• By admin
• Uncategorized

This essay is designed to provoke a discussion among scholars who work within the broadest contours of what is known as the “just war tradition.”  Classical just war thinkers understood the tradition as not simply being about rules that govern conduct during war, but about the broadest set of categories aimed at “a better state of peace,” including leadership, decision-making, grand strategy, deterrence, military preparedness, the ethics of surveillance and espionage, noblesse oblige and chivalry among warriors, diplomacy, economic and industrial forms of competition, post-conflict settlements, and diplomacy.  In other words, just statecraft.¹

Yet, just war scholars and practitioners are often charged with glorifying violence, using just war principles to retrospectively justify unlawful aggression, or failing to creatively imagine a more peaceful world.   

I do not think that we will ever meet the expectations of the harshest, most idealistic of these critics, but being clearer about what we are talking about is useful intellectually, prudentially, and practically.  Re-situating our work on the foundation of just statecraft presents the multi-dimensionality already inherent in two millennia of scholarship—from Augustine and Ambrose to Elshtain, Walzer, Johnson, Weigel, and others.  Just statecraft makes clear that we are talking about the elements of national power; the vocations that are part of security and diplomacy, inclusive of the entire cycle, or phases, of diplomacy and conflict;  the different levels of analysis for thinking about statecraft and war; and, the intersection of political theory with practice, most notably regime type and classical just war reasoning.  In short, re-labeling this multi-disciplinary enterprise as just statecraft will be useful for scholars, theorists, students, theologians, philosophers, statesmen, and warriors. 

Table 1. The Classical Just War Framework  

Jus Ad Bellum 

• Legitimate authority:  Supreme political authorities are morally responsible for the security of their constituents and therefore are obligated to make decisions about war and peace. 

• Just cause:  Self-defense of citizens’ lives, livelihoods, and way of life are typically just causes; more generally speaking, the cause is likely just if it rights a past wrong, punishes wrong-doers, or prevents further wrong. 

• Right intent:  Political motivations are subject to ethical scrutiny; violence intended for the purpose of order, justice, and ultimate conciliation is just, whereas violence for the sake of hatred, revenge, and destruction is not just. 

• Likelihood of success:  Political leaders should consider whether or not their action will make a difference in real-world outcomes.  This principle is subject to context and judgment because it may be appropriate to act despite a low likelihood of success (e.g., against local genocide).  Conversely, it may be inappropriate to act due to low efficacy despite the compelling nature of the case. 

• Proportionality of ends:  Does the preferred outcome justify, in terms of the cost in lives and material resources, this course of action? 

• Last resort:  Have traditional diplomatic and other efforts been reasonably employed in order to avoid outright bloodshed? 

Jus In Bello   

• Military Necessity:  Is every reasonable effort made to gaining battlefield advantage in pursuit of larger strategic objectives, while restrained by law and other jus in bello criteria? 

• Proportionality:  Are the battlefield tools and tactics employed proportionate to battlefield objectives? 

• Discrimination:  Has care been taken to reasonably protect the lives and property of legitimate non-combatants? 

Jus Post Bellum 

• Order: Beginning with existential security, a sovereign government extends its roots through the maturation of government capacity in the military (traditional security), governance (domestic politics), and international security dimensions.  

• Justice:  Getting one’s ‘just deserts,’ including consideration of individual punishment for those who violated the law of armed conflict and restitution policies for victims when appropriate. 

• Conciliation:  Coming to terms with the past so that parties can imagine and move forward toward a shared future.     

Just Statecraft and the Elements of National Power: ‘DIME’ 

Because this essay is a proposal to students and scholars engaging the just war tradition, Table 1² will serve as the summary of the classic framework for just war reasoning.³  Upon reflection one can see that the classic framework includes many assumptions that are best understood as “statecraft” and not merely “war.” The more inclusive term “statecraft” involves the need for government, the responsibility of governing authorities, moral codes above realpolitik or the carte blanche of divine right of kings, customary law and practices between the heads of state, assumptions of security and competition in political life, the need for institutionalized justice, distinctions between classes of citizens (e.g., combatants, non-combatants), etc. 

Just statecraft also takes into consideration all of the elements of national power. The classical way of thinking about the elements of national power are summarized in the acronym DIME: D stands for diplomacy, I for information, M for military, E for economics.⁴ DIME includes the four elements of any society and its government’s power. First, of course, is diplomacy. Henry Kissinger could have been speaking of just statecraft when he quipped that diplomacy is “the art of restraining power.”  In other words, diplomacy has to do with the standing, the effectiveness, the persuasive ability that the representatives of a country have in foreign affairs that involve interactions with other countries and international institutions. On one hand, there is a sort of hard diplomacy when we think about coercive or compelling arguments that are often tied to the carrots and sticks of commercial, economic, intellectual, and other inducements.  On the other hand, there is the mutual accommodation and cooperation (soft diplomacy) of societies of similar cultures and values. We often talk about carrots and sticks when thinking about diplomacy as a country pursues its interests in ways that can reward or punish competitors and potential adversaries. From an institutional perspective, the United States tends to think about diplomacy primarily as being the realm of the Secretary of State and ambassadors and other officers who are part of the U.S. Department of State, as well as affiliated government organizations such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of Commerce, and the like. Most other countries’ diplomacy runs through a Ministry​ ​of Foreign Affairs. But that is not to say that there are not ambassadors, trade representatives, humanitarians, senior military spokespersons, or other state representatives, who have a role to play in diplomacy.  

Just statecraft, by definition, has to do with a morally grounded approach to affairs of state and thus the behavior and communications of ambassadors, of the Secretary of State, of the foreign minister, or other state representatives.  The executive branch is clearly an element of statecraft. Diplomacy is designed to reduce tension, to achieve mutual gains, to press forward the national interest, and to do all of these things as much as possible without resort to bloodshed. Diplomacy includes, for instance, messages of deterrence to forestall aggressive behavior by other adversaries as well as the efforts of alliances or groups of like-minded partners banding together to resist aggression. Thus, the term just statecraft is more fitting than the term just war for thinking about the important role that diplomats, ambassadors, ministers, and other representatives of the state when functioning in a diplomatic realm.  

The second element of national power is information, and often these days, the information domain is split into a variety of concepts, such as soft power and the way that culture helps in competing and persuading others in the international realm, or thinking about the entire realm of cybersecurity and protecting the digital infrastructure, whether it is banking or the control of transportation and infrastructure and finance.  In times of war, useful information used well (e.g. the OODA loop) versus the confusion caused by the fog of war and poor information, and of course, intelligence and surveillance are all part of this element of national power. There is a part of information that also ties to economics, including education, a literate and skilled workforce, and innovation. A modern, twenty-first-century technologically sophisticated country has a significant information power advantage over a developing country with only rudimentary education and technological systems. Think about the difference between, say, the United States and Canada on the one hand, and a country like Burundi or Burkina Faso on the other.  In sum, much of what is in the information domain of power rivalry is not necessarily to hot war but clearly falls within the realm of just statecraft.  

Third, of course, is military power and all of the elements that contribute to a country’s military capacity. This includes the training and the aptitude of personnel in the services, the amount, quality and sophistication of the weaponry, the resiliency of the military-industrial complex, and a variety of other factors beyond armaments that are well spelled out in the strategic studies literature. What’s important though, is to be thinking not simply about the military as an instrument of statecraft in isolation, but how the military instrument is intertwined with the other three elements of national power. And clearly, when one thinks that way in a holistic, comprehensive fashion, the concept of just statecraft makes great sense.  

Finally, the fourth element of national power is economic. Economic power has to do with the intellectual resources, the industrial and market resources, the resiliency of the national economy, the degree of diversification of the national economy, innovation, infrastructure and many other factors that have to do with economic power. The British Empire exercised tremendous economic power throughout the second half of the 18th century to the middle of the 20th century, making it a dominant global player up until after the Second World War. Similarly, for the past 150 years, the United States has had a dominant market share, and not just in terms of buying and trading, but due to its abundant natural resources, the intellectual prowess of its universities and its technological sector, and the innovation of its citizens and its corporations.  The use of economic power for the common good, to raise standards of living for the populace, to compete in regional and foreign markets, and to have technological innovation for protection, are constituent parts of just statecraft.  

One can see how many of these elements come together in the strategy of the United States under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Reagan’s strategy was a vigilant containment of the Soviet Union, an investment in a defensive strategic approach to eliminate nuclear weapons, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)  other elements, as well as efforts to vitalize the U.S. economy at home, and to pursue multi-level diplomacy, from low-level relations between East and West all the way to face-to-face encounters and public diplomacy with Mikhail Gorbachev and with the Russian people.  It would be unwise to say that Reagan’s approach was an uncoordinated attempt at brinksmanship and war-mongering, although some critics said that at the time.  It would be much better to recognize this was an integrated, holistic, comprehensive approach to statecraft, and one that not only won the Cold War, but did so in a way that met the high standards of classical just war thinking.  

Just Statecraft, Public Service, and the Phases of (In)security 

A second way that just statecraft as a concept is useful is when considering all the occupations of public service that touch on domestic and international security.  Western military doctrine speaks of multiple phases of war, from deterrence through war’s end.  To summarize, in the pre-war state, governments attempt to manage diplomacy while dissuading and deterring potential threats.  This may become a period of heightened insecurity, perhaps a humanitarian crisis or rising tensions due to increased political belligerence.  At times this instability accelerates to hot war.  Long before the war ends, experts should be negotiating and preparing for the post-war phase, gearing up for post-war recovery, considering a new political infrastructure of order and justice, and the like.  The objective of the late- and post-conflict phase involves avoiding the instability that led to war in the first place, negotiating at the United Nations, humanitarian assistance, reconstruction, and many other tasks.  The goal is a better state of peace.   

The concept of just statecraft takes all of these roles into account: diplomats who are working to soften disagreements, forge compromises, and even issue stern warnings; humanitarians serving on the ground to ameliorate suffering, from the reconstruction of infrastructure and rehabilitation of agriculture to trauma and grief counseling; moral warriors and leaders who prepare, train, and fight as law enforcement, soldiers, and other defenders of society; and many others.  Just statecraft helps us think about the moral content of plans, strategies, and activities across these many professions and their roles in the various phases of competition and politics. 

Just Statecraft and the Levels of Analysis 

When we think about just statecraft, it helps us to recognize the mistake of falsely dividing domestic political life from international affairs.  The distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ politics gets carried over into the just war literature by distinguishing between ‘high diplomacy’ and ‘warfare’ on the one hand and domestic politics on the other.  Tied to this false distinction is making the state a ‘black box,’ as if regime type was not a factor in how decisions about force and violence are made.  Just statecraft, however, takes us back to first principles. What does just government look like? What are the responsibilities that leaders have to their citizens? Just statecraft allows us to assess the different ways that countries handle law, politics, social relations, the size of government, and responsibilities for law enforcement, the judiciary, magistrates, etc. All of this is in tune with classic just war thinking, which often refers to Romans 13 and Greco-Roman philosophy for the role that government plays in “wielding the sword” to protect innocent citizens from criminals. This really is the first level of protection and is overlooked by most contemporary just war scholarship: not protection from external enemies, but protection from internal enemies. Just statecraft also considers the decisions that a society makes about how much to invest in law enforcement and the military as matters of national decision-making. Just statecraft helps us understand the trade-offs that happen between the costs associated with peace-keeping, vigilance on a country’s borders, the projection of power and other social goods, as well as other forms of protection at home. Just statecraft helps us think about the responsibility that leaders have to protect their citizens, but also the responsibility they have to train just warriors to serve in uniform, whether that uniform is that of the police or the armed forces.  

Just Statecraft and Regime Type 

As Ilan Cooper and I called for in an article in Survival more than a decade ago,⁵ much more scholarship needs to be done on the intersection of democratic theory and just war thinking.  Clearly this is the realm of just statecraft. International Relations Theory and associated scholarly literatures have long written about the difference between autocratic regimes, which have fewer barriers to making the decision to deploy force, as opposed to democracies. For instance, the Democratic Peace Theory (DPT) literature argues that democracies are less likely to fight one another because of institutional constraints such as transparency; freedom of the press; and freedom of speech, which allows citizens and journalists to criticize and evaluate government behavior and decisions; frequent elections, which hold lawmakers and policymakers accountable to the citizenry; the semi-transparency of defense budgets; division of powers in multiple branches and levels of government; political competition; and, the real costs wars have on the society.  All of these things, not to mention the shared values that democratic citizens feel for their fellow citizens in similar societies, are well known in the DPT literature.  

The fundamental principle of politics and just war thinking is that of authority: someone (or multiple someones) is in charge of matters of defense and security.  But, it is clear that what we are talking about goes beyond hot war; we are talking about statecraft when we are thinking about regime type and political structures—both of the internal dynamics of a society and its governing structure.  This leads to many considerations, including how governments plug into the network of relationships that are part of the global order, whether it’s the United Nations or regional alliances such as NATO or less formal associations, bilaterally or multilaterally, such as the South African Development Community (SADC), or ECOWAS in Western Africa, or the types of partnerships that the United States has with South Korea, Japan, Australia, and other countries in East Asia. Regime type and its relationship to just war thinking needs much more study in order to comprehensively evaluate the contexts for war, peace, and security. 

Conclusion 

This is a rough beginning to a conversation, a challenge to scholars across the disciplines that consider just war thinking—international relations theory, political science, sociology, theology, philosophy, history, law, and others—to consider reframing their work in light of a larger and more comprehensive terminology, that of just statecraft. I believe that efforts by those of us looking to fully explicate jus bellum, or recent efforts at jus ad vim, or thinking about the ethics of warfare in the so-called ‘gray zone,’ are examples of attempting to do just statecraft. I also think that there are older efforts that have been made like Albert Pierce’s work on thinking about the just war elements of sanctions,⁶ or David Perry’s work on just war and espionage,⁷ or the work of the past two decades on the morality of late- and post-conflict (jus post bellum),⁸ the ethical training of troops, and moral injury.⁹  We have all been grasping for a term that was perhaps right in front of us all along, and that is the term just statecraft. 

1. Although from time to time just war scholars such as Paul Ramsey have spoken about statecraft, and at times distinguished prudential statecraft (the domain of specialists) from more general ethical reflection, this more comprehensive use of the term was anticipated by Eric Patterson and Marc LiVecche, eds., Military Necessity as Just War Statecraft: The Principle of National Security Stewardship (New York: Routledge, 2022). ↩︎
2. This table is available in Eric Patterson, Just American Wars: Ethical Dilemmas in U.S. Military History (New York: Routledge, 2019), chap. 1. ↩︎
3. For Providence readers who want to do a deep dive into just war scholarship, the following reading is recommended. First, a classic, yet difficult read, is Paul Ramsey’s compilation of essays, The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968). Also see: Eric Patterson, A Basic Guide to the Just War Tradition: Christian Foundations and Cases (Ada, MI: Baker Academic, 2023); David Corey and J. Daryl Charles, The Just War Tradition: An Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: ISI Books, 2012); Timothy Demy & J. Daryl Charles, War, Peace, and Christianity (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2010); Nigel Biggar, In Defence of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Eric Patterson & J. Daryl Charles’ introduction to different denominational perspectives on just war, Just War and Christian Traditions (South Bend, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2022); James Turner Johnson’s corpus, including Morality and Contemporary Warfare (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999); on different paradigms for understanding just war, Paul D. Miller, Just War and Ordered Liberty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021); on moral injury and thinking about the culture and education of the soldiery, Marc LiVecche, The Good Kill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). For those interested in how these views are rooted in the views of philosophers, see Eric Patterson and Timothy Demy, Philosophers on War (Newport, RI: Stone Tower Press, 2019). A classic from outside of the Christian tradition is Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books:1977, 1992), but it is operating from a considerably different worldview. For those interested in reading primary source documents where these principles are applied by Christian Realists such as Reinhold Niebuhr, John C. Bennett, George Weigel, Jean Bethke Elshtain and others, see Eric Patterson and Robert Joustra, Power Politics and Moral Order: A Christian Realism Reader (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2021). ↩︎
4. In recent years the U.S. military and other agencies have used a variety of other acronyms in the attempt to be more comprehensive than DIME, such as PMESII, and later PMESII-PT (Political, Military, Economic, Social, Information, Infrastructure, Physical Environment, Time). For those interested in the debates over these frameworks, see Brian M.Ducote, “Challenging the Application of PMESII-PT in a Complex Environment,” Defense Technical Information Center (May 21, 2010), https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA523040. ↩︎
5. Ilan Cooper and Eric Patterson, “UN Authority and the Morality of Force,” Survival 53, No. 6 (2011): 141–58, doi:10.1080/00396338.2011.636519. ↩︎
6. Albert C. Pierce, “Just War Principles and Economic Sanctions,” Ethics & International Affairs 10 (1996): 99–113. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7093.1996.tb00005.x. ↩︎
7. David L. Perry, Partly Cloudy: Ethics in War, Espionage, Covert Action, and Interrogation (Scarecrow Press, 2009). ↩︎
8. Eric Patterson, Ending Wars Well: Order, Justice, and Conciliation in Post-Conflict (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011) and Eric Patterson, ed. Ethics Beyond War’s End (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2010). ↩︎
9. Marc LiVecche, The Good Kill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). ↩︎

The post Just Statecraft: A Proposal first appeared on Providence.