Just War: Does Morality Matter in the Face of Humanitarian Disaster?
War is undeniably destructive. It causes massive suffering, spreads evil, and leaves people traumatized—physically, mentally, and emotionally. Yet, in a world full of injustice, achieving a just peace sometimes demands the use of force. To navigate this moral complexity, societies have developed the Just War Theory, a framework for evaluating when going to war is morally justifiable and how war should be conducted ethically.
At its core, the Just War Theory is supposed to act as a guide to help nations determine whether war is justified and, if so, how to fight it morally. But modern critics argue that it has become more of a rhetorical tool—a convenient framework for those in power to justify their actions and gain public and international support. Leaders often use just war language like “we had no choice” to justify war, often manipulating public opinion and international sentiment. But even when trying to legitimize their actions, the truth on the ground tells a completely different story. Behind these slogans, people die, cities fall, and societies unravel.
The theory is divided into three main categories: jus ad bellum (justice before war), jus in bello (justice during war), and jus post bellum (justice after war). These categories are supposed to ensure that wars are fought for the right reasons, in the right way, and with a responsible plan for what comes afterward. However, theory and practice often differ.
Officially, the Iraq War was about protecting the US from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. But critics have long questioned the real motivations—whether it was about expanding US dominance or of deep-rooted cultural biases shaping both justifications and the Middle East as inherently threatening. Security concerns were shaped by Orientalist assumptions, portraying Iraq as a danger to Western civilization and its values. The Bush administration even framed the war as a mission to bring democracy, suggesting that Iraqis, deep down, were ready to become like Americans. That’s not just idealistic, but a way of using moral language to justify violent intervention, fostering lawlessness and undermining international law’s role in protecting the Iraqi people.
And once the war begins, the moral dilemmas only deepen. Justice during war is covered by jus in bello, which focuses on how wars are fought. Ideally, wars should only involve soldiers, while all civilians or non-combatants should be shielded. But in reality, civilians are getting killed, often deliberately, to put pressure on governments. One clear modern example is the war in Ukraine. Russia’s attacks on civilian infrastructure have been widely seen not just as a military strategy but as a brutal form of psychological and political pressure. Hospitals bombed. Cities flattened. Families torn apart. Pictures of ruins are being shared all over the world, showing a war where there's no longer a clear difference between soldiers and ordinary people.
It doesn`t end on civilians. Soldiers are the ones suffering the most: constant fear and uncertainty, danger, physical and emotional exhaustion. As Dr. Brian Brock noted, ‘soldiers are perceived as largely obedient to commands, and civilians as largely passive victims’, which badly affects the perceptions, during and after the war has begun. War changes everyone. Expecting someone who’s been forced into a kill-or-die situation to hold the same moral code as a civilian who lives far from the frontlines is unrealistic. The trauma doesn’t end with the last bullet, it often stays until the last breath.
And it's not just about what happens on the battlefield. There’s also the question of who gets sent to the fight. Historically, wars were fought by trained warriors or professional soldiers. There was even a code of chivalry—knights fighting knights. That changed with Napoleon, who introduced mass conscription. Suddenly, civilians were wearing uniforms and being thrown into battle. In many countries today, this legacy still remains. People are drafted whether they’re ready or not, engineers, teachers, doctors—taken from roles where they could help society and pushed into warzones with minimal training. It’s not only a human tragedy, but an economic one. Is it necessary, and most important, just, to pull people from their lives and ask them to fight because they’ve reached a certain age? Are there any other options for a country to have when it’s under threat?
These problems don’t have easy solutions, and the hardest ones sometimes come from within. Michael Walzer, an American political theorist and public intellectual raised a very difficult but very important question: ‘How much risk can we ask our soldiers to accept in order to reduce the risk on enemy civilians who are being used by the enemy’. Impossible to decide, it’s a difficult question that reminds us that even doing the right thing in war can mean sacrificing lives.
But what happens after the war is over? That’s where the theory often falls apart. When the situation slows down, and the victors declare success, what comes next? There are two famous cases where the principles of Just War Theory were not truly upheld.
The first is the Iraq War, a great example of the use by Western powers of negative stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims as threats to justify their imperialist actions and spread the sphere of control. After years of occupation, coalition forces withdrew without effectively rebuilding the governmental and infrastructural systems. This lack of a comprehensive post-war strategy left the country in a devastated and unstable state for many years, contributing to ongoing violence, political chaos, and the rise of extremist groups like ISIS.
The Kosovo conflict presents a similar situation. Using the rhetoric of the Just War Theory, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia without Security Council approval, claiming the need to prevent ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo and portraying it as a humanitarian intervention. Although some UN authorization and peacekeeping forces were established after the war, there was no clear plan for long-term post-conflict governance or reconciliation. The lack of follow-through has left Kosovo’s international status contested, and tensions in the region persist to this day. In the Kosovo conflict, jus ad bellum was debated since there was no UN approval, though many felt the intervention was morally necessary to stop such cruelties as the Račak massacre and mass expulsions. As the war unfolded, jus in bello became an issue as NATO airstrikes caused civilian deaths and were criticized for the use of cluster bombs. After the fighting ended, jus post bellum concerns arose due to weak long-term planning by the UN, which left Kosovo stuck in a politically unstable situation, and with continued ethnic tensions and an unresolved status.
In both Iraq and Kosovo, military actions were framed as morally necessary. But without a strategy for what came next, both interventions left behind instability and ongoing suffering. It’s a harsh reminder that fighting a “just war” isn’t enough. If there's no justice afterward, is it really just to start wars in the first place? These examples show how jus post bellum is often neglected, even when initial military action is justified under jus ad bellum or carried out with some degree of jus in bello. In both cases, military intervention was framed as morally necessary, but the failure to ensure a stable and just aftermath has led to lasting consequences.
There are countless other global injustices that make us reconsider whether we can truly determine what is “just” in war: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, China’s repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the long and costly invasion of Afghanistan, and many more. These tragedies are raising the question: Are we really in a position to decide what is just and what is not, when human lives are at stake? Can any checklist—like the Just War Theory—guarantee justice, peace, or morality? Does justice even matter when war continues to be used as a tool of power? In the end, Just War Theory may offer a structure for moral thinking, but its real-world application is flawed, often manipulated, and deeply entangled with politics and power. The world may need rules, but it also needs the courage to question whether those rules are truly just—or just convenient.
Image courtesy of Cheltenham Art Gallery via Wikimedia Commons.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
