War is Not Just

War is Not Just

By L. Lance Boothe

Let us discuss war as it is, not as we would like it to be. Regulating war is pointless, and our time and energy would be better spent fighting war quickly, decisively, and with single-minded ruthlessness rather than fretting over ethics. Acting as if law applies to war is a foolish hinderance on its conduct. War drives toward extremes. War should go to these extremes as quickly as possible where it is fought in such a vicious manner that it persuades enemies and neutrals alike that war with us is not worth waging. After all, the victor writes history – “What I have written I have written,” the infamous Pontius Pilate declared[1] – and in so doing the narrative is established.

The justness of the cause in war depends on perspective. As the Athenians told the Melians in 416 B.C. according to Thucydides, “justice is only a factor in human decisions when the parties are on equal footing. Those in positions of power do what their power permits, while the weak have no choice but to accept it.”[2] Melian independence meant nothing to Athens. The Athenians pursued their own interests. They were justified in their own eyes. Subsequently, Athens made quick work of Melos, killing every man on the island and enslaving the rest. “History teaches us what human beings are like in reality rather than what we would like them to be,”[3] affirming Niccolo Machiavelli’s observation that “a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.”[4] Likewise, “history shows that some men are willing to do evil in order to accomplish good”[5] – good, certainly as they see it, whether in pursuit of self-interest (defensive, economic, or ideological), dominating the uncivilized (bringing order to chaos), or just not being afraid to do the Lord’s work (ensuring others reap what they sow). That post-modern man[6] cannot seem to come to grips with the paradox of doing evil to achieve good demonstrates a failure in appreciating the human condition. Thus, betraying a profoundly anti-human sentiment, which seeks to alter our nature – selfish and cruel, yet altruistic and just. And when we think we are better than our ancestors and making high-minded ethical progress to alter human nature through law and social contract, the verdict of history says we are not.

Carl von Clausewitz, the West’s foremost apostle of war, claims “war is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”[7] The “continuation of policy” part from his most famous aphorism means pursuit of power. As Clausewitz elaborates, the object of war is to impose one’s will on the enemy – thus the realization of power. [8] The “by other means” part is euphemism for using violence to achieve the “policy,” or stratagem, to gain power. Clausewitz expounds on this point with unerring logic throughout the rest of his work – a book oft cited, yet seldom read (particularly by those who claim soldiering as their profession). His logic:  the end in war is power over one’s enemy; to achieve that end, one uses unmitigated violence; therefore, the end is not justified by the means, power is its own justification. War is about power. Let us hold that thought for now.

Back to Niccolo, when but a young lad under the tutelage of the Dominican firebrand Girolamo Savonarola and on his way to a privileged position in the clerisy, an abrupt lesson in power at the hands of the Pope and the Florentine establishment forever altered Niccolo’s course. Thus, opening his eyes to the world as it really is, not as he thought it to be. After watching his mentor, the moral crusader Savonarola, put to death by the Grandees of Florence, it dawned on Machiavelli that the establishment is not interested in morality, only power. When morality became inconvenient to their ends, it was swept aside. And a poor, austere, and pious monk went to the gallows for the inconvenience of his sanctimony. Machiavelli looking on wept. Thereafter, Machiavelli put away childish things as St Paul admonishes,[9] and Niccolo sought to understand and explain how power and its corollary war works.

Machiavelli is best known for his opus magnum The Prince, a work generally considered amoral. Many readers assume The Prince provides a window into Niccolo’s soul. Perhaps.  Though such perceptions do the man and realpolitik little justice. But of more interest and less renown than The Prince are Machiavelli’s writings on the art of war.[10] Once the reader gets beyond the dialogue format and anachronism of 16^th Century and ancient warfare, Machiavelli’s insistence on the superiority of the Roman way of war reveals much. For Machiavelli war is amoral. War is an endeavor only taken out of necessity “for the acquisition of glory.”[11] The ancients found glory necessary. Glory conveys power. The ambition of the powerful drives societies to excel through violence (a truth Machiavelli discovered at the end of Savonarola’s rope). And this brings us back to the cold, hard logic of war.

When we last left Clausewitz, a Machiavellian adherent, his most famous aphorism was invoked. Let us summarize his logic in a few simple syllogisms. Power is to impose one’s will on another. In war, combatants seek to impose their will on each other, ergo the objective of war is power. Violence is used to obtain power. In war, violence is killing. Killing breaks the will of one’s enemy to resist. Therefore, killing is war. In war, violence occurs to impose will, ergo war is killing to attain power.

Killing has precious little to do with morality. In fact, by the commands of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, killing is forbidden. Thou shall not kill.[12] This command is unequivocal, literally written in stone. To look to the Judeo-Christian ethos for justification in killing is a fool’s errand. Regardless, in some military and policy circles this errand has become a Grail Quest; enter “Just War Theory.”

The twin pillars of the theory are jus ad bellum and jus in bello – a right to war and the right conduct of war. Accordingly, for a war to be “right” it must be waged by legitimate authority for a true cause and with right intentions, which, of course, conveys the “right” on one participant (or group thereof) to slaughter their opponent(s). As to the second pillar, the slaughter must be governed. After all, let us not be the base creatures that we are. The brutality of war must be mitigated; therefore, war should and must be governed by rules.

Where did all this high-mindedness originate? Stepping back in time, again, we come to the 5^th Century A.D. and the diocese of St Augustine of Hippo. In his opus magnum, The City of God, Book XIX, Chapter 7 to be exact, the regal St Augustine declares,

the wise man, they say, will wage just wars. Surely, if he remembers that he is a human being, he will rather lament the fact that he is faced with the necessity of waging just wars; for if they were not just, he would not have to engage in them, and consequently there would be no wars for a wise man. For it is the injustice of the opposing side that lays on the wise man the duty of waging wars; and this injustice is assuredly to be deplored by a human being, since it is the injustice of human beings, even though no necessity for war should arise from it.

For St Augustine, war is necessary, but not, and you are making it necessary for me to fight you because you are unjust! In fact, your injustice compels me to a duty to wage war against you, ergo you are forcing me to slaughter you against my better nature; such is the wisdom of St Augustine. Machiavelli and Clausewitz would find this reasoning specious. Julius Caesar would smile.

St Augustine is considered the greatest mind of Christianity. According to eminent scholars, an incalculable intellectual and moral debt to St Augustine has incurred as the man who is “the true creator of Western theology,” laying “the foundation of Western culture” and standing “between the ancient world and the Middle Ages as the first great constructive thinker of the Western Church, dominating like a pyramid antiquity and succeeding ages.”[13] For Eduard Norden, the foremost Latinist of his time, “[St Augustine’s] philosophic-historical work remains one of the most imposing creations of all time; it posits a capacity and originality of mind which none other possessed either in his own day or for a thousand years after.”[14] High praise, indeed, coming from the esteemed Norden. So, upon a few sentences from St Augustine, and the magnificent edifice of his creation, hangs all the law and the prophets for “Just War” theorists.

Surely, there is more than an appeal to the authority of a great theologian upon which to concoct an elaborate schema to moralize the immoral and govern the ungovernable that is war?  Unfortunately, no. Tossing around a couple Latin phrases and attaching self-serving criteria to them no matter how voluminous, erudite, and pious, does not a valid construct make. A few sentences penned over 1500 years ago from a great man, and far be it for us to cast judgement on either the man or his work, do not make war just, nor explain who has legitimate authority to wage it. Inferring, as St Augustine does, that only the proper authorities should have a monopoly on violence does not make it so, much less confer on them an exclusive right to war – jus ad bellum.

What constitutes legitimacy? Ink on paper? Perhaps 535 + 1 self-serving politicians as found in our res publica? Or is it a potentate ennobled as First Citizen? Or the Pope in Rome? Or a shaman blowing sounds of the rainforest onto the heads of silly rich people at Davos? Speaking of Davos, perhaps just being fabulously wealthy conveys legitimacy. After all, he who has the gold, makes the rules. If none of this seems terribly legitimate, then maybe legitimacy can be found in We the People. Of course, that can never go off the rails – recall the Melian Dialogue mentioned previously? Let us consider something a bit more recent like Gaza. There a terrorist organization gets voted into power through the people exercising democracy in true Islamic fashion – one vote, one time, one way. Hamas terrorists then proceed to murder any opponents to their rule and go on to commit the most horrific atrocities in recent memory; all with the acquiescence of Palestinians living in Gaza who – of their own volition – put Hamas in power. The uncomfortable truth, which we need to get comfortable with, is that everyone is justified in their own eyes. This is nowhere more apt than with Hamas in specific and with governments in general, elected or not. Those in power are going to do whatever they want to do, and under the color of law (or not), calling it legit. As the Athenians explained to the Melians, “we…know that people always seek to rule whenever they can. It is in their very nature.”[15] We would do best before appealing to the authority of a mob to remember Oliver Cromwell’s rebuke to the Rump Parliament (ironically, that he installed):  an immovable legislature is more obnoxious than an immovable king; “you have sat too long for any good you have been doing ... In the name of God, go!”[16] The last time our Congress bothered to abide by the Constitution and issue a declaration of war was 11 December 1941, yet how many wars have we fought since? Like Cromwell’s Rump Parliament, the incumbents of our Congress have sat too long for any good they have done, so in the name of God, do go. We can lie to ourselves but let us not lie to each other. The legitimacy of Congress is but a veneer, and a weak one at that, and the imprimis of its members who too often demonstrate scant willingness to be ruled by law, the very law they make, hardly confers on them a right to war through resolutions authorizing the use of force.

As if the first pillar of Just War Theory was not questionable enough, the second stands in the realm of delusion compounded by hypocrisy. Clausewitz exposes it best:

  Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed:  war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst. The maximum use of force is in no way incompatible with the simultaneous use of intellect. If one side uses force without compunction, undeterred by the bloodshed it involves, while the other side refrains, the first will gain the upper hand. That side will force the other to follow suit; each will drive its opponent toward extremes, and the only limiting factors are the counterpoises inherent in war.

  This is how the matter must be seen. It would be futile – even wrong – to try and shut one’s eyes to what war really is from sheer distress at its brutality…To introduce the principle of moderation into the theory of war itself would always lead to logical absurdly.[17]

Before fixating on Carl’s reference to “limiting factors” from the “counterpoises inherent in war,” know that he is talking about the physical limitations of muzzle loading firearms and operations at the speed of foot and galloping horse on the conduct of war, not high-minded constraints imposed on combatants by some council, synod, or convention. Declarations from these assemblies seeking to govern war are the naïve constructs of sincere men with misplaced sensibilities, most of whom would not know war if they found themselves in one. The counterpoises inherent to modern warfare are far different in speed, scope, autonomy, and lethality than whose of the 19^th Century, and the tender sensibilities of well-intentioned people reflected in conventions or treaties are not going to limit them. Their counsel in matters of life and death need not be countenanced. For as Clausewitz points out, in war, their type of folly is the worst.[18] To overcome war’s peril requires us to be clear eyed, calculating, ruthless, and lucky. 

Unilaterally constraining our actions and prohibiting the use of certain weapons in the face of enemies who employ all means at their disposal in war and operate without constraint courts disaster and invites defeat. Does any serious American citizen believe Hamas acts with restraint? Or Vladimir Putin? How about the Communist Chinese when they decide to invade Taiwan? Do we really believe that Iran will not use nuclear weapons, if they had them? Who do we believe they would target, just combatants? Of course not, so let us put away ill-conceived notions about fair play and rules in war. It is important, nay, essential to our survival, to see our adversaries as they really are, and accept that they will do their worst, forcing us to up the ante.

In battle, reality reigns supreme. War is an act of force, and there is no limit to its application.[19] Our policymakers and military leaders must stop acting as if the battlefield (or target area) is inundated with innocents to be avoided. As the Hamas-Israel War is exposing, this perception is unmoored from reality – 75% of Gazan Palestinians support Hamas (up 5% since the war began) and “more than 90% believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive.”[20] History shows that war has always been the nation, tribe, or clan in arms. Clausewitz proves right again. We fool ourselves to believe otherwise. Such cognitive dissonance is particularly pernicious in the danger to which it exposes our soldiers. When policymakers and military leaders become preoccupied with collateral damage (euphemism for killing the “wrong” people), rules of engagement, and unrealistic convention prohibitions, they mire soldiers in a Sisyphean feat. This wastes lives and ordnance and compounds the task at hand, risking mission failure, or at best, garnering inconclusive results. This seems all too often the point. Utopians seek to ban mankind’s most brutal manifestation by making war too hard to wage as they suppose. Disabusing Utopian notions and exposing their pusillanimity is a topic for another time. Suffice it to say, the human experience is tragic, and no amount of regulation will change this fact – a Hobbesian world it is, and a Hobbesian world it shall remain[21] – and power accepts no challenge to it, discarding any rule which stands in its way. Nowhere is power more manifest than in war. Nor is war a court of law with due process governing its administration. There is no presumption of innocence on the battlefield and no protection of rights. There are those doing the fighting (that is to say the killing), those in the way, and those supporting the combatants either directly or indirectly, tacitly or otherwise, and everyone is fair game – welcome to the jungle.

The hard truth is despite our best intentions and efforts to mitigate war’s savagery, we will always be compelled to apply greater force. War is a zero-sum game as General of the Army Douglas MacArthur reminds us. “In war there is no substitute for victory.”[22] If the worst general in American history can figure it out, we have no excuse. We knew this at one time. It led our forefathers to firebomb cities, culminating in two atomic strikes to end the most destructive war in world history. These men did what had to be done so that we could enjoy liberty and prosperity today, establishing the United States as the most powerful country on earth. Let us be thankful that they were willing to do evil to accomplish good.

Also, let us be honest. Those who would impose restrictions on war, with few exceptions, endanger someone else’s kid or spouse. Their hypocrisy is deplorable. And when the chips are truly down and their power (or life) is at stake, whatever piques of conscience they may have had that led to their remonstrations on war and somber calls for restraint are conveniently discarded in the name of expediency. Black sites, drone strikes on US citizens (their constitutional rights be damned!), indefinite incarceration with imperceptible due process for those captured abroad, and “righteous” strikes on those who are merely suspect, producing collateral damage within sovereign nations where no war is declared as our Constitution mandates, smacks of such hypocrisy and conceit of power that any pretext to the rule of law is appalling and darkly comical. Power is capricious and arbitrary indeed. War is dangerous and ugly enough. Let us not compound it with hypocrisy.

For the moralists of jus ad bellum et jus in bello doctrina, put away the sanctimony. While no doubt St Augustine had the solace of his conscience as he starved to death under Vandal assault on his beloved Hippo Regius, had it been within his power and ability at the time to carpet bomb the invaders, collateral damage within Numidia would have been the last thing on his mind. Lacking power to save himself, St Augustine perished, and with him the way of life he cherished. War is a rough schoolmaster indeed.[23] The US military is not composed of theologians or warrior monks, nor would we want it to be. The men and women in service to our country are ordinary people placed at times into the extraordinary circumstance of war where they are called upon to do evil to accomplish good. St Augustine would appreciate the paradox and so ought we.

Power respects power, and in war, might is right. Fight war quickly and ruthlessly, as it will devolve into brutality anyway, and in the process the message will be sent to adversaries, neutrals, and even friends alike that war with us is not worth waging.