Introduction

Governments often have to make tough calls, but none are quite so painful as those that involve committing one’s country to war. The idea of ‘just war’ informs how we approach and reflect on these decisions. It signifies the belief that while war is always a wretched enterprise it may in certain circumstances, and subject to certain restrictions, be justified. The idea of just war has, of course, been subject to extensive refinement down the centuries. Even so, scholars have had little to say about what has historically been regarded as the very object of warfare: victory. What accounts for this oversight? This chapter introduces this question and establishes how it will be treated in this book.

Making a Desert and Calling It Peace

It is a time-honoured belief among just war theorists that the desired end of a just war should be peace, not victory. This chapter interrogates this proposition. It asks what kind of relation, if any, should we envisage between peace and victory in respect of the ends of just war? The concern this question raises is not simply that peace and victory constitute distinct objectives for a just war. It is that they might also be mutually implicated yet incompatible aims. Drawing on the writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero, this chapter examines this concern and reflects on what it tells us about the idea of just war. It contends that the relation between victory and peace exposes what we might call the paradox of just war: the act of winning a just war is likely to undermine the peace that the just war is being fought to advance.

Mission Accomplished

The penultimate problem that just war theorists find with victory pertains to the contingencies of modern warfare. Insofar as today’s wars are configured in such a way that they are fundamentally ‘unwinnable’, it would be anachronistic to address them in the idiom of victory. This chapter assesses this contention. It confirms that, to the degree that victory is understood through the prism of so-called ‘decisive battles’, which is the standard way it has historically been conceived, there is a sound historical basis for declaiming victory as an obsolete concept. While this is true, it is not, however, the entire story. It overlooks the moral weight that this idealized vision of victory carries today, and indeed has always carried. Reflecting on this insight, this chapter concludes that what the examination of the relevance of victory to modern war reveals is the dated conception of war that underpins just war thinking.

The Right of Conquest

The fifth problem victory raises for just war scholars is that it evokes conquest, which is antithetical to the idea of just war. As such, it raises a set of questions bearing on the legal effects of victory that contemporary just war theorists tend to overlook. Does victory in a just war generate certain entitlements for the victor, and, if so, on what basis? Is just war generative of what we might call a ‘right of conquest’? And does this right extend even to cases where the victor does not have justice on its side? Drawing on the early modern legal writings of Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius, this chapter contends that the answers just war thinkers have historically furnished to these questions reveal a degree of overlap with the doctrine of might is right that contemporary just war theorists have been conditioned to ignore and may find disquieting.

The Smell of Napalm in the Morning

The third problem that victory poses for just war theorists arises from the view that it is a part of the strategic rather than normative vocabulary of war. To the degree that victory is a function of might rather than right, the argument goes, just war theorists have no business engaging it. This chapter examines this contention. It reveals that the idea that victory is an amoral category is out of step with how victory has been conceived down the centuries. From classical times to the present day, victory has always been regarded as a concept that is freighted with ethical and even divine overtones. My purpose in highlighting this is to draw attention to what it reveals about the idea of just war: namely, how it is prone to seed a dangerous combination of complacency and self-righteousness in those who invoke it.

The Disease of Victory

The final problem just war theorists perceive with victory reflects the belief that to speak about war in terms of victory is to court an escalatory logic that undercuts the spirit of moderation that the just war tradition champions. The pursuit of victory inclines armies to set the rules aside and fight in an unrestrained manner. Turning this concern on its head, this chapter contends that while it is true that the idiom of victory tempts an escalatory logic, so too does the idea of just war. This is demonstrated by the writings of two leading contemporary just war theorists: Michael Walzer and Jeff McMahan. The conclusion arising from this is not necessarily that we should back away from speaking about either victory or just war. It is, however, a reminder of both what is staked when we do engage them, and why they must always be approached with circumspection.

The Usual Definition of Just Wars

There is a school of thought which supposes that victory does not fit easily within the just war rubric because, despite what its name suggests, just war is not actually a form of warfare at all. On this view, just war is not so much a military contest between rival sovereigns as an extension into the international sphere of the punitive function that the judiciary discharges in the domestic realm. This conception of just war precludes any consideration of victory: in the same way a judge does not win when she sends a criminal to the gallows, nobody wins a just war. This chapter will draw upon David Rodin’s modern classic, War and Self-Defence, and the scholastic texts of Aquinas, Vitoria, and Suarez to investigate this way of thinking about just war. It will conclude that it discloses a tendency at the heart of just war thinking to sanitize war.

Conclusion

A just war is, on the one hand, a war that must be won. If one is justified in going to war in the first place, one must also be justified in doing everything in one’s power, within reason, to win that war. On the other hand, a tension is thus evident between the requirement to pursue victory in a just war and the constraints built into the idea of just war itself. As they pursue the victory that their cause demands, belligerents fighting a just war will unfortunately, but inevitably, come under pressure to set aside restraints and embrace all means necessary to win. Victory, then, appears to be a concept that just war theorists cannot live with but also cannot live without. This chapter seeks to make sense of this situation and to reflect upon what it tells us about the limitations but also necessity of just war.

Beneath Every History, Another History

Raising the issue of victory among contemporary just war scholars provokes consternation. The first reason for this is the belief that victory has never been a part of our brief. Even those scholars who have advocated for the extension of the just war framework to incorporate discrete jus post bellum and jus ex bello domains have assumed as their premise the claim that just war theorists have historically discounted victory as a primary object of analysis. This chapter contests this claim. Courtesy of a detailed engagement with the writings of Saint Augustine, it will reveal that, far from being neglected, victory was a central concern in the formative texts of the just war tradition. Indeed, it will show how victory featured in Augustine’s writings as the foil that brought the tragic dimensions of his vision of just war to light.