Moral jousting over war and peace

Americans won't settle for realpolitik, according to University of Chicago ethicist Jean Bethke Elshtain, because they believe war requires greater justification than purely national interest. Since the nation always seems capable of isolating itself rather than going to war, she says, "if there is to be a loss of life, it ought to be for a higher purpose."

Yet pacifism has never caught on here, she says, because Americans don't find it realistic. "Just-war theory accepts human wickedness," Ms. Elshtain says. "It acknowledges that humans sometimes do very bad things to each other.... Pacifism goes too far in one direction, let's say, and realpolitik goes too far in the other."

Just war has also enjoyed remarkable staying power because "it deals with the motives of war that would be present in any war, because the categories don't change," according to David Davenport of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In an October essay defending a preemptive attack, he wrote, "the United States should not acknowledge the United Nations as a moral authority on Iraq, but rather should apply traditional standards of just-war theory to explain its actions."

Yet despite his confidence in what the theory offers in dealing with Iraq, Mr. Davenport says the theory may be losing its value in today's world.

"I think new situations and new technologies really make us need to rethink just-war theory," Davenport says. Example: Just-war theory assumes a need to declare war, yet many circumstances involve an army acting "more like a high-level police force," thus negating the need for a declared war. What's more, he says, the global village cannot agree on who has authority to sanction warfare - any sovereign nation? The United Nations alone? Without these answers, just-war theory might see its core criteria erode.

To address new challenges of terrorism and provide an alternative to just war and pacifism, a group of United Church of Christ pastors and theologians are convening this month to advance a "just peace theology," a model in the making since the 1980s. The basic idea, according to Ms. Thistlethwaite, is "to establish a new Marshall plan" for the world by learning "how peace is built and sustained so it will not be necessary to consider the question of violence." Key elements include fighting poverty to thwart the root cause of terrorism and insisting governments earn their authority by creating and maintaining just systems.

Meanwhile, opponents of just-war theory are borrowing its questions for their own purposes. Annie Tunstall, a Quaker peace activist in Amesbury, Mass., says, "I don't believe there is a just war. War is just left over from another age, and we haven't learned to live without it."

Yet when broached about the Iraq situation, she asks if diplomacy has been exhausted and what tactic might hold the best chance of success. Both questions reside implicitly in just-war theory, illustrating the idea's legacy even beyond one school of thought.

As threats of violence continue to evolve, theories on how to respond are likewise adjusting. Yet given the longevity of just-war theory, its essentials seem likely to endure. "It's in the nature of moral theories," Hehir says "They don't drop easily out of existence."

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