The Future of Just War: New Critical Essays

201 Pages·2014·1.258 MB·English

by  Caron E. Gentry, Amy E. Eckert

THE FUTURE OF JUST WAR
THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS 2013
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SERIES EDITORS
William W. Keller Scott A. Jones
Professor of International Aff airs, Center for Director of Export Control Programs, Center for
International Trade and Security, University of International Trade and Security, University of
Georgia Georgia
SERIES ADVISORY BOARD
Pauline H. Baker William J. Long
The Fund for Peace Sam Nunn School of International Aff airs,
Georgia Institute of Technology
Eliot Cohen
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Jessica Tuchman Mathews
Studies, Johns Hopkins University Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Eric Einhorn Scott D. Sagan
Center for Public Policy and Administration, Center for International Security and
University of Massachusetts, Amherst Cooperation, Stanford University
John J. Hamre Lawrence Scheinman
The Center for Strategic and International Monterey Institute of International Studies,
Studies cns- wdc
Josef Joff e David Shambaugh
Hoover Institution, Institute for International The Elliott School of International Aff airs,
Studies, Stanford University George Washington University
Lawrence J. Korb Jessica Stern
Center for American Progress fxb Center, Harvard School of Public Health
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THE FUTURE
OF JUST WAR
New Critical Essays
Edited by Caron E. Gentry and Amy E. Eckert
The University of Georgia Press
Athens and London
© 2014 by the University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
www .ugapress .org
All rights reserved
Set in Minion Pro by Graphic Composition, Inc., Bogart, Georgia.
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17 16 15 14 13 p 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
Th e future of just war : new critical essays / edited by Caron E. Gentry and Amy E. Eckert.
pages cm. — (Studies in security and international aff airs)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn- 13: 978-0-8203-3950-4 (hardback)
isbn- 10: 0-8203-3950-4 (hardcover)
isbn- 13: 978-0-8203-4560-4 (paperback)
1. Just war doctrine. 2. War—Moral and ethical aspects. I. Gentry, Caron E., author,
editor of compilation. II. Eckert, Amy, author, editor of compilation.
u21.2.f874 2014
172'.42—dc23
2013020499
British Library Cataloging- in-Publication Data available
ISBNfordigitaledition:978-0-8203-4653-3
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Caron E. Gentry and Amy E. Eckert
section one. Jus ad Bellum
chapter one. Epistemic Bias: Legitimate Authority and
Politically Violent Nonstate Actors 17
Caron E. Gentry
chapter two. Strategizing in an Era of Conceptual Change:
Security, Sanctioned Violence, and New Military Roles 30
Kimberly A. Hudson and Dan Henk
chapter three. Is Just Intervention Morally Obligatory? 48
Luke Glanville
chapter four. Private Military Companies and the
Reasonable Chance of Success 62
Amy E. Eckert
section two. Jus in Bello
chapter five. Postheroic U.S. Warfare and the
Moral Justifi cation for Killing in War 79
Sebastian Kaempf
chapter six. From Smart to Autonomous Weapons:
Confounding Territoriality and Moral Agency 98
Brent J. Steele and Eric A. Heinze
chapter seven. An Alternative to Nuclear Weapons? Proportionality,
Discrimination, and the Conventional Global Strike Program 115
Alexa Royden
chapter eight. Rethinking Intention and Double Eff ect 130
Harry D. Gould
chapter nine. Just War without Civilians 148
Laura Sjoberg
section three. Jus post Bellum
chapter ten. Jus post Bellum: Justice in the Aft ermath of War 167
Robert E. Williams Jr.
Contributors 181
Index 185
INTRODUCTION
Caron E. Gentry and Amy E. Eckert
Critical scholarship questions the ontological and epistemological construc-
tions that are taken to be “natural,” a “given,” or too long- standing to question.
Like security studies, terrorism studies, or international relations, the Just War
tradition also contains such assumptions. The Just War tradition assumes a
particular epistemic perspective: in this current global system, the state is the
legitimate authority able to possess right intention, justify cause, and maneuver
last resort and is the sole entity in possession of the ability to direct propor-
tionate and discriminate violence. The presumptions in favor of the state can
quickly lead to further presumptions that the state always acts justly when it
wages war, that conventional weapons do not violate discrimination and pro-
portionality, and that civilians, and not military forces, are at the center of a
state’s consideration of moral harm. Such thinking creates operational binaries:
states are always the legitimate author and nonstate actors illegitimate; the use
of conventional weapons always falls within discrimination and proportional-
ity, and nuclear weapons do not; military leaders need to consider the moral
harm to noncombatants but not necessarily to soldiers.
These operational binaries oft en lead to uncritical assessments of claims
about war and justice. Epistemic assumptions and hermeneutics need to be
challenged and rescripted in light of an international system where nonstate
actors, including rebel groups, terrorist movements, criminal syndicates, and
corporations, engage in political violence, where state-t o-state wars are on the
decline, and where the imperative to reconfi gure sovereignty as a system of
shared responsibility for individual well- being so as to require intervention for
humanitarian purposes is becoming more accepted. Moreover, even when states
do engage in war, their methods, strategies, and weapons are oft en presumed to
be just even if they break the norms of war and the international system. Both
by the immediate presumption of state legitimacy and through the claim of
supreme emergency, state violations of international norms are oft en allowed
to “slide.” Just as previous periods of political crisis have caused the tradition
to change and grow, these new developments provide the prospect for similar