Ethics of War as a Part of Military Ethics (original) (raw)

2016, Brill | Nijhoff eBooks

The ethics of war are a part of military ethics, and military ethics are a part of political ethics. Although war has its own specific logic both in terms of its existence and its functioning the matter in the end is political: what is the political purpose of war, or of what is the prerequisite of it. This prerequisite is the armed forces. It is true that armed forces have many different, often multifunctional, tasks and duties, but the main purpose of them is what makes the meaning and value of war, and that is the peace, the end state characterized by stability and predictability (the main job of an army is either to wage a war or to prepare for it). War is, by definition, a temporary state of affairs aimed to its end, which is a (new) peace. If this is so then the purpose of armed forces is not to be used but actually quite the opposite: not to be used, if possible. Its primary purpose is to avert a possible attack. That clearly establishes defense as the utmost and possibly only justification of war. The final mission of armed forces is to prevent war if possible, and only if necessary to engage if waging a war. From this viewpoint military ethics covers a broader terrain than ethics of war. But what's 'ethical' there in the first place? On one side we have a belief that in war, like in business, 'everything is allowed'. This standpoint of amorality of war is very comfortable for warriors as it absolves them (and us, if we accept that standpoint) from difficult analyzing of complex issues that might seem hard to solve. This standpoint, however, is widespread as a kind of broadly accepted prejudice. It has a clear benefit of safeguarding all those engaged in a war from too big burden of responsibility and often of conflict of responsibilities. On the other side there is a strong attitude to assess the war exclusively in terms of its badness as something always and necessary "evil". If there is a possible justification of war it should be somewhere in between these opposite standpoints. This might produce the impression that justifying war is a hopeless task, or something utterly contradictory: impossible despite being necessary. On the other side the theoretical justification seems to be at odds with what we find on the phenomenological level as the reality of war, as the real experience of many of those affected by it. There are many possibilities how this experience might be established and articulated. Those who make decisions, and many of those who fight, may take their standpoint to express what they believe in and are ready to sacrifice for, by saying that the cause of the  A version of this article has been published in