Two Views on Just War

Just-War Reflections

Randall Smith

The next synod might or might not deal with the Church’s “just war” doctrine. So, let me go on record as saying: I don’t like war.  It doesn’t represent a great “profile in courage” to say that.  I mean, who loves war?  I suppose some tyrants do.  But that poses a problem.  If tyrants pursue wars in order to secure their positions of power, what are others who hate war to do?

The Church has long defended the legitimacy of wars of self-defense.  But recent proclamations from certain sectors of the Church seem to verge on pacifism, the view that all war is wrong.  Perhaps this simply means all aggressive wars by tyrants are wrong. That would not be a new or especially troubling teaching.  It would be a welcome change if we could get tyrants to abide by the principle.

But I am still wondering about other possible causes of war.  

So, for example, the United States went to war against England in 1812 for a number of reasons, but chiefly because the British Navy would stop U.S. ships at sea, search their crews, and “press” into service on British ships anyone who couldn’t prove U.S. citizenship.  Attempts to escape would be punished by severe whipping or even hanging. To state the matter overly simply: the U.S. government demanded that this kidnapping of American sailors stop. The British refused.  War ensued.  Was going to war to stop British enslavement of American sailors immoral?  War is bad, but so was essentially kidnapping American sailors and forcing them to serve on British ships. 

Here’s another conundrum.  Let’s say that Adolph Hitler had not attacked Poland or France. But now let’s say it became known that the Nazis were exterminating millions of Jews.  Would that justify an offensive attack on Germany to stop the killing? Or would any offensive declaration of war that was not in response to an attack on one’s own country be “immoral”? Now again, I don’t like war, but I also want to be aware of what those who lost people in the Holocaust would likely (and legitimately) say if we insisted that, “No, going to war to save millions of Jews from extermination would not be justified.” Really?  Hitler marches his armies into Poland, and the world goes to war.  But if he was just killing Jews, no?

Reasoning of this sort seems to have prevented “civilized” countries, like the U.S., from “intervening” when Hutus in Rwanda were slaughtering millions of Tutsis.  They haven’t attacked us, and we don’t like war, so, although we don’t like it, there’s really nothing we can do. 

Maybe that’s true.  But I would at least want a serious discussion of the pros and cons. 

Here’s another quandary.  Let’s say Hitler had not attacked any countries in Europe (yet), but he was threatening, and it became known that he was developing an atomic bomb. Would the European powers have been justified in attacking him to stop that development?  Should attacking Nazi Germany to forestall Hitler getting an atomic weapon be rejected a priori based on the notion that all offensive wars are per se immoral? Maybe. But I’m glad I’m not the one who has to make those decisions (which admittedly is a pretty cheap cop-out).

As a general rule, I admire pacifists, especially when they’re like Desmond Doss, the combat medic who refused to carry a weapon but became the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor after single-handedly saving the lives of 75 to 100 wounded soldiers under heavy fire during the Battle of Okinawa. Or when they’re like the townspeople of Le Chambon in France who conspired together during the Second World War to hide and save thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing from the Holocaust.  They too risked everything.  

What is harder to admire are the pacifists whom author Philip Hallie criticizes in an essay on Le Chambon — those who “keep their hands clean” but let the powerful tyrannize the less powerful. “Too often I had found nonviolent people to be too patient,” writes Hallie, “patient with the murder of others. They would let their nonviolent resistance go on and on while thousands of victims of violence were being killed every day.” They became “accomplices of the strong by their refusal to fight” and by their silent refusal to condemn. That’s not hungering and thirsting for justice with a willingness to suffer for it. It is saying just enough to feel good while doing nothing to dirty one’s hands. One can remain “above all that.”

“You could obey the no ethic,” writes Hallie, “by being silent, and it was the silent majority in Germany and in the world who fed the torturers and the murderers with their silence. The murders and torturers drank the silence like wine, and it made them drunk with power.” 

When are we going to hear from Church authorities and others eager for “peace” serious and repeated condemnations of the torturers in China, Russia, and Iran? How about the treatment of people like Jimmy Lai and others in Hong Kong or Russia’s ongoing attempt to obliterate Ukraine? I thought the motto was “No peace without justice.”  Simply avoiding war is not the same as peace. What are we willing to sacrifice for the peace that comes with justice? Higher oil prices? Our clean hands? Nothing?

Glance at the map in this Wall Street Journal article, “How China’s Navy is Tightening the Noose on Taiwan.” Destroyers surround the island on all sides continuously. Chinese military aircraft fly repeated sorties. This is not a “defensive” posture; this is a preparation for invasion. It might be nice to hear some condemnations of those developments and not just when the U.S. or Israel do something to try to push back against the tyrants.

Failing to condemn the horrors of the torturers, murderers, tyrants, and religious fanatics because it might cause upset and turmoil doesn’t seem especially noble or “Christian” to me. It just seems feckless.  

Outdated or Obsolete?

Luis Lugo

“Today, more than ever it is. . .important to reaffirm that the ‘just war’ theory. . .is now outdated.” With that bold declaration, accentuated by the scare quotes, paragraph 192 of Magnifica Humanitas appears to sweep away nearly two thousand years of Christian teaching on this subject. If that were the case, it would be a great irony. For the Church’s just-war teaching is closely associated with St. Augustine of Hippo, the inspiration for the Order of our Augustinian Pope.

Some have interpreted the above statement as merely signaling the belief that this teaching is no longer useful, that it is outworn or obsolete, and, accordingly, that it should be stowed away safely somewhere in the Vatican archives. Pope Leo lends some credence to this view by invoking the legacy of his immediate predecessor.

The connection to Pope Francis is made explicit not only in the use of the word “reaffirm,” but also by a footnote reference to Fratelli Tutti (258). In that encyclical, the late pope expressed grave doubts about the continuing validity of this teaching. On another occasion, he was even more emphatic, stating categorically that we can no longer speak of just wars because wars are always unjust. 

If that does not express a principled adoption of pacifism, it certainly has resulted in many Church authorities embracing a kind of functional pacifism. The question is whether Pope Leo now intends, with this encyclical as well as with his forceful statements on the Iran War, to take the next step and openly endorse a pacifist position. While understandable, that conclusion perhaps is a little too hasty.

To begin with, we should note carefully the two ellipses in the opening quote. The first omitted statement, which I italicize here, reads: “Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense.”  The second follows in its train: “it is important to reaffirm that the ‘just war’ theory, which has too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated.”

The first statement clearly affirms a classical understanding of the right to self-defense, which has always been a major pillar of the just-war tradition. This alone runs counter to any attempt to put a pacifist gloss on the encyclical. With the second statement, the pope rightly warns against overly broad applications of this principle. But calling for a more rigorous application of a principle is different from repudiating it; it is another way of affirming its validity.

The continuing relevance of just-war theory is assumed everywhere in this section of the encyclical. For instance, in its strong condemnation of the use of force by non-state actors, including “jihadist groups, private militias and criminal networks.” (196) This is simply an indirect way of affirming another important just-war principle, namely, that for wars to be just, they must be waged by legitimate authority. As St. Augustine put it, in determining the justice of a war, “a great deal depends on the causes for which men undertake wars, and the authority they have for doing so.”

The encyclical relies on other foundational just-war principles. That war should be a last resort, for example, which is another important consideration for determining the morality of any given war. On that score, the encyclical clearly upholds “the principle that armed force should be used as a last resort in cases of legitimate self-defense.” (197)

Moreover, the encyclical also affirms certain principles related to the just conduct of war. One of these involves maintaining the crucial distinction between combatants and non-combatants. Another is “the principle of proportionality in responding to aggression.” (203)

In short, if his intention was to declare just-war theory obsolete, the pope chose a very strange way of going about it. If anything, the encyclical’s many affirmations of just-war principles only serve to underscore its continuing relevance in the Church’s moral reflection on the morality of warfare.

This is not to deny the need for updating how these enduring just-war principles are applied. But that is true of all aspects of the natural law, whose concrete application must always account, as the Catechism puts it, for the “various conditions of life according to places, times, and circumstances.”

The encyclical appropriately expresses grave concerns about some of the new circumstances, especially the prospect of deploying AI-powered autonomous battlefield weapons. It also draws attention to what it terms “hybrid forms” of conflict, including cyberattacks and misinformation campaigns.

Another pressing question, to which the encyclical alludes only indirectly, is the use of non-state actors as proxies to bring death and destruction on an enemy. Is this not aggression by other means? If so, what are the implications of this for how we think about the legitimacy of the preemptive use of military force against those who wage undeclared wars of this sort?

All these issues (and more) underscore the need for a thoughtful updating of the conditions under which just-war principles should be applied. If war theory is outdated, then the proper response is to update it, not discard it.

Some have too readily jumped to the conclusion that with this encyclical Pope Leo is guiding the Church into the pacifist camp. But this assumes that the Church can simply brush aside the requirements of the natural law, whose requirements undergird just-war principles. As I’ve tried to demonstrate, a careful reading of the encyclical does not support such a conclusion.

The challenge for the Church today is to update – by way of further developing rather than jettisoning – its historic teaching on just war. Adopting a pacifist position will only serve to sideline the Catholic faithful from serious discussions on a momentous issue where the Church’s moral wisdom is needed now more than ever.