Ukraine, ideology, and arms: Coming to terms with just war theory

Abstract

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has challenged the ideals of peace that I and many other left-wing critical intellectuals hold dear. By the end of the 18th century, Immanuel Kant argued that the realist law of peoples and the idea of just war should be superseded by the idea of perpetual peace, and, fortunately, the principled opposition to war was institutionalized in the United Nations in the 20th century. However, when the aggressor has already taken possession of huge swathes of territory, calls for peace may be suspected of ideological bias. The right to defend yourself is almost universally recognized, but a military counter-offensive to reconquer lost territory is not merely defense but itself aggression, and thus an act of war. Many of us, however, want to support such efforts in Ukraine, and what is worrying is that this places us on a slippery slope, reopening the possibility of justifying war. As I will argue, this is nevertheless the path we must take, thus accepting the possible justification of war and the possible justification of specific activities and armaments but not others. We should take more seriously the justice of war, with all the specific normative challenges that this implies.

Keywords

• just war theory
• jus ad bellum
• jus in bello
• toward perpetual peace
• ideology
• armament
• proportionality