After reading about Eric Patterson’s newly proposed concept of ‘just statecraft,’ my response is: Yes, but… 

Because its pursuit of a morally grounded approach to affairs of state involves all the occupations of public service that touch on domestic and international security, and because it takes into consideration all the elements of national power and deployment of force beyond, alongside, and prior to hot war, Eric Patterson proposes that just war scholars, theorists, students, theologians, philosophers, statesmen, and warriors relabel and reframe their work in light of the more comprehensive and multi-disciplinary term of just statecraft. The scope of both The Proposal’s acceptance and utility will rely primarily on the nature of the relationship between the more discrete phenomenon of war and the broader practice of statecraft.  

Clausewitz offered what is likely the most famous—or infamous—description of this relationship when he suggested that “war is merely the continuation of politik by other means.” The “merely” is potentially problematic, but I tend toward those who think Clausewitz less flippant here than is sometimes assumed. His meaning is that war cannot—I would stress must not—be decoupled from either politics in the broad sense as the system that gives meaning to political authority or from the particular policies that emerge from that system and trigger war, guide it along its course, and continue after the smoke has cleared. Nevertheless, Clausewitz also asserts that war, not being synonymous with politik, is its own thing—or, I would again stress, it must be its own thing. The “merely” mustn’t mislead: war may be a continuation of policy toward the same end, but it is a devastatingly different kind of means than other less kinetic possible means and, therefore, while war must remain governed by reason and the dictates of policy, it has its own rules and principles that deserve focused attention. 

While all this may be a bit knotty, our Prussian General might help distinguish the threads. “Is not war merely [!] another kind of writing and language for thought?” he asks. He answers with what could be either a qualified yes or qualified no: “war has, to be sure, its own grammar, but not its own logic.” War—along with diplomacy, information, and economics—is one form of political discourse, but with a grammar that is rightly drawn from the thought and language of grand strategy, the overarching and guiding logic of state policy. So, war is one instrument—albeit the sharpest—among many in the quiver of options from which statecraft can draw as it aims toward the object(s), or ends, of its policy.  

Viewing The Proposal in the light of this distinct-but-entwined relationship between war and policy prompts several observations that, I think, rightly follow. My first point has already been noted by Patterson and other respondents, but I would press it more firmly: the tradition of jus ad bellum has already always encompassed The Proposal’s essential aim. We can see this in the tradition’s jus ad bellum frame, which alerts us when it is right to fight. Three things are no-kidding requirements for a war to be just: a proper sovereign—that authority over whom there is no one greater charged with the care of the political community, a just cause, and a right intent. Thomas Aquinas observed that these three non-negotiable requirements map perfectly over Augustine’s three essential goods of political life: order, justice, and peace. The tradition of jus ad bellum has always understood itself as part of a broader practice of responsible statecraft and in support of what a sovereign is supposed to do when the order, justice, and peace of the state he is responsible for crafting—or the state of an ally or partner—is under unjustified threat and nothing short of fighting is likely to successfully eliminate that threat. 

Secondly, it strikes me that the jus ad bellum category of the just war framework is more amenable to relabeling according to The Proposal than is the jus in bello category. I think this, first, because as Clausewitz put it, policy shapes the war plan but not the tactics deployed to implement it, at least not directly. Following this, secondly, a greater array of political actors—and a greater number of grammars—are involved in ad bellum considerations. Two examples are helpful here.  

First, for some time now there has been a lot of talk—and Patterson has done the best of it—proposing a new category for the just war framework: the jus post bellum, justice after war. Mirroring the ad bellum’s internal logic, Patterson lists order, justice, and conciliation as the constituent elements of this after-war pursuit of justice. Undoubtedly, these are the essential goods to pursue after the shooting stops. Nevertheless, I’ve resisted wholesale endorsement for a new post bellum category because the post bellum logic has always been present in the ad bellum requirement of right intent. Right intent can be expressed in both positive and negative ways. Negatively, one must mortify any temptation to indulge in the “real evils” of war: which Augustine lists as “love of violence, revengeful cruelty, fierce and implacable enmity, wild resistance, and the lust of power.”

But, more directly to the post bellum point, the positive dimension of right intent insists war is to be waged, first, with the aim of overturning the conditions that led to the just cause for fighting in the first place: one fights to secure the protection of the innocent, to take back wrongly taken things, and to punish evil. Secondly, one fights, ultimately, with the aim of reconciling with the adversary—which often can only be accomplished after destroying not only his capacity to continue the fight but, more importantly, his will to. In a word, then, the right intent in going to war is the pursuit of peace—first for the victim but, also, ideally, with the adversary as well. To be sure, justice is always in view, it is the doorway through which both peace for the victim and with the adversary must pass. But justice is basically instrumental. Peace is the prize. Because these forward-looking post bellum principles are already at play within the ad bellum structure they signal the presence of the additional grammars of statecraft. While the martial grammar may still have a role to play in post bellum peacemaking—as perhaps through occupation, security operations—including protecting the defeated and weakened adversary from opportunistic neighbors, and the like, the heavy lifting will be done by the grammars of diplomacy, economics, and others.  

Second, if the right intent requirement presumes post bellum statecraft, the requirement of last resort presumes ante bellum statecraft. Last resort establishes a prudently and morally self-evident commitment to the idea that, even in the face of justified causes, if any option short of war can be reasonably expected to sufficiently protect the innocent, requite an injustice, or punish evil then that option should be pursued instead of war. This commitment, in turn, ought to inspire particular kinds of political behaviors: the early deployment of different grammars—diplomatic, economic, etc.—that help avoid the necessity of fighting. For instance, one way to avoid a fight is to effectively deter it. By cultivating formidable degrees of military power, martial prowess, and a diplomatic posture that makes believable our willingness to deploy force in support of particular interests and values, a nation might deter an adversary’s aggression or even compel their cooperation.

Of course, hard power is not the only resource. The jus ad bellum criteria of war as a last resort ought also to prompt a nation to establish the capacity for deploying effective soft-power assets. A powerful nation whose foreign policy treats other nations generously, gives them their due, and doesn’t treat every act of international exchange as a zero-sum game will go a long way in making its power sufferable to those beneath it. The effective deployment of such hard and soft power grammars benefits greatly when a nation has done its homework. Deterrence, coercion, and persuasion are only effective if we know how a particular adversary can actually be deterred, coerced, or persuaded. Cultural literacy is a must. We ignore the particularities of nations, their leaders, and their people at our peril. In a phrase, then, a nation that takes the wisdom of last resort seriously ought to have a reputation that can convincingly be described by the old adage: no better friend and no worse enemy. All of this, clearly, is the work of statecraft writ large. 

The presence of already tacit acknowledgment within the jus bellum framework that just war is about much more than just war might suggest that The Proposal is redundant and unnecessary, that it’s solving a problem that doesn’t exist. On the other hand, I think a strong case be made that the tacit acknowledgment within the jus bellum frame of the presence of the logic of statecraft augurs well for supporting The Proposal. There’s value, certainly, in making the tacit plain. Among much else, it reminds us that there is a lot more work that needs to be done to more directly link jus ad bellum moral thinking with strategic-level military and political decision-making. A lot of just war reflection is done at the tactical level and in support of those downrange. More needs to be done to demonstrate how jus ad bellum can help those who send them downrange.  

This provides a neat segue to turn to the in bello framework where we see more clearly, perhaps, that war as a grammar has its own rules and principles that, while intertwined with and still ultimately guided by policy, remain distinct. The in bello primary concern is helping warfighters and the military and political leaders that lead them to rightly fight those fights that are right to fight. It demands that battlefield tactics be necessary, proportionate, and discriminate. Some of the most pressing questions being asked by warfighters—most especially by those at the pointy end of the spear and by those responsible for their moral care—are at this level and have to do with whether it’s possible to be, say, both a good Marine and a good person, with whether to be successful in combat a warfighter has to recalibrate their moral compass to make it possible to do things that ought never to be done, or with how they can protect their friends and work the mission and still get into heaven. For those with their boots on the ground, basic questions about rules of engagement, targeting, tactics, the ethics of killing, duty, special obligations, consequences, character, intention, and the like are at the forefront. So, not only does war as a discrete phenomenon have its own rules and principles, but also its own discrete array of desperately critical moral conflicts, moral questions, modes of moral deliberation, and moral protections that will continue to require focus on martial issues.  

So, with all this said, my answer to The Proposal is yes, but only if we understand that the tradition of justus bellum is a discrete part of the broader practice of just statecraft in more of a heterogeneous versus homogeneous way. They come together more like a salad than a solution, parts of each of the bits—while closely related and overlapping—are still distinguishable from the other bits and must continue to be distinguished. I’ll continue to use the term just war while exercising the discipline of continually linking it where appropriate to the larger logic of grand strategy and statecraft.  

Both are important. Just war is about statecraft and there really are times when just war really is just about war.