CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

more nations the term ‘enemy non-combatants’ may have acceptable currency; in
humanitarian interventions and, as will be argued later, in modern ‘asymmetric’ * wars it
has no real value; indeed it is morally dangerous. Our proper desire to minimise our
own casualties ought not to be allowed to transfer the risk to the civilian population or
even to engage the enemy in a way that is either disproportionate or indiscriminate.
4.2.2 Technology
As we have already seen (see p251) JFC Fuller regarded the perpetual search for a
technological advantage over one’s enemy to be so fundamental to the history of
warfare that he termed it a ‘universal tactical constant’. He cites a character from
Balzac’s Contes Drôlatiques, one Captain Cochegrue, of whom it is said ‘ “les grosses
batailles, il taschoyt de donner des horion sans en recevoir, ce qui est et sera toujours
le seul problems a resouldre en guerrre.” (In great battles, he endeavoured to give
blows without receiving them, which is and always will be the sole problem in war.)’ 75
Whether through longer range, faster rate of fire, deeper penetrative capability or greater
protection, armies seek weapons that allow them to inflict greater damage upon their
enemies than they themselves receive. (Which is in part why the term ‘asymmetric’ to
describe but one type of warfare is so unsatisfactory: all warfare seeks asymmetry.)
What then should be the moral concerns if the west has found the holy grail of
apparently unassailable technological superiority?
Firstly, there is an issue of jus ad bellum, namely that if policy makers are seduced by
the notion of quick and relatively painless victory then they be more ready to resort to
use of armed conflict. In assessing that military victory can be achieved with relatively
little cost to ourselves, it is easy to overlook both that there will still be casualties on the
other side – and most likely to non-combatants, whose protection might, ironically, also
be the causus belli and underpinning of our jus ad bellum – and that military victory
may not of itself lead to long term solution. In this respect, Michael Ignatieff ascribes
to the Clinton Administration’s greater readiness to resort to force over Kosovo than it
* The term is used here in its popular sense; the value of such use will be questioned later.
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