Is war ever justified? Can there ever be a moral justification for an armed conflict?

Personally, I think there can be; morally, there are occasions where we must fight in order to preserve our way of life, our
humanity (by freeing a people from an oppressor) or resist an enemy who wishes us invaded and / or dead. Those occasions, I
would argue, justify warfare. It doesnt make it any more palatable, and every innocent life lost as a result of that war must be
mourned. But does death mean the war shouldnt be fought? No, especially if the war prevents a greater atrocity.
Consider the six criteria that war theorists use to determine when a war is morally justified. The war must be;
1.

Undertaken with the intention of establishing a just peace

2.

Defensive

3.

It must be aimed at protecting the innocent against unjust aggression.

4.

It must have a reasonable chance of success.

5.

It must be declared and waged by a competent governing authority.

6.

It must be undertaken as a last resort.

Lets discuss an example. The Iraq War was as hugely divisive in Western society as in Iraq and the middle east, and influenced
policy makers in the UK as much as in the USA for years to come the 2010-2015 Coalition government lost a vote on air strikes
in Iraq due to, in part, MPs struggling to reconcile the need for action against an increasingly hostile public to conflict.
The Iraq War began with the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition, who were able to topple Saddam Husseins
Baathist government and, in December 2003, capture Hussein himself. However, insurgents kept the conflict going for nearly a
decade, opposed as they were to the occupying forces and the new Iraqi government. Thousands upon thousands of Iraqis were
killed in the first 34 years of conflict. The United States officially withdrew from the country in 2011 but became re-involved in
2014 at the head of a new coalition
I struggle with this war. I believed that it, in many ways, was justified; Saddam Hussein was a brutal, cruel dictator whose rule
was absolute. He was capricious, evil and thought nothing of killing those who opposed him whilst making their families watch
and then applaud and dig the graves. This man was evil. He had no right governing a country, and he deserved to be toppled. As
fellow human beings, we were under an obligation to help, as we should be under the same obligation to help anyone in that
situation. People were dying, for gods sake; shouldnt we have tried to stop that?
The Bush government based its rationale for war principally on the assertion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction
(WMDs) and that Saddams government posed an immediate threat to the United States and its coalition allies. Some accused
Saddam of harboring and supporting al-Qaeda, while others cited the desire to end a repressive dictatorship and bring democracy
to the people of Iraq. After the invasion, no substantial evidence was found to verify the initial claims about WMDs. This
severely damaged Bush and Blairs credibility, and the credibility of the war.
There was, it has to be said, a complete lack of planning about what would happen afterwards. Iraq held multi-party elections in
2005, which is something to celebrate. However, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched a military offensive in
Northern Iraq and declared a worldwide Islamic caliphate, eliciting another military response from the United States and its
allies.

I felt ashamed. Id supported the publicly-stated aims of the war, and I felt that support had been betrayed due to their lack of
effective intelligence, a reluctance to make the coalition truly international, and the weakened state of Iraq after the invasion was
done. We should be ashamed of ourselves; we gave Iraq democracy, but we destroyed so much including our self-respect.
Nuclear warfare is the one type of conflict that truly, truly scares me to death pardon the pun. Compared to conventional
warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and in the extent of damage, and in a much shorter time. A major
nuclear exchange would have long-term effects, primarily from the fallout released, and could also lead to a nuclear winter that
could last for decades, centuries, or even millennia after the initial attack. Some analysts claim that with this potential nuclear
winter side-effect of a nuclear war, almost every human on Earth could starve to death. Other analysts, who dismiss the nuclear
winter hypothesis, calculate that with nuclear weapon stockpiles at Cold War highs, in a global nuclear war, billions of casualties
would have resulted but billions of people would nevertheless have survived.
So far only two nuclear weapons have been used in the course of warfare, both by the United States near the end of World War II.
On August 6, 1945, Little Boy was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, Fat
Manwas detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. These two bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 129,000
civilians and military personnel.
After World War II, nuclear weapons were also developed by the Soviet Union (1949), the United Kingdom (1952), France
(1960), and the Peoples Republic of China (1964), which contributed to the Cold War. In 1974, India, and in 1998, Pakistan, two
countries that were openly hostile toward each other, developed nuclear weapons. Israel (1960s) and North Korea (2006) are also
thought to have developed stocks of nuclear weapons, but their governments have never admitted to it. South Africa also
manufactured several nuclear weapons in the 1980s, but subsequently became the first country to voluntarily destroy their
domestically made weapons stocks and abandon further production (1990s).
Nuclear war is a popular subject for speculative fiction books, and they make for scary and terrifying reading. I came across one
particular report of what couldhappen in the event of a US-Russia nuclear exchange. Take a look at this chain of events;
o

2600 U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons on high-alert are launched (in 2 to 3 minutes) at targets in the U.S., Europe and
Russia.

Some fraction of the remaining 7600 U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons are launched and detonated in retaliation for
the initial attacks.

Hundreds of large cities in the U.S., Europe and Russia are engulfed in massive firestorms which burn urban areas of
hundreds of thousands of square miles.

150 million tons of smoke from nuclear fires rises above cloud level, into the stratosphere, where it quickly spreads
around the world and forms a dense stratospheric cloud layer. The smoke will remain there for many years to block and
absorb sunlight.

The smoke blocks up to 70% of the sunlight from reaching the Earths surface in the Northern Hemisphere, and up to
35% of the sunlight is also blocked in the Southern Hemisphere.

In the absence of warming sunlight, surface temperatures on Earth become as cold or colder than they were 18,000
years ago at the height of the last Ice Age.

There would be rapid cooling of more than 20C over large areas of North America and of more than 30C over much
of Eurasia, including all agricultural regions.

150 million tons of smoke in the stratosphere would cause minimum daily temperatures in the largest agricultural
regions of the Northern Hemisphere to drop below freezing for 1 to 3 years. Nightly frosts would occur and prevent food
from being grown.

Average global precipitation would be reduced by 45% due to the prolonged cold.

Growing seasons would be virtually eliminated for many years.

Massive destruction of the protective ozone layer would also occur, allowing intense levels of dangerous UV light to
penetrate the atmosphere and reach the surface of the Earth.

Massive amounts of radioactive fallout would be generated and spread both locally and globally. The targeting of
nuclear reactors would significantly increase fallout of long-lived isotopes.

Gigantic ground-hugging clouds of toxic smoke would be released from the fires; enormous quantities of industrial
chemicals would also enter the environment.

It would be impossible for many living things to survive the extreme rapidity and degree of changes in temperature and
precipitation, combined with drastic increases in UV light, massive radioactive fallout, and massive releases of toxins and
industrial chemicals.

Already stressed land and marine ecosystems would collapse.

Unable to grow food, most humans would starve to death.

A mass extinction event would occur, similar to what happened 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs were wiped
out following a large asteroid impact with Earth (70% of species became extinct, including all animals greater than 25
kilograms in weight).

Cheerful, arent I? Well, its worth discussing; the chance of nuclear war has receded, but cant be discounted. When countries
have a nuclear deterrent, theres always the possibility however faint that the deterrent could be used. Im actually against
nuclear weapons, and I would prefer to see Trident scrapped with the money being directed into other things. However, Im also a
realist, and know that individual countries need to work together to get rid of their stocks its the most logical, effective way of
reducing nuclear weapon stockpiles. But will we get the agreement? Not easily, and thats a discussion for another article, I
suspect.
So lets go back to where we started. There are, I would argue, cases for war conventional war, not the disastrous, all or nothing
war of a nuclear exchange and we need to be honest about them. Yes, diplomacy and discussion are always preferable to war
and conflict, but not everyone chooses to live by the same rules as us. As a result, we had to fight to defend our freedoms, and
those of others as well.
The clearest example of a just cause is self-defence against an aggressor. For example, when an enemy has crossed your borders
and invaded your territory, or performing a preemptive strike: attacking the enemy to prevent an anticipated attack by them.
Preemptive strikes may no longer be acceptable by UN members, since the Charter says that short of actual attack, all Members
shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means (Article 2:3)
St Augustine said that there were three main reasons for war;
o

defending against attack

recapturing things taken

punishing people who have done wrong

Each of these can be seen as an act of justice: they harm someone who deserves to be harmed because they have done wrong.
This can help argue the point that a war is just if force is the only option to stop evil flourishing. Not all potential enemies are as
obviously cruel and evil as Hitler and Hussein; we need a very sophisticated moral compass to define this.