Just War?

Christianity originally was a pacifist religion. Jesus had taught that in the face of evil we must "turn the other cheek" and warned that "those who live by the sword will die by the sword." The first Christians, it seems, perhaps even Jesus himself, were convinced the world was about to end -- so what was there to save? Christians avoided serving in the army of pagan empire of Rome. It was only when the world didn't suddenly end and the Roman empire became officially Christian that a "just war theory" was developed to enable Christendom to defend itself against the barbarian hordes.

Today, this just war teaching is formulated in various ways, usually distinguishing between the right to go to war on the one hand, and the rules governing the conduct of the war, on the other. Although there is bound to be some overlapping and confusion between these two, in the first list of conditions we usually find:

- a persistent grave injustice, that is, a continuing evil that has still to be corrected -- in other words, there must be a "just cause".

- the failure of peaceful means to resolve the conflict;

- due proportion -- that is, will going to war result in worse evil than the evil that needs to be fought?

- hope of success.

Also, often found in this first list is a declaration of war by legitimate authority and a "right intention" -- this latter forbidding acts of war done solely out of a spirit of retaliation or "to get even".

But with this latter, we also seem to be getting into the questions of how a war is conducted or fought. So here we run into the following cautions:

- avoidance, if possible, of killing except in self-defense;

- avoidance of killing or injuring innocent civilians;

- complete outlawing of intrinsically evil acts such as torture, rape, or even assassination, as weapons or "tactics" in the conduct of war.

Obviously, there are bound to be problems in fulfilling such conditions, particularly those in the latter "conduct" list. How can you avoid killing one who is out to kill you? And even in the process of eliminating armed opposition, how many unintended civilian deaths (or "collateral damage" as the Pentagon calls it) can be tolerated before the "due proportion" requirement for a just war has been completely violated? It is this last problem that calls into question the legitimacy of nuclear weapons, and perhaps chemical and biological weapons, in just about any form.

It seems to me, in the present situation, we could clarify these matters a lot more if instead of calling this a "War" we simply called it an "International Police Action", one designed to eliminate terrorism as a substitute for rational conversation, diplomacy, and the settlement of disputes by the UN or the prosecution of international criminals by the World Court. Such use of the military that is necessary should be seen as a kind of "SWAT" team operation carried out only as a last resort. This way, not only many Americans, but even many others in the world who are becoming increasingly uneasy about what kind of a "war" we are getting into might see things in a different light. Otherwise, the greater or more general terror that modern war and talk of war is bound to generate will succeed only in creating more terrorists.

R. W. Kropf 10/29/2001

Note: The material used in this article was largely drawn from an article on "War" by Rene' Coste in the concise Encyclopedia of Theology edited by Karl Rahner, and published by Crossroads/Seabury Press, 1975.

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