War and terrorism

War is well defined as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between groups of people (Orend 2013). This is true whether these groups are within one country (civil war) or in different countries (classic international warfare). “Armed conflict” means the use of weapons and physical violence with the intention of inflicting harm upon people, trying to coerce them into doing whatever one wants. As Clausewitz said, war is “an act of violence, intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will”. War is like a duel, he concluded, “only on an extensive scale” (Clausewitz 1995: 10-11). There have been over two hundred wars (thus defined, and with a minimum of a thousand battlefield deaths) in the last hundred years alone. So, on average, there are two new wars every year. As of writing, there seem to be, around the world, about twelve armed conflicts ongoing (Harrison & Wolf 2009). Armed conflict has a massive impact on all our lives. It shapes the fate of nations, alters the

course of history, consumes enormous resources, determines who is in control and, obviously, causes much death and destruction (Keegan 1994). How should we think about “the ethics of armed conflict”? Or is this an oxymoron (like “deafening silence”)? The purpose of this chapter is to explain what dominant traditions of thought have had to say about the morality of war (and terrorism), using current and historical case references to illustrate the relevant ideas and values. There are three basic, and influential, perspectives on the ethics of war and peace. They can

be diagrammed, crudely, on the following continuum:

Each of these traditions has something very important and influential to say about the ethics of war and peace. Let us begin by looking at the extremes, to get a better fix on the middle, which tends to be the more commonplace, or majority, understanding (if not always the prevailing practice).