CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

anticipatory military action without prior authorisation or approval either in a formal
sense from the UN or informally from the international community. Nevertheless,
retrospective justification will be required to satisfy both domestic and international
opinion. Adherence to the principles set out in the UN Secretary general’s High Level
Panel, themselves firmly founded in the just war tradition, offers sound guidance.
5.8 Conclusion 8: The ‘Western Way of Making War’ – Risk-Averse and
Technology-Dependant – Risks Transgressing Just War Guidance on
Proportionality and Discrimination and Increasingly Removes the Moral Agent
from the Battlefield
A natural – and perfectly laudable – desire to reduce own-force casualties has lead to a
‘Western way of making war’ that may now have taken risk-aversion to the extent that
just war tenets of proportionality and discrimination are jeopardised. In particular, in
humanitarian interventions and complex emergencies the doctrine of double effect has
questionable validity and a method of warfare so averse to own-force casualties that risk
is transferred to the neutral civilian population, may not only challenge jus in bello but
also undermine the jus ad bellum. Moreover, there is a risk that an illusory image of
‘clean’ war may seduce policy-makers in resorting more readily to use of armed force.
Soldiers are moral agents and instruments of compassion. As they are further removed
from the battlefield moral distance is created, which not only challenges discrimination
and proportionality but denies the opportunity for compassion. Worse, the tendency to
dehumanise the enemy, reducing him to hotspot on a screen or icon on an electronic
map, may create a greater readiness to kill – beyond the absolutely necessary; this will
be exacerbated as soldiers are increasingly brought up with video games that encourage
an attitude of amorality towards killing.
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