examining the policies of NATO and Indonesia through the ethical lens of just war theory and the legal perspective of international law. The principles of jus ad bellum (righteous reasons for conflict), jus in bello (ethical conduct during conflict), and international cooperation guide the analysis, providing a comprehensive framework for evaluating the policies of these entities. Adherence to righteous reasons for cyber response, ethical conduct during cyber conflict, and international legal norms are paramount in resolving conflicts arising from cyber threats. By incorporating just war theory principles into their policies, entities can demonstrate ethical responsibility, minimize unnecessary harm, and foster an environment conducive to conflict resolution. Through this approach, NATO and Indonesia, alongside the global community, can contribute to the development of a secure and stable digital landscape. This paper's novelty lies in its integrated analysis of NATO and Indonesia's policies, considering both ethical and legal dimensions through the lens of just war theory and international law.

War Ethics and War Morality: An Introduction

War ethics might sound as impossible combination of words – how justify what seems to be unjustifiable? War is prima facie unjustifiable. However, wars are a fact of human reality, and those among us who are unfortunate to live in times of war – in a way it is all of us – would know that the reality is not just a possibility, that prima facie designation does not help in answering what must be done, that unjustifiability does not imply impossibility. We must understand to be able to explain, and to explain to have a valid evaluation, especially when what is happening is important and with far-reaching consequences. Wars are such phenomena. We live amid such phenomena, and we need to understand not only their tragic and often cataclysmic nature, but also their meaning, their structure and logic of their functioning. We should understand that war is not something that happens only to others, nor that it is the matter of the past. In the present volume we have thirty-three essays examining war from many angles, sometimes from the opposite standpoints, exploring some of the most intriguing issues of warfare in times characterized by radical changes in the world in turmoil. The contributions in present volume give an overview of the world’s thinking about war. The volume is certainly incomplete and unfinished, but it gives a lot of thought-provoking incentives to think about the most important aspects of warfare and its broad phenomenology.

Just War contra Drone Warfare

In this article, I present a two-pronged argument for the immorality of contemporary, asymmetric drone warfare, based on my new interpretations of the just war principles of “proportionality” and “moral equivalence of combatants” (MEC). The justification for these new interpretations is that drone warfare continues to this day, having survived despite arguments against it that are based on traditional interpretations of just war theory (including one from Michael Walzer). On the basis of my argument, I echo Harry Van der Linden’s call for “an international treaty banning all weaponized UAV [uninhabited aerial vehicles].”