Just war divide: one tradition, two views

Christian Century, August 14, 2002 by David P. Gushee

SPEAKING AT THE U.S. Military Academy in June, President Bush offered an expansive statement articulating a doctrine of preemptive action against rogue states and terrorist groups. Iraq was not mentioned, but subsequent statements suggest the West Point speech laid the foundation for war against that nation. If the president moves ahead with these plans, Christians will once again face a decision about whether to support military action.

If that day comes, Christian thinkers undoubtedly will break out the just war theory. Every time U.S. leaders sound the alarm for war, this ancient tradition is put to work. The counterterrorist war in Afghanistan was the latest occasion. In the 1990s just war theory was applied to actions in Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Haiti and elsewhere.

But a chorus of dissatisfaction with just war theory is gaining strength in the U.S., and not just from pacifists and others who dissent from the tradition on principle. The tradition itself has been split apart. Politically conservative Christians tend to find in the just war theory grounds for support of nearly all U.S. military actions. Politically liberal Christians tend to find in the theory grounds for opposition to nearly all U.S. military actions.

The most pessimistic reading of this divide is that the just war theory has decayed into an ornament used by partisans to shroud their political loyalties under an illusion of "objective" confirmation. The deeper reality is that there are two different kinds of just war theories, rooted in theoretical differences and especially in different assessments of American behavior: there is "soft" just war theory and "hard" just war theory.

While I use the term "soft" for the more dovish stance and "hard" for the more hawkish perspective, I do not mean to prejudice the discussion by these terms. The labels could be reversed: the antiwar position could be called "hard" because it tends to apply just war criteria stringently and thus rule out support for most wars. Yet it makes more intuitive sense to me to label them as I have.

The soft just war stance is assumed in "The Challenge of Peace" (1983), a key cold-war-era document by the U.S. Catholic bishops. The hard just war position is taken by a writer such as Keith Pavlischek, who serves at the Center for Public Justice in Washington.

Soft just war theory is characterized by seven key components: a strongly articulated horror of war; a strong presumption against war; a skepticism about government claims; the use of just war theory as a tool for citizen discernment and prophetic critique; a pattern of trusting the efficacy of international treaties, multilateral strategies and the perspectives of global peace and human rights groups and the international press; a quite stringent application of just war criteria; and a claim of common ground with Christian pacifists.

"The Challenge of Peace," for example, presented a stark condemnation of the savagery and horror of war, especially modern warfare and an envisioned nuclear war. While governments have the right to defend their people, the bishops emphasized that conflict resolution and nonviolent means of national defense are most in keeping with the call of Jesus.

Only if "extraordinarily strong reasons" exist "for overriding the presumption in favor of peace and against war" may war be considered. Even then, just war theory's primary function is to "restrict and reduce" war's horrors. "The presumption that binds all Christians" is that "the possibility of taking even one human life is something we should consider in fear and trembling."

The classic "entry into war" criteria were then reviewed--just cause, competent authority, right intention and so on. Christian citizens must apply these criteria carefully in analyzing any government's call to war. The discussion of competent authority notes bitter divisions in American life over whether many U.S. military actions have met this test. The bishops' reflection on comparative justice emphasized limiting both the ferocity of war and any kind of moral absolutism on our part. It also noted the role of propaganda and the danger of national self-righteousness.

The treatment of war as a last resort lamented the difficulty of applying this requirement given the lack of "sufficient internationally recognized authority" to mediate disputes. The bishops called for support for the United Nations, the "last hope for peace" on earth. Discussion of proportionality emphasized the grave costs of war, recalling that this same body of bishops publicly rejected the Vietnam War in 1971 due to its failure to meet this test.

The section on just war theory closed with a warm affirmation of the value of a pacifist witness within the Catholic Church, claiming that it shares with just war theory "a common presumption against the use of force as a means of settling disputes."

HARD JUST WAR THEORY reverses these emphases, replacing them with the following: a presumption against injustice and disorder rather than against war; an assumption that war is tragic but inevitable in a fallen world and that war is a necessary task of government; a tendency to trust the U.S. government and its claims of need for military action; an emphasis on just war theory as a tool to aid policymakers and military personnel in their decisions; an inclination to distrust the efficacy of international treaties and to downplay the value of international actors and perspectives; a less stringent or differently oriented application of some just war criteria; and no sense of common ground with Christian pacifists.