Essay 1 Jus ad Bellum, Jus in Bello, and Jus Post Bellum are the three stages of Just War Theory.

“For war, as a grave act of killing, needs to be justified.” These words were written by Murray N. Rothbard, dean of the Austrian School and founder of modern libertarianism, who spent much of his academic career trying to determine what, exactly, defined a “just war”. In fact, for as long as humans have been fighting wars, there have been quotations referring to the justification and moralities of wars and how warfare can be considered fair and acceptable to each society’s individual standards. While the time and place of each war differs, the reality of the devastation of battle may be found warranted by those fighting using these just war standards to vindicate their actions.

Lastly, the notion to hurt one’s enemy peoples to force their government into a complete surrender and to minimize the general loss of one’s own troops is immoral. Naturally, the typical ethical standards of war would not justify any use of dehumanization in order for a nation to supersede the other. The Japanese became dehumanized in the minds of American combatants and civilians. The process enabled greater cultural and physical differences between white Americans and Japanese than between the former and their European foes. In Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars (1977), he defines “ the use of force by one nation against another is always wrong unless the latter has already forfeited its basic rights.” Walzer is clearly stating that wars; especially nuclear wars are unjust if they strip away basic civilian rights. In other words, they are ponds in a game of political and nuclear warfare.

When is it justifiable to engage in war? This question has plagued humanity for centuries and continues to do so. The theory of just war addresses three important questions when considering and dealing with war. These components are when is it justifiable to go to war, the right ways to conduct proceedings during war, and the justification of terminating war. The first part of the theory, originally written in Latin as jus ad bellum, is an important idea within Pope Urban II’s, “Speech at Clermont.” In the 11th century Pope Urban II gave this speech as a call for crusade with the hope of freeing Jerusalem from Muslim control. They eventually succeeded in this mission and took the city of Jerusalem. The “Speech at Clermont,” is now an important source for understanding the justifications of going to war within the medieval just war theory. Throughout the speech Pope Urban II justified the crusade by claiming it was the responsibility of the Christian people to regain the Holy Land, to protect their fellow Christians in the East, and their duty to stop the “disgraceful” and “demon worshipping” Muslim people.

Jus a bellum, the right to go to war, explicitly describes how a nation-state should conduct itself before preparing for war. There are seven sub-categories within Jus a bellum: Just Cause, Comparative Justice, Competent Authority, Right Intention, Profitability of Success, Last Resort, and Proportionality. Just Cause is explained as needing to have a

In all of Human history, only 8% of that time has been completely at peace. From 150 million to 1 billion people in total have been killed by war. That’s 150 million families at least who have had their loved ones ripped from their grasp. This is far too many. War is unnecessary and barbaric. In “just and unjust war” by Howard Zinn the complexities of whether or not a war can be called just or unjust are debated. Peace can be achieved. the three crucial steps toward making world peace are education, open communication, and human rights laws must be strictly enforced.

The legitimate defense of a nation and the responsibility of the Security Council to take actions in the course of maintaining peace within its areas of influence. With the establishment of United Nations and the modernization of war and its materials; the theories and doctrines of the past also needed to evolve. The modern Just war theory in composed of two principles: jus ad bellum, the right to conduct war, and jus in bello, the correct conduct within war. Each principle also has its own set of criteria to follow. Jus ad bellum contains six: Just cause, right intention, proper authority and public declaration, last resort, probability of success, and proportionality. (Orend, 2006)

St. Augustine provided comments on morality of war from the Christian point of view (railing against the love of violence that war can engender) as did several critics in the intellectual flourishing from the 9th to 12th centuries. Just war theorists remind warriors and politicians alike that the principles of justice following war should be universalizable and morally ordered and that winning should not provide a license for imposing unduly harsh or punitive measures or that state or commercial interests should not dictate the form of new peace. “The attraction for jus post bellum thinkers is to return to the initial justice of the war”. This means that war is considered as self-defense.

There are no universal theories to explain the true nature and character of war, and any war theories are not a fact or absolute truth. All strategic principles are dynamic and contextual, so “every age had its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its own peculiar preconceptions.” The battlefield environment of the 21st century will be the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and nature of war will be completely different because of the Revolution in Military Affairs. Highly advance communication and information technologies, a dramatic increase in computing capabilities, developed of precision munitions, dominant air and space power ‘war could be waged by the projection of

Today’s strategic environment, whether government or corporate, is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) often times characterized by “wicked problems” or unsolvable problems. Compiled during the early 19th century, Clausewitz’s manuscript “On War” arguably posited the same conclusion in relation to the strategic level of war. He described war as uncertain, unpredictable, and marked by chance. The more the scale moved from the tactical realm to the strategic realm, the more complex war became due to the aforementioned variables. Society today must contend with the impacts of globalization, which has led to significant changes in economic, social, and cultural norms. These changes have resulted in compressed timelines and reduced decision space. With so much information available, the risk of information overload has presented challenges to how individuals approach problem solving. As a result, society has become over reliant on what Guy Claxton defines as deliberate mode (d-mode), “a way of knowing that relies on reason and logic.” (Claxton, p2)

According to traditional just war theory, a just cause must serve peace and not simply protect an unjust status quo. War must be used as a last resort and all pacifistic approaches must be

It works to create a positive peace through a transformation of conflict. In 1992, United Nations secretary General Boutros-Ghali released his report titled An Agenda for Peace. This document proposed peace building as “Action to identify and solidify peace in order to avoid relapse into conflict,” (Boutros-Ghali 11). While two sides are still in conflict, there is not a chance for communication between sides. Until violent conflict ceases, the two parties will continue to dehumanize one another and decrease the ability to understand one another. However, conflicts cannot always resolve themselves and outside intervention is sometimes needed to avoid a cycle of revenge, which can be a result. “The problem is a well-known bias in human perception, whereby we inflate the value of the wrongs we suffer, and minimize the value of those we ourselves inflict.” (Santa-Barbara 179). Luckily, there are nations such as Canada, with politicians like Lloyd Axworthy, who created the Canadian peace building initiative in 1996. “The initiative suggested a concern for the multidimensional and integrated causes of civil war and thus acknowledged the need to address the economic, social, and political aspects of reconstruction and reconciliation” (Keating 171).

The Just War Theory is a doctrine founded by Saint Augustine which has helped bring much discussion and debate to wars and the morality to fight in them. Wars and fights between people have gone on forever and are not perceived to stop anytime soon so it is important that some people thought about when and why they should ever fight. For many years Christians never part toke in this fighting due to teachings of the Bible and Jesus' teaching on 'turning the other cheek' and 'live by the sword, die by the sword'. Saint Augustine would be one of the first to talk about how a Christian could be a soldier and serve God at the same time. Through this thought we would receive the Just War Theory which gave a set of requirements for someone to partake

Just in Bello or the Just War Theory is attempting to conduct war in a just (justified) manner. Jus in Bello is followed right after Jus ad Bellum which is having the just reason to want to start a war, but is before jus post Bellum which is the justice followed when the war ends. Similar to Jus ad and post Bellum Just in Bello has a criterion that needs to be met to have a “just” or justified war. There are six different criteria’s that need to be met for the war to be considered just.

Clausewitz defines war as an “act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” The nature of war is enduring yet the character of war changes over time. Current US strategic guidance is advancing the point of view that since the character of war has changed to focus on irregular wars then the US military should prepare for a future of irregular wars. This shift in focus forgets that the nature of war is enduring and in order to be successful, we must prepare for all types of conflict. This paper will define the types of conflict and the likelihood of each followed by a discussion of US strategic guidance and ending with an analysis of the training resources and force structure requirements needed to achieve success for all types of

Jus in Bello falls between two broad categories of discrimination and proportionality. Discrimination and proportionality are key factors that must be considered when engaging in war. For example, Michael Walzer argues, “war should only occur between combatants – soldier to soldier and noncombatants should be shielded from harm”. 2 Essentially, this means during times of conflict only legitimate targets should be targeted, combatants should distinguish against whom is attacked and should not include innocent bystanders. Furthermore, Alexander Moseley states, “In waging war, it is considered unfair and unjust to attack indiscriminately since non-combatants or innocents are deemed to stand outside the field of war”. 3 Unfortunately, this can be difficult at times since it may be hard to distinguish a combatant from a non-combatant especially since they do not always wear a uniform or carry arms, making it impossible to distinguish between them.