What is in Kelvin's Head?

Intervention in Syria – does not meet criteria for a just war

28/08/2013
I am not a pacifist. If I was, then I would simply argue against intervention in Syria because armed intervention was always wrong.

Instead, I think that there are circumstances where it is right (not by any means good) for armed force to be used.

Christians have a fairly well developed tradition of thinking about this which is called Just War Theory. This attempts to work out whether it is legitimate to go to war. There’s a reasonably good Wikipedia page about it if you want to take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory and there’s a helpful summary on the BBC website which I’ll use below to show how I come to the conclusion that there is not a case for regarding military intervention in Syria at the moment as a just war.

The first thing to note is that Just War theory is a developing tradition. There are people working on it all the time looking at new situations that arise. The particular thing that we must ask ourselves in our own time is whether intervening for humanitarian reasons is justification for armed conflict.

Let’s take the basic criteria though and work through them.

In order for a war (or armed action) to be considered just then the following conditions must be met:
1. The war must be for a just cause.
2. The war must be lawfully declared by a lawful authority.
3. The intention behind the war must be good.
4. All other ways of resolving the problem should have been tried first.
5. There must be a reasonable chance of success.
6. The means used must be in proportion to the end that the war seeks to achieve.
1 The war must be for a just cause

It is certainly the case that any intervention in Syria that could be said to be aimed at ensuring that further lives would not be lost could be said to be a just cause. This condition is probably met though there are significant questions to be asked about why we might be intervening here where there is said to be a dictator doing bad things to his own people and not in, for example, Zimbabwe.

2 The war must be lawfully declared by a lawful authority

There would be no ambiguity about this if the UN Security Council authorised action. In that case this condition would be met. If that is not met, then a case has to be made by the government justifying its actions. We have seen no arguments yet so this is as yet, not proven.

3 The intention behind the war must be good

This is a highly subjective area. There will be those who argue that if we believe chemical weapons are intolerable then we must act against whoever has used them. The complicating factor is that we don’t have any conclusive proof in the public domain that such weapons were used by the Assad regime. Proof that the weapons were used is not proof that Assad authorised them. An obvious argument is that there was an obvious motive for using such weapons by armed opposition groups in Syria if they were attempting to draw foreign powers into the conflict to finish off Assad. The danger for the government if this is the case is that it will be accused of firing missiles for Al-Qaida and other unsavoury elements. There are not many good guys to get behind in this conflict.

Again, if the intention of an action were to surgically remove from the Assad regime any possibility of launching chemical weapons attacks by removing chemical weapons production plants then this might meet this condition. Once again, this is not proven. We simply don’t know enough about government plans to draw a conclusion here.

4 All other ways of resolving the problem should have been tried first.

With the UN desperately asking for more time for diplomatic solutions, it is clear this condition is not met.

5 There must be a reasonable chance of success

Again this is subjective. It might be argued that “surgical strikes” against chemical weapons plants could meet this condition. However, there seems to be a strong view both from commentators and the general public that involvement in this conflict could well have unforseen consequences. If we don’t know what success would look like then this condition is not met. I don’t believe that a convincing case has been made that there is a successful outcome to intervention that is possible. My judgement is that this is not met.

6 The means used must be in proportion to the end that the war seeks to achieve.

The government will argue that “surgical strikes” are precisely designed to be a proportionate response. However, it needs to answer the question as to what it will do if the consequence of such strikes was further chemical weapons attacks. Without some idea of this, it is difficult to argue that this condition is met.

Because I don’t believe these conditions are all met, my conclusion is that military intervention is not at this stage justified. That does not mean that I am opposed in principle to the use of force. It simply means that I’m not convinced today. I suspect a very great number of religious and non-religious people will agree.
just war, syria

7 responses to “Reclaiming the web”

Paul Hutchinson

14/10/2015

Thank you for making me think in a different direction just before pausing for lunch. I have never had a blog, so came quite late to Internet social discourse, and have engaged more since joining one major network in 2010 and another in early 2014 – normally using those networks rather than a comment box such as this. Not all of us are natural creators of substantial original content, but like to be thoughtful in brief exchange, and so both those major networks, though cursed with many difficulties, serve those brief exchanges quite well. I do agree that the endless recycling of links (on both of them) can be wearying, and I do wish that some old friends would be a little more self-critical. But the price of any kind of social discourse is that one is vulnerable to the otherness of the other.
I feel I ought to be writing a more substantial comment here, but hope that this is enough. The time is not always there to offer deeper reflection: but sometimes a blogger needs to hear at least a small splash from the stone thrown down the well!

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  14/10/2015
  
  Thanks for the comment, Paul. I’m aware that not everyone is a content creator, but perhaps what I miss is the sense of discovering different communities online and keeping the comments more or less in one place helps with that.
  
  The glory days of 50 or more comments on a post are probably over. I suspect I mourn the sense of community being created even more than I miss the interesting reflections of others. Retweets and shares are always welcome – but they are the means of amplification. Becoming loud isn’t the same as becoming wise, nor the same as becoming connected.
  
  Reply
Seph

14/10/2015

It’s a damnable shame—and mostly the fault of Facebook. Twitter at least has an etiquette of sorts, wherein it is considered impolite not to respond to the original tweet, which is usually made by the blogger in question.

Facebook, in short, is the scourge of the Internet. I have often been in groups which have decided to do all of their organizing on Facebook, despite my protests that I’m not on Facebook and don’t want to be, and really an e-mail list would be just as easy, and would they like me to set one up. This inevitably leads to my marginalization within the group, as no-one bothers to keep me abreast of the discussions to which I am not party.

Can you tell I’m upset about this?

Reply
Daniel Lamont

14/10/2015

I am only an occasional user of Facebook but I know what you mean, Kelvin. And indeed, I never read the comments ‘below the line’ on newspapers like ‘The Guardian’. You offer some useful advice. I read yours and one or two other blogs on a regular basis but don’t always comment. However, I can see that the author of a blog would like some feedback. I would be sad not to have the blogs that I do read because they do give me a sense of what people are thinking and an odd sense of community.

Reply
Father Ron Smith

14/10/2015

My own contribution to the blogopshere is, I’m afraid, Father Kelvin, limited to comments I make on other people’s blogs (such as ‘Thinking Anglicans’ and ‘Anglican Down Under’ – a local NZ forum; plus my own blog ‘kiwianglo’, where i pluck articles that interest me personally from the web and provide my own commentary. This still interests me, personally, and provides my few readers with information they might not otherwise be bothered to glean for themselves. Like you, I am no longer an avid Facebook fan.

Reply
David Campbell

16/10/2015

Hi Kelvin – thoughtful as ever – and yours is invariably the first blog I turn to each day. That you bring pressing issues to a wider audience and to people who know, or used to know, the church you serve is a great thing. I’m still blogging relatively strongly, but it’s certainly a different blogging experience when work is set in a very different context and especially community from previously, writing these days mainly for myself about things that interest me, although not quite at the address you have in your Blog Roll. http://www.limpingtowardsthesunrise.com is where it’s “all” happening.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  16/10/2015
  
  Thanks David – nice to hear from you. I’ve amended the link.
  
  I don’t think many people use blogrolls to find blogs these days but whenever I remove it my mother complains…
  
  Reply