Chances of winning the war must be good

Chances of winning the war must be good

Only winnable wars are just

A State should only go to war if it has a reasonable chance of winning. Going to war for a hopeless cause may be a noble act, but it is an unethical one.

This comes from the idea that war is a great evil, and that it is wrong to cause suffering, pain, and death with no chance of success.

So it would be unethical for a state to sacrifice the lives of its people (and the lives of its enemy's people) in a futile gesture that would not change anything.

However, this condition can be dealt with by forming alliances with other countries in order to make an unwinnable war winnable by ganging up on a common enemy.

Problems

This condition is seen as particularly problematic because:

• it is sometimes morally necessary to fight against a much larger force, either for the sake of national self-esteem or to protect a threatened minority.
• this condition could be a bullies' charter, in that it means that big powerful countries can trample on little ones, and the little ones can't ethically retaliate, because they can't win.
• an apparently undefeatable enemy may back down if a weak country seems determined to wage war if attacked, but warlike behaviour by a weak country would be unconvincing if that country subscribed to the just war doctrine.
• it may cause a weak country to surrender on ethical grounds a war that in fact it might actually win (for example the United Kingdom in the early days of the second world war when it was faced with the apparently overwhelming might of Germany).

What is success?

The idea of 'winning' is not a simple one. It's probably better to rephrase the condition like this:

This way of putting it makes it clear that there has to be an absolutely clear idea of what will count as success before any decision can be taken about the moral rightness of a particular conflict. Thus the aims of a war must be set out in advance.