[I am posting rough drafts of the chapters from a book I am writing about World War II and its moral legacy. My hope in posting these chapters is that I might receive helpful counsel. So, please, read the chapters and let me know what you think. All comments, questions, and challenges are welcome and will be most useful as I revise the chapters this winter and spring.]

4. What the War cost

Ted Grimsrud —12/31/10

Death and destruction

In the popular story in the United States about World War II, we hear almost exclusively about the positive elements of the War—how we totally defeated the Nazi and Japanese threats, how the United States finally became a committed member of the international community, how the American economy kicked into full gear and lead the way to this decisive victory for democracy and the American way of life.

We may question this story on three levels. First, directly in relation to the popular story—did the War actually accomplish these positive things in such an unambiguous way? Simply to mention one issue—we tend not to realize just how small a role the United States and Britain actually played in defeating Nazi Germany. At least three-quarters of all German casualties came at the hands of the Soviet Union. The Nazi defeat was, if anything, a victory for totalitarian Communism not democracy.

On a different level, what about the aftermath of the War? Have the fruits of the American victory in World War II been as positive as the popular story would have us think? Part Two of this book will provide evidence for questioning just how unambiguously positive the longer-term outcome of the War has been for the United States. Our victory pushed us in the direction of embracing a role of the world’s greatest superpower. That embrace has pretty clearly contradicted the stated purposes of our involvement in World War II—self-determination and disarmament everywhere in the world.

We also would do well to consider a kind of cost/benefit analysis. Certainly, World War II accomplished many positive outcomes. It was beneficial—both in terms of the negative task of defeating these powerful aggressor states, Japan and Germany, and in terms of the positive task of expanding the role of the world’s pioneer democratic society, the United States. And, for Americans themselves, the War was mostly a fairly positive experience. Our economy expanded tremendously, decisively bringing the Great Depression to an end. Masses of people were put to work, many of whom were able to enhance their social and economic status immensely. The war effort fed directly into the tremendous expansion of higher education, of membership in labor unions, and of church membership. Continue reading “The Long Shadow: World War II’s Moral Legacy (4. What the War cost)” →

[I am posting rough drafts of the chapters from a book I am writing about World War II and its moral legacy. My hope in posting these chapters is that I might receive helpful counsel. So, please, read the chapters and let me know what you think. All comments, questions, and challenges are welcome and will be most useful as I revise the chapters this winter and spring.]

3. Jus in bello: The conduct of the war

Ted Grimsrud —12/30/10

Jus in bello criteria

In moral reflection on warfare in the western tradition, generally analysis is broken into two general categories. Political philosopher Michael Walzer describes these categories as follows: “War is always judged twice, first with reference to the reasons states have for fighting, secondly with reference to the means they adopt. The first kind of judgment is adjectival in character: we say that a particular war is just or unjust. The second is adverbial: we say that the war is being fought justly or unjustly. Medieval writers made the difference a matter of prepositions, distinguishing jus ad bellum, the justice of war, from jus in bello, justice in war….Jus ad bellum requires us to make judgments about aggression and self-defense; jus in bello about the observance or violation of the customary and positive rules of engagement.”[1]

In chapter two, I looked at the rationale for the U. S. entering the War, the jus ad bellum. I concluded that the basic criteria of “just cause” may arguably be seen as having been met. In the European War, the violence of Nazi Germany provided several bases for warfare being the appropriate response: “an injustice demanding reparation,” “offense committed against innocent third parties,” and “moral guilt demanding punishment,” among others.[2] In the Asian War, Japan provided the key basis for the response of war, “an aggression demanding reparation.”

I did suggest that the American mythology of World War II, established at the very beginning of the U.S. formal entry in the War with Franklin Roosevelt’s “day of infamy” speech, masks numerous complicating factors that made the “just cause” bases for America joining the War a bit more complicated than the mythology of the “good war” would admit.

The mythology asserts (not inaccurately) that the U. S. had more legitimate causes for going to war in World War II than probably any other war. However, this assertion may actually be making more a statement about the lack of justifiability in going to war in the other cases than the clear justness of entering this particular war. That being said, though, I am willing to accept that as far as the just war tradition goes, even though America’s entry into World War II does not match up perfectly with the traditional criteria—the most obvious tension lies with the crucial criterion of “war must be a last resort”—we do not do violence to just war thought to accept that United States entry into World War II was “just.” Continue reading “The Long Shadow: World War II’s Moral Legacy (3. Jus in bello)” →