A realistic view of the Just War

Contemporary Review, April, 2004 by R.D. Kernohan

The Just War Revisited. Oliver O'Donovan. Cambridge University Press. [pounds sterling]35.00 (US$53.00). 139 pages. ISBN 0-521-53899-8.

Oliver O'Donovan is Regius Professor of Practical and Moral Theology at Oxford and a canon of Christ Church. His book is dedicated to his old Oxford colleague, Rowan Williams, who has since become Archbishop of Canterbury and with whom he was in 'friendly disagreement' during the first Gulf War of 1991. The early part of the book is based on lectures given at Aberdeen in 2001 but some additional material and the development of these 'Christian reflections in a time of war and rumours of war', have been influenced by events since. A chapter on whether war crimes trials can be 'morally satisfying' stands rather apart. It took shape as a contribution to an as yet unpublished major study of British war trials of Japanese war criminals after 1945.

Professor O'Donovan's book was completed late in 2002. Anyone who seeks a commentary on the Second Gulf War and its aftermath will find the concluding pages rather oracular in tone, though the oracle may have misjudged the best timing. They discuss international law, the United Nations, and the use of force, but with an assumption that clear, forthcoming evidence might create consensus and clarity of decision. To an extent the book was overtaken by events. For example, it gives space to an analysis of views which the Church of England's bishops submitted to a House of Commons committee on Irak and suggests they prepared a theologically dodgy dossier, in that its 'moral content' consisted of no more than recommendations. They are gently chided for appearing to 'dictate concrete policy conclusions' which might have seemed out of date within a month, rather than effectively communicating 'the moral posture of those who recognise their responsibilities for Irak in Christ Jesus'. But as events have turned out, and given the coalition action without fresh U.N. authority or consensus, Professor O'Donovan's concerns on the substantial issues may seem to draw him back into the episcopal sheepfold.

The author's more general critique of Church leaders is that they are tempted 'to conceal the fact when they do, in truth, support resort to armed conflict, however reluctantly, on certain possible grounds'. But this loses some of its force when both the bishops' views and this criticism of them have been by-passed by actions creating new dilemmas, perhaps more concerned with lasting peace and stable order than with a 'just war'.

However the book's substance stands apart from recent events and from the justice or otherwise of any particular war. It rejects pacifism in the now colloquial sense (as distinct from love of peace). Its theme is that modern theology must draw at least as much on Grotius and Locke as on Augustine and Aquinas and must relate to the realities of politics and technology, among which are the fearful potential not only of nuclear but of biological and chemical weapons. Much remains of the traditional attempt to establish conditions for a 'just war', but the greatest emphasis is to relate the use and threat of force to principles of law. To considerations of 'defence, reparation, and punishment' Professor O'Donovan adds: 'The decisive point in the crystallising of cause for war is that international authority must be vindicated'. But his argument still depends on the concept of proportionality. Even an affronted international authority must require 'substantial underlying causes of other kinds'. There must be a grave danger from not going to war.

These themes are developed with a clarity not always found in philosophical approaches to high moral purposes. That clarity sometimes exposes the gap between the way moral dilemmas and political dilemmas are perceived, not just in the tensions of power-blocs and inter-State conflicts but in what one of the chapters calls 'counter-insurgency war'. The dilemmas are most acute when those with political ends use terrorist means. The author's approach is inspired by concepts of morality and reason as well as faith, but they are remote from the kind of applied fanaticism that goes with the psychology of terrorism. Those who make practical decisions (for example on the expediency of treating terrorists as 'political prisoners') may concede that his arguments are relevant to Irish, Basque, or Latin-American rebellion. But how remote they seem from the Middle East.