Justice in War: Michael Walzer

 Justice in War

 

 

Michael Walzer is the pre-eminent exponent of modern Just War theory. This is the philosophical tradition that debates the “justice” of going to war and the moral constraints that should be observed in the waging of it. 

 

The opposing theory, if theory it is, is the realist position that there are no rules or constraints, as infamously summarised by an Athenian delegation to the besieged island of Melos in the 5^th century BCE: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. The Melians argued that the Athenian assault was unjust. They were overwhelmed; males slaughtered and women and children sold into slavery, all to further the purpose of Athenian strategic power in the Aegean.

 

The concepts of Jus ad Bellum (justice in going to war) and Jus in Bello (justice in the conduct of war) have their roots in ancient times (Aristotle – although his pupil Alexander was an arch realist) and in medieval times (Aquinas). Walzer says that the concepts were largely pushed into philosophical or theological backwaters from early modern times.

 

The Vietnam War changed matters, according to Walzer. That war was waged, at enormous cost to civilian lives, for dubious geo-political cold war reasons, and brought forth great moral outrage in the world - including in the US itself. 

 

Philosophers, led by Walzer, took up the morality of law again, and put it back into the mainstream – even into military academies. Walzer’s book “Just and Unjust Wars” was published in the 1970s and became, in that lazy accolade, a “classic”.

 

In the early 2000s Walzer published “Arguing About War”, a collection of essays informed by, or responding to, further conflicts: in Rwanda, in the Balkans, and especially the two wars against Iraq in the 1990s and 2003. Now in his 80s, Walzer’s opinion is being sought, of course, about Gaza..

 

Re-reading the latter book, I admire the lucidity of his writing, his lack of pomposity and readiness to admit that he can become mired in paradox and uncertainty.

 

Walzer is also realistic. He notes that most leaders that go to war claim to be justified, even if their aim is subjugation or worse. The Romans often claimed treaty violation before conquest; Putin claims Russian self-defence against the Western puppet state of Ukraine.

 

There are few aspects of war that Walzer hasn’t thought about with intelligence and humanity. Not for him is the common philosopher’s trick of setting up stick people in thought experiments and moralising about their just deserts – for example “combatants/non-combatants”, the former liable justly to be killed. Walzer mentions the fate of countless soldiers in World War 1 sent to their death in pulverising battles by incompetent strategy and tactics. Where was Justice in War then? The helplessness of the soldier’s lot is of course lastingly remembered by the writers of that generation.

 

Too often the idea of “combatants” is taken to mean those professional, highly trained, career soldiers that accept the risks of war with clear sight. It is from among their ranks, of course, that the commanders that have immediate influence over the just conduct of war are appointed.

 

The first principle of Jus in Bello is the protection of the innocent from “unnecessary“harm. Immediately the categories of innocence become debatable. What of the reluctant conscript, scared and unused to arms? Does the mere fact of giving him a uniform and a weapon remove his innocence? No doubt the realities of war will in many circumstances not discriminate; but Walzer places the responsibility of looking after this person squarely on his superiors, as in his excoriation of the generals of WW1.

 

And what of true non-combatants? Another slippery slope. There are those (eg munitions workers) that directly support the war effort; there are those (eg family) that support the direct supporters; there are those (perhaps a big majority) whose positive morale is crucial to the continuation of a country’s war effort.

 

All these porous distinctions were in play during the RAF’s bombing campaign in WW2, which destroyed whole cities and many of their inhabitants. They are perhaps in play in Gaza (it is reported that various levels of civilian casualties, calibrated to the military value of the target, are “acceptable “).

 

This line of thinking is perhaps an erosion of Just War theory and a tilt towards its realist opposite: inter arma silent leges- there are no laws (or morality) in war. Win at all innocent costs.

 

Walzer rejects the realist view. There must be moral limits in warfare.

 

But… Walzer writes about “emergency ethics”. He invokes this concept in the circumstances where a nation or community feels existentially threatened. Given the choice between extermination (in some relevant sense) and survival, the polity breaches all moral norms to defend itself. In practice this most probably means slaughtering (most likely by bombs or missiles) the civilians of the enemy.

 

Walzer says that there is in recent history perhaps one narrow valid example- when Britain was at extreme risk of an existential defeat by Nazi Germany. The all-out bombing campaign in the period 1940-1 was perhaps justified. But not thereafter, when the fortunes of war turned.

 

One hears echoes of this concept of emergency ethics in some of the Israeli government’s justifications for its actions in Gaza: Hamas and its backers pose an existential threat to Israel: they want to eliminate the Jewish state. Therefore, there are few moral constraints on Israel’s response.

 

Walzer argues that in this particular conflict Israel is not (other than theoretically) existentially threatened. And that the governmenthas proclaimed “revenge” rather than “justice “. Revenge is not a foundation for a just war.

 

In his discussion of “emergency ethics” Walzer sets up an irreconcilable opposition between conventional imbedded morality (thou shalt not kill) and the survival of the existentially threatened community. The opposition is in the fact that, to survive, the community must do evil (kill the innocent), and that remains evil, regardless of the justice of survival.

 

Walzer holds that Hiroshima was evil, and not justified by any threat to the survival of the United States.

 

The central point in the discussion of emergency ethics perhaps applies to all of Just War theory. If, in this imperfect world, where lethal conflict readily arises, it is sometimes “just” to go to war in self defence or to prevent unjust aggression, just war does not suspend morality. Rather it overrides morality, hopefully only in ways proportionate to justice. Harm, including lethal harm, to the innocent and even to most of the guilty, is never a good.

 

April 2024