Why Fight? An Essay on the Morality of Wars: When to Start them, How to Fight them, and When not to

Abstract

Why Fight? An Essay on the Morality of Wars: When to Start them, How to Fight them, and When Not to

By Michael Andregg

Original for the Army Command and General Staff College’s Ethics Symposium of April 2016

Introduction

The United Nations and the body of international law that preceded and empowers it concluded that starting aggressive war is the ultimate crime because embedded in that act are derivative crimes like murder, torture, abuse of captured combatants or civilians, and in the worst cases slavery and genocide. The history of humankind has seen many worst cases, so thousands of groups of peoples that once existed do not anymore. Just war theory (JWT) is the most recognized and discussed root of such thinking, though it varies in versions and interpretation.

The universally recognized legitimate reason for war is defense of the people or the state against attack by others. Since nation-states have written most of the modern rules, many are slanted toward the state and against rebellion. But war has been with us far longer than nation-states and corruption of governance is among the most important causes of the civil wars that predominate today in the Third Millennium of the Common Era. We will also pay some attention to the neglected area of when to rebel, or at least when to disobey orders, because blind obedience can empower fascism, police-states, and the universal crimes of genocide, etc.

I remind American military audiences that our country was born in rebellion against unjust rule. Our “founding fathers” were all considered traitors by corrupt elites in Britain. Britain gave up being “great” when it decided to sacrifice ordinary people’s freedom in pursuit of wealth, power, and enslavement of non-British people. I remind non-Americans that this problem is universal. The sins of imperialism go back thousands of years before nation-states, and still exist today.