Cadet 4/c Tony Gregg
United
States Coast Guard
Academy
JSCOPE
2005
Pre-emptive
War
Lasting Peace
Just War Theory
prohibits us from pre-emptive strike. We
are not morally justified in waging war to prevent the future aggression of
another nation. War as a possibility is
to be preferred over certain war. However, once nations become engaged in war
each is afforded the right to defend itself according to the rules of Just War
as defined by Aquinas. A nation should be
obligated to ensure that opposing nations are unwilling to and or incapable of
waging a future war.[1] To conclude
war with the potential for further conflict in the balance antithetical
to the principle concern of the Just War Theory: a lasting Peace. The actions
of the winning nation must respect the sovereignty of and
accept responsibility for provide
aid to the losing nation(s).
With
the ongoing conflict between Israel
and Palestine in mind this paper
will focus on three wars in which nations failed to establish a lasting peace
and the consequences that followed as a result of that failure. We can then evaluate our actions to ensure we
do not repeat the same fatal mistakes again in our attempts to establish a
lasting peace in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. At the close of WWI allied forces enforced
strict reparations on Germany,
so strict that in a short 20 years Germany
was ready to go to war to escape the strains they caused. In 1950 the United
States came to the aid of South
Korea after North
Korea’s attempt to reunite the peninsula
under a single communist government.
That conflict ended when both sides withdrew in a stalemate. Lastly, the United
States is currently engaged in a war that
could have concluded 10 years ago in the sands of Iraq,
but because the regimen of sanctions failed to pacify Iraq,
America and its
allies are engaged in Operation Iraqi Freedom today. In each case, the initial conflict was a just
war[2],
but the actions of the belligerents at the end of the war prove unjust.
At the end of World War I, the
Allies defeated the Germans, though no country could claim a decisive victory
because no country gained much ground.
Convinced that they would prevent future aggression from Germany
the Allies imposed strict sanctions on Germany. The result, however, was quite the
opposite. Germany
was left with a strong desire for retribution, but without the immediate means
to achieve it. Adolph Hitler was able to
prepare Germany
for war within two decades time. Because
of the reparations imposed by the Allies were so extreme the only result of the
armistice was a break for Germany
to rebuild its army. During that break
Germans reflected on how humiliated they were by the Allies’ treatment of Germany
at the conclusion of the war.
Historically, some
of the world’s greatest men have risen from times of national depression. Germany’s
phoenix came through not a great man but one of the world’s most inspirational
leaders. Hitler promised Germany
what the Allies had taken away: her pride.
By imposing harsh reparations the Allies set the stage for Hitler to
lead an angry and humiliated Germany. Germany
felt it had been wronged and now sought retribution.
It is not merely enough to destroy a
countries ability to wage war, because that can be rebuilt. If a country is left without desire to wage
war then its ability to do so is unimportant.
Allied forces at the close of World War I made the mistake of imposing
unjust reparations on Germany. They are unjust because the reparations
rekindled Germany’s
desire to wage war, and therefore prevented a lasting peace.
How
then should the Allies have dealt with Germany
following the Armistice? The balance
between desire and means to wage war determine the duration of peace. The two must be balanced; if the means are
destroyed desire will rebuild them. To
be absolutely assured of peace a nation could extinguish both means and desire.
This extreme is not ethically sound because it would involve the destruction of
a people. Destroying both means and desire would require complete annihilation
of a county, its resources and its people.
We are left with one option: extinguish a nations desire to wage
war.
A winning nation
must not impose unjust sanctions that infringe on the losing nations
sovereignty and must also accept the responsibility for rebuilding the losing
nation so that it can function economically, defend itself, and rule
itself. Action cannot be taken to demean
or further complicate the lives of civilians in losing nations. To do so is to damage an already fragile
nation. By contrasting the actions the
Allies took after WWI and WWII and the overall results of both wars one can
evaluate the effectiveness of each. WWI
ended with heavy reparations for Germany
to pay and as a result WWII followed in a mere two decades. By contrast, the Allies implemented the
Marshall Plan after WWII and rebuilt Germany.
The Allies provided not only for Germany’s
immediate needs but also her long-term growth.
The difference is clear; a losing nation is already burdened by the
destruction of its industry and loss of massive portions of its workforce. Forcing that nation to pay for the victor’s
costs as well only deepens the problem.
Since wars are in part fought over poor conditions we are to expect that
no country would tolerate such conditions.
Reconstruction of such nations must therefore not interfere with that
nation’s sovereignty and it must be beneficial to the civilians of the losing
nation.
In 1950, the United
States came to the aid of South
Korea as North
Korea sought to unify both under a single
communist government. In the beginning
the United States
was confidant having experienced early successes, however as the conflict
continued the war became a stalemate.
Though the US
never completely withdrew its troops a ceasefire agreement was signed that
ended the war.. While there has not been
a recurring conflict in Korea
the potential is extremely high. North
Korea is still viewed by the United
States to be a hostile aggressor nation as
it maintains its course to acquire and store nuclear weapons in violation to
armistice agreements. We cannot consider
our ceasefire in Korea
as an effective course of action because no gain was made toward peace. The height of our effectiveness was the
Demilitarized Zone, and it was not a peaceful solution by any means. The need for such action as the DMZ is proof
enough that there was no basis of establishing peace. The DMZ was a mined strip of land intended to
separate two aggressing forces; in essence it was a barrier to prevent
fighting. Peace is not achieved when
nations are merely forced to cease fire.
The third example
of a failure to establish of lasting peace is the Persian Gulf War and the
subsequent war in Iraq began in 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom. George H. W.
Bush, the President of the United States
in 1991, made several moral deliberations when considering US
involvement in the war with Iraq.
The UN Coalition gave Hussein an ultimatum to abandon Kuwait
immediately in March 1990[3]. Hussein gave no response nor did he comply
and the UN subsequently met and issued UNSCR 678 authorizing participating
countries in the UN to use all necessary force in enforcing UNSCR 660[4]. Bush’s struggle was to assess what rights
the United States
had to defend Kuwait
and invade Iraq
if Hussein did not comply with the UN’s command. According to the UN the United
States was justified in coming to the aid of
Kuwait but made
no distinction about what necessary force entailed.
The consensus
among coalition forces and the United States
was two fold and while it can be argued that its results were favorable to the US
the overall objective was Kuwait’s
protection and stability. First, the
objective would be to weaken Hussein's military forces especially his air units
prior to the assault on forces already in Kuwait[5]. Second was to push the already weakened
invasion force out of Kuwait[6]. While no one can be certain of President
Bush’s desire or that of coalition forces we will assume for the sake of this
argument that because the greater objective and focus of military operations
was on Kuwait’s fate that US and coalition forces acted justly according to
Lackey’s rules of Just war.
The second of
President Bush’s concerns was to what extent the United
States could invade Iraqi territory without
violation of either UN Mandate of the rules of just war. Now it is time to consider in what condition
to leave Iraq
militarily at the conclusion of the war.
President Bush believed it in the
best interest of coalition forces:
To reduce Hussein’s military might
so that he would no longer pose a threat to the region, yet to do so in such a
way that Iraq
was secure from external threats and the balance with Iran
was preserved[7].
This was a sound objective but at
what point does Iraq
cease to be a threat. The Bush
administration defined the elite Republican Guard as its primary target for
weakening Saddam Hussein’s power throughout the region, believing that without
his loyalist divisions the rest of Hussein’s military power would slip away[8]. While these decisions seem justly based the
key decision to success in Iraq
according to Bush had not yet been decided.
Was he justified in targeting Hussein himself, and ordering US forces to
capture the dictator of Iraq?
Can
a nation topple a dictator in order to preserve peace? Bush did not believe that the United
States was authorized by the UN to topple
Hussein and called off US advancement just miles short of the capital and the
capture of Hussein. The result was that
in just over 10 years time Americans found themselves back in the deserts of Iraq
fighting a war reminiscent of the Persian Gulf War. Bush acted according to the Just War Theory’s
doctrine of Just Cause as laid out by Aquinas.
If that decision directly caused a subsequent conflict then the decision
to leave Hussein in place directly conflicts with the prime directive of
Aquinas’ theory of establishing a lasting peace. Both answers cannot be right. I assert that according to Brandt’s
utilitarian approach to war and Aquinas’ belief that a lasting peace is to be
desired above all else President Bush would have been justified to end the rule
of Hussein in Iraq. Because this action was not taken in 1991 the
Gulf War was waged again just after a decadeprematurely ending the fighting is
clearly not in keeping with the spirit of Just War Theory.
The
current President Bush relied on the United Nations Security Resolutions from
1991 to present as justification for war with Iraq. Namely UNSCR 678, which “authorizes UN member
states to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 and
all subsequent resolutions and to restore international peace and security in
the area.” One of those subsequent
resolutions, UNSCR 687, called the establishment of the
United Nations Special Commission
(UNSCOM) to verify the elimination of Iraq’s
chemical and biological weapons programs and mandated that the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verify the elimination of Iraq’s
nuclear weapons program. (UNSCR 687)
Hussein did not allow these
inspections to occur. To Hussein this
was a challenge to the sovereignty of Iraq
and as such was excessive. Because of
the sovereignty of the situation the UN felt that these inspections were
pertinent to the safety of the Middle East as a whole.
How then can the
UN create lasting peace when actions that limit sovereignty are necessary to
the safety of a region? The UN must
consider other reasons for the continued violence in Iraq;
the United States
along with original members of the coalition forces, first and foremost the
British deemed that Hussein was the
reason. Hussein was considered to be the
obstacle to a lasting peace in Iraq,
and with his position of power posed a greater risk to peace than the decision
to remove him from power. It was
inevitably more just to remove him from power than allow him to remain and
cause harm to the people of the region.
Now that Operation Iraqi Freedom has commenced and Hussein arrested the United
States and its allies are re-evaluating
there initial strategy in Iraq
in 1991. In an effort not to make the
same mistakes the United States
and its allies are rebuilding Iraq, offering everything from food and medical
supplies to helping the Iraqi people establish a new form of government. Because the rebuilding phase is still
underway in Iraq
no one is certain that it will mean a lasting peace, but for now it is a step
in the right direction.
While
there is no certainty of overall success, Iraq
is recognizing democratic elections town by town. In the Province
of Dhi Qar alone, Iraqi citizens
have elected city councils in more than three fourths of its cities.[9] Tobi Bradley, an American assisting in these
elections recognizes that it is not a perfect system, but has been more
successful than he had hoped it would be.[10] These elections have not only established
requirements of the candidates, but also requirements of the voters. Though the country has not seen full scale
democratic elections it is clear from provinces such as Dhi Qar that efforts
made by the United States are effective and the approach taken in Operation
Iraqi Freedom has had a far more positive and lasting impact than that of
Operation Desert Storm. With success in
sight in Iraq
we can look to it as a model for future conflicts of its nature. While no two wars are identical they often
share similar difficulties in establishing peace.
The conflict in Israel
is unique. When two nations or groups
are fighting for some definite object, like land, both cannot be satisfied,
because of the simple fact that they cannot both have it to themselves. This is the case between Israel
and the Palestinians who are both fighting over the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem. Palestine
has legal rights to parts of the land in dispute as a result from the UN’s
partition of the land in 1947.[11] Israel
claims the land of Israel
in its entirety as God’s Promised Land to the Jews and refuses to acknowledge
the UN separation in The Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Eastern
Jerusalem. While both parties
have appealed to the United Nations the UN has been unable to settle the
dispute because each have a legitimate
claim to what was once both their homes I would argue that the defeat of one
side would never result in lasting peace unless both countries are allowed to
occupy the disputed lands. The UN called
for the first cease fire through UN
resolution 181 in 1947, which also called for the separation of the disputed
lands into equal halves[12]. Subsequently the UN has been unable to reach
middle ground for either side because Israel
is still unwilling to give it up and Palestinians still want the land granted
to them from resolution 181. As
established earlier it would not be morally right to annihilate one nation in
order that the other could enjoy a lasting peace, but if neither side can win
without ending the opponent’s desire to extend the conflict then war becomes
infinite. The only way for a
lasting peace between both nations is
for both nations to conclude that
neither can be the sole occupant of Israel. They must also recognize that both nations
must also agree that there exists some point where the land is not worth
infinite war. A home cannot be a war
zone forever and soon will become a
place where no one can live. Ultimately
both nations must conclude to co exist; if not the Middle East will never
recognize a lasting peace.
What can we as a
spectator nation do to aid in settling this dispute? By applying the lessons of each of the
examples we have examined, we might find a solution to the ongoing
conflict. While no one historical
example provides the complete picture, each offers a portion of a possible
solution. By applying what the United
States has learned in its short history of
war we can begin to devise a course of action
toward resolution. In the past
the United States
has shown its ability to intercede and act as a police force. Better known tactics include the DMZ in Korea,
assistance in reconstructing foreign governments, and after war sanctions.
Its most common role at the conclusions of
such wars is its involvement in after war sanctions. Even before the creation of the UN the United
States sanctioned Germany
at the conclusion of WWI and since then has taken an active role in the UN to
do the same. In the case of the Middle
East, however, sanctions have failed. On both sides of the issue each country has
established a trend towards ignoring those sanctions not made in its
favor. Whether it is because the UN has
failed to reach middle ground or because neither side is willing to compromise
no one can be certain, but it is certain that current attempts to intervene by
way on UN mandate have failed.
Another process
that the United States
has endorsed is governmental re-establishment. Up until his recent death Arafat
was believed by some to be an obstacle to peace in the region. While his removal may have been a
consideration at some point the usefulness of such action was voided by his
recent passing. Now the question arises “Will his death have an impact on the
progress towards peace, and if so how should the United
States react,” and “What steps should the United
States take to ascertain whether it will
have an impact at all?” The United
States will have to wait and see who the
Palestinian people elect as there new leader.
With recent successes in Iraq
the United States
maybe able to consider making an influence on those elections in the interest
of a peaceful resolution, however, it could not be the United
States alone, it must be a coalition effort
as described below.
Not unprecedented would be the
establishment of a DMZ much like in Korea,
where a neutral force would serve as policing partition. While this might establish a cease fire
between the two nations there would be no guarantee that either side would be
excepting of the proposal. If such
action was forced onto both nations the desire to wage war would not be
eliminated in fact it would be multiplied.
Animosity toward such a neutral force would not take long o turn into
violence and effectively end any peace. Similarly to a DMZ is Israel’s
current attempt to enclose its settlements behind a wall in attempts to protect
itself from Palestinians. The
effectiveness of such a barrier would only exist militarily. While it provides Israelis with a line of
defense it makes no effort in establishing peace. In fact this wall will serve to anger
Palestinians. Further more if the
placement of the wall is not agreed on then the Palestinians will view its
construction as trespassing and as such an act of war.
I can cite no war
in history in which two nations have come into conflict over the same thing and
both nations survived the war. Our
efforts in solving this conflict could well be the largest contribution to
establishing peace. The above actions
alone either are or where at sometime ineffective in establishing peace in Israel.
The extent of our military involvement should
be in peacekeeping. While none of the
actions above seem to be flawless solutions they do have their own merits. By combining previous policies of policing we
can derive a new course of action. While barriers are by no means a permanent
solution it would be effective to bring a break in the fighting for
diplomacy. Negotiations are more
reasonable when the fighting outside has stopped, in addition both nations
would be forced to meet or deal with a coalition police force. While the nature of these negotiations is
forced the outcomes must be left up to Israel
and Palestine. Our efforts to force a solution, as seen in
UN resolutions, have failed, but a forced sit down between both nations in
which agreements are made by Israel
and Palestine and not mandated from
an outside party may prove more effective.
The effectiveness
of such an action relies greatly on two things and only one of which is in our,
the worlds, control. First any coalition
police force efforts to force a ceasefire must be made by a world party. One nation alone cannot be effective; Israel
and Palestine must know that the
world is calling for a resolution and simply the United
States.
This itself is two fold, both nations must know that the world is
interested in resolving this conflict but in addition a world force eliminates
impartiality. A single nation can be
accused of serving its own ends, but a world coalition has only one common
interest: Peace. Secondly this course
depends on the willingness that Israel
and Palestine have to cooperate and
coexist. This greatly depends on those
who lead; if a stalemate is the result consideration for replacing them will
become a concern. While it has been
effective in the past, most recently it appears to be effective in Iraq,
it has also failed miserably. The key to
success lies within the people; if they support their leader, chosen or not,
then any attempt to replace that leader will end in failure. It has only been effective in Iraq
because the Iraqi people desired a change.
If the same is not true for Israel
and Palestine as they gain a new
leader then it cannot be considered.
Regardless of the outcome both side will have to sacrifice. The effectiveness of any solution in the Middle
East lies in both countries’ decision regarding what they are
willing to sacrifice. For decades now
both have sacrificed their lives, their ability to live them in peace, and life
itself.
A nation’s
greatest moral obligation is at the conclusion of war. When and how wars are ended determine the
endurance of a lasting peace. It is the
responsibility of all nations to prevent war, but even more so when a nation
declares a victory it declares a deeper responsibility to its aggressor’s. Uncompassionate victors lead to humiliated
losing nations. Those humiliated nations
are often left with one surviving asset, the desire for retribution which is
far greater than any other means of waging war.
NOTES