CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

applying selectivity to intervention on risk/cost grounds undermines claims of moral
universalism as a justification for those interventions that are undertaken.
4.2.1.3 The Impact of Casualty/Risk/Cost Aversion: The Conduct of Operations and
Risk Transference
Consideration must now be made of how a fully understandable desire to reduce risks
and costs to our own side impacts, with moral consequences, on how operations are
conducted. Limited mandates, inadequate numbers, and a heavy focus on ‘force
protection’ – safeguarding the lives of the interveners – have had impact on recent
operations in the Balkans, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with clear (in hindsight)
consequences for our traditional understanding of jus in bello. In examining and
highlighting some of these issues, the contention is not that preserving lives of our own
forces is wrong; of course it is not. However, we must be aware that when the conduct
of operations is affected by a failure to commit the necessary resources, or when our
perfectly understandable casualty-aversion transfers risk to non-combatants, then there
is a moral consequence; we risk breaching the tenets of jus in bello and this may also
impact on our jus ad bellum. Michael Walzer tells us that the two strands of just war
doctrine are ‘logically independent. It is perfectly possible for a just war to be fought
unjustly and for an unjust war to be fought in accordance with the rules.’ 47 They cannot,
however, be entirely decoupled. If, for example our jus ad bellum is predicated on
humanitarian rescue – as was the case in Kosovo in 1999 – but our conduct places those
who we seek to rescue in greater danger – then our justification looks hollow. For, as
Paul Cornish and Francis Harbour argue:
Clearly there is a paradox in killing and injuring some people and ruining their
livelihood in order to protect their human rights or the rights of others. Under
these circumstances jus ad bellum cannot be a once-and-for-all evaluation, but
an iterative process intimately connected to considerations of jus in bello-side
proportionality as well as discrimination. 48
The two strands, then, should be seen as ‘separable but not separate. ….linked in a
mutually dependent relationship which requires each to inform (though not to
overwhelm) the other.’ 49
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