There has been a great deal of talk about "proportionality" as regards Israel's war with Hezbollah. It's probably become clear to you that there is a double standard at work -- or, rather, that people are using the same word to talk about more than one thing.
In the end, some philosophers think, debate about the ethics of war will have to reintegrate two ancient questions— about the right to go to war, and the methods that may be used— which have become artificially separated in modern times. To put it more simply, nobody will be impressed with a line that goes: “We didn't start this war, so our cause is just—but now that it's begun, we'll fight as dirty as we like.” Augustine saw the questions of jus ad bellum and jus in bello as intertwined—and so, probably, should modern man.The Just War reading of proportionality, which began with Augustine, does have a jus in bello aspect which is not mentioned in the article. It is based on the idea of nationalism, which was once an ideal for whom men held great hopes. Like some advocates of democracy promotion today, advocates of nationalism believed that it could bring an end to war -- or at least lessen it notably.
The idea was that every group of people had a unique take on life, and needed its own space so that it could have laws that accorded with that take. Scots needed to be Scots, not ruled by English laws; the same for the Irish. The same for the Slavs. The same, some argued, for the Jews.
When such nations came to exist, they were seen as having a real sovereignty: this is, indeed, why we today view the nation-state as the righteous seat of sovereignty. These nations were viewed as arising from natural law, and a hedge against the horrors of war. Should such a state fall and come to be dominated by others, advocates of nationalism believed, war could be the only result: a righteous war for independence.
Insofar as Israel today can demonstrate that it is facing the destruction of its state, it can therefore justify almost any conduct as "proportionate." It's not just a question of whether you get to go to war; it's a question of what you can do in war. If you're fighting to preserve a nation, you can do most anything -- because the international system views the survival of your nation-state as almost the highest good of the system, the best way of ensuring peace.
What we're seeing in Israel today is just what we've seen ever since these ideas were instituted. Nationalism proves to be a better engine for war than for peace. If every group with a definable ethnic or cultural identity deserves its own nation, what if two of them claim the same piece of land (as in Northern Ireland, where Protestant majorities exist with Irish Catholic minorities who consider the others not Irish but "New English")?
What if there's a disagreement about whether a given group is properly independent, or should properly be subject to a central authority? Consider the case of Taiwan -- definitely ethnic Han Chinese, but wishing to be independent of the People's Republic, which in turn claims to be the rightful government of all Chinese eveywhere.
What if existing borders of states encase several ethnic groups, some of whom later decide they'd prefer their own nation? For example, consider the case of Indonesia, which won its independence from the Dutch and established its borders based on their colonial borders. Now comes the East Timorese, wanting to separate from this new nation -- and now the Papuans.
The system recognizes, in theory, all of these claims -- and justifies almost anything in the name of establishing a free, or protecting the independence of an existing, nation-state for each such group.
This is partially why we find the terrorists getting treated with kid gloves by so-called "international law" types: they are viewed, usually, as valid liberation movements or resistance to colonial oppression. As such, whatever they do is justified. Israel's claims that they are in danger of destruction are not believed, because of their previous military successes; and, too, many view them not as a natural and proper ethnic nation-state, but as a colonial oppressor that stole the land of another. Thus, it is the Arabs, not the Israelis, who are seen as having the defenses of proportionality and nationalism. Almost everything, including terrorism, is justified on these grounds.
If you've been wondering what the root of this cancer is, now you know. It rises from the shattered bones of the last great attempt to find peace on earth.
"If you've been wondering what the root of this cancer is, now you know. It rises from the shattered bones of the last great attempt to find peace on earth."
Hezbullah is not a nationalist organization. They care nothing about Lebanon, they ignore its constitutional government, they take orders from Iran, and they use the Lebanese people as shields. Hezbullah is a business existing to obtain material support from Iran for the purpose of increasing the personal power of it's leader.
Nationalism may be the last great attempt to find peace to but Islamism another attempt to find peace on earth (peace under Islamic rule) and it is surely much to blame for the currrent war.
Sorry, don't buy it. War didn't start with "nation states".
"War didn't start with 'nation states.'"
I never said it did. I said this notion that terrorism should be treated by kinder rules rises from the idea of nationalism, which was the last great idea for bringing peace to mankind.
If war had begun with nation states, there would have been no need for nationalism as a method of bringing peace to mankind. Since nation states did not exist yet, there would have been no war, and thus no need for a plan for peace. Thus, it is not logically possible to read the statement you attribute to me from what was written.
As an aside, however, you may have noticed the occasional post here about "Fourth Generation Warfare." Military science does in fact date the beginnings of modern warfare with the rise of the nation state -- "First Generation" war was that type of war originated by Napoleonic France. That isn't to say that war didn't exist before then; it is, obviously, a permanent condition of mankind. Still, there is something to the idea that the nation-state is tied in to war as we have known it these last two centuries.
"Hezbullah is not a nationalist organization."
That's true. Hizbullah and al Qaeda operate from a universalist position. There are problems with nationalism, but it arose to address the problems with universalism, the idea that there was a 'right way' to do things.
Nevertheless, it is the structures designed to protect nationalism that Hizbullah hides behind. Those and, of course, the women and children.
I never said it did. I said this notion that terrorism should be treated by kinder rules rises from the idea of nationalism, which was the last great idea for bringing peace to mankind.
I don't think conventions for the conduct of war, formal or otherwise, started with nation states either. Enslaving the defeated enemy, for example, was a step forward from slaughtering him. Endemic warfare between related tribes often consisted of raids and brief skirmishes rather than pitched battles. An enemy leader regarded as alien or barbarian would be treated with less mercy than a king captured by a related king in a dispute over territory.
Proportionality is just today's propaganda fad. Currently it is being used to bash Israel. This is no surprise - in war you try to hurt with weapons and words.
The concept is simple. But so is fairness, pornography, and art. Or distinguishing music from noise. People interpret what they see and hear differently.
So brush aside words flung like rockets and consider what the parties publicly advocate decade after decade.
Israel says it wants to exist peacefully and free from assault. Their enemies say they wish to irradicate Israel. Many go further and advocate killing all Jews everywhere.
Assume each side means what they say. Which result would you prefer?
Now assume (at least) one side lies about intent. Which would you guess that might be? Do you guess that Israel does not want peace? Do you guess that their enemies don't want to irradicate Israel?
The Council on Foreign Relations also had an interesting discussion on proportionality and the international law issues. I take away from it that "proportionality" means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.
PD Shaw,
"Just win, baby" - Al Davis
The conflict is not national at all, in any dimensions.
Israel gave back the Sinai and obtained peace (though a nasty and cold one) from Egypt.
Rather, Muslims worldwide cannot abide the existence of either Jews nor Israel and wish to eradicate both.
Muslim's allies in the quest to eradicate Israel (and Jews worldwide wherever they may be) assist them because they hate modernity and the modern world. Where success depends on hard work, intellectual prowess (particularly in science and technology) and not "natural aristocracy" however that is defined. If you hate Modernity, the rapid social mobility, constant change, and upheaval of tradition that implies, then of course you'll hate Jews and Israel who embody both.
Leftists, Europeans, intellectuals, media types, and Democrats (the "heart and soul" of the party at least, the folks who run things, the Deaniacs) hate Modernity with a passion and wish to return to some slumbering "Progressivist" tradition (that really never was). The world is changing too much, they want to get off, and will ally themselves with any anti-Modern force (even the Party of God).
[Nationalism is not part of this; rather rejection of Modern Life.]
One problem with both the Economist piece and the CFR piece I cited: No express mention is made of the fact that Israel (like the U.S.) did not sign the First Protocol of the Geneva Conventions which is the source of most of the discussion of "proportionality" as a principle of international law. Per CFR, "regardless of whether states are party to the treaties above, experts say the principle is part of what is known as customary international law."
The First Protocol had many good qualities, but in legitimizing wars of national liberation, it also promoted terrorism and put civilians at risk.
No, I agree that the conventions for the conduct of war didn't start with nation-states. But I don't think that's been suggested. The Economist article mentions St. Augustine, for example, as the originator of Western thinking on the subject.
The ideal of nationalism, though, has definitely introduced new problems into the issue -- and the question of jus in bello proportionality is one of those problems. The idea that the establishment of ethnic- or culture-based nation states is a good thing in itself, and indeed a chief good, has had a number of unintended bad consequences (such as those PD Shaw mentions).
Universalism had other bad qualities -- and modern universalist movements (such as Islamism) have learned to avail themselves of protections meant for nationalist movements. That leaves us in a situation in which bad actors can inflict all the troubles that were arising under the pre-nationalism ideas of Just War fighting, plus all the new ones as well.
This is a difficulty for Just War thinking. It's a tradition to which I'm attached, but I don't see a good way to continue to include groups of this sort inside of it. At some point, when you're fighting an organization that won't attempt to fight a Just War also, you really are liberated from the rules -- however difficult that may be for the Economist.
Well see, here you've put your finger on it. The modern formal conventions of just war - and the problems associated with them, which we are learning about now - are universalist, not nationalist (and universalist rather than internalist would be the right word, since groups like Hezbollah are supposed to be included).
The conventions of Just War theory have always been universalist in conception. That's because they originate in Catholic thought, and as you doubtless know, "Catholic" literally means "universal."
It was probably a mistake to complicate them with the nationalist forms. The old understanding may have been the better one.
I believe it is the Second Protocol, not the First, that extended to wars of national liberation. And the United States didn't ratify it either.
First or Second as it may be. Some may have noticed a steady attempt by the international law people to establish the premise that if any treaty anywhere says something they like then all people they don't like are bound to it. The fact that parties have not signed is ignored.
No one cites Augustine and Catholic writings more than those who totally oppose any religious influence in law. Of course it is only done when the need arises.
Those interested, ala Jim Rockford, in Islam v. Modernity (is that a word?) might look for a book with the words Jihad + McWorld in the title. About 20 years ago the author explored how Islam felt threatened as the world changed elsewhere.
This links to article that will challenge the assumption of many readers. A pox on both their houses.
http://tinyurl.com/f3bpn
Proportionality has no place in war. The concept is ludicrious. The entire basis for Clausewitzian war is to apply overwhelming force to a vulnerable point. Where is the proportionality in that? The entire discussion is a recipe for disaster, not to mention additional bloodshed. The best war is a decisive war, politically and from a humanitarian sense.
So how do you make peace with folks whose goal is your genocide. How can you live alongside them in one nation? The Jews have been there done that. We got the corpses piled high to prove it. We ain't doing it that way again. Capiche?
Hizbollah and Hamas have constructed core ideologies based upon this Islamic theology of Jew hatred, which one can glean readily from their foundational documents, and subsequent pronouncements, made ad nauseum. Hamas further demonstrates openly its adherence to a central motif of Jew-hatred in Muslim eschatology—Article 7 of the Hamas Charter concludes with a verbatim reiteration of the apocalyptic hadith alluded to earlier:
“The Last Hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: `Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him’; but the tree Gharkad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Number 6985).
Apocalyptic Muslim Jew-hatred
#14,
If Israel was waging a war of extermination in Lebanon it wouldn't drop leaflets before bombing. It would bomb apartment complexes in the middle of the night unannounced. You can kill a lot more than 600 total in 20 days with a strike like that.
I quit reading the link after the first sentence.
The usual anti-Jew crap.
So Tom I challenge your assumptions you moral cretin. I'd say worse but the monitors wouldn't like it.
The Proud. The Few. The Jews.
Deal with it.
Funny, nobody ever raised the queston of proportionality when Colin Powell was advocating it. What was the Powell Doctrine if not the application of overwhelming, decisive force? If you think you'll need 200,000 men, take 400,000.
Now that Israel is in the hotseat, the same luminaries who lauded Powell's wartime thinking are suddenly critics of that very notion.
#18 - MRJ: Great point.
"Now that Israel is in the hotseat, the same luminaries who lauded Powell's wartime thinking are suddenly critics of that very notion."
There are two reasons many of these luminaries laud the Powell Doctrine:
1) It was a very useful argument to justify doing nothing. "If we can't/won't commit an overwhelming force, we shouldn't fight at all."
2) The Powell Doctrine was never pursued to its logical conclusion during Gulf War I -- the annihilation of the Iraqi Army in Kuwait and southern Iraq.
The Bush Administration (41) stopped the pursuit, encirclement, and destruction of the Iraqi units retreating from Kuwait before they unconditionally surrendered because of a fear of negative publicity. The decision to stop the ground combat phase after one hundred hours was primarily made because of world press attention to the so-called "Highway of Death". This was the main highway corridor between Kuwait and Iraq that was jammed with Iraqi units retreating nose-to-tail from Kuwait City. Allied air pounded the Iraqi columns relentlessly while one corps attacked their rear guard. Meanwhile, Franks' 7th Corps (US) hooked into southern Iraq from Saudi Arabia to cut the Iraqi's off and complete the encirclement.
In Colin Powell's own words at a pre-war press briefing, the plan was: "First we're going to cut if off (the Iraqi army in Kuwait), then we're going to kill it." The execution of the operational plan was almost textbook and if it had been allowed to continue for another 2-4 days, we would have destroyed virtually all of the Iraqi Army in Kuwait as well as many of the supporting units/reserves in southern Iraq. Instead, George Bush (41) stopped offensive operations before the encirclement was complete and halted attacks on the Iraqi units that were already trapped.
The result was that two Iraqi Republican Guards divisions escaped the pocket along with major elements of several of the more loyal Iraqi Regular Army divisions. These units were instrumental in the suppression of the Shiite revolt in southern Iraq that followed the cease fire. They also ensured the survival of Saddam's regime.
Ruthlessness is a great virtue in war. Pre-mature mercy is a terrible vice.
Unfortunately, many of our "luminaries" do not understand this. I doubt that many of them would recommend the Powell Doctrine if we had pursued it to its logical conclusion in Gulf War I -- and killed another 50-100,000 Iraqi soldiers.
#17 A little flag waving and chest thumping, and you're back on an even keel. Hey, that's great M.. For all that your writing is pedantic, puerile, and nationalistic, it remains unpersuasive. You descend into name calling and dishonest accusations of antisemitism, because you cannot defend your position. This shows the intellectual vacuity and moral bankruptcy of your viewpoint. You embarrass yourself. Israel is subject to criticism, deal with it, like a grown up. What a yutz.
So, Joe, I answered your question a week ago about Israel's course of action and I gave you two possible national strategy's. Was your question rhetorical? I didn't seem so.
#18 There really never was a Powell doctrine. He was JCS for one term. The doctrine the Army operated under was more or less the Creighton Abrahms doctrine, with a little help from the Mobility Mafia. Formally it was last revised in 1982 as the Airland Battle doctrine. But they didn't really follow it, and it fell before domestic U.S. politics. The newest doctrine is pretty well detached from reality, and we have no coherent National Policy or Grand Strategy in the U.S. We could use a new government.