THE JUST WAR: REVIVING AN OLD DEBATE
Finn, James
THE JUST WAR: REVIVING AN OLD DEBATE JAMES FINN Just and Unjust Wars M,ICHA'BL WALZER Basic Books, $15 [384 pp.] Ethics and Nueleur StruLeflW .Edited by H~ROLD F. FORD and FRANCIS X....
...He makes a stab at an attempt to scuttle the latter...
...In 1976 they said: "As possessors of a vast nuclear arsenal, we must also be aware that not only is it wrong to attack civilian populations but it is also wrong to threaten to attack them as part of a strategy of deterrence...
...But," he continues, "there comes a time . . , when such ~llowances can no longer be made...
...A harsher judgment it would be difficult to find...
...I agree ~rith this statoment, but the Catholic bishops of the United States do not...
...Now Mao wrote a lot on war, but I believe most of what he did accords with his judgment that "Wars in history can be divided into two kinds, just and unjust...
...For example, having made what I regard as a neutral descriptive statemem that war is irrational, i have on more than one occasion been informed with some heat about the intense planning, the scientific resources, the complex weapons, and the intelligence of political and mititary leaders, all of which are necessary to prosecute a modern war...
...Commentary's reviewer read it carofully and decided it did not effectively change the situa~tion, i.e., it left final _9 judgment .to eaoh person...
...Both of these statements are true, hut the tension between them explains the natural tendency to regard them as contradiotory or irreconcilable...
...Were a large number of Catholics, and others, to follow the bishops' lead here, they would find little explicit help in Walzer's book for the position of selective conscientious objection they would be forced to espouse...
...E~hics and Nuclear Strategy and Just and Unjust Wars are part of that debate...
...I hope that he will continue exploring publicly some of the significant questions he has almost casually put to one side in this book and that he responds to some of the valid reservations a number of readers ha.ve now registered...
...18 August 1978:532 Yet this enterprise whioh is evil and irrational may, in some circumstances, be justifiable...
...Over this essay I would recom...
...On nuclear deterrence and conscientious objeotion...
...The main traditions of the Jewish and Christian communities follow another 18 August 1978:532 path...
...The accounting is, of course, difficult, and Walzer's humility is, possi, bly, warranted...
...On Vietnam...
...I cannot mark out that time here...
...Orbis Books, $12.95 [246 pp.] War is an irraaonal and evil emerprise...
...Walzer writes: "We threaten evil in order not to do it, and the doing of it would be so terrible that the threal seems in comparison to be morally defensible...
...Fair enough...
...Those who mistakenly believe them to be irreconcilable are ted to conclude either that all wars are immoral and therefore that one cannot morally participate in them, or that because they are immoral yet necessary it is foolish to apply any moral standards or limitations to war...
...For those responsible he makes allowanee~ Commonweal: 533 due to "false beliefs, mlsinform~tion, and honest mistakes...
...the only purpose is to rescue these people toward whom the intervening power has a special commitment...
...So, too, in different terms do the positive laws, .treaties, and conventions that political and military leaders turn to in order to justify their actions...
...A penultimate note on this book and its reception...
...The author states, mirabile dictu, that "The just-war tradition has, in the past, governed the decision to use violence in a conflict between two independent and sovereign states, and, once war was begun, the manner in which that violence was used...
...Walzer writes that Mao imrodueed into China the Western theory of the just war...
...Nevertheless they are not unimportant...
...Beoause his argumen~ is grounded in historioal events, he avoids the flow of endless abstraotions that seem endemic to most diseussious of just wars...
...Those who reject my two opening sentences tend to become either total pacifists or complete cynics about war...
...Much of the discussion turns on whether we should depend on the policy of flexible response (allowing limited nuclear war) that the then Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger emphasized in 1974,'Or, more fundamentally, whether we can or should forge a non-tinclear policy...
...Although the editors, Ford and Winters, hold strong views that they defend vigorously, the book itseK offers an overview of the ongoing debate and provides, in addition, a useful bibliography and a glossary of terms sppropriate to the debate...
...Particular wars may be justifiable...
...Yet Alain Enthoven and Robert Gessert, coolly and thought...
...Now that, of course, is an odd statement that can't mean whet it says...
...That is, it would test the theory of human rights and the theory of war that he here develops...
...After a lapse of a decade or so in this country intense public debate about limitations and sanctions for modem war is reviving...
...The result is a superb book that illuminates many arguments others have left murky and that frames several profound issues Waizer has space only to mention...
...Nor would they find" suggestions for alternatives to deterrence...
...The final essay, which holds out the promise of "Moving Beyond the Just...
...We Communists are opposed to all unjust wars . . . . " But enough...
...The restraints represented by these traditions have always been severely strained in Western history, and it has become an open question whether nuclear weapons system have not, finally, rendered them irrelevant or simply an encumbrance...
...and responds: "Francis Winters answers this question in the affirmative...
...Both of these statements have been and continue to be severely criticized, often on grounds made trivial by misunderstanding...
...ter's, but f~'om other books on theories of just war...
...One cannot, that is, assert that no other conclusion is possible and then responsi, bly publish other and opposing conclusions...
...The reader would not, after all, have to accept W~Izer's conclusions if he cited high offaeials as war criminals, But the exercise would have been reve~ling...
...That is naive...
...Although it may be reasonable to resort to violence, violence remains irrational...
...That is not a Western theory of just war...
...And because he brings into the discussion conflicts and incidents that, if not fresh in one's memory, are not totally buried under the dust of years ---obliteration fire bombing, Hiroshima, Hungary 1965, the SixoDay War, Vietnam, terrorism, and nuclear deterrence --he is able r evoke the feelings and judgments that actually attach to these events...
...It may come to the point that only by war can a political community preserve itself and the high values and prinoiples on which it rests...
...Michael Walzer's book is quite different, not only from Ford's and Win...
...Having sa~d tha~, I must register some reservations...
...But not interested in pointing to particular people...
...He then asks: "Is the serious threat or use of nuclear weapons immoral...
...He argues here that America's intewenfion was unjustified and its conduct in the war indefensible...
...This reaction suggests that at least one of the motives of Israel was to display its skill, prowess, and determination during a time of national trial...
...The reviewers in the New Leader ~nd the New York Times Book Review showed little comprehension of Walzer's principal arguments and condescended to the book...
...nuclear strategy...
...The resuR, he says, is a "book of praotieal morality...
...It does these things in the worst of causes and the best 6f causes...
...R remains the best brief approach to the relation of just war tradition and nuclear weapons systems...
...On particular judgments...
...The reaotlon of Israelis and many others was, of course, relief that the endangered were saved, but there was also pride and deep pleasure in the bravado and skill of the Israeli rescue team...
...I note these views not only for their own interest but to show how divided we are in this country about the possibility of discussing the justice of war and about the utility of doing so...
...Stanley Hotfman in the Washington Post and James T. Johnson in Worldview gave it highly favorable reviews...
...Walzer's methodological analyses are more impor, tant than his particular conclusions...
...But after noting the technical virtuosity and concoptual subtlety, Richard Falk, the reviewer for The Nation, concluded that "Those who mi~t deeply imperil the human prospect wiU be pleased to discover their moral vindication in Walzer's book...
...Although not all our contributors would agree with Ft...
...Would that history might support tl~is statement...
...Walzer starts by saying ,that he began, not by thinking about war in general, but about the war in Vietnam, and not as a philosopher but as a partisan aotivist...
...nor am I interested in pointing a~ particular people or cer,tain that I can do so...
...Since different views are presented, it cannot be said that the book reaches a conclusion, but it tilts heavily in one direction, as a few quotations from one of the editors will indicate...
...fully, present views that oppose those of the editors...
...Harold Ford's statement is an indication of the terrible intellectual and" moral dilemmas that become the possession of anyone who long considers these issues...
...I only wan~ to insist that there are responsible people even when, under the conditions of imperfect democracy, moral accounting is difficult and imprecise...
...In other essays Alva Myrdal presents an "outsider's" view of the arms race, Herbert k Scoville, Jr., argues against cou.nterforce strategy, Bruce M. Russett offers an imaginative countercombatanr alternative to MAD, and F~ancis Winters argues that we must either abandon ethics or nuclear weapons...
...He wanted to account for the ways in which ordinary citizens, and soldiers, talk about war...
...The observations are accurate, of course, but they merely accentuate one of the terrible things about war~that having been unable to resolve coofliots by reason and diplomacy, men throw their resources, including reason, into a venture of massive violence...
...The first book, edited by Harold P. Ford and Francis X. Winters, S.J., is composed of essays by different writers who took part in a series of seminars on ethics and U.S...
...His use of the concepts of jus ad beUum (the right to war) and jus in hello (what is right in war) are, further, grounded in a theory of human rights tha~ gradually emerges out of his historical anaJyses...
...In the opening essay Harold Ford tells us that "It is clear, certainly, that the traditional arguments for a just war have lost their efficacy for our age of nuclear weapons...
...It is a very welcome, thoughtful, provocative, and incomplete book...
...Winters, I do and think it appropriate to voice my view that no other conclusion can be drawn in view of the terrible logic, uncontrollability, irrelevance to political purposes, and sheer horror of nuclear destrruotion...
...18 August 1978:534...
...mend the pamphlet "Modern Way and the Pursuit of Peace" written by Theodore Weber in 1968...
...It should be---but it is probably not~unnecessary to add that, like all high principles, this too can be corrupted and misapplied...
...All progressive wars are just and all wars impeding progress are unjust...
...And war is an evil because it kills and maims and destroys...
...As the title suggests, they address the question of whether it is possible to have a nuclear strategy that is ethically justi~able or, differently phrased, whether ethical considerations can help us shape an acceptable nuclear strategy...
...The initial impulse for this book was Walzer's response to the war in Vietnmn...
...They attempt to envelope both the initiation and waging of war with moral limitations--and sanctions...
...Of lesser importance...
...I think Walzer has truly enlivened a needed debate...
...War Tradition," is disappointing, since the tradition itself is not adectuately assimilated and is presented in simplistic fashion...
...THE JUST WAR: REVIVING AN OLD DEBATE JAMES FINN Just and Unjust Wars M,ICHA'BL WALZER Basic Books, $15 [384 pp.] Ethics and Nueleur StruLeflW .Edited by H~ROLD F. FORD and FRANCIS X. VtIN~EKS, S.J...
...But it is a question that is not yet definitely answered...
...On the Israeli raid on the Entebbe ~irport (July 4, 1976) he says tl~at "Here there is, or ought to be, no question of mixed motives...
Vol. 105 • August 1978 • No. 16
