“Besides, the legitimacy of a war is not established by how it is organized but by what it achieves.”
—-David Brooks, writing in the Times about the messy United Nations coalition now intervening in the Libyan civil war.
This is blatant consequentialism, and Brooks is incredibly mistaken to write it. Would Lincoln’s war have been “illegitimate” if it had resulted in a defeated North and two nations, one still clinging to slavery? W.W.II “achieved” virtual slavery for million of Europeans whose freedom was conceded to the Soviet Union, the frying of two Japanese cities full of civilians, the opportunity for Mao to launch the worst genocide in human history, and 40 years with a very real risk of a nuclear war that might have exterminated humanity. Was that war legitimate?
The legitimacy of a war is measured by whether its cause is just, and its objectives are both vital and beyond accomplishing by any other means. What any war ultimately achieves is determined by events and factors impossible to know when the war is commenced, as well as pure, dumb luck..
Ethics Alarms 
Legitimacy, schmegitimacy. I am still of the opinion that EVERY war is an admission of failure.
That we, as a species, lack either the will or the brains (or both) to settle our differences without trying to kill each other.
WorldWar II? Perhaps we lacked the brains (foresight) to see what the Versailles Treaty was doing to Germany, seeding the ground in which a charismatic madman like Hitler could grow.
Pearl Harbor? Perhaps our scholars and diplomats failed to see what the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was all about from Japan’s viewpoint.
On and on – you can go back to every war in the sorry history of the human race and point out, “If only…”.
Admission of failure on all sides.
+1
True. But we still have to admit failure and deal with the consequences of it.
Ethics Alarms is quite correct. The ends never justify the means! Brooks should have known better.
I disagree that it’s that cut and dry in general, but this specific example is pretty obvious.
Do you mean in relation to war? I wouldn’t say”cut and dry,” but war is chaos incarnate—you never know what is going to be the ultimate result. I believe the objective of the Iraq war was a good one, but can understand the argument that it was not. Still, we have no idea what the random forces set in motion by that war will be. If Iraq emerges as the transformational democracy that alters the Middles East, and it emerges as growing and prosperous US ally, or if it deteriorates into civil way qand emerges as another violent autocracy—as far as determining the war’s legitimacy, either is irrelevant.
I was referring directly to the quote. To me, it says that in war, there is a blanket exception for all means, so long as something good eventually occurs. That’s not even “end justifies the means,” it’s “non-sequitor justifies the means.”
I do believe that there are some means that are inethical on their face, but can be justified by the likelihood they will achieve a specific goal in specific circumstances. “Whatever the end result turns out to be, if it’s good, then we were just” does not come close to fitting my limited definition.
Got it. I don’t disagree.
People will debate for the next 100 years the ethics of dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing and injuring tens of thousands of Japanese civilians – men, women and children.
The most usual argument I’ve heard is, “Well, it shortened the war considerably, and saved the lives of thousands of American GI’s who would have been killed in an invasion.”
This presupposes that American military lives are more important and valuable than Japanese civilian lives.
War is an admission of failure, and is chaos.
I believe the first bomb was militarily justified.
I don’t believe that citizens are passive victims in wars. A citizen shares accountability for the government he tolerates; the strange over-protectiveness of citizens during was makes wars easier to tolerate and easier for citizens to take the attitude of “it’s none of my concern.” This is a big topic, and someday I’ll work it up. But we are responsible for what our nations do.
Only recently have German civilian casualties during WWII even been quantified. They were accountable.
Of course, it’s fully possible that even more Japanese civilians would have been killed in a land invasion that was supplemented by conventional bombing (we managed to kill as many, if not more, civilians by simple firebombing), not to mention all soldiers and civilians from myriad nations who may have died if the fronts in China and Southeast Asia had been prolonged.
Basically, the “most usual” argument in favor of the bombings misses a lot of the point, in my mind. And of course, there’s been debate on Truman’s motives as well (though from what I know of his character, I do think he was at least in part concerned for the long-term best well-being of everyone).
It’s difficult to argue which was “more ethical” or “less diabolical”, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, or the “simple firebombing” of Dresden. I’ll not be an advocate for either.
Most people are brought up with some cultural equivalent of “Thou shalt not kill.” For an American soldier to overcome this early conditioning, one must make an act of faith in the superior moral judgment of one’s leaders, from squad leader up to Commander-in-Chief, that killling other people is really necessary and defensible.
Decades ago I was a US Army Infantry lieutenant for 4 years. I thought I was ready, willing and able to kill other people if the C-in-C said it was necessary. Fortunately I was never put to the test. My thinking has changed now – I would no longer be in that situation.
Can you see making an act of faith in the superior moral judgment of, say, a Lyndon Johnson or (God help us!) a Richard Nixon?
Today I would be ready, willing and able to go to prison as a conscientious objector, if I had to. That is only me – what other would do is up to them. But in the German phrase, for military killings, “Ohne mich.” I guess that makes me a “Peacenik”.
Dresden was pure retribution for Coventry, and, I would argue, completely unconscionable—it had no vital military value. It was terrorism. So was Hiroshima (Nagasaki was murder), but at least the objective was to end the war.
I was actually referring to the March 9-10, 1945 nighttime firebombing of Tokyo, the casualties of which made Dresden look like the simple aftermath of a frat-house party in comparison. (If you’re curious about the lives of Japanese civilians during the war, Grave of the Fireflies is a particularly heart-rending movie looking at the fate of two children orphaned by the Kobe firebombings, made by the same studio that gave us Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke).
Hopefully, I’d have the courage to be a conscientious objector as well, if need be. (I wouldn’t call anyone a Peacenik unless I was sure that they were 100% pacifist).
Jack,
What kind of person actually puts periods after the “W”s in “WWII”? Murray’s Grammar aside, the non-dotted version is acceptable by virtue of being common law (or at least it should be). Great article otherwise!
-Neil
There’s a really stupid, lazy reason for that. I inadvertently did a tag that way last year, and now it automatically comes up when I do the new tags. So to be consistent, I went back and added all the periods to the post.