ABSTRACT
The revival of just war theory in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks in the United States reveals the contradictory and contested nature of moral claims about violence within International Relations. If political scientists are often criticised for ‘fiddling while Rome burns’ (Strauss 1962: 327) then the extensive revival of just war theory in public debates about armed intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrates the importance of moral reasoning in public deliberation about warfare and violence in International Relations. The extensive deployment of just war theory in the global war on terror raises significant questions about the contradictory relationship between political practice and political theory within the just war tradition. The strength of the just war tradition lies in its capacity to generate an understanding of the communitarian basis of modern militaries and how decisions about warfare are questions for deliberation within political community. Nonetheless, this instrumental view of just war theory thinks of just war as a rational body of conditions that must be satisfied in order to go to war ( jus ad bellum) and in the fighting of war ( jus in bello). This chapter examines the way in which parliamentary debate about the Iraqi intervention highlights the limitations of the just war theory as a public discourse of warfare. A failure to examine the ‘difficult questions’ of just war theory within the official discourse of Australian foreign policy have revealed how the vocabulary of the just war tradition has become a ‘permission slip’ for states in justifying the global war on terror. The ‘difficult questions’ of the just war tradition have been overlooked in the need to provide a moral justification for an intervention that was contrary to international law. Michael Walzer’s concern that the triumph of just war thinking has undermined the critical potential of just war theory is clearly discernible in parliamentary debates about the Iraqi intervention within the context of Australian foreign policy. According to Walzer, the triumph of just war involves a ‘certain softening of the critical mind, a truce between theorists and soldiers. If intellectuals are often awed and silenced by political leaders who invite them to dinner, how much more so by generals who talk their language’ (Walzer 2004: 15). At the same time, the ability of political elites to draw upon the abstract moral vocabulary of the just war tradition lends the justification of a given military intervention a greater degree of credibility. The tendency to treat the just war
tradition as a rigid set of criteria – just cause, legitimate authority, right intention, last resort, proportionality, probability of success – undermines the possibility of comprehending the complex nature of the just war tradition within International Relations. The dimensions of the just war cannot be reduced to a list of criteria that need to be satisfied in order to make war just and thereby legitimate. On the contrary, it is important to take into account the very basis of the just war tradition and how these are negotiated through individual political communities. For this reason, drawing attention to the contradictory ways in which the vocabulary of the just war tradition has been deployed within parliamentary discourse enables the political dimensions of the just war tradition to be understood more clearly. The basis of the just war tradition is contested within the discipline of International Relations and its capacity to make sense of the global war on terror has been widely debated. Where many commentators have emphasised the theology of the just war tradition (Elshtain 2003; Turner Johnson 1997) this has often been at the expense of detailed sociological reflection on the relationship between ethical theorising and political communities. For this reason, an examination of the foundations of just war doctrine needs to take into account the foundational assumptions of just war thinking and how these are often overlooked when just war theory is simply a matter of ‘ticking boxes’ from a rigid set of criteria. David Welch’s analysis of the communitarian basis of contemporary just war theory is relevant to the analysis of parliamentary debates about the Iraqi intervention in Australian foreign policy. Welch contends that this communitarian approach to warfare (evident largely in Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars) assumes that ‘principles of international justice cannot be indifferent to the fact that individual human beings live and die as members of distinct societies and cultures whose conceptions of justice differ’ (Welch 1995: 204). This is reflected in the primary assumptions of Walzer’s legalist paradigm which establishes the state as an independent entity within the context of international society. From this follows Walzer’s understanding of the legal basis of states in terms of the principle of territorial integrity and political sovereignty (Walzer 2000: 61). For this reason, Walzer’s understanding of international society reflects the assumption that ‘in the absence of a universal state, men and women are protected and their interests represented only by their governments’ (Walzer 2000: 61). Thus, just war substitutes the morality of political communities in the absence of truly international law around the use of force within International Relations. The primary limitation of the communitarian approach to just war doctrine is that it establishes communal agreement about jus ad bellum as the basis for determining when a state is justified in violating the territorial integrity and political sovereignty of another state. Although clear limits are placed on this through Walzer’s account of the crime of aggression under international law the ‘rationality’ of the deliberation about whether a war is just or unjust is derived from a communal understanding of international ethics. This means that individual political communities must determine the basis upon which force can be used
against another political community. Nonetheless, it is this communal dimension of ethics within the just war tradition that has largely been overlooked in debates about just war in the global war on terror. Many political elites have taken the terms ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ as neutral signifiers of justice rather than as complex signifiers that must be negotiated through political communities themselves. The significance of this is the vocabulary of just war has triumphed at the expense of critical engagement with the just war tradition itself. Rather than thinking of just war as an objective set of criteria that needs to be fulfilled before going to war (in which just war is merely about justifying war) the real dilemma is how just war theory can be made to argue both for and against intervention in Iraq. If it generates two radically different answers to the question of jus ad bellum in Iraq, does this render the tradition itself redundant? Walzer’s claim that ‘judicial scrutiny in international politics and especially in wartime is notoriously light’ has important implications for the way in which political elites use just war theory as a basis for the political justification of military intervention (Walzer 2004). What constitutes ‘judicial scrutiny’ involves a very thin conception of international law to regulate the conditions under which states go to war. Nicholas Rengger has observed that the modern just war tradition has emphasised just war as a set of ‘universally applicable moral rules’ (Rengger 2002: 360). A fundamental problem in thinking of just war theory as a universal expression of the morality of warfare is that this overlooks the contextual basis of morality in considerations of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Rengger’s assertion that just war theory, as elaborated by Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, was less rule-based than modern just war theory has important implications for both foreign policy and the study of international ethics. The late medieval and early modern understanding of just war as a ‘casuistical’ tradition means that the ‘resources of the tradition were deployed in specific contexts as seemed appropriate and reasonable’ (Rengger 2002: 360). The legalisation of just war thinking in contemporary International Relations has meant that this contextual dimension of just war theory has been largely overlooked in the bid to identify technically correct solutions to the ethical dilemmas of warfare today. Parliamentary debates about Australian foreign policy have global implications for just war theory because they highlight the disparity between the universal and the casuistical in ethical considerations of warfare. If the universal is concerned with obtaining a universal consensus about the norms and rules of warfare then the casuistical is more interested in the contextual deviation from these norms and rules. Parliamentary debates also underscore the significance of foreign policy in state identity formation. Devetak and True have argued that ‘how states conceive of their identity and how they respect international rules and norms have become much more important measures of foreign policy maturity than the ability of a state to use force and assert sovereign autonomy’ (Devetak and True 2006: 255). Locating Australia’s international identity within International Relations is particularly problematic given the lack of consensus about the fundamental outlook of Australia as an international actor. In addressing the identity of
Australian foreign policy consideration needs to be given to the question of whether Australia is a ‘middle power’ and whether this involves a different ethical trajectory in International Relations. The assumption that Australian foreign policy has been strongly influenced by middle power diplomacy needs to be assessed against Australia’s actual involvement in military operations since federation in 1901. Harry Gelber has noted that for political leaders such as Hughes, Evatt and Whitlam ‘middle power’ identity signalled a different ethical order than that of the great powers. According to Gelber this is a ‘tendency to assert the role of middle powers, among whom Australia can claim a leader’s part on some issues, as against the great powers’ (Gelber 1975: 191). This ordering, quite significantly, links domestic identity to external conduct. Gelber claims that the Australian identity of ‘middle power’ has less to do with the political or ideological outlooks of leaders (and their respective parties) than with what he refers to as the ‘the conditions of international politics at the time’ (Gelber 1975: 191). Australia’s foreign policy has undoubtedly been shaped by the globalisation of militaries and the humanitarian agenda within International Relations. This is reflected in the official discourse of the Australia Defence Force and its need to frame military operations through cosmopolitan norms and international law. According to the Australian Department of Defence (2002) the, ‘way that the Australian Defence Force is deployed reflects Australian values about the primacy of the rule of law and the civil authority in upholding the rule of law’. Australian military values are thereby synonymous with broader values within the Australian community. Part of the Australian tradition of warfare involves an acknowledgement of the difficulties faced by the Australian military at the dawn of the twentieth century. The role of Gallipoli in establishing the ‘Australian’ approach to warfare cannot be underestimated. The military covenant, which is a key component in communitarian understandings of just war, is thrust into public debate at Gallipoli and is generally taken as a defining moment in Australia’s military identity. The belief that Australians were the pawns of British military commanders at Gallipoli is reflected in Australian foreign policy identity. For this reason, Australia’s understanding of the military covenant is strongly linked to civil society in a way fundamentally different to the United Kingdom. Thus, the Australian Department of Defence (2002) claims that, ‘although Australia’s wartime involvement is declining, interest in Australia’s military experiences remains high, particularly among younger Australians’. The Australian Department of Defence (2002) also notes that, ‘the Australian community should appreciate the factors that shape the ethos of its armed forces and how these factors interact within community standards and ideals’. Likewise, ‘the Australian Defence Force reflects the kind of country we are, the role we seek to play in the world, and the way we see ourselves’. Within the context of Australian federalism the Department of Defence has, except when faced with civil ‘emergencies’ (such as Cyclone Tracy and the recent intervention in Aboriginal communities), played a minimal role in both the establishment and maintenance of Australian democracy. As such, the
Department of Defence draws upon the rule of law and frames its operations in terms of the Law of Armed Conflict. These include understandings about the humane treatment of prisoners, upholding the principles of non-combatant immunity, the protection of objects of historical and cultural significance and the use of certain kinds of weapons. The geopolitical dimensions of Australia’s military identity are also significant considerations that need to be addressed in understanding foreign policy identity in Australia. The Department of Defence’s identification of the ‘Australian’ approach to warfare involves what it terms ‘geo-strategic influences’. The dimensions of the geo-strategic should be measured in terms of Australia’s remoteness and land-mass which, according to the Department of Defence, provides any potential aggressor with enormous difficulty strategically. Related to this geography is Australia’s economic and political geography which is linked to the perceived vulnerability of Australia within South East Asia. Threats to Australian security are thereby understood in both conventional and nonconventional ways. The military threats are linked to weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and threats to information systems. At the same time, the Australian Department of Defence claims that it is the ‘non-military threats’ which actually pose the greatest challenge of ‘immediate concern’ to the Australian community. These non-military threats are defined by the Australian Department of Defence (2002) as, ‘natural disasters, pandemic diseases, illegal immigration, illegal fishing, people smuggling, environmental degradation, narcotics and transnational crime’. The framing of an ‘Australian’ approach to warfare by the Department of Defence demonstrates the way in which official discourses of warfare draw upon the legalisation of just war norms as a basis for contemporary state practice. It seeks to speak to Australia’s national culture as a basis for both jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Nonetheless, this rendering of the Australian approach to warfare underplays the historic divisions in the Australian political community about the use of force internationally. Just war thinking is reflected in the Department of Defence’s claim (2002) that Australia has ‘always viewed the use of armed force as a means of resolving problems as a last resort in the art of statecraft’. Nonetheless, this does not fit with Australia’s deep engagement with the morality of warfare at critical junctures in its international history. Australian debate about the use of military force abroad has divided both the political community and the Australian public. These divisions are significant inasmuch as they reveal the way in which just war thinking is deployed as a rule-based norm within International Relations without due consideration for the ways in which the use of force has historically involved contextual deviations from the norm. This is especially relevant in considering the impact of the Bush doctrine on Australian foreign policy and Australia’s commitment to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Even the Department of Defence’s account of ‘defence posture’ is based on the legalisation of norms within the context of the Australian military. The term ‘defence posture’ refers to a ‘nation-state’s military capability and its orientation
in relation to other states’ (2002). On the question of what constitutes Australia’s ‘defence posture’ the report is remarkably agnostic. What is significant about the discussion of war fighting is that it acknowledges the professionalisation of the Australian military and how this must always be linked to ‘high levels of professional warfighting mastery’. The lack of specification about what constitutes the Australian approach to warfare is also mirrored in the claim that the Department of Defence’s ‘principal philosophy derives from our long involvement in Western approaches to warfare’. Key warfare concepts for the Department of Defence (2002) involve the:
• integration of the capabilities of the three services (navy, army and air force) in joint operations;
• the early resolution of conflict in a way that allows Australia not only to ‘win the war’, but also to ‘win the peace’;
• maximisation of the physical and psychological pressure on the adversary’s will to continue fighting. This may involve attrition of the adversary’s forces at critical points, but is distinct from a focus on attrition of the adversary’s forces and economic resources or on gaining territory;
• mobility of power and well-directed application of firepower to ensure both economy of effort and decisive effort; and
• the ability to operate effectively in coalition with other people when required.
