Question

The just-war theory considers a war acceptable when it satisfies several stringent criteria: The war must be fought for a just cause, the motives must be good, it must follow a call from a legitimate authority, and the use of force must be based on necessity (as a last resort). Central to notions of a just war are the principles of noncombatant immunity and proportionality. Noncombatants are those who will not be actively participating in combat and therefore do not need to be killed or restrained. Proportionality addresses the extent of damage or consequences allowable in terms of need and cost. Describe a scenario for the conduct of a just war and describe the kinds of weapons engineers might have to develop to wage one. In your view, is the U.S. war on terrorism a just war?

Answer 1

Answer.

The just war theory is based on the ethics of carrying out war as argued by philosophers and politicians from the time of Acquinas to Hobbes in then Twentieth Century. It captures the idea of utilitarian politics according to which nations seek to legally and morally justify going to war.

For a war to be justified as a Moral necessity, it is emphasised that A just war must be initiated by a political authority within a political system that allows distinctions of justice. By this virtue, Dictatorships like Fascist governments in Italy and Germany during the 1930s, or a deceptive military actions (such as the 1968 US bombing of Cambodia and Vietnam) are typically considered as violations of this criterion. Moroever, the warring state must be able to show that some wrong has been committed by one nation for which war is the proper redress by another either for its own defuse or the defense of another country. Thus by this virtue it would appear that the US attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria under the uniform category of ‘war on terrorism’ would be seen as a Just Cause. However, one must also take into consideration other issues such as civilian safety (noncombatant immunity) which have been majorly neglected in such wars. Moroever, the US war on terrorism appears to have further created a continuous atmosphere of tension, fera and international insecurity and it has thus violated the other criteria of the Just war theory: responsibility Whereby the good of the war must outweigh the damage done by it.

A just war would require the development of specific and sound strategy which ensures that the costs and the degree of force or damage involved is proportional to the intentions of abetting harm to the people. To this end, an appropriate combat scenario for a Just war would be the one where the responsible combatants if caught alive are given a chance to fair trial before court rather than be killed unnecessarily on th battle field of they themselves did not have any intention of kill the soldiers of their opposing side. World War Two (1939-1945) would appear to have been a Just War as it involves Germany and Italy on one side and the Allied countries of USA, Britain, Vichy France and Russia on the other who were legal authorities. Germany was being attacked for invading other countries and thus the Allied states entered the war with the intention to correct the evildoing of Nazi Germany.

Engineers are behind government spying tools and military weapons. In the case of a war which is based on a Just cause, it becomes more pertinent for the warfare strategists and engineers to device a plan and technology which would help to meet the cause of the war but at the s madness time not exceed the limits of destruction to point uncontrollable. To this end, the use of chemical weapons and the use of the atom bombs Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan in the 1945 and of Napalm in North Korea (1950) and Vietnam (1967) cannot be seen as weapons conducive to A Just war as these weapons brought more calamaity to the civilian population than the combat soldiers of the ‘enemy’ countries. technical professionals, scientists and engineers have a moral duty to abide by principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. They are morally responsible both for choosing the companies that employ them, the major buyers of these companies for sale of arms as well as the types of arms they develop.