CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

Second World War with the predominantly pacifist mentality instilled in Britain by the
First, Moran argues that ‘a free people is only ready to resist aggression when the
Christian virtues flourish, for a man of character in peace is a man of courage in war.’ 231
In this sense both moral justification and moral conduct are necessary to get the
generally peaceful individuals of a democracy to consent to resort to force.
Of course, if the rightness of a cause is in little doubt, then it is unlikely to feature in any
discussion. Even when it is, other factors may take over. For professional soldiers there
is often a sense that rightness or otherwise of a particular conflict is an issue for
politicians, the media and the public, whilst their role is simply to do their job.
Interviewed for a BBC documentary about the 2003 Iraq War 232 , Royal Navy crews
responsible for launching Tomahawk Land-Attack (Cruise) Missiles (TLAM) admitted
that whilst they did think about the consequences at the target end, they had to suspend
consideration of the ramifications because they ‘had a job to do.’ However, in the same
programme an RAF wing commander confesses ‘I’m not comfortable with this. Maybe
I’m turning into a pacifist.’ From personal experience the author can also relate the
mixed feelings of a serviceman, deeply concerned that the Iraq War lacked clear moral
justification (and, probably legality) and yet keen to participate for all the traditional
‘other’ motivations of the soldier – to test professional competence and seek
professional satisfaction, out of a sense of adventure, and for personal reward,
recognition and career advancement. These deeply conflicting emotions were
commonplace. 233 The tension such internal conflict causes must have some impact on
an individual’s morale, however much he wishes just to ‘get on with the job.’
In an attempt to quantify the human factors which affect combat performance and limit
the effectiveness of manned systems the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency
(DERA) Centre for Human Sciences (CHS) developed the Human Effectiveness
Research in Operations (HERO) model 234 shown at Figure 2-4 The HERO Model. The
factors ringed are those which may be regarded as influencing or being influenced by
issues of motivation and, in particular, justification of cause. This model was used by
David Clouston 235 as a basis for considering the factors that should be considered in
attempting to model ‘friction’. So it can be seen that a significant number of
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