Discrediting Just War Tradition

A paper I wrote recently for my class "John Howard Yoder's Theological Legacy" (hence the strange obsession with quoting him incessantly).

            Beginning with Augustine of Hippo and later with Thomas Aquinas, Just War Tradition (JWT) was developed as a model for Christian ethics regarding war; it was a structured, enumerated system that allowed for Christians to serve in the military if only certain criteria were met. JWT has endured throughout centuries and has remained an often-used and sourced doctrine by various faiths and nations, especially the Roman Catholic Church. However, as Yoder says, “The just war tradition was not originally intended to be used in democracies. It was originally assumed that decisions about war belonged to sovereigns” (Yoder, “Just War Tradition: Is It Credible?” 296). In its current form in the modern world, Just War Theory is not credible based on its subjective properties, rules-enforcing nature, and utter lack of effectiveness. I will explicate each of these faulted properties, citing Yoder’s extensive writings on just war and pacifism.

            John H. Yoder did substantial writing on the subjectivity of JWT and the implications of that subjectivity in modern warfare. In “Just War Tradition: Is It Credible?” Yoder says, “The control of information is a science and an art” (296). In the age of information and communication, facts have become extremely malleable and relative. Information can be controlled from all sides; the governing authorities have the ability to decide what the media hears, and the media has the ability to decide what the public hears. When Yoder gives examples such as “Has there been naked aggression? Is the belligerent government legitimate? Has everything else been tried?” (“Just War Tradition,” 296), there is no way to know whether the final answers are accurate, whether the information was purposely manipulated, or who manipulated the information in question.

Even in the hypothetical case that a leader may have attempted full-disclosure and accountability, the question of subjectivity remains. “It is clear that without reliable sources of information, there is no basis for evaluating most of the claims on which a just war decision is based. When the head of the Joint Chiefs parries a factual question with “trust me,” I don’t” (“Just War Tradition,” 296). In the age of drone warfare, we are asked to trust the president (and his current opposing candidate) with his judgment in their use. When innocent people are killed, blame is shifted, even though the weapons are becoming “smarter” (which seeks to fulfill the JWT criterion of sparing innocent life). Yoder uses an example from the Gulf War: “When General H. Norman Schwartzkopf said… “all Saddam Hussein needs to do to stop our killing civilians is to surrender,” he replaced a restraint in bello with an accusation ad bellum” (“Just War Tradition,” 297). With this mindset, the government officials can call their war “just,” citing the enemy as the one who is acting unjustly. This pattern renders the criteria essentially useless and null.

There are inherent issues in a theory based on abiding by a set of rules with no positive affirmations or guidelines. Yoder says, “I question the doctrine’s legitimacy by showing that people who say they hold to it do not, in fact honor its restraints” (The War of the Lamb, 110). JWT has been manipulated and shaped so gradually yet consistently that we are at a point in which, comparing the current results with the original intention, there has been a clear breach of the restraints. Blinders have been pulled over the eyes of the Christian community so that they believe that they are actually serving the Lord through just war. Yoder makes a conclusive statement, “I don’t dialogue with the just war tradition because I think it is credible, but because it is the language that people, who I believe bear the image of God, abuse to authorize themselves to destroy other bearers of that image” (The War of the Lamb, 116). I see it as analogous to smoking cigarettes (or using any addictive substance). I can say that I would like to start smoking, but with strict guidelines: only four times per day, only filtered cigarettes, only outside, and so on. But there will likely come a day when I (maybe justifiably) want a fifth cigarette, and that becomes the norm. Eventually, I may be smoking a pack per day. Though it is having horrible long-term consequences for my body, on a short-term basis I can empirically prove its necessity. Though I never acted in an unjust way, I still ended up in a place that is very different and clearly outside of the bounds originally set in place. When violence is an option, it really is not an option but a guarantee as has been proven in the historical use of the last resort mindset in JWT.

The alternative to rule-based policy is positive nonviolent strategy. Yoder quotes

Lisa Cahill, saying,

genuine biblical pacifism does not revolve around the absolutization of any human values or rules, but around a converted life in Christ that subsumes and often changes every ‘natural’ pattern of behavior. The incoherence of pacifism and just war thinking lies,… most characteristically, in their disagreement about how present and accessible in human life the kingdom, by the grace of Christ, really is (The War of the Lamb, 117).

            Christians are called to an active embodiment of the kingdom of God on earth – the law has been fulfilled.

The question put to us as we follow Jesus is not whether we have successfully refrained from breaking any rules. Instead, we are asked whether we have been participants in that human experience, that peculiar way of living for God in the world and being used as instruments of the living God in the world… (Yoder, “The Pacifism of the Messianic Community,” 135).

            This way of living and acting in a practical sense was embodied by Gandhi (with overlap from the Muslim world). Nonviolent action can replace military power. “The advocate of war cannot say there is no other recourse before weighing nonviolent alternatives” (The War of the Lamb, 103). The paradigm of nonviolent positive (rather than restrictive) action undermines the basis and structure of JWT, rendering it ineffective and misleading.

            Lastly, the tradition of just war has practically failed to yield any results. War has characterized the history of humanity.

Sometimes what broke through all restraints was simple national selfishness, which some call realism. Sometimes what led to total war has been a transcendent religious or ideological claim, which some call holy. Sometimes the cause for which blood has been shed is morally even less worthy than that… In each of these ways war was totalized, so that there was no effective restraint… Just war theory has not been operational in any significant way in the military reality of the last centuries (The War of the Lamb, 87-88).

            JWT has never been seriously respected, especially in times that national interest would be compromised in any significant way. It has been used as a crutch to gain the trust of the general public. There is capability within the theory, but little to no practicality. This reality undermines the functionality of the JWT system, rendering it less than viably optimal for any nation’s continued use.

            Just War Tradition has little standing for continued reference and reliability. The subjectivity in the thinking of our modern leaders and the agendas they continuously seek to promote cripple the objectivity of JWT. The specific criteria present and required in JWT have been consistently broken throughout history. There is no evidence that JWT has ever prevented or slowed the onset of warfare. Just War Tradition, as it stands today, has no credibility or usability.