Jus post vim Revisited

This chapter revisits the theme of jus post vim in the non-ideal form. It begins by looking at the grey area between vim success and failure, characterized by shaky containment (the lingering doubt that the enemy is really contained) or by persistent contested order that threatens the ability of law enforcement mechanisms to uphold a minimalist view of order in certain states. Among the vim failures are the unjust escalation to war, the unfazed enemy outcome, the recurring last straw scenario, and the intractable contested and fragmented sovereignty dilemma. The chapter continues by exploring jus ex vi, or the ethical consideration of terminating the use of limited force, further to tease out what success and failure might look like. The key to defining success and knowing when to end vim operations depends on the just management of military risk principle. The chapter concludes by exploring moral options in cases of failure. Building on the observation that framing the use of force as punishment can be more restrictive than open-ended justifications based in self-defense constructed as prevention or protection against future acts of aggression, the chapter concludes by arguing states might have recourse to the punishment principles. Drawn from an interpretation of the just war tradition privileging a presumption against war as being at the heart of just war thinking, the escalation management and demonstrable retribution criteria depict the narrow moral logic where the legitimate goal of limited force is something other than the moral truncated victory of jus post vim.

Conclusion

Limited force is different from war, and thus requires a different ethics from that of just war. This is the main premise of Just and Unjust Uses of Limited Force, which purports to tease out what that ethics might look like. The moral categories of ...

Blurring the Lines

Law enforcement is often seen as the de facto, and relatively pure, alternative to contemporary just war. If we are not at war, then the more restrictive law enforcement is the viable paradigm. This chapter interrogates two assumptions underlying this view. It begins by demystifying the unwritten assumption that the liberal law enforcement paradigm associated with Western democracies is the idealized foil to just war. Using France, whose postcolonial legacy complicates the turn to the Western liberal paradigm as an illuminating case, the chapter explores how domestic warlike violence creates a state of fractured order—the violence and potential for abuses of power that permeate society as the government seeks to balance security and individual rights. The chapter then turns to the transnational context to challenge the view that there exists a clear line between the state of war and the state of peace. Mali serves as a paradigmatic case to illustrate how the effectiveness of law enforcement is curtailed in spaces of contested order where heavily armed terrorist groups challenge the authority of the state, thus prompting a turn to Special Forces and drones to restore order. In both contexts, the chapter identifies a shift away from the restrained norms that typically govern the use of force in law enforcement to more warlike uses of force that blur the lines between peace and war. The chapter concludes with a reflection on how this shift might inform the ethics of limited force, which lies between law enforcement and just war.

Jus in vi

Jus in vi is the set of moral principles governing how limited force is used. Taking the traditionalist jus in bello principles as a starting point, this chapter interrogates what necessity, proportionality, and distinction look like in a limited force context and makes the case for the novel psychological risk principle by evaluating how concepts such as “excessive,” “military advantage,” and “harms” and “goods” fit into our thinking about vim. The keystone of jus in vi is the predisposition toward maximal restraint maxim. The chapter thus begins by making the case for why jus in vi principles should be more restrictive than their jus in bello counterparts. It continues by exploring how a circumscribed view of necessity sets the groundwork for constraining proportionality calculations and shaping the way we think about distinction in more restricted ways. The notion of jus in vi proportionality is then explored, with concerns about escalation and psychological risk driving the analysis. Drawing insights from revisionist just war theory to consider jus in vi distinction, the chapter concludes by making the case for affording greater protections to both combatants and non-combatants compared to standard just war accounts. Unlike war, in which almost any soldier can be targeted, in a context of limited force only those who are an active threat can be justly targeted. Both innocent non-combatants and non-threatening combatants should be preserved from the more predictable harms of limited force, though this differs depending on whether the use of limited force is protective, preventive, or punitive.

Jus ad vim

Jus ad vim is the set of moral principles governing the decision to use limited force. This chapter interrogates the moral permissions and restraints of these principles by recalibrating the traditional jus ad bellum criteria (just cause, last resort, proportionality, probability of success, right intention, and legitimate authority) and delineating the novel probability of escalation principle. The chapter begins with an illustration of just cause for vim, which is more permissive than for bellum, meaning there are more moral reasons to use limited force than to go to war. The concern that this view of just cause would lower the threshold for violence too far is called the permissiveness critique. The remainder of the chapter charts a course of restraint ad vim. Recalibrating last resort yields the moral independence thesis, the view that acts of limited force should not be conceived as part of the actions leading to war but rather should be thought of as an alternative set of options, while the Rubicon assessment is the deliberation process to discern what level of force is justified. The restrictive core of jus ad vim lies in satisfying a new criterion—the probability of escalation principle, which blends elements of the jus ad bellum proportionality and probability of success criteria to conceive the risks of using limited force. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how right intention and legitimate authority can be reinterpreted in a limited force context to curtail acting too easily on just cause.

Limited Force and the Triumph, Crisis, and Schism of Just War Thinking

Just war, oft-lauded as the authoritative moral framework to address the decision to go war and the ethical permissions this might grant, has seen the meaning of its principles mired in controversy and debate in the post-9/11 era. From calls to reclaim the historic tradition to the need to re-negotiate the terms of the orthodox stance or embrace revisionist insights drawn from analytical philosophy, critical reflections on the major wars showcased competing claims about what just war thinking should be. Where does limited force fit into the story? In answering this question, the chapter exposes a major lacuna in just war thinking by highlighting the moral and strategic dilemmas of limited force—limited strikes, Special Forces, no-fly zones, and drones—in the build-up to the major conflicts that animated just war debates of the post-Cold War era. Viewing the wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the broader fight against Al Qaeda through the lens of limited force provides a new angle from which to analyse perennial debates about when to go to war and what victory looks like. Doing so exposes important limitations of existing just war moral frameworks related to concerns about escalation from limited force to war and punishment as a moral justification. Harvesting cues from the historical tradition, the chapter concludes by introducing five types of punishment that contain insights relevant to discerning the just and unjust uses of limited force.

Imagining jus post vim

Standard accounts of just war follow a chronological path: deliberating whether to go to war (jus ad bellum), considering what can be done in war (jus in bello), and determining the responsibilities after war’s end (jus post bellum). This chapter challenges the chronological timeline by arguing that understanding jus post vim, or the justice after limited force, is paramount to discerning the just and unjust uses of limited force. Placing the emphasis on the post-force environment first shifts the focus onto the achievable ends, which then recalibrates the goals, and, by consequence, the means employed to achieve them. The chapter thus begins by distinguishing between jus post bellum and jus post vim, with one of the main differences being that the latter is necessarily a form of truncated victory. This circumscribed nature of victory has ethical implications insofar as many of the lofty goals sometimes associated with jus post bellum (rehabilitation, regime change, war crimes trials, etc.) are not feasible objectives of using limited force. Drawing on the classical just war doctrine’s emphasis on the pursuit of order and justice, the chapter identifies the re-establishment and containment principles as markers of moral truncated victory and the committed pursuit of long-term peace. These jus post vim principles reflect the heavy moral lifting that diplomatic measures play in the pursuit of peace once truncated victory is achieved. The chapter concludes by linking jus post vim to conciliation, inviting deeper engagement with non-Western peace practices and traditions.

Introduction

Limited force (vim) is different from war (bellum). Setting up and maintaining no-fly zones, conducting limited strikes, Special Forces raids, and the use of drones outside the “hot” battlefield have a different feel, seemingly falling below the threshold of war. They are different in scope, strategic purpose, and ethical challenges. While scholars tend to evaluate limited force according to just war principles, doing so misses considerable ethical precision and nuance. This lacuna warrants reformulating, reimagining, and recalibrating the just war framework and its principles better to understand the permissions and constraints of limited force. This chapter locates the pursuit of a moral framework of limited force, sometimes called force-short-of-war or jus ad vim, in the broader debates of the just war tradition. It poses three questions that set the tone for the wider inquiry. How are the moral concerns posed by using limited force different when compared to law enforcement and war? How does the ethics of limited force fit into broader debates about just war? What would a framework of the just and unjust uses of limited force look like? The chapter defends the choice of methodology—following in the footsteps of Michael Walzer’s turn to casuistry—as a commitment to the experience of using limited force, which entails discerning the plausible goals, engaging with how people talk about the various measures of limited force, and how they judge its use. Finally, it relates the status of the debate about vim and lays out the general plan of the book.

The Probability of Escalation Principle

Understanding the risk of escalation is key to discerning the just and unjust uses of limited force. Insofar as limited force is categorically different from war because it avoids the latter’s large-scale destruction and unpredictability, then holding onto a presumption against escalation from limited force to war is essential to keeping them distinct. The probability of escalation principle, introduced as part of the set of jus ad vim principles, helps to gauge the likelihood of this happening. The chapter begins by explaining what escalation is and why thinking about escalation matters for determining whether the use of limited force is just or unjust. This reveals the core of jus ad vim—the presumption against escalation maxim—which relates the strong moral penchant against making the shift from the narrow destruction of vim to the wide and unpredictable destruction of bellum. The chapter continues by exploring five archetypes of escalation—initiator, regional, on the ground, prospective, and retaliatory—along with the ethical concerns they engender to help tease out the telltale signs of when using limited force is likely to lead to escalation, as well as ways states can signal to others that escalation to war is not the intention. The chapter concludes by examining an important caveat—the conditions under which this principle might be overridden, thus making escalation to war permissible. This could be the case only in the context of humanitarian intervention to protect innocents from on-the ground escalation, and only if shaped by the principles of jus post vim.