Opinion: Questions Raised about Obama’s Just War Justification

On December 10, 2009, Barack Obama, the President of the United States, received the Nobel Peace Prize Award in Oslo, Norway. Obama received this award “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” The nomination of Obama for a Nobel Peace Prize and its acceptance have been issues of much controversy due, in large part, for the short amount of time he has spent within the global political arena.

It was interesting and rather ironic that Obama’s Nobel lecture for accepting the Peace Prize, although eloquent, focused on justifying war and violence as a reasonable and needed tool in the pursuit of peace. Not only is the use of force sometimes needed, Obama makes the claim that it is sometimes “morally justified.” These statements and arguments are ironic for two reasons: 1) he is accepting a prize given to those who tirelessly strive for peace; and 2) Obama knowingly remembers the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that “Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones” (see Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize speech).

In his lecture, Obama very clearly and deliberately moves away from the Holy War mentality that his predecessor, George W. Bush, regularly upheld. Although this is a welcome move, there are still some complicated and troublesome assumptions found in Obama’s Nobel lecture, especially if one takes the criteria that he gives for a Just War seriously and at face value. This is especially true when one analyses the two wars of which Obama now finds himself at the helm.

According to Obama, a war is justified when:

1. A war is waged as a last resort or in self-defense
2. If the force used is proportional
3. When civilians are spared from violence whenever possible

Later he adds a fourth criterion:

4. When it is used on humanitarian grounds

The war in Afghanistan, argues Obama, is one that is being fought out of self-defense. It is being fought after the provocation that occurred in the horrific attacks on 9/11. The Iraq war, says Obama, is being fought out of a consensus to send a clear message to Saddam Hussein about the cost of aggression (it is not clear as to which criteria this fulfills).

There are, however, several questionable and troubling assumptions present in Obama’s Just War logic. Several questions also arise if we, in fact, want to be honest about Just War thinking.

1. The development of the Just War logic and tradition has had a long history of formation. The tradition has not been a simple set of criteria that can be applied to different political situations without understanding how it has been shaped. One should understand its history of thought and application along with its many twists and turns. It is important and needed to study how the tradition has evolved before one speaks about its present validity.

2. There are other criterion that has typically been part of the Just War tradition that Obama fails to mention. Some of the criterion that Obama failed to mention are a Just War is a war that is waged by a legitimate authority, that this declaration is made known to the enemy, and that the war cannot differ from the declaration (see an entry written by Stanley Hauerwas who also provides a response to Obama’s Nobel lecture). Obama fails to make reference to this criterion. What’s more is that the wars that are currently being waged by the United States fail in any real way to provide any of the limits of the conflict that the Just War criterion are supposed to provide. In other words, at what point are we, not to mention the enemy, supposed to know when the war has fulfilled its mission or what it has declared it would fulfill?

3. One can rightly question whether the war in Afghanistan was waged as a “last resort.” The option of attacking Afghanistan in the hopes of ridding the Taliban, al Qaeda, and especially bin Laden was quickly placed on the table by Bush as an option. There were not many other options placed on the table after 9/11.

4. To Obama’s credit, he did not say that the war in Afghanistan was a war of “last resort.” Rather Obama stated that the war in Afghanistan was one that was declared in self-defense. According to the Just War tradition, however, a war is not Just if it meets one of the criteria. Rather a Just War is declared as Just if it meets all of the criteria.

5. Obama fails to explain what he understands as “proportional use of force.” What does it mean to use “proportional use of force” when at war? What does too much or too little force look like? These questions are particularly relevant especially in light of the fact that Obama reminded the world that the United States is the “world’s sole military superpower.” And so as the world’s sole superpower, the United States makes use of their advanced technology, weapons, aircrafts (manned and unmanned), and money (there has been over 200 billion dollars spent in the war in Afghanistan alone) as they fight a nation, or rather a group within in a nation, who, I suspect, does not have access to the same type of advanced weaponry, technology, aircraft, or money.

6. Obama fails to define what it means to be spared from violence whenever possible. What does it mean to live in a country that is fighting a war that seems to have no end? How does that reality shape ones’ imagination? How does it shape a nations’ imagination? And so can a war, that has no foreseeable end, in large part because that end has not been defined, be just as it affects the minds and imaginations of the many citizens that are caught in the middle?

7. The seventh question is one that is particularly difficult. Who is truly fighting out of self-defense? The United States believes that it is fighting in self-defense because of the brutal 9/11 attacks. Others around the world, however, are feeling what they are beginning to understand as other instruments of war – economics, business practices, and economic exploitation. There is a growing concern, and even anger, that the (often unjust and underpaid) labour is provided by those in developing countries and the profits are made by those in North America. In other words, many countries around the world are beginning to feel more and more attacked by the United States and other developed countries and are looking at ways that they can fight back in what they perceive as self-defense. Perhaps this is why the pinnacles of Western capitalism were attacked in 9/11. The question then becomes who is able to provide the objective reasoning as to who is acting out of self-defense and who is not?

8. The eighth and final question is why do we assume that nonviolence will not work in resolving conflict? John Howard Yoder, a theologian from the United States, reminds us that “The American military forces would not ‘work’ if we did not invest billions of dollars in equipping, planning, and training. Why should it be fair to measure the moral claims of an alternative strategy by setting up the debate in such a way that that other strategy should have to promise equivalent results with far less financial investment and less planning on every level?” (John Howard Yoder, When War is Unjust: Being Honest in Just-War Thinking (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1996), pg. 79).  With this reminder, we can ask the question as to what would happen if the same amount of money was invested in nonviolent peacemaking and conflict resolution around the world?

Obama, in his eloquent and charismatic way, provided what I’m sure many will say was a wonderful lecture, representing a tradition that understands war and violence as realistic necessities even though it is often not desired, and by providing criterion to be in place to help determine when war and violence are justified and/or needed. The question that needs to be asked, however, is whether the very assumptions and presumptions present in Obama’s lecture and in Just War theory in general are correct? This is often not questioned because of the assumption that war and violence are inevitable and that they are the most effective tools at our disposal.

And this seems to be the crux of the issue. We tend to look for the most effective tools at our disposal.

As Obama declares at the beginning, we are in search of ways in which we can “bend” history in the direction of justice. This course of action leads us to find ways in which we can do so most effectively. “When we are in charge, when the movement from present injustice to future justice is wholly in our hands, whether the state’s or the church’s, or both, and not in the hands of a gracious God who wills to gift a just future to us, then whatever means are at our disposal are what we will employ to move forward. Then violence is inevitable and the call to nonviolence, whether by Jesus or by anyone else, is seen as unrealistic" (Harry Huebner, Echoes of the Word: Theological Ethics as Rhetorical Practice (Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 2005), pg. 123). 

Furthermore, whose understanding of “justice” do we want to use? Some would not agree with the understanding of justice that the United States has. Likewise, some would not agree with the understanding that Colombian rebels have, or the one that the Zimbabwean government has, and so forth. The church too has a different understanding of what justice means in light of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. “That Christian pacifism which has a theological basis in the character of God and the work of Jesus Christ is one in which the calculating link between our obedience and ultimate efficacy has been broken, since the triumph of God comes through resurrection and not through effective sovereignty or assured survival" (John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972), pg. 239). 

The church follows and participates in a story that is written in a different way; a way that often goes against conventional wisdom. The church reminds us and participates in the story written by the true narrator of history. And so as the church, we can exemplify, even in the face of our enemies, what it means to be part of this different story where death does not have the final word, and so we are free to demonstrate what it means to be peaceful through peaceful means.