#25 War or Terror, is there a difference?

WAR AND ASSORTED DETAILS
By Alex Ness
June 16, 2024

War in itself would seem to have no rules. Treating an enemy with a choice of slaughter or being sold as a slave should they surrender is not truly a choice of freedom or of there being a choice, even. So while I am a fan of and know a great deal of military history, I am not saying war is good or even usually necessary, I am saying it is something that should studied.

A reader sent a couple interesting question, and while I have answers to both questions, the ultimate truth is that war is an obscenity, and it is a legitimized travesty by terms declaration of war and treaties.  I am not a pacifist, but descriptions of, and outlook on war is far too scrubbed of the vulgarity of the event.

The questions...

"I heard on PBS a discussion of the Ukraine War that Russia violated the Just War Theory by the invasion, despite having made a declaration. What the hell is Just War Theory?"

"If a war is not a just war, doesn't that make every action, however perhaps proper at the moment and isolated as one incident? That is, how can an act be moral, technically but be done in the service of a leadership or nation who are immoral and declared war under false pretenses?"

Ancient people have records on stone tablets, and the study goes all the way to the present. The ancient Egyptians spelled out reasons and costs, just or unjust acts. Across the Mediterranean, the Greeks, the Romans, and far more, try to delineate between honorable reasons and dishonorable. This both would make wars fought under such a burden to prove less vile, and more able to recover from in the aftermath.

But war crimes is something quite different than an unjust war.  War crimes are acts that are so vile that the human race must agree that they must be considered worse than the standard acts of war. Violence and rape, killing of non combatants, killing prisoners all violate our sensitivities. I recommend Just and Unjust Wars if this is your major objection to wars.  But in my opinion war is a moral and human societal vulgarity. The point being made means one must agree with the rules laid down, before starting a war, which sounds to me like saying, before a fist fight, ok, you can hurt me a little so long as you don't kick me in the nuts or outright kill me. Which is true Hell. War is not moral, but the people in war may well be. But as a species we need to learn to resolve issues with words alone. I doubt I will see that day.