Preemptive war
Reichberg, Gregory M.
Gregory M. Reichberg PREEMPTIVE WAR What would Aquinas say? ar is among the most terrible of human realities. Yet Catholicism has never condemned all participation in war as morally impermissible....
...Its true starting point is a presumption against injustice...
...Some thinkers, such as James Childress and Richard Miller as well as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, maintain that moral reasoning about war should begin with the imperative "Do no harm...
...William D. Walsh Family Library I Flom Auditorium Rose Hill Campus I Bronx, New York SPONSORED BY: Office of the University Chaplain For directions please visit our website at www fordham.edu AR are welcome...
...It is the other side's wrongdoing that compels the wise man to wage just wars," wrote Augustine, one of the earliest exponents of what is now termed "just-war theory...
...Significantly, no such reasons are advanced in his earlier treatment of just war, wherein he alludes to the nobility of the military calling...
...This alone should make us pause before too quickly assuming a direct line of continuity between the neoconservative strategy of preventive military intervention and even the most robust traditional teaching on just war...
...War to disarm Saddam Hussein was the default position from which all other options (inspections, for example) were to be judged...
...War has no place among the useful arts," concluded Grotius...
...Hence they infer that the only correct rationale for resort to armed force is the purely defensive posture of repelling attack...
...Grotius conceded that the specter of a future attack might legitimate a preemptive action if it could be shown that the danger was immediate and certain...
...For he also asserts that "when we have to apply a remedy to some evil, whether our own or another's, in order for the remedy to be applied with greater certainty of a cure, it is expedient to take the worst for granted...
...actions, has put the just-war theory under renewed scrutiny...
...It would punish crimes not yet committed, perhaps not even planned, and would make fear a principle of action in international relations, thereby opening a Pandora's box of anticipatory first strikes...
...Proponents of the more robust version of just-war theory maintain that Aquinas never sought to limit the resort to armed force to simple self-defense...
...Human life exists under such conditions that complete security is never guaranteed to us...
...Since it is inevitable that some such harm will occur in wartime, this risk must be factored into any decision to use armed force...
...Both stand opposed to thedoctrine of raison d'etat in which war is viewed as simply another way to advance the national interest...
...Issues surrounding proportionality and last resort occupy center stage...
...In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz consistently spoke as though there was a clear-cut presumption in favor of war...
...Proponents of the "presumption against war" view maintain that Aquinas's concept of just war is modeled on his more basic idea of legitimate defense...
...In response to the concern about the indiscriminate destructiveness of modern war, a case can be made that new precision weaponry enables military professionals to be more effective at shielding noncombatants...
...For the decision makers themselves war ought to be a source of sorrow...
...Military force should therefore be resorted to only in the most pressing circumstances...
...He did in fact think that occasions may arise when offensive war is warranted—to regain things wrongly taken, to thwart and punish organized evildoing, or to protect innocents from harm...
...Hence the burden of proof was shifted from the advocates of the invasion to those who dared question its necessity...
...Using armed force preventively, solely to eliminate an adversary's ability to inflict future harm, he deemed illicit...
...From the early Middle Ages to our own time, the church has consistently asserted that some evils or threats are so grave that they merit a vigorous armed response...
...Likewise, they endorse Aquinas's admonition against being overly suspicious ("when a man, from slight indications, esteems another man's wickedness as certain...
...By contrast, Rutgers scholar James Turner Johnson, Weigel, and others have argued for a more proactive stance...
...L Commonweal I 0 January 30, 2004...
...FORDHAM UNIVERSITY Commonweal 9 January 30, 2004 BALOO when (in flagrant violation of his treaty obligations) Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland...
...Not only self-defense against actual attack (second use of force), but even a first use of force (offensive war) may be justified when it is the most efficacious response to wrongdoing...
...Finally,support is sought in Aquinas for the claim that the violent nature of military combat renders such action a poor instrument for the prosecution of justice...
...Relying on mere suspicions and not hard fact, states-men can be tempted to condone preemptive attack...
...That is the traditional Catholic teaching...
...Like Aquinas, neither side would deny that there is a "presumption against war" if this means that war necessarily requires justification...
...From this obligation, they argue, there derives a strong presumption against the use of force, a presumption that can be over-ridden only in very exceptional circumstances...
...In this interpretation, just cause remains the paramount consideration...
...To the contrary, limiting force to strict defense would have the undesirable effect of paralyzing action in the face of an unjust status quo or a dangerous military threat...
...Nay," he added, "it is so horrible that only the utmost necessity, or true charity, can render it honorable...
...It should not be deemed part of the ordinary functioning of political leadership...
...Finally, one would be hard put to find Aquinas agonizing over the charge that military action inherently tends to excess...
...In this respect war stands apart from those acts of governance—giving speeches, setting up schools and hospitals, holding elections, reaching trade agreements—that do not presuppose prior wrongdoing by another party...
...Significantly, these rival versions of just-war theory both appeal to Thomas Aquinas as a key source for their views...
...ikewise, on the question of preemptive strikes, advocates of "presumption against injustice" argue that Aquinas's admonition against being overly suspicious does not present his last word on the topic...
...In fact, Aquinas seems more worried about the spiritual dangers endemic to the life of the businessman than about the moral risks of the military profession...
...Whenever punishment is meted out, it must first be established that it is in fact merited...
...It has been argued for example that the Allies would have had good reason to initiate hostilities against Nazi Germany in 1936, A DISCUSSION Religion, Gender and Race Body, Race and Being M. Shawn Copeland, Ph.D...
...It was precisely this understanding that offensive force can be justified only as a reaction to wrongdoing that led Hugo Grotius, the most systematic of all the classical just-war theorists, to issue a strong caution against preventive war...
...On one side we have those who view participation in war as morally suspect...
...On this understanding (as articulated by thinkers such as Aquinas, Vitoria, Suarez, Grotius and others in the classical just-war tradition), the distinction between defensive and offensive force does not reduce to the distinction between just and unjust war...
...invasion of Iraq, in which prominent neoconservative Catholics such as Michael Novak and George Weigel used just-war arguments to defend U.S...
...Rather, it is held that warfare by its very nature is inclined to excess, and that such excess has been significantly aggravated by the destructiveness of modern weapons...
...The point is not so much that the resort to lethal force is inherently wrong...
...Matters of prudential concern (proportionality, last resort, and so forth) should be subordinated to deliberations about just cause...
...Finally, among just-war theorists, there is a general consensus that any party resorting to armed force must take steps to protect innocent bystanders...
...That the possibility of being at-tacked confers the right to attack is abhorrent to every principle of equity," he wrote...
...Nowhere does he emphasize the special moral dangers attendant on an active engagement in war...
...Gregory M. Reichberg writes from the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, Norway...
...Associate Professor of Theology Boston College Monday, February 9, 2004, 4:0o D.M...
...Yet it is precisely this sense of sorrow at war, this understanding that offensive war requires special justification (since it presupposes clear and determinable wrongdoing by the other party), that is conspicuously absent from the war rhetoric of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration...
...Principled matters of right—which earlier thinkers had treated under the rubrics of just cause and legitimate authority—are deemed to have only a secondary importance...
...The intense debate over the U.S...
...Moral thinking about war should begin, they say, with the duty of civic leadership to oppose grave wrongdoing...
...Thus soldiers, even those whose intentions are good, inevitably get caught up in a spiral of violence...
...This has called attention to the ongoing debate among just-war theorists about the correct starting point for moral reflection on war...
...I have emphasized the differences separating the two versions of just-war theory, but it should not be forgotten that they also have much in common...
...Opponents of this view make the case that it dangerously underestimates the weight of evil in human affairs, hindering the ability of political leaders to counter it effectively...
...Still, he also insisted that "fear of an uncertainty cannot confer the right to resort to force...
...Read in the light of our concern about weapons of mass destruction, this statement would seem to countenance a strategy of preemptive action...
...Other reasons for "recurring to the sword" must be rejected as tantamount to aggression...
...To devote one's life to business has, in his words, "a certain debasement attaching there-to" for "it satisfies the desire for gain which knows no limit and tends to infinity....Trading is open to many vices...
...In sum, the "presumption against war" interpretation places most of its emphasis on the prudential aspects of just-war reasoning...
Vol. 131 • January 2004 • No. 2
