The Just War Theory

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler

The present Iranian conflict has rekindled discussions of the Just War Theory, which can be traced at least back to Cicero, the Roman orator who lived before the birth of Jesus Christ. Christian codification of Just War is generally considered to have originated within the Catholic Church, specifically from the man considered to be its father, St. Augustine of Hippo, who lived from 354-430. Some have argued actual just war is non-existent in a Christian sense; however, there is a right to defend oneself against an aggressor.

Just War Theory contains two types of justice. The first is jus ad bellum (justice before the war). Dutch Christian, Hugo Grotius (1538-1645), the Father of International Law, defined six conditions for jus ad bellum in his 1625 treatise, De Jure Belli Ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace):

1. Just cause—includes the intention of self-defense and a specific objective. The cause and intent of the war must be deemed just in God’s eyes, e.g. protecting the innocent, restoring order, etc.

2. Authorization (proportionality)—the situation is serious enough to warrant war.

3. Public declaration—fair warning must be given so that all means of conflict avoidance can be explored.

4. Reasonable chance of success—objectives are attainable. It is wrong to waste human life for causes with little or no prospect of success.

5. Declaration only by a legitimate authority—war must be waged through the proper channels. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to authorize war.

6. It must be the last resort—all other options have failed. War should never be waged for bogus or false flag reasons.

According to Grotius, the second type of justice is jus in bello (justice during the war), based on the following three conditions:

1. Legitimate targets—war should be directed only at combatants. Total War is illegitimate and is typically identified with barbarism.

2. Proportionality—the response must be proportionate to the injury inflicted and should not be excessive.

3. Treatment of prisoners—once captured, combatants become noncombatants. Torture is not an option in a moral society.

The late historian and libertarian economist, Murray Rothbard, contended America had two just wars—the side of the colonists in the American Revolution and the Confederates in the War Between the States. He said: “A just war exists when a people tries to ward off the threat of coercive domination by another people, or to overthrow an already—existing domination. A war is unjust, on the other hand, when a people try to impose domination on another people, or try to retain an already existing rule over them.”

Christian libertarian Laurence Vance referenced an insightful perspective from an anonymous Baptist preacher from a 1938 issue of The Christian Review:

The war spirit is so wrought into the texture of governments, and the habits of national thinking, and even into our very festivals and pomps, that its occasional recurrence is deemed a matter of unavoidable necessity…The causes of war, as well as war itself, are contrary to the gospel. It originates in the worst passions and the worst aims. We may always trace it to the thirst of revenge, the acquisition of territory, the monopoly of commerce, the quarrels of kings, the intrigues of ministers, the coercion of religious opinion, the acquisition of disputed crowns, or some other source, equally culpable; but never has any war, devised by man, been founded on holy tempers and Christian principles.

To fully understand Rothbard and Vance, the most conspicuous American example is the War Between the States. President Jefferson Davis, a student of history and the constitution and initially an opponent of secession, recognized the Radical Republicans’ goal of transforming the Federal Republic from a voluntary confederation of States into a highly centralized government. The Radicals and their sycophants would be in control and Southern representation would be minimal. Davis yearned for a return to the original intent of the confederation, lamenting that the best way to preserve the constitution was by leaving the Union. Echoing Jefferson, his namesake, Davis stated, “The withdrawal of a State from a league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The government of the State remains unchanged as to all internal affairs. It is only its external or confederate relations that are altered. To term this action of a Sovereign a ‘rebellion’ is a gross abuse of language.”

In a Christian sense, acts of coercion and aggression do not constitute just war.

Sources: Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler, War Is A Racket (Los Angeles, California: Feral House, 2003); Laurence Vance, “Christianity and War,” LewRockwell.com, October 29, 2003, at: https://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig4/vance1.html; “Jefferson Davis Quotes,” American Civil War Story, 2012 -2016, http://www.americancivilwarstory.com/jefferson-davis-quotes.html; and “Chapter Thirty-One: The Just War Theory,” Union At All Costs: From Confederation to Consolidation, by John M. Taylor. NOTE: A valid argument can be made that the War of 1812 was also a Just War since the colonies were striving to maintain the independence won after the Revolutionary War. As referenced in a previous article, in 1864, J.P. Morgan stated: “I supported President Lincoln. I believed his war policy would be the only way to save the country, but I see my mistake. I visited Washington a few weeks ago, and I saw the corruption of the present administration—and so long as Abraham Lincoln and his Cabinet are in power, so long will war continue. And for what? For the preservation of the Constitution and the Union? No, but for the sake of politicians and government contractors.” (Page 11 of the December 25, 1922, edition of Barron’s. Original source: New Haven Register; copied in New York World, September 15, 1864.)

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