Just War Theory

Just war encourages peace for all people and indicates that even though it isn’t the best solution, it is still required. Everyone has the duty to stop a potentially fatal or unjust attack against someone else, even if it meant using violence against the attacker. Plus, all states have some important rights that must not be violated by either people or states, so when they’re violated or potentially getting violated, that state is entitled to defend itself through whatever means necessary. Also, the state that did the violating lost their privilege to not have their own rights violated through means of violence. Therefore, just war is ethically permissible.

War is a scandalous topic where peoples’ views differ as to what war is. Some people see it as pure evil and wicked while others think that it is brave and noble of what soldiers do. Looking at poems which had been written by people affected by war help show the messages which are portrayed. The two sets of poems which show different views of war as well as some similarities are “the Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, “To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars” by Richard Lovelace and “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, “The Song of the Mud” by Mary Borden. Both these poets use linguistic devices to convince the reader of their view of what the war is. Tennyson and Lovelace show how war is worthy

Lastly, the notion to hurt one’s enemy peoples to force their government into a complete surrender and to minimize the general loss of one’s own troops is immoral. Naturally, the typical ethical standards of war would not justify any use of dehumanization in order for a nation to supersede the other. The Japanese became dehumanized in the minds of American combatants and civilians. The process enabled greater cultural and physical differences between white Americans and Japanese than between the former and their European foes. In Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars (1977), he defines “ the use of force by one nation against another is always wrong unless the latter has already forfeited its basic rights.” Walzer is clearly stating that wars; especially nuclear wars are unjust if they strip away basic civilian rights. In other words, they are ponds in a game of political and nuclear warfare.

Brought up in the 1950s, a theory primarily gave way to a supporting a war started in regards to it. After two world wars had started and ended in the span of less than 50 years, the first half of the 1900s were influenced and shaped by the war and war effort. This was a time in world history ruled by vulnerability, but not long after the end of the infamous world wars, the Cold War followed. This war was an American effort against the Russian to, in part, fight the rise of communism. One of the most notorious wars for America, the only war they ever lost, was the Vietnam War; a branch of the Cold War effort of containment, or at least the effort to stop the spread of communism, was a theory coined as the domino theory. While the theory made sense at the time, in hindsight, it was flawed, and there were other ways to accomplish the what the domino theory was then thought to achieve.

When is it justifiable to engage in war? This question has plagued humanity for centuries and continues to do so. The theory of just war addresses three important questions when considering and dealing with war. These components are when is it justifiable to go to war, the right ways to conduct proceedings during war, and the justification of terminating war. The first part of the theory, originally written in Latin as jus ad bellum, is an important idea within Pope Urban II’s, “Speech at Clermont.” In the 11th century Pope Urban II gave this speech as a call for crusade with the hope of freeing Jerusalem from Muslim control. They eventually succeeded in this mission and took the city of Jerusalem. The “Speech at Clermont,” is now an important source for understanding the justifications of going to war within the medieval just war theory. Throughout the speech Pope Urban II justified the crusade by claiming it was the responsibility of the Christian people to regain the Holy Land, to protect their fellow Christians in the East, and their duty to stop the “disgraceful” and “demon worshipping” Muslim people.

War is a dangerous game, many people would likely agree to this, however, very few have ever seen a battlefront. The truth is that war, no matter how awful we can imagine it, is always exponentially worse. In Timothy Findley’s The Wars, Robert Ross, the protagonist,­ faces a situation that he finds difficult to come to terms with, and when faced with a similar situation later on in the novel, he must take drastic measures to reconcile the uncertainties of the past situation. Timothy Findley suggests, through the life of Robert Ross, that one’s need to reconcile the uncertainties of past experiences dominate our actions when such situations come up again in our lives. In the words of Hiram Johnson, a US Senator during the First World War,

including our adversaries. Truth is too big, and we are each to limited, to think

Much like the rest of the world, wars in the United States began before it was even considered a country. The revolutionary war was a brave and noble war fought by America’s earliest ancestors in the 1770s in the hopes of creating a better country for their prosperity. However, because it was not declared by an esteemed government, some would argue that it was not actually considered “just”. With the American Civil War, there were so many factors involved that the argument could be made both ways (2). Today, it has been decreed that the Civil War was fought entirely as an opposition to slavery in the South; however, at the time of the war, many more questions could be made as to the official reason. Because those battles were fought so long ago, theorists may only use the little information left behind to determine the justification of warfare.

War is a terrible, but dark truth of the world we live in today and throughout most of history. After the 9/11 attacks, America declared war and soon after started to deploy soldiers to attack. To cover the war in a new aspect, many reports were sent to war zones to get a story for the people of America. One of these reporters was Dexter Filkins. After his horrendous time in the war zone, Filkins made a book titled “The Forever War”. In one of the chapters, it discusses suicide bombings during the war. Filkins, was an inside eye to the war, was not a soldier, but just a citizen trying to get a story for the rest of America. I believe Filkins wrote this chapter to show America about the continuous fear the soldiers and the civilians in the war zone.

What is the Just War theory and how did it pertain to St. Augustine? According to Augustine there is no private right to kill. According to Paul Ramsey opposes in The Just War, Christian participation in warfare “was not actually an exception to the commandment, “you shall not murder” but instead an expression of the Christian understanding of moral and political responsibility. One can kill only under the authority of God. St. Augustine argued that Christian rulers had such an obligation to make peace for the protection of his subjects even if the only way to eliminate such a threat was through force of arms. St. Augustine believed that in wars there was a right intention.

Glory is a movie that reenacts the formation of the first Negro infantry, the 54th Massachusetts, during the Civil War. Led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the volunteer Massachusetts infantry endured grueling training and strict discipline. Under his watchful eye, they slowly transformed from being wild and unruly to proud, courageous, and patriotic soldiers. Although the North believed in the abolition of slavery, many Northerners’ still thought the Negro to be inferior to the White race and did not believe they could fight as well. They were soon to be proven wrong.

According to traditional just war theory, a just cause must serve peace and not simply protect an unjust status quo. War must be used as a last resort and all pacifistic approaches must be

The theory is not intended to justify wars but to prevent them, by showing that going to war except in certain limited circumstances is wrong, and thus motivate states to find other ways of resolving conflicts. A war is only a Just War if it is both justified, and carried out in the right way. The circumstances of Just-War Theory must be of: Last Resort, Legitimate Authority, Just Cause, Probability of Success, Right Intention, Proportionality, and Civilian Casualties.

The Just War Theory is a doctrine founded by Saint Augustine which has helped bring much discussion and debate to wars and the morality to fight in them. Wars and fights between people have gone on forever and are not perceived to stop anytime soon so it is important that some people thought about when and why they should ever fight. For many years Christians never part toke in this fighting due to teachings of the Bible and Jesus' teaching on 'turning the other cheek' and 'live by the sword, die by the sword'. Saint Augustine would be one of the first to talk about how a Christian could be a soldier and serve God at the same time. Through this thought we would receive the Just War Theory which gave a set of requirements for someone to partake

In the time period of last ten years, many changes have been observed in the nature of Warfare from being aggressive towards more argumentative. There are various views and debates among the nature and character of the wars and the debate continues to grow with time. The several reasons of changes can be attributed to the technological advances and other situational changes. This essay is going to shed light upon whether the nature and character of war has been changed in the course of recent years or it continues to be the same as it was years ago.