Future War by Robert H. Latiff

Author:Robert H. Latiff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2017-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

THE LAWS OF ARMED CONFLICT

For millennia, the brutality of war and of leaders and tyrants was unrestricted. Early warfare knew few bounds. However, in more recent centuries, thoughtful people have searched for ways to mitigate the misery brought on by war. They have sought to minimize the brutality and wanton destruction that occurs on the battlefield and have developed theories of “Just War” and “laws” of armed conflict. Essentially, they have tried to establish standards for ethical behavior of soldiers and parties to conflict, and ways of protecting those not directly involved.

Just War Theory and the laws of armed conflict are intended to guide militaries in their behavior in war. These standards of behavior influence the actions of our soldiers and contribute to the so-called warrior code. Australian ethicist Robert Sparrow has written that “while war remains a ghastly business, when the standards are maintained, warrior codes function to reduce the horror of war and tame the worst excesses of young men sent out to kill strangers in foreign lands with weapons of terrifying power.” Justifiable reasons to go to war and guidelines about how combatants behave are timeless needs. They are as important today, and will be in the complex wars of the future, as they have been for millennia. By definition war is awful, but civilized leaders still see the need to apply limits to it, lest it spiral out of control and into chaos and butchery.

Notre Dame professor Don Howard and I have written that “Just War Theory has ancient historical roots, important parts of which lie in various religious and philosophical traditions, as expressed in works as diverse as the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy, the Qur’an, and the Indian Mahabharata. In the form in which it later came to shape the international law of armed conflict, however, the theory is mainly derived from the works of early and medieval Christian thinkers including Augustine (354–430) and Aquinas (1225–1274), who were among the first to formulate explicitly such principles as proper authority, just cause, and right intention.” The Dutch statesman and scholar Hugo Grotius observed in the seventeenth century that there was a “lack of restraint in relation to war, such as even barbarous races should be ashamed of, that men rushed to arms for slight causes, and that when arms had once been taken up there was no longer any respect for law, divine or human.” Aiming to change that, he played a critical role in systematizing the rules of armed conflict. It was in his 1625 book On the Law of War and Peace that the modern principles of Just War Theory were first codified and that the fundamental distinction between justice in the decision to go to war (jus ad bellum) and justice in the conduct of war (jus in bello) was made clear.

Decisions to go to war (ad bellum) must be based in rationality, on just causes and right intentions. Wars must be started by someone with the proper authority to do so. War must be proportional and not, for instance, a response to a mere slight by another party.

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