ABSTRACTThis article assesses whether the contemporary consensus of just war thinking to allow only for defence as just cause for war between states should also be applied to the practice of target...

This essay investigates the change in the Catholic attitude toward nuclear weapons as articulated by Pope Francis. Francis has generally followed the position of his immediate predecessors with regard to the Catholic teaching on just war. While the resort to armed force remains a morally justifiable option if the principles of just war have been met, the pope forcefully emphasises the tools of nonviolent peacebuilding. Recently, however, Francis made an original just war argument when he broke with the Church’s established (...) position on nuclear weapons. The pope declared both the use and possession of nuclear weapons “immoral” and, thus, abandoned the Church’s reluctant acceptance of nuclear deterrence that had survived the end of the Cold War. In this essay, I analyse the rationale behind Francis’s decision to break with nuclear deterrence, which is mainly grounded in the disillusionment about the failed promise of nuclear disarmament. Furthermore, I assess the impact of the new position with regard to Catholic soldiers serving in nuclear armed militaries. (shrink)

This article assesses the recently renewed interest in the just war criterion of sovereign authority from a Thomistic perspective. It contrasts the classical conceptualisation of authority as found in the work of St Thomas Aquinas with the argument made by today’s revisionist just war thinkers. The article points out that the two approaches start from fundamentally different units of moral analysis. While the Thomistic just war emphasises the common good of the political community revisionists advocate the perspective of moral individualism. (...) As a result, for Thomism, only those entrusted with the responsibility for the common good of the political community are entitled to wage war while, in contrast, revisionists argue that any individual has the right to wage war. The latter side’s position, the article criticises, is problematic from a moral point of view as it runs counter to the just war tradition’s concern about restraint in the employment of force. (shrink)

Contemporary just war thinking has mostly been split into two competing camps, namely, Michael Walzer’s approach and its revisionist critics. While Walzerians employ a casuistical method, most revisionists resort to analytical philosophy’s reflective equilibrium. Importantly, besides employing different methods, the two sides also disagree on substantive issues. This article focuses on one such issue, the moral equality of combatants, arguing that while a methodological reconciliation between the two camps is impossible, contemporary debate would benefit from a ‘third-way’ approach. Presenting James (...) Turner Johnson’s historical method as such an approach, the article suggests that while revisionists are correct in considering the symmetry thesis as ethically indefensible, in order to arrive at this judgement, it is not necessary to employ far-fetched thought experiments and the use of historical cases is preferable. The root cause of Walzer’s problematic reasoning vis-à-vis the symmetry thesis, the histori... (shrink)

This article grapples with the justifiability of nuclear deterrence in the aftermath of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. Disillusioned about the failed promise of nuclear disarmament, as well as other ethical issues inherent to nuclear weapons, Pope Francis has attached the immorality label not just to the use of the Bomb but also to its very possession. This step, which his predecessors hesitated to take during the Cold War and the quarter of a century after the fall of the (...) Berlin Wall, has received considerable attention. However, these assessments precede the war against Ukraine. Given that the regime of Vladimir Putin has repeatedly made nuclear threats in the context of this war, and a Cold War 2.0 of sorts has returned, there is reason to reappraise Francis's argument on nuclear weapons for a post-2022 era. I argue with regret that in light of the contemporary security environment it would be a sign of irresponsible statecraft to abandon the nuclear deterrent unilaterally. At the same time, I hold that a renewed and genuine effort needs to be made not just to avoid nuclear war but to create a culture that one day will lead to complete nuclear disarmament. (shrink)

Now in its third year, the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine remains at the very top of the international security agenda. This conflict has largely refocused the West's attention away from the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In February 2022, German chancellor Olaf Scholz went so far as to declare that the invasion signaled a zeitenwende, or “dawn of a new era.”1 Russia's aggression and the threat of having to fight a (...) peer or near-peer competitor raises difficult questions, many of which are ethical in nature. The essays gathered in this roundtable seek to provide answers to some of those questions. They are the result of a workshop I organized for the King's College London Centre for Military Ethics in October 2023. One of my ambitions for this workshop was to put leading academics working on the ethics of war into discussion with military practitioners, making sure to include Ukrainian voices. I was very fortunate to succeed in these objectives, and I am convinced that the published essays have benefited enormously from our conversations. (shrink)

In this essay, I reflect on the divergent arguments about limited force made by Daniel R. Brunstetter and Samuel Moyn in their respective monographs. Arguing that their positions can be reconciled, I agree with Brunstetter that limited force has a role to play in establishing and maintaining a just world order. At the same time, however, I am mindful of Moyn's warning that limited force may lead to perpetual war. The way to ensure that limited force both works toward justice (...) and does not result in perpetual war, I argue, is to focus more on considerations of jus ante bellum (right before war) and jus post bellum (right after war), the so-called “growing edges of just war theory.” I hold that the responsible use of statecraft, which just war thinking seeks to inform, accepts that limited force constitutes a legitimate tool to facilitate order, justice, and peace. However, any justifiable use of force must be restrained and limited and aim for a just peace. The embrace of limited force should thus be complemented with an effort by state leaders to bolster the edges of just war in order to facilitate a security environment that requires the use of limited force less frequently. (shrink)

This article responds to Anh Le’s critique of my Journal of Military Ethics article entitled “The Morality of Retributive Targeted Killing.” Le argues that while retribution can in theory function...