I belong to the generation that fondly remembers Edwin Starr’s 1970 Motown hit, “War.” It was meaningful to our Vietnam generation because it both reflected our predominant philosophy of war (generally pacifist) and apparently justified our antipathy toward the specific American war of the age. It was most likely recorded and marketed with that zeitgeist in mind.
54 years later, it seems suddenly appropriate to our times, again. We don’t have the specter of conscription in the United States any longer (thanks to the social schism engendered by that previous cataclysm), so there are no large numbers of young Americans sent to die in far away places. But if you tend to think much about the state of the world (outside the United States), you cannot escape the depressing reality that warfare between states, or between tribal groups within a state, has continued unabated, not just for the last half-century, but for all human history – in fact since the earliest neolithic times.
Two different wars are currently capturing much media attention. Seemingly unrelated, one is a European conflict along the lines of a familiar history – a large country invading the territory of a neighboring sovereign country. The other is a more eschatological battle for survival between two neighboring tribes where one controls the powers of state, and the other is trying to assert itself within the confines of those regional power dynamics. It appears to be a war for security on one side, liberation on the other. Both these are full-fledged, bloody wars with little immediate prospect for a truce, or even temporary ceasefire. Despite the Ukraine conflict’s and Gaza war’s high profile in the media, they are by no means the only armed conflicts in the world. If one considers the several lower profile civil wars in Africa and Asia and the precarity of peaceful electoral competition in many Latin American countries where respective political parties enjoy low levels of trust among their voters – and even some troubling murmurs from certain armed groups in this country – it sometimes seems like mankind has not progressed an iota from the stone age. More than anything else that characterizes human society, organized warfare seems to me as by far the most perverse.
Why has this blight never been “solved” in the human condition? The best-known philosopher of war in modern Western thought was Carl von Clausewitz, an aristocratic Prussian with deep military involvement in the Napoleonic Wars. Clausewitz wrote in his iconic work, “On War,” that war – throughout human history – was essentially a political act. “Politics by other means” is his famous quotable definition of war. This view holds that war can be justified by seeing it as a last resort, when no other political solution to a conflict between two groups can be found. But Clausewitz never specifies, in language acceptable to our 21st century minds, how warring parties are to decide that no other political solution exists. He seems to be trying to explain past wars, like his familiar Napoleonic campaigns, without justifying future conflicts.
Others, since Clausewitz, have followed the path of analyzing and classifying wars. There was Leo Tolstoy, in “War and Peace,” who took a cataclysmic approach to war – viewing it as a tragedy, perhaps unavoidable, much like a natural disaster. Nobody was truly responsible for them. Anatol Rapaport sought to classify wars into the political (Clausewitz), the cataclysmic, and the eschatological (Crusades, Armageddon, ISIS, Bolshevik Revolution). But Just War Theory has dominated mainstream Western philosophy for the last hundred years. Oddly, the idea of rules of conduct underlying a “just war” comes from the ancient Hindu Mahabharata. Concepts like proportionality seem to have originated there. Pacifists reject Just War Theory – to them, no war is ever justified. All wars are immoral.
Underlying these traditions, however, is the idea that war must be a last resort. No serious teleological explanations for war accept that it can be justified merely by desire for adventure, or personal gain of a ruler. While revenge is often a driver of warfare, it exemplifies a more realist, less idealistic, approach to the phenomenon. Revenge is not found in Just War Theory.
Today, Israel feels it is fighting an existential threat in Hamas. Many Palestinians feel the same about Israel. At what point is the concept of engaging in war “as a last resort” evaluated by an impartial observer? Is the supposed existential threat more real to one side than the other? What are the objective historical and political (and economic) facts? Just War Theory discounts “feelings” as a legitimate cause of war. And war crimes trials are only held by the victors against the vanquished.
Likewise, national sovereignty for Ukrainians is at least partially ethno-centric. Russia feels that a Ukrainian ethno-state is illegitimate – more of their shared history is characterized by unity between the two than division. But can one state unilaterally decide by force to eliminate another because of “feelings” or even “history”? Just War Theory doesn’t deal with causes of war, only its conduct. The political calculations of Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu may be understandable in Clausewitz’ world, or Tolstoy’s, but do they pass muster in the ethical world of Just War?
If we are truly concerned with avoiding wars, then we need some diplomatic tools. Military strength is one such tool, but only for the sake of deterrence. Something else is needed to resolve those disputes before erupting into armed conflict – whether between states, or between domestic tribes. And if, by miscalculation, or insufficient cognitive empathy between parties, then once inflamed, somehow the guns must be silenced. And, the sooner they are silenced in any armed conflict, the more lives are spared. “Total victory” in any war is an extreme position and our four warring parties dominating the news now need to understand this. From a strictly military analysis, neither the Ukraine conflict nor the Gaza conflict look amenable to such an extreme resolution. The world saw a European tactical situation like the current Ukraine war more than a century ago – it was called the “Great War” and did, indeed, cause empires to crumble, but at what cost? The United States has twice seen in the last half-century the folly of asymmetrical conflict – why can’t Israel learn from our history? Hamas may be destroyed, but what comes after?
I remain a pacifist – I generally reject Just War Theory – but am also inclined toward realism in international politics. There will be times, as there have been throughout human history, when scarce resources, out-of-control fervent identitarian groups, and narcissistic leaders will decide whether to take up arms. The better angels will not always be able to intervene in time. Some of the responsibility lies with all of us. We know what’s right and what’s wrong. And, we (for now) are fortunate enough to live in a democracy where we can exert some influence – especially if we organize around our ideals to oppose those political forces we know to be wrong!
— William Sundwick
Warp and Woof 