Can war be moral?
I’m off to lecture on the intermediate command and staff course at the Defence Academy in Shrivenham this week. The prospect of talking to more than 400 newly promoted majors from the army and marines about the moral dimensions of conflict has got me biting my nails and pouring over Carl von Clausewitz’s classic study On War. Von Clausewitz would think my lecture absurd. “We can never introduce a modifying principle into the philosophy of war without committing an absurdity,” he argues. The logic of war is such that it makes no sense to speak of moral constraints on warfare. Indeed: “the ruthless user of force who shrinks from no amount of bloodshed must gain advantage if his opponent does not do the same.” It’s a chilling philosophy that has enough truth to it to be taken very seriously. Is a “moral soldier” at a disadvantage in the field of battle? Shying away from “doing whatever it takes”, is a moral soldier more likely to be killed, and to get his comrades killed? I wonder whether
