Warfare can never be justified on moral grounds

Résumé du document

This essay will be discussing why warfare can never be justified on moral grounds. The investigation will be about warfare and whether it is justifiable on moral grounds or not. To begin with this essay, the investigation and discussion will be about just the war tradition and the holy wars (religious/political war) and how they relate to warfare. The essay will then move on to explain why warfare cannot be justified on moral grounds. This will be done by discussing and defining why wars take place and whether or not countries benefit from them. The essay will also look at factual statistics on casualties that happened in certain wars, for example, World War II to give an outline of the consequences left behind. These statistics will help to determine why warfare can never be justified on moral grounds.

Extraits

[...] Finally a conclusion will be made reflecting on my own opinion about the discussion on why ‘Warfare can never be justified on moral grounds'. Warfare definitions: 1. The process of military struggle between two nations or groups of nations; war Armed conflict between two massed enemies, armies, or the like Conflict, esp. when vicious and unrelenting, between competitors, political rivals, e.t.c[1]. Moral definition Of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes[2]. [...]

[...] Warfare is used by states mainly for power and to obtain resources and when this happens they become more powerful and sometimes seek world dominance. When a state or states become too powerful and when these two superpowers compete with one another then they create parity or stability. The states can choose to balance or bandwagon their behaviour towards the war, the right choice will bring the outcome of the states survival[5]. In international law there is a term called ‘just equilibrium' between the members of the family of nations, this term is used to suggest that any one nation from becoming too strong for other nations to be under the threat of the stronger nation and to overcome the weaker nation. [...]

[...] This war demonstrated that by going through warfare for thirty years it caused mass devastation towards many people and accounted for the bankruptcy of combatant powers (Germany) which in that time made them a lot less powerful due to the decrease of their population from the war. Therefore morally speaking even holy wars can be devastating by faiths going to war with each other and by the new political systems implemented but a lot of changes occur after these types of wars. The theory ‘just war tradition'[4] is split into two different groups which are ad bellum' (or justice of war) and in bello' (justice in war). [...]

[...] So this shows that indirect fire which was used in both of these wars has affects on civilians and thus, the vast amount of civilian killings is morally wrong whether its indirectly done or directly. In most wars that take place, we ask ourselves is this war happening”. The main reason why countries go to war is to profit from them but there are other reasons too, such as taking valuable resources (oil) from another state or taking or gaining control over another states land. [...]

[...] This also applies to states that are not members of the ‘United Nations' to ensure maintenance of international peace and security. According to two colonels of non-status quo powers western liberal democracies (WLD) (UK & US) they put it that when it comes to warfare, first rule is that there are no rules. Nothing is forbidden'[8]. Terrorists' also use this same line. States that are not employed in the status quo powers - western liberal democracies (WLD) will use violence because there is no restriction towards the violence they use. [...]