In an interview on War

What about the Michael Walzer book?

This is another classic. He is a philosopher and he wrote it after the Vietnam war (1959-1975), asking the question – is war ever just? There is a long history of literature on what counts as a just war. Essentially, just war as a policy goes back to St Augustine. The early Christians were pacifists, but when the Roman Empire converted to Christianity in 312AD they needed a way of justifying war. Jus in bello – is the cause just? Jus ad bellum – is it fought justly and is it authorised by a right authority – the King or whatever? The fascinating thing in the Middle Ages was that there were two types of war – Just and Holy. A Just War was authorised by the prince or the monarch and had to be fought consistently with church rules. A Holy War was authorised by the Pope and there were no rules. So, when the crusaders sacked Jerusalem in 1099 it wasn’t, as lots of people think, because they were outside of Europe, it was because it was a Holy War.

The just cause nowadays, according to Walzer, is self-defence against aggression.

Are there other rules of war outlined in the Walzer book?

Yes. There is the distinction between the non-combatant and the combatant. Non-combatants, such as prisoners of war, old men, women and children, are to be protected and there are all kinds of rules about what we now call “collateral damage” which means that the collateral damage has to be proportionate – the cause has to be worthwhile enough that it doesn’t matter if you kill a few people. What Walzer does is to outline a set of principles that have been developed over centuries.

Do you think there can be causes worthwhile enough?

I don’t think wars are ever legitimate, but I think there can be a justification for the use of force. For example, genocide. I think it is justifiable to use force to protect people from genocide. You wouldn’t, for example, as NATO did in Kosovo, use bombs to protect people. You would risk your life on the ground and go in to help. There is a big difference between thinking “My goal is to defeat the enemy that inflicts genocide,” and “My goal is to protect people who are victims of genocide.” I think it needs to be more like policing. The police would bring the aggressors in alive if possible, so they can be tried in a court rather than just killing them. What’s interesting is that, in his second edition, Walzer recognises that self defence isn’t the only just cause, that humanitarian intervention can be a just cause too. Although it’s a secular book, the principles are the same as the principles for just war in most religions. Islam is particularly strict on this. The First Caliph said that you shouldn’t kill civilians, that you shouldn’t slaughter sheep unless you need them for food, and that you shouldn’t cut down trees. The Israelis have destroyed thousands of trees in Palestine. That’s not allowed in Islam. So the religious, Christian rules of war were codified in the late 19th century at the Hague Convention and the Geneva Convention – this was international humanitarian law written down for the first time in the Western tradition, but it is not inconsistent with other traditions.

Nobody takes any notice of the Geneva Convention, though, do they?

They do. It’s terribly important for soldiers whose job is basically to kill people. There is a fine line between being a hero and being a murderer. They need to feel they are obeying the law. The difference between contemporary warfare and old-fashioned warfare is that contemporary armies now shoot from a distance. The worst atrocities are usually committed by paramilitary groups because ordinary soldiers are supposed to feel they are abiding by the law. There is a link between this and Clausewitz, because by World War II the distinctions between soldiers and civilians had broken down. If you think about the Blitz, the Holocaust, Dresden, it was a fusion of the trinity, justifying total war. There was a view that it was a military necessity to go to the extremes – that Hitler was so evil that you can justify killing civilians and that even these total wars can be legitimated in “just war” terms.