Sears: [00:00:00] I'm Michael Sears at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the United States Naval Academy. We continue our discussion about the new any two or three course here at the Naval Academy, and I'm joined by Dr. Roger Herbert, captain, the United States Navy, retired Professor Herbert. Today we're talking about the just war tradition and what it's all about. Can you fill us in?

Herbert: [00:00:24] Yeah, I think I can summarize the just war tradition relatively briefly, but I'll need to sort of back into this by talking about what just war theorists are responding to in the first place. So, so the fundamental question that just war scholars are asking is when, if ever is war morally permissible? Now, in general, there have been three answers to this question. The first is never or is never morally permissible. This is the pacifist response. It essentially asks, you know what? What part of thou shalt not kill? Don't you understand? War means killing other human beings, often on a grand scale. So how can this ever be moral? Killing is wrong. Always in everywhere. Full stop. The second response rejects the question altogether. The realist tradition, as it's known, insists that war is it's neither moral nor immoral. It's amoral. War is an enterprise that exists outside the bounds of morality. In fact, some realist thinkers contend that applying the normal constraints of morality to war is itself an immoral act because to do so is likely to prolong the conflict. William Tecumseh Sherman, the union general in the U.S. Civil War, gives us the bumper sticker for the realist take on morality. He wrote that that war is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over. Ok, so the third answer to the question, when is war morally permissible is sometimes. And this is the just war tradition, and it's the approach that we focus on in any 203. Even though studying the pacifist and realist approach is also these, these both have rich intellectual traditions. We focus on the just war tradition which our military generally embraces today. What the just war theory tries to do, essentially, is to stake out a moral middle ground between the pacifists and the realists. If the state goes to war for a just reason and the war is fought by just means, then the just war tradition would judge that war as morally permissible.

Sears: [00:03:26] So as I understand it, there are two strands of this just war thinking the Juice Sabelo Convention and the juice in Bellow. If I said that right? Why is that and what are the differences between the two?

Herbert: [00:03:42] Yes, exactly. Now, actually, there are some scholars out there who argue that there should be more than just those two strands. Michael Oren, for example, argues for a U.S. Post Bellum convention to address post-war moral obligations. But all, just war theorists agree to the two strands that that you mentioned. Michael, you said Belem and use in Bellow. So these are the two conventions that we spend time on and teach our students in any two or three. I'll try to summarize both of them as briefly as I can, and I'll start with use, Bellum literally translated. You said Belem means justice to war, which is a bit awkward and not terribly helpful. But the question it's asking and attempting to answer is when is it justified for the state to go to war, for the state to declare war? Now it turns out we've been, you know, we've been thinking about this question for an awful long time. Plato and Thucydides pondered this question deeply in the wake of the Peloponnesian War and the in the fourth century BCE St. Augustine, writing in the in the fourth century of the common era considered war a great sin. But recognize that until the coming of the City of God, the title of his opus, the City of Man had to be defended from the barbarians who literally were at the gate at the gates of Rome. So Augustine sets parameters for Christian communities to defend themselves and still be good Christians.

Herbert: [00:05:44] But it was really the 13th century Dominican Friar Thomas Aquinas, who rightfully is credited with the first rigorous articulation of just war principles. He laid out three criteria that the state had to meet in order to wage war justly on another polity. So the first of these three was that war must be publicly declared by a legitimate authority. Typically, legitimate authority means it means a head of state, a president, a king, a prime minister, the authority to wage war. In other words, you know, it resides with the prince, not any warlord who manages to attract the loyalty of a sufficient number of armed thugs or hired guns. A second war has to be fought for a just cause. Now, since the Treaty of Westphalia in sixteen forty-eight, this has come to mean almost exclusively self-defense or defense of another state that that is the victim of aggression. Although I should add in his monumental book Just and Unjust Wars. Michael Walzer carves out room for humanitarian intervention in. Binds to what he terms acts that shock the moral conscience of mankind. But generally speaking, a just cause is ultimately self or another defense. The third of a coyness ad bellum criteria is that war must be fought for right intentions, so it's not enough that a leader can cite a just cause for war. The intention? The motivation for going to war has to be in concert with that. Just cause say, actually, this is a little hard to get your arms around, and I like to provide my students with an example.

Herbert: [00:08:12] So the 1991 Gulf War, I think, illustrates this nuance. In Nineteen Ninety, I hope all our students remember the Iraqi army invaded and overran Kuwait, claiming it as its own. This provided the U.S. led coalition with a pretty clear cut. Just Cause I mean, this is undeniable, this is black and white. You can't do that. That is an act of aggression. And the world had a just cause for engaging Iraq to undo that. Our stated intention was to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait if it would not leave peaceably, which it did not. So, so most agreed that the intention suited the cause. Some pundits, if you remember, however, urged President Bush to take advantage of this opportunity to pursue the rooted Iraqi army back into Iraq and then and then depose Saddam Hussein, who had been a thorn in our side for a long time had Bush pursued this course. This would have been an excellent example in which the cause was just. But the right intention condition was not met. But President Bush, as we know, rejected this course of action. As a result, many cite the Gulf War as a as a textbook example of a war in which all of the U.S. bellum conditions legitimate authority just cause and right intent were met. There are three more criteria that have been added to the U.S.

Herbert: [00:10:06] Belgium convention since August. I can move through these relatively quickly. So the Fourth of Bellum criterion is that that war must be a last resort. War can be considered a moral option only if the state has exhausted non-violent options like diplomacy or economic pressure. Fifth Estate must also have a reasonable hope of success. So even if the cause is righteous. It should not the state should not just throw away the lives of its citizens if there's no way it can achieve those justice objectives through force. The final ad bellum criterion is proportionality events. Basically, the anticipated harm that will result from a war should not exceed the benefits that the state hopes to gain, and it's worth noting here. Of course, that's very difficult to determine, and it's worth noting here that both proportionality and likelihood of success should not be just like one-time estimations as war reveals information about an adversary strength. Leaders have to continuously reevaluate both the likelihood and the cost of victory. So just to wrap this up, these six Belgium criteria guide the decision to go to war, and that decision is the province of statecraft. Heads of state are or held morally responsible for these decisions, not soldiers, not our students. Our students will, however, be held morally responsible for how they fight the wars that their leaders commit them to. And this introduces us to the second, the second major element of the just war tradition. See in Belo.

Sears: [00:12:25] Roger, let me interrupt for a second, especially on that last point. So you say that at Bellum, principles apply to statesman's presidents, prime ministers, kings, but not to warrior. So why do we spend time in any two or three honored Belem?

Herbert: [00:12:41] Oh, that's a great question, Michael I. I pose this to my students every semester and I always receive really, really thoughtful responses. So, so here. Here are a couple that come to mind. The first is OK, if I know a war is just it will probably make me more committed to the effort. Similarly, if I can thoughtfully explain to my troops why we're fighting, it will probably make them more committed to the fight as well. One of my students observed that that ever since her plea beer, the folks back home who don't know any other military people treat her like, like a spokesperson for the military on all issues. Great and small, she observed that that naval officers probably play a pretty important role in maintaining the public support if they can thoughtfully explain to their friends and their family back home why a war that we may be engaged in is just OK. Yeah, great question. Let me pivot to the to that second strand of the just war tradition you've seen below. This is this is the part that, as I say, our students will be will be most definitely held responsible for and held accountable for as soon as they enter the Navy or Marine Corps. The youth in Belo conventions deal with the actual conduct of war. How much how much force can be justifiably employed in war and against whom in in any two or three we discussed to use in Belo principles, discrimination and proportionality.

Herbert: [00:14:39] Discrimination is as really at the heart of what Shannon French calls the Warrior Code. It's a Shannon used to be a professor here and writes a wonderful book, The Code of the Warrior, which everybody should read. You know, the warrior code, it's what separates warriors from the murderer. There is a there is a fundamental moral distinction in war, and that is the distinction between combatants and noncombatants. A combatant is someone who is engaged in the business of war. A non-combatant is everyone and everything else. A combatant may be intentionally harmed or killed. A non-combatant may never, never be intentionally harmed or killed. And not only must our warriors be able to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants on the battlefield. Our weapons also must be able to make this distinction. This is why by poisonous gas, for example, has long been outlawed. It does not allow for discrimination. The second in below Criterion is proportionality. Now this is similar to the odd Belem proportionality criterion, but instead of looking at the proportions, the proportionality of the war in general can considers proportionality of individual acts of war. In every case, the good that that a given act of war hopes to achieve. Should exceed the harm that it that it causes. Now this does not mean that, you know, if your enemy threatens you with a knife, it would be disproportionate to kill him with your rifle.

Herbert: [00:16:43] This is actually a common misconception among some of our students. No, we want our enemy to bring a knife to a gunfight. Indeed, you know, the job of a military of military leaders is to ensure our enemy is always at a disadvantage. What our students need to focus on with proportionality is focus on the ends. If the harm averted outweighs the harm done in an act of war, then the use of force is proportionate. Now embedded in proportionality is also this requirement of necessity. And I mentioned this because some just war theorists break necessity out as a separate criterion, and I, I tend to lean in this direction myself. Necessity demands that that we use the least harmful means to achieve our military ends that we can. In other words, you know, it's not permissible. It's not permissible to levy destruction in war unless there are some military purpose for it. It's important for our students to remember that that war is not just carte blanche to kill enemy combatants and break things at will. I mean, if you can capture rather than kill without impacting the military mission. You know, you should capture if you can walk around the wall rather than leveling it without impacting the military mission, then walk around the wall.

Sears: [00:18:20] Isn't there a risk that close adherence to the use and below principles walking around the wall? You know, discrimination versus discrimination and proportionality could hamstring the troops. I mean, you're teaching them not to do their job. I know that's probably me pushing a little bit far, but certainly our enemies don't embrace those ideas. Are we putting our marines and sailors at a disadvantage?

Herbert: [00:18:45] Hmm. Yeah, this is this is a question that comes up every semester. You know, there probably many ways to answer that. Here are my two go to responses to that. First, you know, the ultimate goal of war is not to win the war that usually lands like a bomb show with my students. I guess that's the penultimate goal. The ultimate goal of war is to reestablish justice or inaugurate a more just peace on the other side of war. So how a nation fights will influence what that peace will look like. Just ends are rarely achieved through unjust means. Second, and probably more relevant to our students. A leader has a moral obligation to do her very best to bring her troops home from war physically whole. She can't always do that, but she's just got to try her best. Always. Nothing surprising here. But she also has a moral obligation to do her very best to bring her troops home as morally whole human beings. We spend a week and in fact, it's right before we take up the just war tradition, so it's perfectly timed. We spend a week exploring moral injury. The best way to avoid moral injury is first. You know, don't send our sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines to fight in unjust wars. And second, when they must fight, don't ask our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to perform morally abhorrent acts like intentionally harming noncombatants. The choices, the choices that people make in war will stay for them for the rest of their days. And if we want to take care of our troops, which I know all of our students say that they do, we must help them to make the right choices on the battlefield.

Sears: [00:20:58] Professor Roger Herbert, thanks for presenting this critical piece of the puzzle for the new any two or three. This is stacking up to be a very powerful course. I appreciate the time.

Herbert: [00:21:08] Oh, you're most welcome. Michael, it was a great pleasure.