New realities dictate that war should only be deemed just if the victor is completely committed to order, stability, economic prosperity, and political peace.[1]
Recently, I wrote an essay for the Baptist Peacemaker arguing that pacifists should engage just war theorists (“Why Pacifists Should Know How to Justify War,” Baptist Peacemaker, April-June 2010). Pacifist engagement with just war theory is not a novel idea, in fact one of the most well-known voices for Christian pacifism, the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, did so in a number of his books (including When War is Unjust: Being Honest in Just War Thinking (Wipf & Stock, 1996), The War of the Lamb (Brazos, 2009), and Christian Attitudes to War, Peace, and Revolutions (Brazos, 2009) ). Instead, my purpose was to remind pacifists that it is important to know the grammar of just war theory. In understanding the language, one can engage just war theorists on their own terms.
For centuries Christians have articulated two main areas of just war theory: jus ad bellum (“justice in going to war”) and jus in bello (“justice during war”). In “Why Pacifists Should Know How to Justify War” I summarized these two areas and the criteria necessary in each to determine if a war is “just.”[2] Recently many just war theorists have turned their attention to other areas of just war theory. One area of contemporary just war theory that should be important to pacifists is the growing literature concerning jus post bellum or “post war justice.” Post war justice is an additional criteria of just war theory which seeks to further buttress (and challenge) any attempt to justify war—“to give it more teeth,” as the John Howard Yoder called upon Christian just war proponents to do—by stressing that the moral responsibility for war does not come to a halt when the fighting ends. There are many recent secular articulations of the jus post bellum criteria including writers Gary Bass, Doug McCready, Mark Evans, Lois Iasiello, and Brian Orend. One recent Christian study of jus post bellum is Mark Allman and Tobias Winright’s After the Smoke Clears: The Just War Tradition & Post War Justice (Orbis, 2010).
In After the Smoke Clears Allman and Winright, following St. Augustine see Just War theory as rooted in Christian love. “Just war,” they argue, “is a form of love in going to the aid of an unjustly attacked innocent party; however, it is also an expression of love, or ‘kind harshness,’ for one’s enemy neighbor. It aims at turning the enemy from their wicked ways, making amends, and helping the enemy to rejoin the community of peace and justice” (Allman and Winright, 30). Allman and Winright see a rich history of both jus ad bellum and jus in bello discussion, yet they see a great lack of post-war consideration for “helping the enemy rejoin the community of peace and justice.”[3] Like John Howard Yoder, Allman and Winright argue for the expansion of the just war tradition to encompass jus post bellum. Doing this “will close the loop” and “make for a more honest just war theory.” In other words, just war theory cannot merely have a beginning and middle but must also have an end. That is where the criterion of jus post bellum becomes so important.
Allman and Winright list four categories for determining if a war is just post bellum: just cause, reconciliation, punishment, and restoration. The goal of these four categories is to establish social, political, and economic conditions that are substantially more stable, more just, and less prone to chaos than what existed prior to the fighting ; to go beyond merely re-establsihing the status quo and to create an environment where people could pursue lives of meaning and flourishing. In this way, just war theory addresses the problems that led to war in the first place. The first category, just cause, demands that the purposes and goals which ostensibly justified going to war are carried out and completed in the aftermath of the fighting. If, for example, the vindication of rights of a people group is the goal of the conflict, the party fighting the just war bears the responsibility to assist in the realistic establishment of those rights. The second category, reconciliation, seeks restorative justice in the aftermath of war. Instead of merely retributive and punitive justice (both of which are indeed a part of jus post bellum according to Allman and Winwright), restorative justice is forward looking and aims at reconstruction. The third category, punishment, aims at justice, accountability, and restoration. As basically a sub-category of reconciliation, the punishment phase of post war justice requires that “truth telling,” “apology,” and “reparation” be made on behalf of the unjust party to the group wronged. These actions are designed for some form of restoration of the unjust group and the group wronged even if complete restoration is unattainable. Finally, the fourth category, restoration, demands that a just war end with “the creation of conditions that permit citizens to pursue a life that is meaningful and dignified” (Allman and Winright, 143). This responsibility falls to the victor for practical and moral reasons. Practically because they are in a position to provide necessary security and policing (typically the most pressing post war concerns). Morally because a just cause for going to war carries with it the obligation to reconstruct.
While pacifists may not necessarily agree with the reasons for going to war, it is seemingly more difficult to disagree with the need for post war justice. The four criteria of jus post bellum articulated by Allman and Winright (just cause, reconciliation, punishment, and restoration) are helpful ways of thinking about responsibilities of a war making nation[4] after the fighting stops. To understand the importance of these issues perhaps a brief application of Allman and Winright’s four categories to the current situation in Iraq is helpful. In a word, these categories should help determine if the employed exit strategy by the United States is just or unjust. Is the United States attempting to meet the reasons for going to war in the first place? Is the United States seeking restorative justice in Iraq which aims at reconciliation? Is the United States punishing wrong doers in a manner which forces “truth-telling?” Is the United States creating the necessary conditions through security and policing which create conditions conducive to human flourishing? Answering these questions in print would require much more than a brief essay, yet asking them helps us understand how to think through what justice after war might look like. In the end, perhaps most importantly for Baptist peacemakers, post war justice challenges many pacifists’ cries to “get out,” for a hasty exit which fails to meet jus post bellum criteria will ultimately determine any war to be unjust. One might object due to the financial cost and human resources necessary to employ these measures. Allman and Winright do not disagree with these facts but conclude, “the costs incurred are the penance for having committed the sin of war…perhaps [a consideration of post-war responsibilities] might quell the often feverish rush to war [since] war is and ought to be expensive.”
[1]George A. Lopez, “Just? Unjust?” Sojourners 33, no. 5 (May 2004): 24.
[2] It is important to note that while there are those who see some wars as “good,” most just war theorists prefer the term “just” because they realize that all wars are inherently evil. To just war theorists’ some wars are simply necessary to avoid a greater degree of evil.
[3] According to just war theorist Michael Walzer, jus post bellum is “the least developed part of just war theory” (Walzer, Arguing About Just War (Yale, 2004), 161).
[4] According to the principle of “right authority” in the jus ad bellum area of just war theory, only nations can make war.
No comments:
Post a Comment