IIRC, Michael Walzer argues that the Allied strategic bombing campaign violated just in bello. Your own arguments reflect how Dick Betts puts these issues: "how many of our enemies lives are worth those of our boys and girls in uniform?"

This kind of question, though, doesn't really touch the major case against the bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and the like: the Allied attacks were designed to forward the war effort by killing civilians in an effort to break the morale of the Germans. By most accounts, it had the opposite effect. But even it didn't, we're well out of the domain of collateral damage and the "double effect" rule, because under such reasoning civilians are always legitimate targets in war.

If you haven't, you should look at Walzer's classic: particularly his critique of "war is hell" reasoning.

I think that the gut feeling of most Americans in WWII was that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were moral because the Japanese did not fight a moral war. This attitude (tit for tat) might be the only workable basis for morality.

I think this is highly relevant to the present conflict.

Why are issues of proportionality only brought up in such a rigourous fashion when Israel is involved?

Why wasn't this a mainstream topic of conversation after 9/11? Was the invasion of Afghanistan and overthrow of their government proportional to flying a couple of planes into a couple of buildings? Did people follow body count stats obsessively in Afghanistan and worry as much about the extent of civilian casualties?

What if fewer people had died on 9/11? What if the towers were evacuated more successfully for whatever reason. Would that have given the US less of a moral right to invade Afghanistan at the time? And why are you only thinking about these issues now, rather than then?

I believe that proportionality should take into account what the other side does as well. If they other side targets civilians, it seems they find that acceptable. If the civilians amidst they live don't do anything to stop it (and they had years in this case), they're complicit.

But all in all, I don't believe in proportionality. It's a state duty to protect its citizens. And one of its citizens, including its soldiers, is worth the live of a million enemies.

This kind of question, though, doesn't really touch the major case against the bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and the like: the Allied attacks were designed to forward the war effort by killing civilians in an effort to break the morale of the Germans. By most accounts, it had the opposite effect. But even it didn't, we're well out of the domain of collateral damage and the "double effect" rule, because under such reasoning civilians are always legitimate targets in war.

Why wouldn't they be? They are an enemy asset as surely as a truck or a plane. Win by any means necessary when your survival is at stake. If your survival isn't at stake, then why are you at war in the first place?

One problem I have with most questions about war's morality and even legal vs. illegal wars is that they overly discount the aims of the various combatants.

Killing 10,000 German civilians to get Hitler would have been right. Germans killing Roosevelt without killing anyone else would have been wrong.

Civilians are, in fact, legitimate targets in a war. The military forces of a nation do not feed and arm themselves; they produce nothing. Instead, the civilian population either produces the food and the armaments directly, or provides the money for the purchase of such things. Thus, the civilian population supports the war effort (though perhaps involuntarily) -- an army unsupported by a civilian population could not function.

The bombings of Japan and Germany are among the most moral acts ever committed. Not only did the bombings force the unconditional surrender of two of the most horrifically destructive regimes in history, the bombings, along with all the other devastation wrought by the United States, convinced two militaristic, imperialistic war-mongering populations to repudiate offensive war completely. The populations that elected Hitler and the Nazis and supported Hirohito's Imperial Army abandoned war and realized the only choice was to embrace western style governments and capitalism.

The long term benefits of this conversion have enriched the lives of millions around the globe. The economic output of Germany and Japan have added tremendously to the total wealth enjoyed by the west. Millions now live in freedom that otherwise would still be under totalitarian regimes.

It is folly to think that fanatics like the Japanese Imperialists, the Nazis -- and today's Islamic jihadists -- can be beaten while sparing the civilian populations that support them. As long as that support is available, they will wage war; to them, war is an end in itself.

History has another example of a thoroughly proper attack on civilians that achieved enormous good. In the American civil war, Sherman's march to the sea through Georgia broke the back and the morale of the confederate army -- and sealed the destruction of the blackest mark on America's record: the institution of slavery.

Lee's troops might have fought on for years -- there was much discussion of resorting to guerrilla tactics -- but when it became obvious that the North would completely destroy their homeland, they gave up.

Limited war, that is, a war fought in an attempt to hit only the enemy military while sparing the civilian population, does not yield victory. It failed in Vietnam, it failed in Korea, and it failed in Gulf War I. And it will fail in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in what Israel is attempting in Lebanon.

"Killing 10,000 German civilians to get Hitler would have been right. Germans killing Roosevelt without killing anyone else would have been wrong."

Exactly, and my comments above justifying the targeting of civilians presupposes the premise above -- namely, a free nation going to war against a totalitarian state.

Michael Smith is right.

I think one needs to look at the problem asymetrically. Why is Europe seemingly so pacifist today? Primarily because World War II was so devistating to its CIVILIAN population. If simply the militray were targeted, it may have inspired future wars that would be even MORE devastating once the players had rearmed. Thus, under the very terms of Grayling's premises, the targeting of civillians would paradoxically be the most just and humane course of action.

Any utilitarian "just war" anaylisis has to consider these hypotheticals. That's why I consider such philosophical treatises to be of limited use.

Others have expressed my position on this so I will save bandwidth.

I agree with just about everyone above with the exception of Dan Nexon.

Don't engage in War unless you have to, and then engage in that War to Win.

Period.

To ask a fellow citizen to die so that you can 'feel' better about the conflict is a deeply immoral action. If engaging in 'total war', is the way to victory, then you have a simple choice. Surrender at once if you don't want to fight on that basis, or do what is required to win.

It could be argued that it is precisely the 'limited' nature of the Mid-East Conflict which ensures that it is always there. Israel is fighting an existential war of survival each and every time, whereas its enemies are fighting wars of choice. As soon as those enemies start to lose they or their enablers immediately demand a 'peace', so that they can go back to planning the next battle. They manage to avoid the full consequnces of their poor decisions, so that they are always ready for the next round.

There is "Peace.
There is " Police Action".
There is "War".

Walk softly ;carry a big stick; when called upon to use that stick, don't be 'nuanced', be effective.

Did Sean Connery explain 'proportional force' to Kevin Costner ? I think not, but he was the HERO nonetheless.

In war, there are "winners" and "losers". You are either the former, or the latter. There is no such thing as a "draw". These calls for proportional use of force never bother to define exactly what would be proportional. Israel should napalm Southern Lebanon and totally rid the area of Islamofacists. These people do not represent the government of Lebanon, and therefor are going to cause problems for as long as they're alive.

Although perhaps irrelevant to the philosopher's argument, I would argue that the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, by shortening the war, albeit at a tremendous cost in human lives, saved more Japanese lives than those lost, not just American. But for the A bombings, we would have continued our conventional bombing of many Japanese cities, including incendiary bombings. Didn't one night's bombing of Tokyo set off a fire storm that killed tens of thousands? We reasonably believed that the population would have fought to the death in resisting an invasion. How many more Japanese lives than those taken at N. and H. would have been lost in a land war on the home islands? Once the dogs of war are unleashed, proportionality goes out the window. Part of a just war, it seems to me, and assuming that initiation of the war is not corrupted by the pure quest for genocide or outright theft or some other corrupt motive, is waging it to win as quickly as possible with as few casualties as possible. If we had had the A bombs in 1942, millions of lives would have been saved.

As the son of a man who was waiting on Okinowa to invade Japan, I thank Truman. Estimated American casualties range from 200-500 thousand.

Just wondering - How many of these philosophers underwent an artillery barrage from a foxhole or were sardined into a LCT on its way to a hot beach?

Would they have proposed proportional force or would they have cheered anything that crushed the enemy so they could be spared the enemy fire?

I think we know the answer.

dougf said it best above:

Don't engage in War unless you have to, and then engage in that War to Win.

Period.

Like Shmuel, I too would like to know why the Euros and others only scream about proportionality when it comes to Israel. Putin lecturing about proportionality??? What's next, Sudan on the UN Human Rights Commission? Oh, wait a sec...

Michael Smith raises what to me is the key issue. The distinction between "civilian" and "combatant" in the era of total war is not as cut and dry as it was in the 18th century. It seems to me that many commentators refuse to recognize this. In many ways a 45-year old female member of the Nazi Party working in an armament factory was a greater enemy to the US than a 17-year old peasant boy forced to serve against his will in the Wehrmacht.

Justin and Micheal talk around the really major flaw in Grayling's discussion - what Grayling misses is any cognizance of the fact that in a war descisions are made that are not a simple choice of the good vs the bad decsision, but are usually attempts to make simply the least bad decision - and usually with limited information, under severe time pressure, and in the context of a situation where some decision MUST be made.

In the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki one would have to demonstrate not only that the war would have been swiftly won without the bomb, but also that this knowledge was reasonably within the purview of those making the decision about it. In this case, even with hindsight and much better information we still find it impossible to say with any confidence if Japan was on the brink of surrender anyway, and we do know that American planners were convinced that the resitance in the main Islands would have matched or exceeded that met at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Additionally, even assuming that the war would have soon been won whether the A-bombs had been dropped or not it should be examined whether the likely alternate strategies - in Japan's case, seige, conventional bombing, and ground invasion would have resulted in more or less civilian casualties. And here it would seem from the experince of both the other bombing campiagns, the knowledge of Japan's dire food situation as well as the proportional casulties in both Okinawa and Iwo Jima that a conventional military campiagn would almost certainly have resulted in an even greater civilian toll - and probably by a very big margin - from the casualties on the Marianas, Okinawa and Iwo Jima Japanese civilian deaths might have exceeded 3 to 4 million in a sustained ground campaign ( and if we just simply extrapolated form these previous campigns as much as 40% of the civilian population wold have been killed in such an offensive).

It is faced with such terrible choices that one suspects that Grayling wold counsel that something less than total Victory seems a small price to pay for avoidance of such carnage - perhaps a conditional surrender rather than blind insistence of an unconditional one ? This argument can simply be tested against the history of peace - and what is clear is that Peace bought with truces, armistices or partial surrenders are almost every where temporary an illusory, whilst peace built on total victory and unconditional surrender in general lasts. Africa and the Middle east have re-inforced this point time and time again.

It is for all these reasosn why the especial opprobium must always be reserved for thsoe who deliberatly instigate wars - because they are the authors of most of the evil that follows. Once war is joined the expectations on the combatants must be necessarily limited, there is simply no point in thinking that a war can be conducted in so surgical a manner that none other than combatants are affected - such wars can only really occur if what is being contested is uninhabited territory.

Secondly in relation to the rules of war the moral expectation must be based on reciprocity - more and more the hackneyed phrase that "we hold Army X to a higher standard" is simply becoming a pre-emptive excuse for rules of war that function more a like a golf handicapping system, allowing almost any group with a greivance to contemplate war, knowing that they will be protected from it's worst consequences - such is not a recipe for peace. If bank robbers were able to successfuly sue banks for the harshness of their security measures and the fact that these make their "workplace" unsafe we should not expect a dimunition of Bank Robbery. When you can deliberatly start a war, and know in advance that your enemy operates under precisley those constarints of war that you can exploit to engage with them on more equal terms, and when people are prepared to seriously listen to you when you complain that enemy is shooting back you have a recipe for more war not peace.

A Berman: One problem I have with most questions about war's morality and even legal vs. illegal wars is that they overly discount the aims of the various combatants.

Michael Smith: Exactly, and my comments above justifying the targeting of civilians presupposes the premise above -- namely, a free nation going to war against a totalitarian state.

These comments makes it sound as though the US purpose in the war was overthrowing a totalitarian state. It wasn't. The US could have done so as early as the mid '30s, but only entered the war after being attacked by Japan and having war declared on it by Germany. And a major totalitarian government was one of the foremost allies.

As has been said before, if Hitler had stayed inside his own borders happily exterminating segments of his population, he would have dies of old age. The aim of the war was not the overthrow of fascism, although that was a happy side effect.

In this case, even with hindsight and much better information we still find it impossible to say with any confidence if Japan was on the brink of surrender anyway...

Well, we do know that there were efforts by moderates within the Japanese government that had made at least two tentative feelers out via the Swiss (I think) and the Soviet Union. Stalin reported this to the other allied powers at the time.

There is some feeling that the choice to use the nukes were for a variety of reasons, but that the primary ones were aimed at thwarting the Soviet Union's post-war sphere of influence in the Pacific. With the victory on the European front, the Soviets were due to begin hostilities against Japan, with the promised reward of Pacific territories and warm-water ports. As the Japanese were already on the brink of collapse, the nukes may have been used to hurry them along, as well as being a welcome demonstration to the Soviets of what the new weapons could do.

There's also speculation that Dresden was a similar example of what western airpower could do to a city as a warning to Stalin to slow down his advance through Europe.

I must say I'm surprised by the one-sidedness of this discussion. At home, I'm generally derided as a simplistic hawk. But it seems that here I fall into the more tempered category (or "nuanced," if you will, or "effete chickenhawk," if you will that).

Francis Bagbey, I agree with your argument about Hiroshima & Nagasaki being a different case than Dresden, Hamburg, or even Tokyo, and I went into that at the more extended version of the post at my home place.

But if civilians are militarily legitimate targets, and the only rule in war is to win at all costs, what is the difference between Israel and Hezbollah? The tactics currently employed on both sides are equally legitimate.

But if civilians are militarily legitimate targets, and the only rule in war is to win at all costs, what is the difference between Israel and Hezbollah?

Aims? Just a guess from the tone of the discussion so far, and I don't agree with that viewpoint.

The entire discussion seems ludicrous to me. Wars are fought to be won, not to be "fair."

If you want to be "fair", then wait until the fighting is done and offer a generous peace settlement. Then you can be "fair" and feel all good about yourself.

The entire discussion seems ludicrous to me. Wars are fought to be won, not to be "fair."

If that were true, nuclear weapons would be going off daily.

Carlos:

I don't think when modern societies go to war, and this is especially true of Democracies that go to war, that perceptions of fairness nd morality (fair or other wise) can be seperated from the pursuit of victory, so no the discussion is not meaningless, even in strictly military terms. The US did not lose miltarily in Vietnam - nor even would it be true to say that their enemies were under any illusions about who was actually doing the most to adhere to the rules of war. But the North Vietnamese were able to win what they could not gain on the battlefeild precisely because they were able to persuade enough of the American public of the wars injustice, and to a degree, the justice of their own cause. Or perhaps it would be more acurate to say that for the NVA one Wlater Cronkite was worth 100 divisions of VC as a weapon dpleoyed against their Enemy.

Aims? Just a guess from the tone of the discussion so far, and I don't agree with that viewpoint.--DPU

This sounds more or less correct, except for the I don't agree part.

If that were true, nuclear weapons would be going off daily.--DPU

The situation is not nearly 'serious' enough yet. That ugly reality can be 'camouflaged' by a veneer of 'morality' but it is not only a 'moral' issue. It is a practical/moral issue. I don't need to use the ultimate weapon and therefore I am making a moral decision not to do so. Were I to at some point 'need' to use that weapon, and refused to do so, even though it endangered my fellow citizens survival, that would be a 'moral 'decision.

Am 'immoral' decision but one based only in the rarefied sphere of 'ethics'.

You win or you lose. Only winners have the opportunity to indulge themselves in angst over past decisions. Losers are too busy losing.

If you've ever condemned terrorism, you hold to a conception of jus in bello that places ethical restrictions on the targeting of civilians.

If you believe that jus in bello is a function of jus ad bellum, i.e., that one fighting a just war can engage in any conduct, then you at least need to speak to the criteria by which we determine the justness of a war. If that criteria includes the character of the states involve, then I'm curious why how a state conducts itself in war is entirely separable from its character.

Of course, this position also runs into the pragmatic difficulty that most sides believe their position to be just...

If that were true, nuclear weapons would be going off daily.

I guess that's true. Then only in wars of existential survival are all the rules off the table., ie. WW2, Yom Kippur, etc.

While other wars where the interests involved are limited, then so are the means to achieving those interests going to be limited, i.e., wars like Vietnam, invading Lebanon, etc.

I guess not such a ludicrous discussion after all. Carry on!

Dougf: that's a perfectly defensible position in some versions of jus in bello. Indeed, most versions do concern themselves with what you call a "pragmatic/moral" equation; hence arguments about "double effect" and "collateral damage."

Just wanted to thank EVERYONE here for their posts. All very considered, informative, and thought provoking.

Thanks also to our gracious host for an inspired series of commentaries.

Carlos said: "I guess that's true. Then only in wars of existential survival are all the rules off the table., ie. WW2, Yom Kippur, etc. "

Not sure I agree with this. They might not have nukes, but do you think that the rules Hezbollah plays by are dictated by anything except strategic/tactical reasoning? At this very moment their struggle may be existential, but I'm not sure they thought so even last week. Did Hafez Assad not throw out the rule book when he bulldozed Hama and its residents into a heap of rubble? The perceived threat was existential, but certainly not in immediate terms. The same could be said for the US dropping dropping the bomb on Japan. Existential? Not so sure... Moral? Could be be argued that it ultimately saved lives or that it was the ultimate abbhoration. Expedient? Most definitely, and that could be argued both purely and cynically.

It's all a matter of perception. You can feel that your existence is threatened and I can poo poo that. I can feel morally-justified and you can think I'm a monster.

My question is, how does this apply to what's going on now between Israel and Hezbollah and the Palestinians?

My answer is that it certainly applies, and Israel is in full compliance. Contrary to what you'd suppose from reading some of the wilder reports, Israel's bombing has been confined to legitimate Hizballah targets. The force used is proportional to the goals Israel seeks to achieve, and I don't see how those goals could reasonably be achieved with much less force.

Many of the "civilian" deaths reported have been Hizballah supporters personally engaged in the war, e.g. by storing rockets in their houses. Others were warned to move away from Hizballah facilities and chose to ignore that warning. I think I can safely say that Israel has not deliberately killed even one single civilian.

See also here.

Callimachus: But if civilians are militarily legitimate targets, and the only rule in war is to win at all costs, what is the difference between Israel and Hezbollah? The tactics currently employed on both sides are equally legitimate.

Only if you forget the pretext. Israel got out of Lebanon 6 years ago. Since then it has been continually attacked and harrassed and its soldiers and citizens killed.

A state has the solemn duty to protect its citizens. That is what Israel has to do and that is its sole moral duty.

If you believe that if a state executes a murderer it is a murderer you might come to that view, so I suppose you're against any form of violence against some criminal because that would make you equal to some other criminal. In that world perhaps your view would make sense, but most people can clearly see the difference.

>>>It's all a matter of perception. You can feel that your existence is threatened and I can poo poo that. I can feel morally-justified and you can think I'm a monster.

Yes, it's can be a matter of perception, but at the end of the day when it's your ass on the line, the only perception that matters is yours, not anybody else's. If you really believe your survival is at stake, then fuck the armchair generals, you're going to do whatever it takes to survive.

Does this apply to Hesbollah? Yes. BUT it's harder for an aggressor who provokes a devastating retaliation to legitimately claim he's in a "existential" war for his survival. Yes, he may be now be in a pickle fighting for his existence, but who put him there in the first place? Aggressors don't get to start wars and then use the "existential" defense. That's a little too conveeeenient.

In all of the learned discussion here on this subject, the comment that actually strikes to the heart of the post's intent in the present context: the one that notes the striking fact that "proportionality" has suddenly become a serious concern among the Euros and media (and, of course, here) evidently because Israel is effectively and violently dealing with its attackers (and their support systems) in Lebanon.

The underlying assumption of the post (and the plain statement in one comment) seems to be that Israel's bombing is certainly out of proportion in its effects and probably in its intention.

Perhaps providing some concrete evidence of any disproportionality in this case could profitably precede the moralizing about just war. Truth is as fully a moral issue as justice, and truth is consistently side-stepped when Israel and those who seek, or at least would not mind, its destruction are discussed.

One thing that this discussion does bring to mind is the Clauswitzian distinction between Total War and Absolute War. The hypothetical Total War is one in which a state fights with everything available at its disposal, while an Absolute War is a war in which the political objectives have become completely subsumed by the pursuit of violence - a sort of highly organized form of murder.

The degree to which a war is a Total War is related directly to questions of proportionality. More or less, we tend to accept, on some level, that a nation involved in an exitential struggle is granted a great deal of latitude in the steps it takes to defend itself. In other words, the Total nature of a given war is not, in and of itself, sufficient to make strong moral judgements. It is the fact that the degree of Totality of warfighting can be asymmetric between combatants, and sometimes proportionality, that causes much consternation. This is further muddied in much modern warfighting by the inherent problems of defining the 'exitientiallity' of an insurgency, especially in context of the Just War provisions about having a chance of success.

Meanwhile, fighting unhinged from political objectives - killing for killing's sake - is pretty much axiomatically bound to be disporportionate, as the violence isn't calibrated to much of anything at all.

To muddy the waters further, Total War and Absolute War aren't properly orthogonal, a war can be both quite total and quite absolute. There are some other questions about limits to organized violence, but that's a fuzzier can of worms, and I'm lazy.

BRD

Israeli force disproportionate my left nut:

Hizbullah preventing civilians from leaving villages in southern Lebanon

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3278026,00.html

"Civilian casualties" are one of Hesbollah's strategies to deligitimatize Israel's right to defend itself.

Michael Smith makes some excellent points.

Not only does a limited war fail to achieve victory, it allows the bad actor to regroup, rearm with better weapons, and alter strategy for another day. That seems to be the m.o. of most of the Mideast conflicts.

If Israel wants to put an end to this type of scenario with Hezbollah, it should be thinking of war in another dimension. After providing adequate warnings for innocent civilians to vacate south Lebanon, encircle the area to prevent Hezbollah from escaping, and then carpet bomb the area for weeks. Maybe we can provide some B-52's on lend lease.

ss

I think the WWII bombings, My Lai, Hadditha and now Lebanon show that every military gets its share of sociopaths...the trick is to keep them away from civvies.

What I find fascinating in this thread is the utter inability of various commenters to confront the implications of what they are saying.

We are all shortsighted creatures and what may seem a perfectly justifiable reason to us to quit a job, to yell at a spouse, or to fight a war may often not be as justifiable as we think. Causes that seem right as rain--should we British fight the Kaiser?, should we Yankees fight the Rebs?, should we Southerners fight to preserve our Peculiar Institution?--often come to seem debatable as time passes. That doesn't argue for pacificism, but it does argue against any sort of moral absolutism in defense of the cause.

If it is true that all that matters in war is whether your cause is just and civilians are perfectly legitimate targets, then we have given up all ability to persuade neutrals or restrain conscientious enemies in ANY conflict. Those who are persuaded of the justice of their cause will stop and nothing to achieve it and shouldn't stop at anything. We have admitted that the only difference between a Palestinian suicide bomber and an Israeli mass murderer like that fellow in the Hebron mosque is that we find the cause of the first a bad one and the second a good one. The Palestinian isn't bad because he's blowing up innocent Israeli kids, he's just bad because he's on the wrong side.

Hitler wasn't bad because he gassed millions of Jews. He was bad because he did it for insufficiently grave reasons. Had the Jews actually been a threat to Germany of some kind, rather than just an irritant to his crazed mind, he might have been justified.

This leads to the collapse of civilization and of all morals. "Anything to protect me and mine," may be understandable, but it isn't enough and it isn't right. And it leads in the end to unimaginable brutality. The reasons that can make a war just are that it is being fought to uphold something like justice or honor or freedom, moral truths that become mere chimeras outside of war if they are abandoned within it. If there are no just and unjust ways to fight wars, there are no just causes for wars either, only, "You are doing something I don't care for."

And Shmuel's argument: Why can't I act like a beast if my enemies act like beasts is ridiculously weak. Far better to argue: Since you rightly expect me to act civilized, you must act civilized as well. I don't really think that in the end Israelis want to be held only to the standards of barbarism. One of their proudest boasts is that they DO NOT treat their enemies as their enemies treat them.

Far better to argue: Since you rightly expect me to act civilized, you must act civilized as well.

...and if they don't?

Jeff: utter inability of various commenters to confront the implications of what they are saying

Jeff, I think it is an utter inability of you to read. We're talking here about defense of your citizens. And using military power to achieve victory such as to annihilate that thread as much as possible.

No one is arguing that genocide of all males is a perfectly acceptable strategy to accomplish that goal. Nor that nuking Lebanon is. And no one here is giving you a formula either. These things are contingent like so many things outside the philosophers armchair are.

The goal is victory and even if all options are on the table the mark of a civilisation is that it will not pursue all options unless the cause is sufficient grave and just. Precisely what Israel is doing. It is acting with remarkable constraint. It uses high-tech precision bombs, and these things don't come cheap. Nor do the pilots and planes. It would be much cheaper to carpet bomb the whole area. An option that Hezbollah would use if it could.

Double-plus-ungood, the argument that we dropped the atomic bombs on Japan to deter Stalin has popped up since, perhaps, the bombings themselves _ in "Politics and the English Language," Orwell lists the bombings, along with the continuance of British rule in India and the Soviet purges, as policies that couldn't be justified in straightforward language. But the argument is weaker than its proponents admit.
According to American and Japanese research summed up by Oliver Kamm in his 2005 post "CND: Wrong again," the Japanese military was determined to inflict enough casualties to force the Americans and British to agree to a compromise peace that would let Japan keep its military-dominated system of government and its conquests on the Asian mainland. Even the Hiroshima bombing couldn't change their minds; only Nagasaki got Hirohito to agree to surrender (and even then some officers tried to depose him).
Kamm quotes D.M. Giangreco of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College to the effect that U.S. planners expected a million casualties from an invasion of the Japanese home islands (and Churchill estimated another half-million British casualties). And we're not even talking about casualties, military and civilian, among the Japanese.
Were the bombings 'proportional'? I don't know. Were they the least of all evils? It sure looks it to me.

Precision and accuracy are two different things, Berend...

Maybe Israel should break out their high-tech accuracy bombs if they want to actually hit some Hezbollah troops instead of civilians.

In an earlier post MJT said:

There is no alternate universe where the Lebanese government could have disarmed an Iranian-trained terrorist/guerilla militia that even the Israelis could not defeat in years of grinding war. There is no alternate universe where it was in Lebanon's interest to restart the civil war on Israel's behalf, to burn down their country all over again right at the moment where they finally had hope after 30 years of convulsive conflict and Baath Party overlordship.

Likewise, there is no alternate universe in which Israel can eliminate Hizballah with less force than they are using now. Even the current level might not succeed. I'd say that's a factor - using much more force than necessary to achieve your goals (assuming they are moral) would be immoral, which is probably the case in Dresden but not Hiroshima.

Maybe Hizbullah should stop putting legitimate military targets right next to civilians.

Why are issues of proportionality only brought up in such a rigourous fashion when Israel is involved? - Shmuel

It's not a question of Israel as such. It's a question of whether a democratic state has a moral obligation to follow certain norms.

Personally I believe it does. Even if you follow the argument of "the Lebanese are responsible because they let Hezbollah carry on for the past six years" (and for what it's worth, I don't) that still doesn't excuse Israel from actions that cause suffering to the general population without actually weakening the enemy in any way.

It's not a question of Israel as such. It's a question of whether a democratic state has a moral obligation to follow certain norms.

Do you think this moral obligation takes precedence over the obligation of a government to protect it's citizens to the best of it's ability?

Personally I believe it does. Even if you follow the argument of "the Lebanese are responsible because they let Hezbollah carry on for the past six years" (and for what it's worth, I don't)...

[shrug]

Well, everyone has the right to their own opinion, even when it's wrong...

A government is accountable for what happens inside it's territory, and is obliged to not allow it's territory to be used to attack others- this principle is very well established in international law.

That is the basis for the US's invasion of Afghanistan, despite the Taliban not being the party responsible for the 9/11 attacks- the Taliban was either unwilling or unable to prevent al Qaeda from operating in it's territory, and the US was not morally obligated to refrain from attacking Afghanistan because of this.

...that still doesn't excuse Israel from actions that cause suffering to the general population without actually weakening the enemy in any way.

...therefore, if it could be demonstrated that the enemy is, in fact, being weakened by these actions, doing these things would be moral?

Do you think this moral obligation takes precedence over the obligation of a government to protect it's citizens to the best of it's ability?

No, but there has to be a balance. A democratic state surely has an obligation to find the most effective way to defeat the enemy while not causing needless suffering to the population.

Israel makes a great show about being the only democratic country in the region, and rightly so. Yes, Israel's prime obligation is to its own citizens, but there's a clear difference as to what you expect from a democracy and a state say like Assad's Syria, where the current Baathist dictator's Dad 'liquidated' 40,000 opponents in Homs.

A government is accountable for what happens inside it's territory, and is obliged to not allow it's territory to be used to attack others- this principle is very well established in international law.

True, but that depends whether the Lebanese Government could be called truly independent in the first place and actually had the means to protect its own borders. It was starting to move in that direction post Beirut Spring.

What's certainly true is that it isn't in anyone's interests - neither Israel's or the United States for this Government to be weakened even further to the point where we reach civil war.

..therefore, if it could be demonstrated that the enemy is, in fact, being weakened by these actions, doing these things would be moral?

But not at any lengths. Just for sake of arguments let's assume the dropping of a nuclear bomb was on the agenda (OK it's not, but let's imagine for a moment). While it might weaken the enemy, it would clearly not be appropriate!

No, but there has to be a balance. A democratic state surely has an obligation to find the most effective way to defeat the enemy while not causing needless suffering to the population.

I'm sorry, but we are going to have to agree to disagree on this.

IMO, the only obligation here is that of a government to protect it's own citizens- while avoiding unnecessary suffering may be desirable, it is certainly not required.

I am not in favor of any double standards. Dictatorships should not get a pass merely because they are dictatorships, and democratic governments who fight dictatorships should not be held to a higher standard than whoever they are fighting against.

To do otherwise constrains the ability of the democratic state to win the conflict, and therefore favors the dictatorship, which I consider to be a morally indefensible position.

Yes, I know, Lebanon is a representative government. This fact is irrelevant- the real adversaries in this conflict are Syria and Iran.

Israel makes a great show about being the only democratic country in the region, and rightly so. Yes, Israel's prime obligation is to its own citizens, but there's a clear difference as to what you expect from a democracy and a state say like Assad's Syria, where the current Baathist dictator's Dad 'liquidated' 40,000 opponents in Homs.

Yes, there's a difference.

That difference is one of the major reasons I want the democracy to defeat the dictatorship, and object to holding the democracy to a 'moral standard' that makes them more likely to lose- especially when the dictatorship is not held to the same standard.

My attitude is quite straightforward: when fighting a honorable enemy, fight honorably. When fighting a honorless enemy, do whatever it takes.

"But if civilians are militarily legitimate targets, and the only rule in war is to win at all costs, what is the difference between Israel and Hezbollah? The tactics currently employed on both sides are equally legitimate."

The difference is that Hezbollah is initiating the use of force in an effort to destroy a free nation and establish in its place a totalitarian Islamic theocracy that does not recognize rights. Israel is using retaliatory force in an effort to destroy a threat to its existence and protect the rights of its citizens.

Granted, the Palestinians claim that it was Israel that first initiated the use of force to steal their land in the 1948 War of Independence. I do not believe that claim for a variety of reasons but that is another long (and interesting) discussion.

I maintain that this claim -- which is the basis for the so-called "right of return" -- is irrelevent to the more fundamental issue. Even if the Jews, in establishing Israel, did in fact steal land from some Palestinians, it would mean, at most, that those Palestinians -- the original, legitimate owners of the property or their direct descendents -- have a right to return to their land and repossess it -- within the free nation of Israel.

It would NOT mean that those Palestinians (not to mention hordes of Arabs -- and now Persians --that were never previously in Palestine) have a right to destroy Israel and establish in its place an Islamic theocracy that does not recognize individual rights. There is no such thing as the right to establish a government that does not acknowledge or respect rights. That would amount to claiming the right to violate rights.

Just for the record, unlike the Nazis the Japanese people didn't support the Militarists -- the one time they had an opportunity to vote, the openly Militarist party won about 20 seats out of 400 (IIRC).

They took power in what was in effect a very complex coup, and were always opposed by elements of the Government, including the Emperor.

Area bombing didn't deter them, and after Nagasaki they rather shrewdly assessed that the USA probably only 2-3 nuclear bombs, and decided to fight on.

However, the confusion that took place allowed the Emperor to stage a coup of his own, which took the form of his radio message to the Japanese people. Even after this, surrender did not happen straight away. The whole affair is fascinating, and reads better than any fiction.

The upshot being that the two atom bombs did in fact end the war, just not in the way most people assume.

I haven't read all the comments. I just want to say that about 80% of Grayling's claims that I see taken at face value in the article are highly dubious based on the sources I have seen as regards the actual effectiveness of WW2-era "precision" bombing and the alternatives to nuking Japan.

Basically, until I see some hard evidence, the guy's full of crap.

Inter armes, silent leges. We have been able to avoid that because we are so disproportionately stronger than our enemies, we can afford to cripple ourselves. By so doing, we prolong and worsen the conflict rather than bringing it to an end as swiftly and effectively as possible. That situation will not last forever.

So, I seem a bit confused. In many of our conversations, we have identified terrorists as people that attack civillians. If Bin Laden declared war on us (which he did long before 9/11) then attacked "legitimate targets" aka enemy civillians, how is he a terrorist?

If 'insurgets'/'terrorists'/'islamowhatevers' are killing enemy civillians in Iraq, how can they be considered terrorists if enemy civillians are legitimate targets?

This seems rather muddled to me. I'm not trying to be snarky here, or to prove some archaic point, I'm really confused as to how some folks here differentiate between a 'terrorist' and a millitary strike that targets civillians.

Your Confused Chaotic Rodent,

Ratatosk

'Tosk,

The first pass analysis is that the difference lies in whether or not civilians are collateral damage or intentional targets. This is further resolved into questions about whether or not a civlian casualty is collateral damage from an attack on a military target, whether or not civilian casualties are a result of opponents engaging in Total War, whether or not inflicting civilian casualties deliberately will have an effect on the outcome of a conflict, whether or not unintentional civilian casualties will advance or retard warfighting aims, and a host of others.

I think it is fair to bracket the far ends of the spectrum that would dictate that deliberately targeting something like a orphanage is beyond the pale in just about any circumstance, while one soldier shooting another active enemy combatant is fair game.

It's difficult to make any finer distinctions based on general rules, but the questions of intent, utility, proprotionality, and effectiveness are good points of departure.

BRD

Thanks BRD,

So a few more questions:

"whether or not civilians are collateral damage or intentional targets."

So in the case of 9/11 they were intentional targets, I would think.

whether or not a civlian casualty is collateral damage from an attack on a military target, whether or not civilian casualties are a result of opponents engaging in Total War

Well, I suppose you could consider the Pentagon as a millitary target and perhaps WTC too, since it is part of a financial pipeline that provides funding to the government... and OBL did declare war, I'm not sure what the difference between War and Total War is though.

whether or not inflicting civilian casualties deliberately will have an effect on the outcome of a conflict,

But, this seems an unknown until after the fact. OBL obviously assumed he was going to gain something from it... the overall effect to the nation was certianly large, both in a financial sense as well as the internal strife now so prevelent between the various political groups and even the average citizens. The instability in the whole reigon, if not brought under control could become a serious mess and if the US can't fix it, we'll have a rather nasty black eye for some time to come. So, if the civillian casualities result in OBL getting what he wants in the end... is it still terrorism, or is it some justifiable act of war (like Dresden or Hiroshima)?

This whole line of reasoning seems pretty subjective to me, which is why I'm seeking clarification.

Thanks again,
Tosk

Doesn't proportionality dictate a war of attrition on some level, especially when the enemy's primary targets are civilians? Do we want to fight a war of attrition? Does Israel?

I'm not sure what the difference between War and Total War is though.

A Total War is one in which the state applies maximum effort towards the prosecution of the war. In the proverbial economist's trade off between guns and butter, a Total War is one in which the cows have howitzers. Clearly it isn't a binary condition, but rather represents a spectrum, anchored at the other end by peace.

In my estimation the Pentagon and USS Cole were pretty legitimate targets in that they were military. The sliding scale to Total War implies that one engages military targets preferentially to civilian targets, as the destruction of military targets provides the most (or at least the clearest) warfighting leverage per amount of organized violence expended. In a case where an army, such as the German army, is being engaged about as much as possible, then it is generally regarded as reasonable to start broadening the scope of the conflict to attack the underpinnings of military force. Within this, there are clearly some vagaries when it comes to things like deliberate strategic bombing of civilian populations. However, it is pretty universally regarded as a bad thing when one skips all the military-to-military engagement and goes right to bombing civilian populations simply for the sake of wiping out orphanages and hospitals.

"whether or not inflicting civilian casualties deliberately will have an effect on the outcome of a conflict,"

But, this seems an unknown until after the fact. OBL obviously assumed he was going to gain something from it... the overall effect to the nation was certianly large, both in a financial sense as well as the internal strife now so prevelent between the various political groups and even the average citizens.

Of course it's an unknown until after the fact, but in the world of crystal-ball gazing, we can pretty much say with confidence that a serial killer strangling a few hobos is not likely to cause the United States to bow to the benevolent rule of the invisible space aliens from Rigel 7. When we look at the far other end of the spectrum in which nations have just about committed all their available resources to producing a military to fight the other guy's military, then broadening the conflict incrementally becomes somewhat more possible.

In the case of ObL the question that must be asked are what are the grand strategic warfighting aims that animate his decision to wage war and the extent to which racking up a civilian body count will have a direct, measurable effect on achieving those goals.

If we start moving off into what is suggested purely by means as is supposed by your comment "So, if the civillian casualities result in OBL getting what he wants in the end... is it still terrorism, or is it some justifiable act of war (like Dresden or Hiroshima)?" then we end up moving off into some very morally hazardous territory.

Perhaps a overly simplistic, but illuminating way of viewing the overall question is trying to figure out whether the attacks on civilian targets were simply done for the gratification of sensless bloodshed, versus an unavoidable consequence of engaging in a military conflict.

Or, to be more stuffy about it, we tend to regard Absolute War as being morally anathema, and the further down that path one tends, regardless of proportionality or totality, the more grim the moral and ethical outlook becomes.

BRD

BRD,

Sounds like a decent enough argument. I still have some serious trouble considering the targeting of civillians as anything other than an amoral act (be it by terrorists or millitary). I was hoping for clarification as to why some people here see it as ok in some cases and not others.

Still confused, but at least you provided me with some good ideas to consider.

Thanks

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