Bringing the Violence of War under Control in a Globalized World

Transcription

Prop osa l Paper s Seri es
Bringing the Violence
of War under Control
in a Globalized World
Problems, limitations and perspectives
of using weapons to build a better world
FnGM
FnGM
Fn WG
Foro por una nueva Gobernanza Mundial
Forum pour une nouvelle Gouvernance Mondiale
Jean-René Bachelet
April 2009
Forum for a new World Governance
April 2009
Translators:
Philippa Smith & Giles Smith
Picture researchers:
Dominique Monteau
Artwork:
Patrick Lescure
Published by
Causses et Cévenne
[email protected]
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
Cover image: René Magritte, Memory, 1942 (© Phototèque R. Magritte – ADAGP, Paris 2009)
Problems, limitations and perspectives
of using weapons to build a better world
Jean-René Bachelet
April 2009
Contents
Introduction
Arnaud Blin and Gustavo Marin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Foreword: The four ages of war: violence regulated to different degrees
From force-based regulation to law-based regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
From archaic wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
… to conventional wars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
… including industrial-era wars… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
… up until post-modern wars?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Three presuppositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter I: Universal values: the first and most crucial question
The principle of humanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.1 From scepticism… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.2 … to rejection… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.3 … meaning universal values do not exist? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Chapter II: Controlling violence with the use of force
From necessity to legitimacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1 Force… Neither too much nor too little . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2 The legitimacy of resorting to force: The last resort… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
• First condition: the authority taking the decision is legitimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
• Second condition: the aims of war are themselves legitimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
• Third condition: the use of force really is the last resort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
• Fourth condition: the use of force is not doomed to failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3 The legitimacy of operating mechanisms for using force: War without hate… . . . . . 27
• Fifth condition: the means chosen and used are suited and proportionate
to the capacity to gain the upperhand over the enemy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
• Sixth condition: civilians must be protected and their lives and means
of survival safeguarded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
• Seventh condition: the enemy must be respected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.4 Controlling violence and regulating the use of force in the face of terrorism. . . . 31
Chapter III: Recommendations
3.1 A three-way collaboration: states/UN/NGOs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.2 The need to raise awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3 Promoting benchmark models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.4 Procedures for identifying and assessing cultural, doctrinal, regulatory
and educational systems of reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.5 When and how force should be used: procedures for analyzing and assessing
the conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.6 A comprehensively revised system for preparing armed forces called on to
intervene under UN authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.7 An experimental permanent international force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.8 Strict regulation of Private Military Companies (PMCs). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
In conclusion…. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Introduction
T
he most serious of all the dangers facing humanity at the outset of the 21st
century is undoubtedly that which threatens its very survival. Since the
end of the 20th century, we have entered into a transitional phase, with
one crisis succeeding and overlapping the next: the financial crisis and accompanying economic crisis, affecting entire swathes of the banking and industrial systems and once again raising the spectre of mass unemployment for those economies
most tied into global markets; a crisis in the relationship between humanity and
the biosphere, which is exacerbating ecological problems and in the space of one
generation — ours — seeing the emergence of unprecedented levels of famine,
poverty and water and air shortages; an ethical crisis centred on the values and
principles our societies are built on and that is rocking the foundations we depend
on for managing conflicts.
The people running countries as well as banks, businesses and international institutions, when they are not the direct cause of the problems, are proving incapable
of resolving them. Which means it will take us even longer to extricate ourselves
from these crises.
The most fundamental of all these crises is the one affecting the relationship between human beings themselves. In the (little) time we still have left to collectively find new solutions to the current crisis, if we cannot curb and prevent the
open and hidden wars that are rocking strategic areas of the planet, we run the risk
of being caught up in a spiral of violence even bloodier than that which ended in
the mass exterminations of last century’s world wars and genocides.
Without being unduly optimistic, we can posit that organized citizens, far-sighted
political leaders and fair-minded spiritual leaders could between them succeed in
neutralizing the damaging effects of the current crises and find new solutions. But it
is not certain that they will. Countries, regions, continents, even the entire planet,
living as we do under the constant threat of a nuclear holocaust, could perish if we
do not protect ourselves from all forms of belligerent nationalism, fanaticism and
fundamentalism. We can also assert that a new world governance without control
over the violence of war would not be achievable — or would be under constant
threat.
We were given the chance to meet General Jean-René Bachelet and discuss these
fundamental questions with him. He is the instigator as well as one of the main
driving forces of the French army’s new thinking on the ethics of the army profession. As a general officer, he commanded the Sarajevo sector as a brigadier as part
of the UNPROFOR in 1995. Since 1996, he has been leading in-depth discussions
on laying the foundation stones for a code of ethics and behaviour for the military
profession, a process that has provided the French army with a reference framework
on these issues. The discussions have taken concrete form with a number of documents. The main documents are Fondements et principes de l’exercice du métier des
armes dans l’armée de terre (Foundations and Principles of Exercising the Profession
of Soldier in the Army) and the Code du soldat (Soldier’s Code). He ended his career as Inspector General of the Armed Forces. His current roles include president
of the Association des Glières. Pour la mémoire de la Résistance.1
In addition to his commitment to the process of deliberation within the armed
forces, Jean-René Bachelet is fully aware of the urgent need to construct a fruitful
dialogue between the military and civilians, a vital step in building a responsible,
plural and solidarity-based world community. His analysis and reflections reach far
beyond the French, or even European, context. Jean-René Bachelet has a particularly lucid understanding of the impact of his background on his thinking. However, this does not prevent him developing a radical and innovative conception of
controlling violence in this Proposal Paper, where he invites us to take an in-depth
look at the human condition. He also gives us an understanding of the ethical and
political issues involved in the professional soldier’s job of controlling violence in
the modern world. In the spirit of this series of Proposal Papers for a new world governance, he also ventures to suggest several avenues for controlling the violence of
war and for implementing wholly realistic solutions relating to current and future
tensions and armed conflicts.
1 The Glières plateau
in Upper Savoy, south
east France, was a focal
point for the Resistance
movement against the Nazi
occupying forces in 1944.
Arnaud Blin and Gustavo Marin
Coordinators of the Forum for a new World Governance
Préambule
Henri Rousseau, known as Le Douanier (the customs officer), War, or The Horseman of Discord, 1894,
© RM N (Musée d’Orsay)/All rights reserved
The Four Ages of War:
violence regulated
to different degrees
Fro m f o rc e - b a s ed regulation
t o l a w - b a s e d regulation
D
ocuments, monuments and statues show us
that war has been a constant factor in human life throughout history.
It is certainly perceived as one of the scourges of humanity, and every civilisation and religion has strived
constantly for peace, in quest of a paradise lost or
long-lost golden age. However, paradoxically, the history of different societies down through the centuries,
and almost up to the present day, centres on their war
exploits. The bravery and glory of combat, both in
victory and sacrifice, create heroes who foster collective myths and are put on a pedestal that masks the
misery and horror of war in human culture, education
and memories. Nevertheless, this paradox goes no deeper than the
surface. If the violence of war is inherent to the hu-
man condition, humans need to be capable of facing
it to survive. Consequently, the exaltation of warlike
virtues is in proportion to the dangers, ordeals and
horrors confronting us, for better or for worse.
A balance was established between the practice of
war, seen as an acceptable mechanism for managing relations between states when it is regulated, and
achieving the inevitable outcome of peace.
However, for humans to survive — the ultimate
goal of all species, including our own — it is vital
that destructive violence, even if it cannot be eradicated, be curbed by regulatory mechanisms.
Down through the Middle Ages and modern times
up until the classical age, war continued to be regulated by the balance of power, notably under the
influence of the Church in a Europe still under the
sway of Christianity. However, law-based regulation
played an increasingly important role in formalizing
the rules of war. Warring parties were urged to respect
the customs of war which were partly translated into
two sets of rules that gradually took form between the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance:
From archaic wars…
1 “If you wish for
peace, prepare for
war. ”
2 Brennus was a
Gaulish chieftain
who captured
Rome in 390
CE. When the
Romans protested
at his throwing
his sword on
the scales used
to weigh the
imposed tribute,
he uttered the
famous words
“Vae victis!”:
“Woe to the
conquered!”
3 Another
Gaulish chieftain,
defeated by
Caesar at the
Battle of Alesia
in 52 CE which
marked the end
of the Gauls’ war
against Rome and
their definitive
subjugation. He
surrendered to
Caesar, was led to
Rome in chains,
was present at
Caesar’s triumph,
only to end up
strangled in
prison.
In the ancient world, war between Greek cities had
the potential of being totally consuming and inexpiable, mirroring its sacred nature. Nevertheless, it was
suspended at night, in winter and on certain special
occasions such as the Olympic Games, and peace remained the ultimate goal.
The desire for peace and the exercise of war come together in the Latin adage: Si vis pacem, para bellum.1
Regulating the confrontations of war thus depended
primarily on the balance of power. There were those
who vanquished and those who were vanquished.
War ended in the latter either being wiped out or subjugated. The use of horrifying examples to inspire terror was often seen as the best means of guaranteeing
peace. This was the case with the pax romana that was
imposed for several centuries throughout the Mediterranean area and most of Europe, with the use of
only thirty legions who tended to behave ruthlessly.
Law-based regulation did make a tentative appearance during this era. Procedures for declaring war and
peace treaties existed in both Greece and the Roman
Empire. However, the act of surrendering did not
protect the vanquished from slavery or even death.
Moreover, civilians were usually subjected to a similar fate as those bearing arms. The law of the strongest ruled, as illustrated by Brennus’2 Vae victis ! or the
treatment meted out to Vercingetorix.3
… to conventional wars…
In modern times, the creation of permanent armies
was one expression of the desire to contain violence
within agreed boundaries, particularly thanks to the
customs of war, often betrayed but never challenged.
The military function became the most kingly of state
functions and the use of legitimate force a prerogative
of the state, guaranteeing proper regulation of violence in its relations with other states.
• jus ad bellum (just cause for war) which can
be expressed as follows: war is legitimate when
it fulfils the following conditions:
- the authority taking the decision to wage war
is itself legitimate;
- the intention is just, i.e. the goal is to restore
peace;
- all other means of resolving the conflict have
been exhausted;
- the means used are in proportion to the danger
to be combated;
- the damage caused is not greater than the
damage being avoided;
- there is a reasonable chance of success;
• jus in bello (just conduct in war), based essentially on two points:
- the enemy must be respected, particularly the
prisoner of war, disarmed and wounded, whose
life and dignity must be safeguarded;
- civilian populations must be spared, especially
women, the elderly, children and everyone not
bearing arms.
This development can be explained by an awareness
of humankind’s universality and the value of human
life that gradually evolved in people’s minds. Nevertheless, this rule did not tend to be very constrictive. If the enemy’s humanity was denied or was demonized, as happened in civil and religious wars and
in the clash of civilisations, unrestrained violence
and unadulterated balance of power were the rule.
During the classical age, the cost of permanent armies
became a far more powerful regulator of war than this
initial attempt at imposing law. Wars were now conducted according to agreed codes, and were the province of sovereigns and professional troops, often mercenaries. The goal of these wars was no longer the destruction of the enemy, and the conquered were those
who declared themselves as such, knowing that they
would possibly be the conquerors of the next war.
Civilian populations remained the passive victims
of these wars, usually indirectly. The Thirty Years
War provides a particularly significant illustration:
although half the population of the Palatinate and
Franche-Comté lost their lives, mainly due to famine
and epidemics, diplomatic relations and discussions
never stopped, even when the armies were in combat.
The Peace of Westphalia which ended the war remains, in historical terms, the model for legally-based
sanctions aimed at balancing Europe’s military forces.
… including industrial-era wars…
The 19th and 20th centuries ushered in an era of
Promethean ambitions that drastically changed the
balance achieved during previous centuries. Technological advances helped magnify weapons’ destructive power exponentially. This had a decisive
impact on the balance of power, but also introduced
the capacity to cause carnage on a previously unheard of scale, the ultimate step being the apocalyptic prospect of nuclear annihilation.
Simultaneously, the twin emergence of nationalism and globalizing and all-conquering ideologies,
whether objectively harmful or apparently generous, served to give conflicts that were now mostly
between armed populations an inexpiable character.
The destruction of enemy armies had become the
main objective and, ultimately, civilian populations
the key pawn in the game of war.
The phenomenon of colonization, on a historically
unprecedented scale, reflects this context, both at its
height, from the late 19th and early 20th century until the almost total control of the world by European
or western nations including Russia, and its collapse
after 1945.
Panel decorating the Royal Palaces of Abomey in Benin,
© RM N/Jean-Gilles Berizzi
only possible solution was to oppose the Nazis and
put an end to Hitler’s reign by deploying armed force
on an unprecedented scale. The ensuing war was allconsuming and inexpiable, even more destructive
than its predecessor, lasting until the apocalyptic destruction inflicted on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which
put an end to the deadliest conflict in the history of
humankind.
The First World War revealed how the nature of war
had been changed by the Industrial Revolution along
with the eruption of conflicting nationalisms and use
of conscription in providing armies with soldiers at a
lower cost. The colossal carnage of this war produced,
for the first time in history, a deep-reaching pacifism,
which saw the armies and states they serve as the warmongers, and therefore wished to abolish armies and
enfeeble the states, a solution which would open the
door to an era of perpetual peace.
Faced with Soviet totalitarianism, the prospect of
mutual assured destruction for the warring parties
created by the thermonuclear arsenal played a more
important regulatory role than the newly created
United Nations. Four decades of strategic freeze followed, the world suspended between war and peace,
on the brink of the abyss.
But the same bloody conflict also gave birth to the
century’s conflicting totalitarianisms. Barely twenty
years on from the end of the Great War, the inanity
of the pacifist position was made clear by the boundless violence that characterized the Nazi Reich and
its quest to dominate, conquer and exterminate. The
The balance of terror meant that, however cruel and
bloody conflicts could be, particularly during decolonization wars, they were relegated to the margins of
the two superpowers’ spheres of influence. They were
more or less regulated by the rules adopted within the
UN, mainly the condemnation of wars of aggression,
The respite was not destined to last.
4 The Thirty
Years War tore
Europe apart
between 1618
and 1648 with
the majority
of European
countries
fighting each
other in a
political and
religious
context.
© Eugenio Tellez, Mao and the Chinese Vase, 2000.
laws of war, and peacekeeping procedures and operations. In reality, the influential position of certain
states within the Security Council made world peace
dependent on the goodwill of the dominant powers.
10
This marginalization of conflicts resulted in an unprecedented and empirical conjunction of the balance of power and the law. Regulation based on the
balance of power fell between two extremes, linked to
the development of weapons’ destructive power:
• an overwhelming imbalance in favour of
European powers explains the apparent facility of the colonization phenomenon of the late
19th and early 20th centuries. The world was
divided up between dominators, who held on
to their hegemony at the lowest possible cost,
and the dominated, incapable of objecting to
their lot other than during sporadic and shortlived moments of revolt;
• in the second half of the 20th century, the balance of power between the major powers that
had been upset by the two world wars led to a
paradoxical peace based on nuclear dissuasion
and the possibility of mutual assured destruction procured by thermonuclear arsenals.
Law-based regulation was taking shape at the same
time, becoming increasingly developed. It covered
two aspects, only partially linked:
• a form of regulation in reaction to the exponential growth in weapons’ destructive power,
which could keep going until the point of absurdity, and their costs: the desire to limit them
and seek a strategic balance that could lead to
peace. This approach began after the Great War,
came to a halt, reached a climax during the Cold
War and culminated in the SALT agreements;
• the second form of law-based regulation was
rooted in ethics, harking back to the jus ad bellum and jus in bello of old.
Following the Battle of Solferino in 1859, when the
Swiss Henri Dunant, revolted by the fate of battlefield causalities, created the Red Cross, an enduring
movement to establish the laws of war began. It was
based on the multiple Geneva and Hague conventions, then the League of Nations initiatives in the
wake of the Great War, followed by the UN conventions over the last half-century and more.
The measures adopted were made operational by being backed up by the potential use of force — the UN
peacekeeping forces — as well as by a legal mechanism able to penalize war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocides, notions inherited from the
Second World War. The measures were underpinned
by universal values that legitimized them. They were
translated into the Declaration of Human Rights,
which forms the basis of the UN Charter. The entire
system, however, remains subject to the goodwill of
nations; their obedience to the prescribed rules, like
their capacity to impose them, is part of the problem
of the balance of power, risking making this morallybased law suspect to the weaker states.
… up until post-modern wars?
During this period, a deep-reaching structural development took place that was to radically change
the conditions of planetary balances. It covers two
closely linked aspects:
• a demographic explosion in non-European
countries, contrasting with the stagnating and
ageing populations in Europe, whose hegemony over the previous two or three centuries
had depended on the dynamism of these populations;
• a radical dissymmetry between the two groups
of populations, not only in terms of living standards and sociological developments, but also in
their relationship with death and therefore with
war: on the one hand a prosperous population,
often ageing, focusing on the short term, jealous of its well-being and keen to avoid losses;
on the other hand a population that is poor,
young, looking at the long term and ready for
any sacrifice.
The consequences of this development were observable during the conflicts occurring on the margins of
the Cold War: decolonisation wars, the US Vietnam
War and Soviet engagement in Afghanistan.
The balance of power stopped being a decisive factor
with the conjunction of two phenomena:
• on the one hand, the relative restraint shown
by Western powers in the use of force,5 even if
they have to contend with impossible contradictions, notably relative to their commitment
to human rights which contrasts with their often ruthless attitude during colonization;
• on the other hand, the irredentist position
held by the “weaker” nations, with the massive
involvement of populations. With a few exceptions, such as Argentina during the Falklands
War, no one ever recognizes defeat or accepts
submission.
This was the context for the improbable implosion of
the Soviet bloc in the late 1980s, marked by the emblematic fall of the Berlin wall. A huge wave of hope
washed over a world that had until then been bipolar:
there would no longer be any wars, people were saying.
There was talk of “a new world order”.
The reality was an immediate eruption of disturbances, even of chaos in some places. The violence that
had until then been contained by the bipolar world
was given free rein once that world had disappeared,
with an escalation of exactions, massacres and even
genocides. This reality was given even greater visibility by the information revolution that conveyed images everywhere, even to the most remote regions of
the world, arousing people’s emotions and passions so
that they demanded that governments react, particularly with the use of force.
The international community, via the UN, reacted
with responses that were hesitant to say the least, and
even ineffective in their incapacity to make real use
of an efficient degree of force, in proportion to the
violence that needed tackling. This observation was
illustrated by the tragic break-up of Yugoslavia and
the Rwandan genocide, and is mirrored today in the
situation in Darfur.
The USA, despite its position of hegemonic monopoly and the impressive military efficiency provided
by its overwhelming superiority, especially in technological terms, was just as incapable of coming up
with solutions for truly restoring peace — or even
for preventing a heightening of people’s hardships.
A textbook case is provided by Iraq. Afghanistan is
no better an example. On a more minor scale, the
same applies to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
It is true to say that war has metamorphosed into new
forms.
The movements of revolt that have shaken multiethical states, both those created by colonization and
those resulting from the break-up of empires, create
conflicts similar to civil wars. The atrocities committed, when relayed by the media, stir up the public’s
emotions: people then demand intervention to stop
the massacres. These are the peacekeeping operations
where international forces have to take an intervention role and deal with complex situations without a
designated enemy.
11
5 This
statement needs
to be qualified
in the light of
the US doctrine
of military
intervention
based on the use
of pre-emptive,
massive and
overwhelming
destructive
firepower,
particularly
airborne.
6 Terrorism is a
form of action
initiated by
organizers (states,
organizations,
factions or
individuals) and
put into practice
by participants.
Whereas the
latter are
indisputably
motivated by
blind fanaticism,
the former are
obeying the logic
of a strategy
devised by the
weak against
the strong,
whereby they hit
their “strong”
adversaries where
it hurts. But this
form of action
is necessarily a
political issue,
which makes
the expression
“war on terror”
debatable to say
the least. We will
return to this
point later on.
7 Cf.The
treatment meted
out to prisoners
at Guantanamo.
12
8 Now partially
corrected by the
fact that states
seem to offer
the only remedy
to the financial
crisis.
9 A case in
point is the
conflict between
the Israelis and
Palestinians.
The increasing scarcity of resources in a world that
consumes huge quantities of energy and raw materials
and where oil is the most sought-after of resources has
a strong direct or indirect impact on the policies and
strategies adopted by the major powers. The more or
less hidden enterprises that result from these policies
inevitably arouse enmity. The balance of power is so
heavily weighted in favour of the major powers, primarily the US hyperpower, that their enemies formulate and implement strategies to sidestep them: this
leads to the use of terrorism,6 an action that targets
civilian populations and renders technological superiority impotent.
Furthermore, we are in all likelihood only on the brink
of even greater crises due to phenomena that are certain
to cause climate changes in a context of demographic
dissymmetry: flooding, desertification, food and water
shortages, famines and massive migratory waves.
No one can yet say with any certainty what the ensuing developments and consequences of 2008’s economic and financial crisis may be.
It is also true that warring parties are often not states,
no longer the exclusive actors of war. We now have to
deal with infra-state or trans-state organizations that
tend to be more diffuse, elusive and protean. This applies not only to ideologically inspired organizations
like Al-Qaida, which operates as a network with no
pyramid structures, but also to the flourishing PMC
sector, a development that opens the door to the privatization of war and may lead to changes and consequences that no one has yet identified.
The traditional distinction between civilians and soldiers, which underpins the customs of war and laws
of war for many people, often becomes blurred in this
context. The enemy comes to be perceived as an outlaw, in the strict sense of the term.7
States in general and European states in particular
(with a few exceptions) are now often reluctant to
provide themselves with the means to adopt force
and thus to use these means for autonomous military
actions. This is one aspect of the state’s disengagement in a globalized world8 and does not encourage
military efficiency, until now inextricably linked to
the state’s power and desire to thwart violence.
If we use the classification mentioned earlier, the two
mechanisms used historically to regulate conflicts
no longer seem to work. There no longer appears to
be an outcome in the confrontation of the balance
of power. The stronger party is a shackled Gulliver
and the weaker party, even if without the means to
achieve a real victory, can prolong the conflict indefinitely.9
Law-based regulation has never been so present,
particularly in the context of so-called moral wars
and the increasingly important role of international
courts. It may also be subject to suspicion, insofar as
the major powers’ intentions do not always appear
to be “just”, to use the jus ad bellum expression, and
to the extent that the powers’ policies and strategic
choices expose them to insoluble contradictions.
When it comes to arms control, particularly the fight
against nuclear proliferation, it comes up against the
same difficulties.
Thus, whilst humankind succeeded over many
centuries in regulating violence to varying degrees,
with the state playing a central role and national
armies as the main instrument, it is now powerless
in the face of all kinds of violence, right up to the
most extreme forms, which are now globalized and
beyond the reach of any regulation.
However, the universal aspiration for a safer and
fairer world, where safety and peace are guaranteed
— in other words, a better world — is stronger than
ever. To achieve such a world, we have to devise global-scale ways and means of controlling current and
future violence as well as new means of regulation.
Three presuppositions
These conclusions drawn from contemporary events
open up a huge and complex scope of deliberation
which can only produce realistic recommendations if
a number of presuppositions for limiting that scope
are recognized.
• First presupposition
It is recognized that the scope of this deliberation does not include the eradication of violence and we will not express an opinion on
whether it is possible or not. In line with the
position previously developed, the aim will be
to tackle the regulation and control of violence.
The process of deliberation will also include the
conception of the conditions necessary to prevent or sidestep violence. On a broader scale, it
will be examining the conditions in which violence requires a response, particularly with the
use of force, in order to oppose and end it once
the point is reached when no other response can
be truly effective.
• Second presupposition
It will also be recognized that the scope of
deliberation does not cover the prospect of
a “global government”. We will therefore not
express an opinion on the more or less utopian
character of such a prospect, or on the question of whether a global government would not
necessarily be totalitarian. On the other hand,
we will seek to identify the conditions for the
best possible orchestration of an agreement between nations in all their diversity, as well as
all the infra-state and trans-state stakeholders
with the goal of controlling global violence.
• Third presupposition
The goal is to work towards a
better world, which raises the
question of the benchmark values used to judge such a world.
We can start by setting down
human rights as an incontrovertible absolute. However, the
expression is strongly rooted in
European culture, undermining its universal character, and
so overused that it will first be
necessary to analyze it so that
the goal of a better world can
be clearly established.
The deliberation process will take
these presuppositions as its starting
point and go beyond them to formulate proposed answers to the following three questions:
• Which universal values for
a better world?
• Which conditions need to be created and
which principles to be respected in the world
as it currently is to effectively regulate violence and create a better world?
• What practical measures can consequently
be proposed?
© Eugenio Tellez, Battle Plan, 2007
13
Chapter I
Universal values:
the first and most
crucial question
The principle of humanity
T
he first, and most important, question is that of
benchmark values. For any group of humans to
establish and maintain cohesion or, at the very
least, act in a unified manner to overcome the internal upheavals of dissociation, a majority must adhere
to a set of rules that determine individual and collective behaviour by marking out the line between what
is right and fair and what is not. The same applies to
humankind as a whole in today’s globalized world.
14
In the animal realm such rules are in the main guided
and determined by species’ need for survival. They
are obeyed instinctively, the instincts being those of
life and survival.
Human beings are peculiar in this regard, being able
to renounce natural conditioning and set their own
rules of behaviour based on their own particular outlook and worldview. Humankind is thus a species endowed with a liberty that can be used for better or
for worse. For example, need we fear death if we are
certain of everlasting reward in an afterlife?
If we use the term “culture” to signify the whole represented by the worldview of any one individual group,
the values that will guide behavioural rules are one
of the core elements of this culture. However, aside
from humanity’s biological unity, our cultures are extremely diverse as, therefore, are our worldviews and
thus the values liable to influence our behaviour. To
paraphrase Montaigne’s well-known phrase: truths on
this side of the Pyrenees are falsehoods on the other.
1.1 From scepticism…
Keeping a sceptical distance is not as evident in today’s
politically-correct world of ceaselessly proclaimed human rights. It does, however, figure fairly widely in
reality, and it is this that leads to relativism.
In Europe, just as Montaigne was doubtless driven to
scepticism by the horrors of the wars of religion of the
time, so we too, after a 20th century riven by blood
and fire, are shaking off all those ideologies that supposedly ensure the happiness of humankind.
Technological achievements and decades of economic
well-being have resulted in a new quest for domestic
happiness on the one hand, and rigid individualism
on the other. The unusualness of this position can be
proved by examining our past: the collective popular
fervour of the Crusades, the 19th and early 20th century belief in the civilizing mission of European world
conquest, which itself can be traced directly back to
the optimism inherited from the Enlightenment, and,
more recently, the yearning for a brighter tomorrow
felt by the millions for whom communism offered a
joyful future.
These examples themselves, it must be admitted,
can only inspire scepticism: how did the evangelical
ideal in the first case, the humanism in the second
or the demand for social justice in the third, all to
varying degrees become the seedbed for recurrent
barbarities?
“Historical strategy,” Hegel tells us, echoing
the words of Voltaire’s Candide when, aghast,
he discovers that the greatest ills can stem from
the best of intentions, and vice versa. Popular
wisdom reflects this observation in the saying
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Candide himself infers that it is better
to “cultivate our garden.”
Leaving aside the occasional outbursts of media
attention that soothe consciences at little cost,
modern individualism follows the same logic.
1.2 … to rejection…
It is plain to see that the factors which can lead
to scepticism in Europe (and even in the USA,
which continues to hold a distinct position) can,
in other parts of the world, lead to rejection.
Such rejection may indeed impact those values that we westerners consider to be universal,
and which we group together under the generic
term “human rights”.
The reasons for this are rooted in the past, insofar as these values spring directly from those
that inspired us during the periods in history —
notably those briefly alluded to above — when
the white man’s domination was absolute. Today we understand the complex reality lying
behind this civilizing mission and the predatory
nature of the white man’s domination. Yet how
are we to prevent the descendants of those peoples and civilisations that were once under the
yoke from seeking to keep their distance from
values which in their eyes are clearly the work
of the cynical, hypocritical, dominating West?
Leonardo da Vinci, The Proportions of Man, or The Vitruvian Man, circa 1490
© 1990. Photo Scala Florence-Courtesy Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali
To these reasons of the past must, sadly, be added
those of the present. And this is where the difference
alluded to above between the USA and Europe comes
into play. Europe, as we have seen, has now taken a
step back from any aspirations to hegemony. This is
an objective fact, whether the reasons be political,
structural, moral, merely demographic or a combination of all of the above.
For its part, the United States of America stands at
another historical point. Its de facto hegemony is not
without legitimate parallels with European supremacy
during its period of greatest expansionism. Like the
Europe of the past, the USA is driven by powerful
forces; like the Europe of the past, it feels itself to embody that which we no longer term a civilizing mis-
sion, but which is its equivalent; like the Europe of
the past, the generosity of its stated intentions and
the grandeur of the values publicly espoused ill-suit its
scruple-free promotion of far more concrete interests.
Today, many people throughout the world are faced
with the immense contradiction between the principle
of human rights, a concept brandished as a standard
now as never before, and practices that pay lip service
at best, when they are not wholly in opposition.
Amongst these practices, rampant racketeering aside,
the use of military force as it is conceived and used is
violently counterproductive. The pernicious effects
of the doctrine and practice of the use of massive
destructive power from a distance, whose so-called
surgical precision does nothing to protect the weakest and the most defenceless from the ravages of collateral damage, are unmistakable.
15
Who can be blind to the magnitude of the waves of
hatred directed against the West and of the rejection
of its values that such practices induce, even as the
war conducted against utterly reprehensible terrorism
is waged in the name of the very values that we seek
to defend and promote?
Considering also the denial of humanity meted out
to terrorists, real and imagined, and the succession
of humiliations and physical abuses that are almost a
prerequisite for the demonization of the enemy, how
can talk of values not be experienced as the ultimate
hypocrisy, or simply cynicism, by all those who, without necessarily approving of terrorists’ actions, are on
the same side as them in ethnic and cultural terms?
How can we imagine ways in which the battle for
hearts and minds is to be won?
Thus, beyond rather than within Europe for other
reasons, some of which are very recent in origin, the
universal values that we make great play of considering to be self-evident risk eliciting greater sceptical
detachment, even rejection, instead of the hoped-for
unconditional approval.
1.3 …
meaning universal values
do not exist?
16
Therefore, if universal values — human rights in this
instance — and the democratic ideal are at best illusory, at worst a trap serving to divert attention from the
real interests of individuals, groups, organizations and
nations, what common universal benchmarks exist that
could serve as the foundation for relations between all
such groupings, for settling disputes and terms of agreements, for legitimizing sanctions? Is there anything
other than the bitter reality of the balance of power?
Thus are we returned to our original state, to the law of
the jungle, a law regulated by nothing more than selfinterest, whose extremity is survival, the ultimate selfinterest. If my survival as an individual, group, organization or nation is contingent on barbarity, then
barbarity it shall be… All the rest is mere words; the
desire for a better world, one that is more just and more
peaceful, expresses either an idealized utopia or base
hypocrisy, depending on your particular worldview.
However, in today’s world, marked in comparison
with previous centuries and millennia by our capacity to share and communicate information on a
planet-wide basis in just a few seconds, two phenomena without historical precedent may henceforth find a universal echo.
The first phenomenon is the ability that we humans
now possess, through the agency of a technological
prowess heretofore felt to be a source of considerable progress, to endanger the balance of the natural world, our biosphere, and thus the very survival
of humankind. In other words, now as never before
do we humans share in a common destiny.
In other words, the common interests of humankind
as a whole are henceforth of far greater import than
are all other interests. In instances where we still hear
talk of the imperatives of the “survival of the nation”,
we both can and must instil in peoples’ consciences
the concept of the “survival of humanity”, or at the
very least of collective survival, something that overrides the boundaries of the mere nation.
This is the reason that the concept of citizenship in
democratic states, up until now accompanied by a
sense shared by all citizens of responsibility for the
common good constituted by the reality and destiny
of a common entity, has today expanded to encompass the whole of humanity, the entire planet.
This is the first phenomenon that, provided it is
well thought of and properly orchestrated and free
as it is of references to any values other than the
survival of humanity, might henceforth constitute
a powerful force for the regulation of relationships
between individuals and peoples.
Regarding this point, history may one day relate that
the first collective awareness of this type likely to
have contributed to changing the way that people
thought was the Chernobyl disaster. There can be
no doubt that the Soviet leadership of the day, with
Mikhail Gorbachev to the fore, were able to gauge
the suicidal nature of the arms race whose potential
scale, unimaginable hitherto, was made all too real
by the accident at the nuclear reactor. It may very
well be that none of the subsequent events, including
the disappearance of the Soviet bloc, would have occurred without this emerging awareness.
It is also clear that a similar new awareness did not
emerge amongst the leaders of America in the wake
of the 9/11 tragedy. Their response was overwhelmingly unilateral and their objectives were disguised,
in the face of what was shown to be a global risk that
demanded a global response be made in the name of
our revealed communality of destiny.
The second phenomenon is the now observable
ability to provoke a worldwide emotional shock.
It is now hardly possible to find a place that is not
fed by a constant flow of information, often real-time
pictures, from all corners of the earth. Thus, for better
© Emile Gillioli, National Monument to the Resistance on the Glières plateau
or for worse, all of humanity is witness to the spectacle
of human suffering and worse horrors still.
the same way as the compassion felt for victims and
feelings of solidarity towards them.
Who now is able to remain unmoved by this spectacle
of distress, especially when it impacts the most vulnerable, children, women and the elderly? Thus are we
from time to time witness to planet-wide manifestations of emotion, compassion and indignation whose
roots lie in humankind’s negligence or malevolence.
But why are such sentiments experienced when
those towards whom they are addressed are very
much strangers? Presumably because emotionally
if not intellectually, the universality of humanity
and the unity of the human family, beyond matters
of race, religion and social status, are inescapable
in our now globalized world. Similarly, it seems to
us evident that there is a value to be accorded to a
being, to human life, integrity and dignity. We term
this ensemble the principle of humanity with, as a
corollary, an unprecedented demand for responsibility, and we are able today to see that these have a
universal vocation.11
In the West, the first such manifestation was without
doubt the gradual realisation, initially incredulous then
horrified, to the unthinkable genocide of Europe’s Jews
attempted by the Nazis.10 The reaction was in proportion to the horror and scale of the crimes committed.
As the information age has emerged, so similar sentiments are now experienced by all peoples in the face
of the spectacle of the tragedy of the human condition when confronted by major natural disasters, the
destructive power of modern warfare, slaughter and
genocide.
Thus, although it is possible to express doubts as
to the perception of the universal nature of positive
values, there can be no doubt that evil is perceptible and to a certain degree violence and barbarity
induce horror, indignation and rejection that are
potentially shared by the entire human family, in
Thus are revealed, almost as a negative image, the
universal values without which any hopes for a better
world will have no meaning: such a world will be better proportionately to the extent that these values are
respected; better still, proportionately to their capacity to inspire the building of a world that is more just,
more peaceful and more mutually supportive.
Beyond the extreme diversity of cultures, despite
disparities in development, casting aside ancient
or more recent disputes, the time has now come to
consider humanity as a whole, in a way never before attempted:
10 The power
of images was
evident during
the Nuremberg
trials. When the
often unbearable
images shot at
concentration
camps were
shown, the
accused
pointedly turned
away, some of
them betraying
obvious signs
of panic or
disgust. They did
not, however,
repent, claiming
ignorance, but
the uncontrolled
nature of their
reactions
signified that
“something”
within them had
been affected.
11 The
focus during
the opening
ceremony of the
Beijing Olympic
Games in 2008
on the diversity
of Chinese ethnic
and cultural
17
components,
broadened
to the global
scale, is worthy
of reflection,
whatever
reservations we
may have about
China’s respect
for human
rights. Dialectic
dexterity, the
homage of vice
to virtue, or an
expression of
genuine shared
humanity?
Should we not
opt for the latter
interpretation ?
• as a community whose shared destiny is accepted by all, irrespective of individual interests, without which the future of humankind
and of life itself is at risk;
12 Cf. The
Charter of Human
Responsibilities:
www.charteresponsabiliteshumaines.net/
18
• within this context, in the light of the unity
of the human family and the value of human
life.
In order to address the violence of the world, for
this is our subject here, and to contribute to building a better tomorrow, we thus start by setting out
the principle of humanity and its two underlying
imperatives:
• the survival of the human species is the
overriding interest shared by all nations and
peoples;
• the unity of humanity and the value of human life must never be jeopardized.
And an injunction: in the name of the principle of
humanity, every human being, within his or her
sphere of action, is invested with the responsibility12 for working towards a better world.
© Eugenio Tellez, Bay of Pigs, 1985
Chapter II
Controlling violence
with the use of force
19
From necessity to legitimacy
T
he god Janus had two faces: the face of peace
and the face of war. The obligations facing us
at this stage of the deliberation process have
the same dual nature: they are highly contradictory,
and yet indissociable:
• the obligation to use force if necessary;
This is the difficult question we now have to address.
Possible failures aside, we will not attempt to sidestep
the extreme complexity of the terms the question is
rooted in, now more than ever. We need to steer clear
of the simplistic and Manichean positions of the media-driven world and tackle these often contradictory
demands along with the real dilemmas they reveal.
• the obligation to promote and respect the
principle of humanity.
And yet, we need to come up with answers. Pascal’s
wager13 provides us with surer inspiration than Alex-
13 The French
philosopher Pascal
posits that faith
in God cannot be
based on reason,
as it would have
to rely on an
(impossible)
demonstration
of his existence,
but it is a wager
where there is
infinitely more
to gain than to
lose. This implies
going beyond
the boundaries
that any rational
approach will
come up against,
such as those
represented
by a dilemma.
A choice that
reason has no
solution to is
thus decided
on the level of
conscience, by
the free exercise
of will.
14 An
extremely
complicated knot
that, according
to the ancient
Greek legend,
attached the
yoke to the
ox-cart shaft of
Gordias, king of
Phrygia, in the
temple of Zeus
at Gordium. The
one who could
undo the knot
would rule the
world. Alexander
did not succeed
in untying the
knot, so cut it
with a stroke of
his sword.
15 To use
a metaphor
to illustrate
this point,
the application
of very strict
standards for fire
prevention in
the construction
sector does not
remove the need
for an efficient
firefighting
service, or the
need to use it
when fire breaks
out.
20
16 We will
simply use the
categories that
rationally cover
the historical
notions of jus ad
bellum and jus in
bello.
ander’s Gordian knot14 , since we are not demi-gods
and certainly not gods.
The process springs from acknowledgement of the
potential for violence contained in human beings
and human societies. Sadly, this is an objective fact.
The objection could be made that when this violence
takes concrete form, this results from multiple factors
that could have been addressed beforehand to thwart
the outbreak of violence. However well-founded this
objection may be, and however important the need
to address these factors as effectively as possibly,
whether they be economic, sociological, political or
cultural, it in no way solves the problem of an eruption of violence that no pacific means can quell.15
We are entering the field of the first presupposition
as formulated above: it is based on being required to
and able to oppose this sort of violence by using force.
The use itself must be legitimate, particularly in terms
of the principle of humanity.
The moment has come to clarify and look deeper into
the implications, as a reflection of the confused landscape that is today’s world as described above.
We therefore need to look at two factors:
• on the one hand, the principle of the use of
force;
• on the other hand, the concrete forms of action adopted in the field.16
We need to begin by explaining what we mean by
force.
2.1 Force…
Neither too much nor too little
exactions and massacres involved, and the international community’s prevarications in putting an end
to it.
The required action is to constrain, in other words,
to force the troublemakers into acting against their
will, and therefore to exercise the power of coercion
over them.
What does that mean exactly? We hesitate under the
pressure of inhibition: it means nothing less than being capable of exerting, if necessary, the capacity to
destroy material means at the least, and neutralize enemies at worst, up to the point of taking their lives.
This then, to use frank and straightforward terms, is
what the use of force means. Force is first and foremost the power to coerce, and thus the power to
inflict destruction and death.
This assertion may look like a truism, especially to
pacifists, which is why they avoid using it in their hypotheses. Believers in non-violence refute the legitimacy of the use of force, even when they admit that
it may prove necessary.17
Nevertheless, the experience of the international
community’s ineffectual reactions to the break-up of
Yugoslavia as mentioned above illustrated over four
long years — 1991 to 1995 — a widely shared misinterpretation of the nature of the force to be used.
The term “soldiers of peace”, then much in vogue, is
highly indicative of the confusion that reigned over
goals and means. It is true that the goal of military
intervention can only be peace. But the means have
to be in proportion to the coercion to be exerted, otherwise the intervention is doomed to failure.
The force in question could be defined specifically as
the power of constraint. We should remember that our
starting point is situations of unacceptable violence
where dialogue, persuasion, negotiation, diplomatic
and economic pressure have all been exhausted. And
yet these situations have to be brought to a halt.
The case of the Sarajevo siege from 1992 to 1995 is
particularly revealing. Throughout this time, humanitarian convoys escorted by UN forces had to do their
best to supply the besieged city. They were watched
by the eyes of the world, sometimes via first-hand reports from eminent figures, since travelling to Sarajevo, as dangerous as it was, was a fashionable pastime
for political figures and showbiz stars.
Memories tend to be as short as the desire for peace is
strong. Which is why it is useful to conjure up historical events: we will use the 1930s and the rise of Nazism as our illustration. This period remains the very
symbol of an error of judgement at best, pusillanimity
and collective cowardice at worst.
But these forces were only armed for the strict purposes of self-defence and only authorized to intervene
against belligerents in response to attacks directed
against themselves, never when attacks targeted specific protagonists, even if these were the various unfortunate civilian populations.
However, we also need to mention contemporary episodes: the process of the break-up of Yugoslavia, the
In other words, action was being taken to ensure that
besieged populations were fed, but not to put an end
to the violence inflicted on them, nor even to save
them from dying. They could go to their deaths with
a full stomach! The absurdity of this situation demonstrates the inanity of the concept.
Possibly even worse was the fact that the same concept ensured that the forces — so called by a misuse
of language in a world of absolute violence — had
their military role confined to self-defence, and thus
meant that the protection that should logically be extended to civilian populations exclusively benefited
these same forces.
This makes nonsense of the historical role traditionally assigned to armed forces18 and leads to the betrayal of the principles governing the intervention.
The international community finally woke up, granting the UNPROFOR19 the means to exercise its
mandate — protecting civilian populations. But this
development did not originate in a sudden awareness
of the imperious need to provide assistance, but in
wounded national pride.
In May 1995, following NATO’s air raid on the suburbs of Pale, the Bosno-Serbian capital, the BosnoSerbians took hostage the UN soldiers spread over
the Serb zone to monitor the ban on the use of canons. Diplomatic negotiations had defined grouping
areas in 1994 that flew in the face of the most basic tactical rules, since the UN units assigned to the
monitoring mission were thus exposed to the risk of
being taken hostage; all the military leaders in the
field denounced this situation in their reports.
Dozens of UN soldiers from every nationality thus
went from being potential hostages to actual hostages, and televisions screens displayed the international
community’s humiliation to the entire planet. In this
context, a group of French soldiers was seen having to
surrender, in a scene where the white flag underlined
their humiliation, spurring France to take action.
The newly-elected president of the Republic, Jacques
Chirac, led an intensive diplomatic campaign which
led to UNPROFOR being supported by a Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) with military superiority over
the belligerents, particularly with the use of highperformance canons, an unprecedented step for UN
forces.
This military superiority triumphed in late August in
an offensive combining on-the-ground action by the
UN force, including the RRF, with NATO air raids.
The reversal of the balance of power rooted in the
effective use of force as described above led to the
lifting of the Sarajevo siege.
It is important to note that UN forces were involved
on the ground rather than the NATO forces, which
only took over after the Dayton agreements. This aspect is typical of the operating mechanism used to
conduct operations, and one that we will come back
to further on.
This concrete case is worth looking at in detail, since
it marks a major reorientation in the conception of
the use of force by UN troops. The conclusion drawn
was that once the decision is taken to deploy military
resources on the ground, they have to enjoy a favourable balance of power in relation to all protagonists and
be ready to make use of this superiority, without which
their mission risks failure. The lesson was learned and
applied in Kosovo, the Lebanon and the Ivory Coast.
But the conception of minimal force that the UNPROFOR long illustrated, a fallacy by default, includes a symmetry by being taken to excess; NATO
doctrine has theorized this point for many years.
Peacekeeping operations under the aegis and mandate
of the UN and presenting the characteristics we have
just examined can be contrasted with the coercion
operations that follow the American doctrine. The
goal is to destroy the enemy’s living forces with the
massive and immediate use of significant firepower.
With the aid of technological developments, this approach has been combined with intelligent weapons,
battlefield digitization and surgical strikes.
Although these elements maintained the illusion of
being effective during the first Gulf War and the initial phases of interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq,
the real implications can be observed today in the
disastrous consequences.
This form of use of force offers a striking contrast
between the scope of the means involved, the technological prowess, destructive power and astronomical expenditure, and the extremely limited results in
terms of the goals of war, which stretch far beyond
just destroying the enemy’s military apparatus.
Once it has been destroyed, there is nothing to stop
the survival or eruption of a diffuse, protean and elusive enemy at the very heart of the civilian population. Faced with such an adversary, Star Wars concepts and techniques are desperately powerless, if not
actually counter-productive.
Moreover, the collateral damage — euphemism for
the damage inflicted on non-combatants or even the
massacre of civilian populations — that is a constant
factor in this conception of the use of force in confrontations that have been primarily urban until now,
not only rapidly alienates the people who need to be
17 Gandhi, an
historical figure in
the non-violence
movement,
declared that
between
cowardice and
war, the choice
had to fall on war.
18 In Western
Europe of the
Middle Ages, the
Church invented
the knight,
seeking thereby
to channel
violence. Knights
undertook to
protect widows
and orphans,
even at the cost
of losing their
lives. Modern-day
knights, wearing
their UN colours,
are required to
protect their
own lives, even
at the cost of
the widows’ and
orphans’ lives.
19 The United
Nations
Protection Force
deployed in the
former Yugoslavia
following multiple
UN resolutions
relating to this
theatre of war.
21
Jaques Louis David, Intervention of the Sabine Women, 1799, © RM N/René-Gabriel Ojéda
won over,20 but also betrays in its excess the often
loudly proclaimed principles and values underpinning the intervention.
22
20 The situation
in Afghanistan
perfectly
illustrates this
point.
We can clearly see the inanity of a binary concept
of the use of force that requires choosing either dishonourable impotence or sophisticated barbarism.
The use of force always translates the implementation of the power to constrain, from the lowest level
of intensity to the highest, in proportion to the violence that needs combating, neither too much not
too little. Consequently, the force, whatever its nature, must always be endowed with the means that
give it a favourable balance of power and with the
mandate that authorizes the deployment of these
means if necessary.
The use of force alone is not sufficient, but must be
one of the components of a global strategy, components whose dosage is an art rather than a science, as
war used to be described.
This is the nature of the force that sometimes needs
using. But under which conditions is it legitimate
to resort to such force? This is the next question we
need to try and answer.
2.2 The legitimacy of resorting
to force
The last resort…
This question needs posing due to the extravagant
character of force in relation to the principle of humanity we laid down as an essential prerequisite. It is
true that force, defined as the capacity to inflict death
and destruction, clearly departs from the principle
and its prohibition on injuring the integrity and life
of human beings. We shall see that this departure is
evidently not without boundaries.
However, whatever these boundaries, and even if we
consider that no departure from the principle can be allowed — what would be the pacifist position, which we
have already refuted — the problem in question here is
which conditions such a departure has to meet.
We are not treading unknown ground here, far from
it. From the pluri-secular jus ad bellum to UN Charter
measures, the subject has been widely covered.
The analysis below is based primarily on existing interpretations and adds a number of reformulations
and comments that take into account the characteristics specific to today’s world.
• First condition: the authority taking
the decision is legitimate
This notion is historically linked to that of the nation state, which is now applicable universally, even
if its exclusive power and prerogatives have greatly
evolved, as we have seen, and will doubtlessly continue to evolve. Legitimacy was for many years equivalent to reasons of state. In Christian Europe, only the
Church and papacy were able to oppose the state’s
exclusive hold on legitimacy. And the state tended to
win. The power to decide to wage war and to wage it
gave states a truly kingly role.
Max Weber here identifies the exclusivity of “legitimate violence”. The expression is commonplace and
in constant use, but it deserves closer examination. It is
a strange phrase, to say the least. Since violence is defined as the abusive use of force, how could it be legitimate when practiced by a constitutional state, which
would thus be committing an abuse by resorting to violence? Such an idea seems untenable to us now, if only
for the internal contradiction of its formulation.
The fact that Max Weber was able to come up with
this concept — this was in 1920 — could be because
he believed himself to be merely expressing one of
the manifestations of reasons of state, then considered legitimate under any circumstances.
The unthinkable regression represented by the Nazi
movement at the heart of Germany, despite being a
country that could boast a highly developed civilisation, was to change everything. Never again would
reasons of state equate with legitimacy. The notions
of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide,
introduced by the Nuremberg trials in 1945 and confirmed by the 1949 Geneva Convention, had now to
be reckoned with.
Wars of aggression were denounced by the UN Charter in the same way. The notion of legitimacy came to
be assessed as a function of universal values, set out in
the UN Charter foreword and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; in other words, as a function
of what we have called the principle of humanity.
Consequently, the legitimacy of a state itself can be
questioned with reference to the principle, if recognized as lawful by the state in question. But this clearly implies the state reaching a level of violence that
only insurrection can end. Insurrection then becomes
legitimate, in the name of the principle of humanity
that it must then respect, an obligation that represents a considerable challenge.
Nevertheless, it is obvious that what may, in extreme
cases, be legitimate within a nation, becomes highly
problematic once foreign intervention is involved.
The right to intervene, sometimes talked of as an obligation, must, catastrophically harmful effects aside,
be subject to rigorous conditions applicable to the entire international community.
The first condition governing the legitimacy of the
use of force — that the authority taking the decision is itself legitimate — thus no longer grants this
prerogative automatically or exclusively to the state.
The state must itself be legitimate, which is what we
presuppose below.
Defence in the face of aggression remains legitimate
when undertaken by such states, whatever the circumstances. The most universal consequence is semantic
in nature: until now, the historical function of war
has inevitably been re-baptised “defence” by every
state. The advantage of the word is that the adjective
“legitimate” fits with it very nicely, thus providing the
dialectic resources that open up multiple opportunities for removing the obstacle impeding states’ full,
total and exclusive legitimacy in using force.
However, an initial point needs to be considered as
established, contrary to Max Weber’s habitual expression: there is no “legitimate violence”, especially not
exercised by states. The prerogative in question is the
use of force, a process which should not, aside from
insoluble contradictions, be confused with violence.
This is the very heart of our problem, and the conditions employed in the use of force, including for “legitimate defence” where not all means are acceptable,
will make all the difference.
It remains true that the primary level of legitimate authority in this context continues to be the state. But this essentially moral authority is no longer exclusive.
Authority is now shared with the UN in terms of
decision making and, partially, monitoring. In this
sphere, practice precedes the law: it has become less
and less acceptable for a state to engage in military
operations without previously having obtained the
support of the international community, via the UN.
Nonetheless, as was demonstrated by the American
decision to invade Iraq, the “might is right” approach
can still prevail.
Here surely is an opportunity for progress that needs exploiting imaginatively.
The European Union is also beginning to emerge as
an intermediate level between individual states and
the international community grouped together in the
23
21 The
specificity of
the military
institution lies
in its capacity
to inflict death
and destruction,
thus posing
the problem of
quantifying its
“production”,
and since the
peace obtained
by dissuading
the enemy can
be considered
optimal in terms
of efficiency,
actual military
activity
— fighting
— which can be
considered as its
“production”,
is then
paradoxically
reduced to
nothing.
24
UN. This regional level could prefigure other levels,
and holds the promise of forming another legitimate
authority.
This legitimacy has still to acquire the vigour needed to
inspire a policy robust enough to have an independent impact on agreement between nations, including, if necessary, the question of the use of force. The genesis of the
current conflict in Iraq well illustrates the scope of the difficulties to be overcome within this approach.
This authority is exercised under the critical eye of
a highly diverse array of stakeholders and observers,
national, international and trans-national, from the
press, NGOs, religious authorities, international business, and so on.
What place can be given to these organizations and which
procedures could be devised to do so are questions we need
to address.
As a back up to this moral authority, armies remain
exclusively national. They are the heir to the historical
replacement of armed bands, militia and private armies
which existed in the pre-state world by permanent armies that went on to become the emblematic institution of state sovereignty. But they represent more than
a heritage. The exceptional commitment they demand
from their members, who must be ready to sacrifice
their lives if necessary, is doubtlessly the strongest expression of a collective aspiration which, at this degree,
remains national, and which gives the armies a necessary source of inspiration, for better or worse.
Nevertheless, in the modern-day context, we need to pose
the question of the possibility and pertinence of creating
permanent armies on the international level
We need to take the issue of armies even further. The
gradual emergence of a new form of mercenary in
the guise of PMCs that cover an increasingly wide
spectrum of military functions is a phenomenon that
should not be underestimated. Military intervention
in Iraq provides a significant contemporary example,
with certain developments making the news. With
the use of force as defined being subject to the laws
of the market, are we really on a path to a better and
fully legitimate control of violence? To ask the question is to know the answer: this is a dangerous path
to tread.
It is evident that this phenomenon must be analyzed more
carefully and, if not proscribed, at least supervised, limited, monitored and controlled. Recommendations for this
process will be made.
On a broader scale, this incursion of market-based
principles into the sphere of military functions is part
of a general trend whereby all sectors of activity are
coming under the grip of the economy, preferably liberal. However, within the state apparatus, the military
function by its very nature21 should not, at the risk of
disastrous effects, be subject to economic principles,
with their demand for profitability, management control and qualified indicators.
Furthermore, clear awareness of the excessive power
that armies have leads to the consideration that the
political and military relationship on one hand and
the role of armies in state institutions and civil society on the other are subject to conditions that also
govern the legitimacy of the authorities likely to resort to the use of force.
In terms of exercising power, history has consistently
shown that the separation and balancing of powers
play a decisive role in reconciling the imperatives
of public good and human beings’ personal development. As we know, armies are invested with a formidable degree of power: the power conferred by the
weapons they are armed with and the excessive use
they could put them to. Consequently, this power
must be strictly controlled and, regardless of the circumstances, obey a strict subordination of the military to the political, insofar as the latter is the guarantor of the public good.
But this subordination, excluding as it does all confusion, should not transmute into a subservience which
would result in military power being transferred to
the political sphere. Aside from the unequivocal
examples provided by dictatorships and fascist and
totalitarian regimes, there are many instances of the
harmful effects of insufficient subsidiarity between
politicians and the military. The disastrous conditions prevailing when war was declared against Iraq
in 2003 are a case in point.
The same obligation to balance powers marks out
the limits of the conjunction of military power and
police power so as to exclude all confusion. This is
not a trivial observation at a time when defence and
security tend to merge under the impact of several
converging factors: the dual nature of peacekeeping
operations, the globalization of risk, notably terrorists, and the porosity of borders.
Nevertheless, we need to clearly assert the damaging and potentially liberty-extinguishing nature of
this confusion. As we will see later with the principle
of respect for the enemy, it is supplemented by the
fact that the radical dissymmetry between police officers and their adversary who is, by nature, a crimi-
Armies are not a trivial institution. It is clear that,
considering their function, they are more in need
than other institutions of strong values to guide
their actions. They do not have an exclusive hold
on these values, but necessarily share them with
the society that produced them, which delegates
them in some sense the power to use force, and
from which they draw their legitimacy. It goes
without saying that armies should not be closed
off and inward looking, which would risk their
values losing their strength at best, and being corrupted at worst. Armies, more than any other institution, need to remain resolutely open towards
civil society.
© Eugenio Tellez, Berlin: The Travelling German, 2000
nal, should not, pernicious effects aside, affect the
military’s vision of the enemy.
These points feature a number of aspects that are worthy of being studied on the international level in terms
of the legitimacy of the use of force; their shortcomings
need to be identified or even penalized, and their advances
encouraged.
• Second condition: the aims of war
are themselves legitimate
The jus ad bellum of the past stipulated an injunction
that remains as relevant today as ever: the need for
“right intention”. It is clear that in this case, the intention was not right.
It being understood that the goals of wars
of aggression, territory conquest, seizure of
resources or wealth, enslavement or displacement of populations and massacres are proscribed in the same way as aggression itself is
proscribed, this in no way guarantees the legitimacy of the war’s aims, even if the use of force
is considered to be legitimate.
Be that as it may, the first and main goal for resorting
to force, not exclusive of legitimate interests, must
be to restore a fair and equitable peace, and not some
hidden and less acceptable objective: this is a condition required to grant the use of force legitimacy.
The legitimacy of openly proclaimed objectives
used to justify the use of force may very well
mask less acceptable intentions that constitute
the real aims of war.
This is far from being a theoretical possibility, since it
clearly applies to the USA’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The fact that operations were launched without the
UN’s backing was exacerbated by the stated objectives justifying the war proving to be groundless.
We now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass
destruction, was not capable of producing them and was
in no way providing backing for the nebulous terrorist organization Al-Qaida: the American intelligence
services must have been well aware of all these facts.
One day history may well establish the real aims of war,
whether political, economic, strategic or even ideological, but the very fact that they were not stated publicly
as the war’s main objectives demonstrates unequivocally that they were not enough to justify resorting to
the use of force in the eyes of international opinion.
Which guarantees need to be obtained to achieve this condition? Which penalties should be applied to breaches of
the condition? These are questions that need answering.
• Third condition: the use of force really
is the last resort
The use of force as defined above cannot be justified unless it is engaged in response to a situation of
violence where all pacific means have been tried and
have failed to put an end to it. This is evidently not
an exact science, and the line that separates counterproductive pusillanimity and bellicose adventurism
can be difficult to see. The choice is risky and therefore difficult.
Two contrasting examples from history can provide us
with points of reference.
The first illustrates a breach by default. At Munich,
the United Kingdom, France and Italy yielded to Hitlerite demands by approving Czechoslovakia’s breakup. This decision can in no way be interpreted as
25
stemming from a policy of caution seeking to “exhaust
all pacific means” in the face of Nazi violence. “All
means” would not include betraying prior promises
and abandoning a people to the law of the strongest.
It is clear that this was the moment for the legitimate
use of force or, in other words, engagement in war. To
paraphrase Churchill, to avoid war, we chose dishonour, and war followed soon after.
On a less widespread level, the tragic process of the
break-up of Yugoslavia included many episodes where
prevarication by the major powers illustrates a similar
default breach.
The second example is once again the Iraq war. Since
the main pretext for war was the presence of weapons
of mass destruction, it is evident that not all pacific
means had been exhausted, notably the option of a
monitoring commission. Although it is clear that
there was no right intention...
Having marked out the grey area constituting the
point from which the use of force is not only necessary
but also legitimate once all other means have been
exhausted, we have to be aware of the extreme difficulty of such a choice. We should remember exactly
what engagement in war implies: we leave behind the
shores of a civilised society and world for a place where
we have the immoderate capacity to inflict destruction
and death and, by the same token, to suffer them.
26
Therefore, the capacity of a collective authority to
take such decisions wisely needs questioning at this
point. Is not the natural tendency to delay, to conform to the opinion of the least resolute party, to find
good reasons to put off the decision? Especially when
the collective body concerned, in this case the UN,
does not own the resources needed to execute the
policy to be adopted.
We are therefore back in the province of states. At
this moment in the history of the world, the decisions
that influence people’s destiny broadly continue to be
taken by states, for better or worse.
Once this fact is taken into consideration, the question we
need to study in this context concerns the respective roles
of states and international authorities and the subsidiarity
that needs to exist.
• Fourth condition: the use of force is not
doomed to failure
If it needs reiterating, the aim of using force to thwart
violence is to work towards a better world, in the
name of the principle of humanity. But the price is
always high, both morally and materially: suffering
and death. More than high, it is exorbitant, and war
is always a flawed solution, even when necessary and
the lesser of all evils.
Which means that a choice of this kind is always
excessively risky and that the prospects and consequences it opens up must be very carefully weighed.
The problem is that the moment of truth always arrives after the event.
We can, however, ask ourselves what we would think
of a decision to use force that led to one or other of the
following results:
• the pursued objectives are achieved, but the
losses and damages suffered to achieve them are
far more significant than those caused by the violence that led to the decision to take up arms;
• even worse, the decision has resulted in failure, despite the price paid, particularly in terms
of destruction, sacrifice and death.
Can we avoid feeling that the decision was futile?
Does that not mean by the same token that it was
illegitimate?
The first case is not purely hypothetical. It corresponds to the situation in Iraq today. Are we sure that
we have “worked towards a better world” in this part
of the planet?
The Indochina and Vietnam wars, waged by France
and the USA respectively, were rooted in the same
mistake. In addition to the fact that these conflicts’
legitimacy was debateable, the results were damning: the strategies employed should never have been
adopted.
The same point applies to violence committed from
such a position of superiority that to oppose it with
military means would be more or less suicidal, or
would at least expose the challenger to disastrous
consequences.
This explains why we have not gone to war against
Russia for Chechnya or against China for Tibet. The
noble-minded might well object indignantly that we
were less cautious where Serbia was concerned. This
is true, and if the question of the legitimacy of military actions taken against Serbia warranted a dispassionate study, it is certain that the hypothetical interventions it examined would be pure madness.
This confirms the lasting relevance of one of the
jus ad bellum principles: that there be a reasonable
chance of success.
This point clearly reveals the considerable incertitude
about this criterion that exists prior to the decision making.
Excessive prudence may lead to blameworthy cowardice,
but bellicose adventurism can only end in catastrophe.
It also underlines the enormous responsibility that political
and military decision-makers have to bear, and all it implies for the moulding of their mentality, character, culture
and choices.
War without hate…
The conditions for legitimacy of the use of force
evidently continue on from the conditions that we
identified for resorting to force, both categories being
inextricably linked.
The same applies to the principle of proportionality
applicable to all decision-making levels as well as to
respect for the enemy and civilian populations. The
denial of these principles can only originate in a given level of responsibility or execution, but can just
© Eugenio Tellez, The Shadow of Allah, 2006
In the future, our descendants are likely to be amazed that
democratic processes for so long played the role of final-
2.3 The legitimacy of operating
mechanisms for using force
27
decider in this sphere. In the immediate term, we need to
conceive of ways and means to improve this situation.
These then are essentially the conditions we can fix
on as providing legitimacy in resorting to force, with
the avenues they open up for measures that could be
adopted to ensure that they are respected. We will
address these measures later on in this document.
Before doing so, we need to look at the problem of
operating mechanisms that, as we have seen, represent the other and equally fundamental aspect of the
legitimacy of the use of force.
as well be incorporated in the aims of war from the
start or, more subtly, in the actual reference system
for soldiering.
• Fifth condition: the means chosen and used
are suited and proportionate to the capacity to
gain the upperhand over the enemy
This condition is founded on its opposite: who would
not revolt against the fact of a military response being
disproportionate? This is justice in its most elementary
form. Especially since it is dealing with people’s lives.
Which is why the use of force must be carefully gauged
according to the desired effect, i.e. gaining the upperhand over the enemy to force him into submission.
This principle applies to every level, from the highest
strata of responsibility to the individual combatant. It
is not, however, a given. The stakes are so high and
incertitude generally so strong that to lessen the risk
and avoid taking chances, even if only as a precau-
Acquired behaviour usually governs whether or not
the principle of proportionality is observed. This behaviour is generally created early on at two levels: operational doctrine and training at every echelon.
In terms of doctrine, as we have already mentioned,
the American and thus UN-type approach to this
question is sadly unambiguous: it constantly and on
every level advocates the massive, redundant and overdeveloped use of extensive
firepower right from the outset.
This doctrine has gained widespread acceptance. We can see its influence on the
strategic and tactical level as well as on
combatant behaviour in the field. The effects are, as we know, usually highly destructive. Which does not prevent a derisory, if not positively damaging, outcome.
As for the training given to both leaders
and combatants, it is hardly surprising
that it aims to create decisions and behaviour that conform to the doctrine, so that
these become almost instinctive.
© Eugenio Tellez, Moors on French Bridges, 2000
28
tion, the natural tendency is always to ensure that
means are substantially superior and to put them to
immediate and highly destructive use.
However, if that which is a tendency becomes the
rule, force rapidly degenerates into untrammelled violence. The possible alternatives can almost always be
hierarchized according to their proportionality to the
enemy’s prospects, from the destructive use of force
to simple dissuasion. The principle of proportionality
does not entail systematically choosing the lesser option; rather, it means not systematically choosing the
more forceful option, and opting for a solution that
achieves the stated objectives at the least cost.
These are not academic questions: examples of radical
breaches of this principle of proportionality abound.
These breaches are not just morally culpable, they are
also counterproductive in creating a breeding ground
for barbaric reprisals and relentless hatred. A textbook case in point is the conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians.
Measures that could be devised so that the
legitimate use of force does not degenerate
into unbridled violence with the use of disproportionate means should include reorienting
doctrines and training so they conform to the
principles all the planet’s countries have subscribed to, notably the major powers. These
measures should be backed up by monitoring procedures,
or even disciplinary procedures if necessary.
• Sixth condition: civilians must be protected
and their lives and means of survival safeguarded
The dividing line between behaviour respecting
military honour and barbaric practices has long been
based on the fate meted out to civilian populations:
people not bearing arms, especially women, children
and the elderly.
The current glaring contrast between the feats of our
technological civilisation and the incredible regression that makes civilian populations the main targets
and victims of war is painfully evident.
It is true that the distinction between combatants
and non-combatants is often difficult: the stakes, and
therefore the theatre of war, tend now to be rooted
in urban areas with a strong concentration of people
and where the enemies are often indissociable from
the civilian populations who provide them with help
and protection whether they want to or not.
Does this justify a failure to ensure that every possible effort is made to protect the life and integrity
of civilian populations? The answer is of course no,
unless we revise our fundamental options, rooted in
the principle of humanity.
decent living conditions (by repairing the irrigation
systems in particular), served to throw the population
into the arms of the Taliban. This being, furthermore,
a population mostly abandoned to the warlords, with
poppy farming as an added factor.
The objection may be made that since the adversary
is not imposing the same constraints, we are placing
ourselves in a position of inferiority and vulnerability
where failure is the likely outcome.
Terrorism itself, which could be addressed at this
point insofar as it abolishes the distinction between
combatants and non-combatants, will be addressed
explicitly later on.
The argument was used for decolonization wars. The
need to use the same means as the adversary was sometimes accepted, along with the theory and sometimes
the practice of counter-subversion doctrines that ran
counter to all the proclaimed principles. This phenomenon has also occurred in Greece and South
America. And yet has such a breach of principles had
any final outcome other than a moral defeat that continues to tarnish the West’s image today?
Thus, unless we betray our more fundamental principles
and accept a regression in humankind’s destiny, the inviolable obligation to respect civilian populations when using
force needs stressing, as well as the need to accompany
military intervention with measures for protecting them and
restoring their living conditions.
Suffering, losses and damage inflicted on civilian populations, including the elderly, women and children,
by heavy and indiscriminate gunfire and shelling is
currently justified as being the only means of neutralizing the combatants entrenched in the middle of this
population as though behind a human shield.
Such operating mechanisms are usually dictated by
the desire to spare the life of the assailant. Does this
not reveal a terrible regression of civilisation? Not
only do soldiers lose the nobility that springs from
exercising the terrible capacity to inflict death at the
risk of their lives, but, even worse, they lose their
souls by avoiding this risk at the cost of sacrificing the
weak and innocent.
In this context, military doctrines and training must be
unequivocal. It also calls for monitoring and disciplinary
procedures.
• Seventh condition: the enemy must be
respected
The obligation to respect the enemy is sometimes
portrayed as an antiquated relic of a feudal and aristocratic era, a rule used by people inhabiting the same
world, notably mercenary troops who used to observe
the same codes and could easily switch from one side
to another from season to season.
An added argument is that the adversary is now protean and not worthy of respect, particularly when it
comes to terrorists. In addition, since respect cannot
exist without reciprocity, and since it is not reciprocated, today’s enemy cannot be respected.
Over and above moral considerations or any immediate possible efficacy, experience shows that indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations, whether
deliberate or due to collateral effects, are invariably
counter productive. It has reached the point where
guerrillas who are ready to stoop to any means may
use the pernicious tactics of trying to provoke reprisals
and exactions against their own people. To succumb
to this tactic means playing into the enemy’s hands.
Furthermore, the use of force in this context should
only be one of the components — to be finely gauged
and used with discernment — of a complex operation for creating the conditions, mainly economic
and material, to make peace the most attractive of
options.
Here again, an approach based on opposites will help
to make such distinctions. If we do not respect the
adversary, we will in turn be the target of scorn and
hatred. As history never fails to show us, scorning and
hating the enemy equates to denying their humanity,
which in turn necessarily transmutes into barbaric behaviour. Since this is exactly what we wish to avoid,
respect for the enemy, whether a regular army solider,
conscript or guerrilla without a uniform, is a crucial
imperative.
Afghanistan is a perfect case in point. The initial exclusive focus on the military option, with the accompanying excesses rooted in the doctrine previously
described, and without a simultaneous restoration of
To make our position very clear: this imperative does
not entail showing leniency in extreme cases for the
butchers, torturers, executioners and real terrorists
regular armies may come up against in today’s conflicts.
This brings us to a central theme of the questions that
help us to distinguish force from violence, humanism
from barbarism.
29
But it does require avoiding falling into the trap of imitating the behaviour of the adversary, which leads to
betrayal of the values underlying the intervention.
zism to the extent that he ended up being condemned
to death by Hitler, took the principle as the title of a
work that can serve as a benchmark for this issue.
Almost everything in this sphere has been said, written down and signed via the many Geneva and Hague
conventions and what are known as the laws of war
dealing with the treatment of casualties and prisoners.
Barbaric behaviour that deviates from these conventions is identified and proscribed. National and international courts relatively often address and penalize
such behaviour.
We will have a hope of winning this cause if we take
action on two levels:
There is a singular inconsistency that should be denounced before such behaviour arises: there has as yet
been no attempt to identify and stigmatise the ideological, conceptual and educational factors that bear
this behaviour within them, just as the rain cloud
brings the storm. There are two of these factors:
• firstly, on the conceptual level: statutory and
educational reference documents to guide behaviour must not only banish everything that
serves to overly sanctify the cause and encourage excessive hatred of the enemy but also promote the idea of war without hate as the height
of military professionalism. The same thing
naturally applies to the preliminary political
message which should not demonize the enemy
with impunity or call for a crusade or holy war,
to the role of the media and to the education
provided in families and schools;
• the soldier’s motivation, mainly fed by hatred
for the enemy, made explicit and encouraged via
training procedures and the educational process;
• on the practical level, with the resolute and
exemplary commitment of leaders accompanied
by appropriate educational methods.
• an excessive sanctification of the political
cause and military mission which, to a certain
degree, leads to demonizing adversaries and the
ensuing denial of their humanity.
The time has come to identify the concrete factors
that make up the most powerful motivation for military action on the ground.
We know that, sooner or later, this results in barbaric
behaviour.
30
Military action, by its very nature, leads participants
down this path. It is hard to imagine how the strange
profession of soldiering could be exercised without a
powerful motivation, faced as soldiers are with extreme situations where they must overcome their
stress and fear in conditions rarely united elsewhere.
Soldiers may find themselves required to call on their
entire being: how can this situation, with its underlying dialectics of life and death, occur without calling
up extreme feelings?
On the positive side is the sanctification of the cause,
on the negative a ferocious hatred of the enemy, both
of them inextricably linked. These feelings are exacerbated by the ferocity of the confrontation, the din
of battle, the suffering and death of brutally mowndown friends, and the horror of witnessing barbaric
exactions and massacres.
This is precisely why every effort should be made to
promote the ideal of war without hate, a concept that
is not merely utopian. In France, the Foreign Legion
is, on many levels, archetypal of a combat unit, and
has always stressed this principle during legionnaire
training. Field Marshal Rommel, top German military
leader during the Second World War, who defied Na-
As history invariably demonstrates, aside from the
valour of the soldiers, their skills, equipment and
training, troops are rendered valiant neither by ethereal motivations nor by patriotism, which needs to
be incarnated, but above all, possibly exclusively, by
what we can call “esprit de corps”, fostered by the
spirit of brotherhood of arms. In other words, the unshakeable solidarity that builds up within regiments,
battalions and companies, horizontally in the spirit of
camaraderie, and vertically in hierarchical relationships based on reciprocal trust and shared respect.
The group recognizes itself in a powerful collective
identity capable of taking each member beyond their
individual selves. This identity is expressed by symbols, attributes and a vocabulary that work together to
convey the chosen values. In this context, the leader
— colonels, captains or even sergeants for their dozen
soldiers — plays a unifying role in creating “esprit de
corps” and the powerful alchemy that is the brotherhood of arms.
But this system, which could be exceptionally powerful, is totally ambivalent, for better or worse. Which
demonstrates the heavy responsibility of military leaders, who need to teach, promote and exemplify the
values required to prevent the brotherhood of arms
being corrupted to the extent of fostering barbarity.
This is the level where war without hate that resolutely excludes barbaric behaviour needs to be practised,
and these leaders are largely responsible for ensuring
that the ideal is promoted, internalized and practised
as one of the marks characterizing the collective identity. This serves to underline the key role of the training given to leaders, officers and non-commissioned
officers; it must be based on reference documents and
use educational methods specific to the context.
We can see to what extent international measures are deficient as far as this point and the previous two points are
concerned. The stated principles do not pose a problem,
since they are mostly clearly expressed in texts signed by all
the world’s states, the most significant being the 4th Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949. But the problem
that precedes the issue of the signatories — including the
important ones — betraying these principles, is the glaring lack of consistency with adopted measures in terms of
education in general, military training in particular, and
cultural and media orchestration. We need to devise monitoring and disciplinary procedures to resolve this problem.
At this point of the discussion, we cannot avoid an
objection likely to be raised for a long while to come
and at the heart of the problem of controlling and
regulating violence in today’s world: the regulations
in question would be invalidated by terrorism.
2.4 C
ontrolling violence
and regulating the use
of force in the face of terrorism
The War on Terror was effectively declared, to use
the vocabulary of the past, the day after 11 September
2001. It was immediately made clear that the principle of “just cause for war” would not be applicable.
This engendered, in particular, the treatment of prisoners taken during the campaigns in Afghanistan and
Iraq, the lack of respect of human and civil rights in
Guantanamo, and the media coverage of Saddam Hussein’s capture, all constituting, then and now, flagrant
breaches of the Geneva Conventions. And these are
only the most widely publicized consequences.
Within this context, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian problem and choice of operating mechanisms
already long in use by the Hebrew state in the fight
against terrorism has received clear encouragement.
The horror aroused by terrorist attacks in the midst
of civilian populations makes it particularly challenging to maintain a rational, dispassionate and measured approach to the problem posed by appropriate
responses. This is, however, the issue we need to address scrupulously, objectively and lucidly.
Marc Chagall, War, 1943, (© ADAGP, Banque d’Images, Paris 2009)
31
We will begin with the arguments in favour of suspending human and civil rights in the treatment of
terrorism.
• Terrorism is, by definition, outside the
law, so should be treated outside the law,
a treatment that remains legitimate in the
name of legitimate self-defence
We can set down four categories of reasons used to legitimize the transgression of “just cause for war” principles.
Since the authors of terrorist acts place themselves totally on the margins of international conventions and
thus cut themselves off from the human community,
we can consider that the principle of humanity cannot apply to those who reject it. This argument mirrors the watchword of the French revolutionaries during the Terror: “no liberty for the enemies of liberty.”
Furthermore, the imperative need to protect civilian populations requires that measures and operating
mechanisms outside the law be adopted, whatever
the price, particularly in moral terms, insofar as the
laws help to facilitate terrorist actions and expose the
same civilian populations to danger.
In addition, the barbaric acts of terrorists render them
seemingly inaccessible to rationality and shared sensibility. Dissuasion is only possible by terrorising the terrorist, which would legitimize a very broad spectrum of
forms of action on the margins of conventional law.
Terrorism blurs the line between combatants and
non-combatants. Submerged in the midst of civilian populations, terrorists are not identifiable, to the
point where even women and children can be terrorists. Even when they are not, they are deliberately
used as a sort of human shield, which is why hospitals,
schools and places of worship are chosen as hideouts
or base camps for shooting and offensives, places considered as being protected from war, barbarity aside.
Consequently, targeting terrorists almost always
causes what is euphemistically referred to as collateral damage. However, seeing as necessity makes the
rules, these cases would be legitimate exceptions to
the international convention regulations.
• Conscientious objection: the end
of our vision of civilisation?
32
These arguments are characterized by their assertion
— sadly usually backed by reality — of untenable violence which, considering that necessity now equates
to legitimacy, makes an absolute necessity of responses
that can only be described as violent in turn, whether
moral, material or physical and particularly when directed against civilian populations. In other words, we
legitimize violence with the use of violence against
violence, thus re-introducing the exclusive principle
of the balance of power and law of the strongest (in
this context, the most violent) into conflicts.
If one day the terrorist cause triumphs, it will have
gained respectability and glory. The pariah, the devil
will have become a recognized representative. Anyone who takes a look at the events of the 20th century
will see that this is not a purely hypothetical case.
There is no point lying to ourselves and laying claim
to a vision of civilisation rooted in a new humanism
that now aspires to be global. This would be the pessimistic and/or cynical option.
Another option is to consider terrorism as an extreme
expression of complex problems that call for a solu-
tion other than an exclusively military response with
a necessarily disproportionate use of force and a similar level of violence. To reformulate the question: is it
not because terrorism necessarily generates an equally
violent military response that the problem as a whole
should be approached on an infinitely broader scale
to avoid this dead end? Here, as elsewhere, a preliminary attempt to introduce semantic precision in the
use of the word terrorism is required.
• Terrorism: a form of action
What is it that we label as terrorism? It is not an ideology, let alone a faction or party, as the commonly
used expression “war on terror” suggests. It is a form of
action, with its own rationality. As its name indicates,
it aims to inspire terror in the adversary and amongst
the enemy populations to achieve its political ends.
We can however observe that the word, which could
strictly be applied to all operations of this nature,
such as the Second World War air raids on London,
Coventry, Leningrad, Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is used almost exclusively for
operations based on a strategy of the weak against the
strong. In an asymmetric conflict opposing a power
equipped with the full array of modern weapons and a
powerless adversary, whether a state, people or faction,
the balance of power is so overwhelmingly weighted
in favour of the strong that the weak renounce the
option of a suicidal head-on confrontation and seek
to strike where they can have a real impact, even if
only morally, on their powerful enemy.
In today’s urbanized world where the media is omnipresent, especially in democracies, the more spectacular and bloody the attacks on city centres against civilian populations, the greater their effect. Terrorism
practised in this way thus demonstrates a strategy of
circumvention adopted by the states or factions making the decisions and choosing this means to pursue
their political goals.
• A purely military response between
protagonists: a tragic dead end
It is an appalling, odious and criminal choice, but focusing on this depiction of terrorism prevents any progress
in addressing the problem, which is political and can
only be tackled effectively with a political solution.
An exclusively military response combined with the
refusal to establish dialogue that usually accompanies
the demonization of the terrorist organization leads
to a dead end: besides a lack of dialogue making polit-
ical progress impossible, the
often overwhelming nature
of military retaliation only
underlines the enormous
disproportion of force, and
thus encourages strategies
of circumvention, i.e. the
very terrorism the response
is seeking to end. Furthermore, the general use of the
term “terrorist” to describe
guerrilla actions that are
not strictly speaking a form
of terrorism and those who
undertake them (in the case
of attacks or ambushes with
military aims) is a useful
way of discrediting the adversary, but serves equally to
eliminate political solutions.
© Eugenio Tellez, The Garden of Masaya, 1988
There is an even worse
aspect to the confrontation between terrorism and counter-terrorism. In addition to the organizers there are those
executing the orders, now often via suicide missions. By confining ourselves to denouncing the
fanaticism that drives them as a strange and diabolical phenomenon which must be eradicated
with the use of force, we lock into a vicious circle.
As the events of the last half-century prove, the
pool of terrorists is fed by three collective feelings:
injustice, humiliation and despair. The three combined can create inextinguishable hatred. The use
of force in retaliation as it is practised, by its very
nature and with the inevitable collateral damage
and hardship it visits on civilian populations, combined with armed incursions into people’s homes,
arrest and the inevitable brutal treatment, beyond
an apparent immediate efficacy based on death and
destruction, serves merely to strengthen those feelings of injustice, humiliation and despair and thus
nourish hatred from one generation to the next.
The organizers are so aware of this phenomenon
that they seek to provoke it: the riposte to terrorism thus has a boomerang effect. We cannot win
the struggle — and we lose our soul. If we do not
bring an end to these unresolvable tragedies, we
are preparing the inexpiable struggles of tomorrow.
When we reach this point — as is indisputably the case
in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians — the
international community needs to wake up. The tragic
confrontation between the Hebrew state and Palestinians
must be ended. Especially in the light of its harmful effect
on world peace, insofar as Israel appears to many as a
bridgehead of the West, a last incarnation of colonization.
As unthinkable as it may seem, the only feasible solution
is to put the conflict zone under supervision and install
a credible international force equipped with appropriate
means which will guarantee both sides, with total impartiality and the respect of laws, that they have no more
to fear from the other side. Once arms have been laid
down, we need to work together to find the political solution that should always have been the starting point.
An operation of this kind requires a firm and joint
political and military commitment from the USA
— whose role here, even more than elsewhere, is decisive — Europe, Russia, Turkey, Iran and the Arab
countries. Is this a utopian prospect? No, as long
as we become fully aware that the spiral of violence
briefly sketched out here, with its existing and future effects, constitutes a danger for all humankind.
The same perception should have governed the response to
11 September and the necessary intervention in Afghanistan, which at that time undoubtedly offered a sanctuary to terrorists, by seeking the involvement of the Asian
powers, China, Russia, India and Iran. This is another
theatre of war, even though the conditions are less dramatic, which can only lead to a dead end, as discussed
above, and there can be no way out without establishing
political dialogue and the involvement of regional powers.
Nonetheless, the terrorist phenomenon in no way invali-
33
© Eugenio Tellez, War: Battlefields, 1999
dates the principles of war without hate. We are faced
with the phenomenon because of earlier political errors in
failing to effectively analyze the situation and offer, in addition to a military response, the political solutions that are
the only practicable response. As it is, the use of excessive force, of violence to combat violence, has contributed
to creating a bloody course of action with no way out.
34
Escalating violence between protagonists can reach the
point where the only possible solution is political and military outside intervention in their tragic confrontation. This
intervention is inevitably a matter for the major powers
concerned by the conflict, acting with total impartiality.
The use of force needs to be placed in the context described here.
Without being able to eradicate violence from our
world, we have detailed the conditions required to ensure that the use of force, which may prove to be necessary to combat such violence, does not invalidate
the principle of humanity that underpins our desire to
build a better world. The issue is complex and cannot
be reduced to oversimplified representations. Not the
least of the difficulties is that regression into barbarity,
always a possibility with the use of force, can arise not
only from explicitly bad intentions but also from good
intentions married to a clear conscience.
Cannot an analogy be drawn between this issue and
that of technological progress, which has now been
well identified? After two or three centuries when
technological progress seemed to equate to progress
for humankind, we are now aware that it may have
negative effects, that these may even outweigh the
positive effects, up to a cataclysmic magnitude. This
has produced the ecological requirements for controlled development, respect for and restoration of the
key balances of the natural world, and scrupulous attention to the damaging affects of human inventions
and activities.
Awareness of this kind has yet to be established in
terms of relations between states and peoples.
The recommendations below are based on the main
results of the thoughts and ideas developed here.
They cannot be effective without the emergence of
this awareness. Let us hope that it emerges without
the need to fall to the depths of the abyss that the erring ways of the modern world are leading us to.
Chapter III
Recommendations
3.1 A three-way collaboration: states/
UN/NGOs
As we have shown, if violence is the work of a very
diverse range of actors and organizations, states continue to be the central actors when it comes to the
use of force. It is therefore at this level that actions
concerning the legitimate use of force must be addressed.
As members of the UN, states are tied by the conventions they have signed and by the UN Charter itself,
to which they have also agreed to abide. The UN
thus offers an international legal framework invested
with very broad conflict resolution powers. Its role is
divided into three fields:
• that of the depositor, even the guarantor, of
international law concerning the use of force;
• that of arbiter and judge, with the power to
convict and punish states that fail to uphold
their obligations;
• that of actor in a conflict once the decision is
taken to intervene; in this case, since the UN
does not have its own forces, it calls on contingents from member nations which act under its
authority.
Acting both as depositor for the principles and provisions that govern the laws of war and as the sole
organization capable of orchestrating planet-wide deliberations with every nation as a member, the United Nations remains unchallenged as the platform of
choice for reviving and optimizing a conflict resolution system.
There are many reasons for saying that the United
Nations plays this role less than perfectly; the most
critical reason is undoubtedly the veto power enjoyed
by the permanent members of the Security Council. It
is therefore fair to doubt its ability to embrace for itself, as well as to impose on states, especially the most
powerful, the restrictive provisions of a more legitimate use of force, the primary outlines of which we
have described.
Happily, today’s world contains a group of stakeholders
that are relatively independent of states and that exercise considerable influence in raising public awareness and thus exerting pressure on political masters,
and that enjoy an international audience; these are
the large number of humanist-inspired organizations
that combine to create global networks of influence:
nonprofit organizations, foundations and various
forms of societies. For convenience, we will call them
by the generic name of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). In order to get their voices heard they
have access not only to the full range of modern media, especially television, but also to the internet, an
exceptional tool for the propagation of information
for which no historical precedent exists.
We should also note that there exists within the UN
structures a little-known body whose remit allows it to
call upon stakeholders such as those described above:
the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
There is doubtless scope for NGOs to make their voices heard within the UN using this model, which needs
improvement, or thanks to an extension of its remit.
However, this is not the proper place in which to propose a reorganization of the United Nations, however
necessary such a change undoubtedly is, especially as
regards the Security Council, the top tier of UN decision making.
As our aim here is to work towards reinvigorating
the capacity to regulate conflicts, we shall at this
point simply underline the themes that will need
tackling as part of the tripartite state/UN/NGO relationship.
35
This process will need to be put in place
both directly, if possible, via a forum of
UN member nations, and indirectly via
modern means of communication likely
to raise awareness or even mobilize public
opinion, thereby partially influencing governmental decisions.
3.2 The need to raise
awareness
Regarding violence and the use of force
between states, nations and peoples, an
effort must be made similar to that in
place relative to the environment, aiming to make all aware of the issue: that
of the potentially cataclysmic outcome
of current reprehensible practices in this
domain, which are a major threat to all of
humanity and to its common destiny.
3.3 Promoting benchmark
models
René Magritte, On the Threshold of Liberty, 1930
(© Phototèque R. Magritte – ADAGP, Paris 2009)
Whilst fully respecting the diversity of cultures and
civilisations, in the face of a peril such as this it is
important to promote appropriate values necessary
to humanity’s common good. These values lie in two
domains:
• the fundamentals: what we have termed the
principle of humanity;
36
22 For example,
a simple and
telling exercise
is to simply
compare the
various codes of
conduct in force
across the world’s
leading armed
forces.
23 Idem
• their application to the problems surrounding war, violence and force and the conditions
for the legitimacy thereof as we have identified
them.
In order to achieve this, documents of all types need
to be produced, and they must be as attractive and
accessible as possible, backed by promotional campaigns running across all conceivable outlets.
Based on the concepts previously described, the UN
must be encouraged to undertake a thorough reformulation of its reference corpus relating to fundamental
values and the laws of war. There is no question of
invalidating the founding texts such as the Charter,
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the
Geneva Conventions; the task is rather to make a
summarized solemn declaration adapted to the world
of today, and to have this signed by all states.
3.4 Procedures for identifying and
assessing cultural, doctrinal,
regulatory and educational
systems of reference
The purpose here is to aim for the required consistency between the values and resulting principles on the
one hand, and national systems of reference on the
other hand, be these cultural (in their widest application), doctrinal (as in military doctrine), regulatory22
(as applied to the armed forces) or educational23 (for
the purpose of training for the armed forces).
In order to achieve this, a far-reaching survey must
be made of all relevant documents and procedures.
These shall then be evaluated in the light of the principles and conditions governing the legitimacy of the
use of force. This will in turn lead to a publication
that shall be periodically updated and properly publicized.
The UN will be encouraged to take up this information, to make it its own and to make use of it. Such
uses may be anything from making an observation, to
issuing a summons demanding that aberrant actions
cease, to taking sanctions if necessary.
3.5 When and how force should be
used: procedures for analyzing
and assessing the conditions
Every conflict and every intervention by armed forces
must be examined with the aim of assessing whether
the conditions governing the legitimacy of when and
how force is used have been respected. This is not
a new field, but it is one that needs to be considerably expanded upon. Again, actions by a given NGO
would aim to simultaneously raise public awareness
and encourage the UN to set up such a procedure
internally, all the way up to taking sanctions should
these prove necessary.
3.6 A
comprehensively revised
system for preparing armed
forces called on to intervene
under UN authority
The current arrangements are incomplete and somewhat half-hearted, as they focus on “operations other
than war” — the inanity of such a concept I have
already demonstrated — and must be replaced by a
fully-fledged international training and coaching centre. Based directly on the concepts set out above and
with a suitable educational framework, placements
would be arranged for managers as well as residential
training courses for units destined to perform missions
under the authority of the UN. Such a centre might
also conduct seminars, inviting a range of concerned
participants, especially political leaders.
3.7 An experimental permanent
international force
The time has surely come for the establishment, on
an experimental basis, of an embryonic permanent
international force. Comprising three battalions,
sufficient to allow permanent availability, this force
could be designed and trained by referring to the extensive experience of France’s Foreign Legion, a force
which, as stated earlier, has forged a fine reputation.
3.8 Strict regulation of Private
Military Companies (PMCs)
A wide-ranging campaign must be undertaken to inform public opinion about the reality of PMCs, their
nature and possible abuses. The UN must be encouraged to set rigorous limits and to punish breaches.
In conclusion…
We live in an age where we can clearly discern the
potentially cataclysmic consequences of humanity’s
Promethean dreams. This means that the period we
are living through is an historical turning point.
Now more than ever, therefore, the violence of war
stands as a stumbling block between humanity and
its ability to control its own destiny. It lies at the
heart of the human condition, and the way in which
it is tackled, with the use of force it may require, is
the starkest possible indicator of the extreme complexity of our world.
In order to surmount this challenge, knowing as we
now do in the light of the tragic experiences of the
last century that there is no grand design, no irenic
vision of the world and no radiant future that is not
sooner or later transformed into the exact opposite,
we are faced with three convictions:
• the necessity for extreme humility when
faced with the complexities of the world;
• the immense responsibility that we all bear
to work for a better world, in the name of the
only truly worthy cause, that of Humanity,
guided by the principle of humanity;
• the possibility in this information age to
elicit a global awareness that transcends, but
never denies, national self-interests.
The measures proposed for controlling the violence of war through an informed use of force meet
these triple objectives. Some might consider them
too modest, others too ambitious. I hope that they
are realistic; no one could deny that were they perchance to be adopted, they could aid in the construction of a better world. A better world does not mean
the “Best of All Worlds”, quite the reverse…
37
The most serious of all the dangers facing humanity at the outset
of the 21st century is undoubtedly that which threatens its very
survival. Since the end of the 20th century, we have entered into a
transitional phase, with one crisis succeeding and overlapping the
next. One of these crises is utterly fundamental: that of the relationship between human beings themselves. The most fundamental of all these crises is the one affecting the relationship between
human beings themselves. Without being unduly optimistic, we
can posit that organized citizens, far-sighted political leaders and
fair-minded spiritual leaders could between them succeed in neutralizing the damaging effects of the current crises and find new
solutions. But it is not certain that they will. A new world governance without control over the violence of war would not be
achievable — or would be under constant threat.
Propo sal Paper s Series
40
Jean-René Bachelet spent his entire career in the French army,
rising to the highest levels of command. As a general officer,
he commanded the Sarajevo sector as a brigadier as part of the
UNPROFOR in 1995. Since 1996, he has been leading in-depth
discussions on laying the foundation stones for a code of ethics
and behaviour for the military profession, a process that has
provided the French army with a reference framework on these
issues. The discussions have taken concrete form with a number
of documents. The main documents are Fondements et principes de l’exercice du métier des armes dans l’armée de terre
(Foundations and Principles of Exercising the Profession of Solider in the Army) and the Code du soldat (Soldier’s Code). He
ended his career as Inspector General of the Armed Forces. His
current roles include president of the Association des Glières.
Foro por una nueva Gobernanza Mundial
Pour la mémoire de la Résistance.*
FnGM
FnGM
Fn WG
* The Glières plateau in Upper Savoy, south east France, was a focal point
for the Resistance movement against the Nazi occupying forces in 1944.
Forum pour une nouvelle Gouvernance Mondiale
www.world-governance.org
This paper is published with the support of the Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer

Bringing the Violence of War under Control in a Globalized World

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