By Patrick McCormick | FaVS News Columnist
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News.
One of Christianity’s more important contributions to history has been its (admittedly spotty) attempt to restrain the violence of war.
Born and raised in the ages of warring empires and kingdoms, Christianity embraced pacifism for the first three centuries after Christ.
When Rome took up Christianity as its official faith, Augustine and Ambrose built on Cicero’s notion of a just war, permitting only wars waged with legitimate authority, a just cause (defense, peace or punishment – but not conquest or plunder), right intent and as a last resort.
In the Middle Ages Aquinas and Grotius added to these restraints, declaring that just wars must have a strong probability of achieving the peace they seek and must be waged without disproportionate violence or slaughtering the innocent.
With the rise of democracies, Cicero and Augustine’s demand that rulers debate and declare their wars meant elected leaders must inform and consult the citizenry and their representatives (as required by our Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Act). And since WWII most Christian thinkers have reduced the “just cause” for war to one: defense against aggression.
This brings us to the torrent of complaints about President Trump’s undeclared war of choice against Iran, a war being waged without any clear justification, purpose, authority, restraint, planning or end in sight.
Indeed, a war in which the White House has not offered a consistent or credible response to any question about these concerns, even as combat spreads to eight other countries and Trump demands others join the fight.
Depending on the person or time of day inquiries about the justification, purpose, progress or plan of this war are answered differently, evasively or with angry retorts that such information is secret.
Trump might not be offering a casus belli (“case for waging war”) because he lacks one. The argument justifying the war as a defense against an imminent nuclear threat is torpedoed by public denials from his directors of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center.
Any claim the war would liberate the Iranian people is belied by the fact that air power never brings about regime change (and that talk of regime change in Venezuela rapidly dissolved into a grab for oil).
Trump’s failure to inform or consult Congress, the American public or our allies means he lacks legitimate authority to wage this conflict (and cannot get approval at home or from NATO allies asked for military support).
That he has been so easily bushwhacked by the predictable Iranian strangling of the Hormuz Strait and that the Pentagon wants an extra $200 billion to wage this war suggests the chance of quick or meaningful success is vapor thin.
A president who doesn’t think he needs a case for war
Or Trump might not be offering a casus belli because he thinks it is beneath him. We may have grown used to presidents lying about their unjust wars, but we are still shocked by one so patently uninterested in serving up a cogent case for a war that has already sucked in a dozen nations and produced thousands of casualties.
For centuries leaders have acted as if they needed to persuade others of the rightness of their wars, even when they spun lies to do so. And most people in democracies believe a war is just if it meets established moral or legal criteria (like the just war criteria).
But there is no indication Donald Trump believes this. To paraphrase another impeached president (Richard Nixon), Trump believes a war is just if he decides to wage it.
Complaints about Trump’s lack of a casus belli assume that presidents should follow established moral and legal norms governing the conduct of war and elected leaders. But for over a decade the convicted and twice impeached 47th occupant of the White House has shown no intent to be constrained by norms, reason or laws.
He does not seek to be a president held in check by the Constitution, courts, press, reason, term limits or the electorate. And since a president is constrained by all these forces, this is not the office he seeks, except as a path to something else.
Trump is not seeking regime change in Iran (or Venezuela, Cuba, Canada or Greenland), but in the U.S. And while his wars and threatened invasions in these places will not get regimes changed, he believes the chaos and enmity wars create will help him undermine and corrupt democracy here.
He has learned from Putin and others that manufactured enemies and wars help elected populists dismantle constitutions and seize the throne. In a year Trump has declared war on America’s trading partners, immigrant population, universities, major cities, NATO allies and any middle-sized regime he can threaten with impunity.
He manufactured these conflicts and foes to enrage and frighten us out of our democratic minds and justify his grab at emergency powers and a crown.
Terrified he cannot win or rig another election or escape another impeachment, Trump has loosed the dogs of war at home and abroad to let him shuffle off his constitutional and electoral chains.
How to resist endless war
There are ways to stop Trump’s endless wars. The courts have declared his unchecked trade wars unconstitutional. Governors and mayors have pushed back successfully on his attempts to invade our cities.
Press coverage of ICE’s lawless violence has turned most Americans against the cruelty of his war on immigrants. Our NATO allies have called his bluff on Greenland. And his unpopular war in Iran is even troubling leading Republicans.
But in a democracy, we cannot rely on our leaders and institutions alone. Restraining Trump’s wars requires American citizens inform ourselves about these crises, express our concerns and objections to others, show up for public demonstrations and protests and vote to preserve our democratic institutions and practices.
Trump wages endless wars because he would be king. We resist because we would be citizens, not his loyal subjects. We cannot let him Make America George III’s Again.
FāVS News uses professional journalists and thoughtful commentary to explore faith, values and ethics. Support journalism like this by making a tax-deductible donation. FāVS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. © FāVS News. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted only to authorized media partners or with written permission.
Thank you for this thoughtful overview of the development of the just war theory. As the current Pope has suggested, it’s doubtful that any war can be just.