In Defence of War

by Nigel Biggar

Pacifism is popular. Many hold that war is unnecessary, since peaceful means of resolving conflict are always available, if only we had the will to look for them. Or they believe that war is wicked, essentially involving hatred of the enemy and carelessness of human life. Or they posit the absolute right of innocent individuals not to be deliberately killed, making it impossible to justify war in practice.

Peace, however, is not simple. Peace for some can leave others at peace to perpetrate mass atrocity. What was peace for the West in 1994 was not peace for the Tutsis of Rwanda. Therefore, against the virus of wishful thinking, anti-military caricature, and the domination of moral deliberation by rights-talk In Defence of War asserts that belligerency can be morally justified, even though tragic and morally flawed.

Recovering the Christian tradition of reflection running from Augustine to Grotius, this book affirms aggressive war in punishment of grave injustice. Morally realistic in adhering to universal moral principles, it recognises that morality can trump legality, justifying military intervention even in transgression of positive international law-as in the case of Kosovo. Less cynical and more empirically realistic about human nature than Hobbes, it holds that nations desire to be morally virtuous and right, and not only to be safe and fat. And aspiring to practical realism, it argues that love and the doctrine of double effect can survive combat; and that the constraints of proportionality, while real, are nevertheless sufficiently permissive to encompass Britain's belligerency in 1914-18. Finally, in a painstaking analysis of the Iraq invasion of 2003, In Defence of War culminates in an account of how the various criteria of just war should be thought together. It also concludes that,
all things considered, the invasion was justified.

Genres: Philosophy, War, Politics, History, Theology, Nonfiction

374 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Nigel Biggar CBE is Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Pusey House, Oxford. He holds a B.A. in Modern History from Oxford and a Ph.D. in Christian Theology & Ethics from the University of Chicago. He was appointed C.B.E. “for services to Higher Education” in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours list. His most recent books are Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023), What’s Wrong with Rights? (2020), In Defence of War (2013), and Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation (2014). In the press he has written articles for the Financial Times, the (London) Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, the (Glasgow} Herald, the Irish Times, Standpoint, The Critic, The Article, Unherd and Quillette. He served on the Committee on Ethical Issues in Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians (London) from 2000 to 2014, the Royal Society’s Working Group on People and the Planet from 2010 to 2012, and the Pontifical Academy for Life from 2017 to 2022. He now chairs the board of trustees of the Free Speech Union.

He has lectured at the Royal College of Defence Studies, London; the UK Defence Academy, Shrivenham; the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr, Hamburg; the US Military Academy, West Point; and the National Defense University, Washington, DC. His hobbies include visiting battlefields. In 1973 he drove from Scotland via Iran and Afghanistan to India. And in 2015 and 2017 he trekked across the mountains of central Crete in the footsteps of Patrick Leigh-Fermor and his comrades, when they abducted General Kreipe in April-May 1944.

Reviews

[Peter Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid, if difficult read addressing some of the objections to just war theory. Some of it was hard to follow as he was addressing really precise arguments that I was not as familiar with. I would not encourage this as an introduction to just war theory. The first couple of chapters cover the basics and would be good for someone new. But after that he gets into the weeds and it becomes heavy slogging. Still if someone is familiar with just war theory and needs to go more in-depth this is a good book. His chapter on love in war, as well as the one on proportionality were particularly thought provoking.

[Eric S · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a VERY long philosophical book on the Christian concept of the "just war".  If you're not very interested in that subject, I'd pass on this book.  There are some very good and interesting points, but it is overly long and often repetitive.

I found that the author did an excellent job of attacking the logical basis of both Christian and non-Christian pacifism.  That was probably one of the best parts of the book. He explained in detail the strong points of the pacifist argument.  It was a definite "steel man" argument, which makes his rebuttal well worth reading.

The chapter on trying to make NATO's actions in Kosovo a "just war" failed on a couple of grounds.  The author attempts to show the war was a humanitarian intervention and therefore “just".  The problem of trying to show justification without historical context is flawed.  It shows a profound lack of historical knowledge to pick an arbitrary point in time and use what happens after that as justification for your actions. If you're going to pick a side in these never ending "you hit me last" games, use a coin toss.

The attempt to make the 2003 invasion of Iraq a just war failed by the author's own metrics.  He would have done a much better job picking the 1990-91 conflict over Kuwait.  It's very difficult, some may claim impossible, to frame a preemptive war as a "just war".  The author's claim that the 2003 invasion was a justified preemptive action doesn't come across as convincing. 

The author makes a case that there needs to be a way to hold "rogue" nations in check or else all nations suffer to some degree.  Failure to act, like in Rwanda, is an action.  He suggests things like the UN, NATO, or the US with other nations acting in agreement. I do not agree that just because a nation CAN act to rectify injustices on the international scene that they should.  Good people may claim I'm totally wrong about that, but then I must have missed when the US got elected world sheriff. Perhaps too many cases of  "good intervention" created the  almost never ending "conflicts" that the US has been involved with in the 21 century.  Lastly the author seems to ignore that governments, like people, often do things that are NOT in their best interests.  I think of Russia and Britain in their 19th century preoccupation with Afghanistan and the "great game". There are lots of conflicts that do not fit into the one side is right and the other wrong category.
So overall I cannot recommend this book.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

The obscenity of a Christian that thinks himself at least as good as his god.

Biggar wants war, because there is a law in the Bible that says ”Kill thy neighbor, rape his wife, take his goods as if they were yours”. And he is right, after all he is a servant of a King that fights in many wars all over the World.

And the arguments are in sync with his ego: things are like this, because Biggar said so, hence proof of say Russia or China trying to rule the World in the manner of Buggar's master and savior King.

This man is Christian only in the sense of hurting the souls of Christians.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really thoughtful essays in here, my favorite being the one on Double Effect. Additionally, he clearly amplifies the idea that acting militarily, and not acting militarily can both have serious body-counts. However, some essays lacked the persuasive ability I was hoping for, particularly the essay "Against Christian Pacifism." While he handles some arguments from Hauerwas, Yoder, and Hays ably, he misses on others.
Ex.

1. The argument from silence regarding Jesus and the Roman Centurion
- I admit this is probably one of the stronger arguments against pacifism, yet he fails to address the counter-argument regarding a normal Centurion's religious duties. While Jesus does not tell him he must act non-violently, he also does not tell him to reject paganism either. There may be flaws in this counter, but he does not address its strengths or weaknesses either way.

2. He avoids and quickly dismisses what he calls the "Anabaptist distinction" - "namely that sword bearing is indeed authorized by God, but not for Christians" as "theologically incoherent and morally hypocritical." (60). This distinction he names has been an attempt to wrestle with Romans 12 and 13. Regardless of how you synthesize these chapters, this view deserves more than a one to two sentence rebuttal. His argument/characterization and the Anabaptist Distinction are not mutually exclusive. Anabaptists may have a correct Pauline interpretation, and Biggar might find it morally hypocritical.

Having said this, I believe that this book is a must read for those interested in Christian ethics regarding violence, just war, and pacifism.

[Zach · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is helpful in its honesty. Biggar is straightforward about the fact that embracing just war theory means embracing the killing of innocents, and an adventure into moral relativism, where we justify what we know to be wrong for the greater good. This book is useful in understanding why human rights and war are incompatible (evidenced by the fact that Biggar has written a critique of rights, “What’s Wrong with Rights?”).

Where this book fails is its ability to reason correctly. The hand waiving away of serious ethical objections to war is unhelpful to a serious conversation. Additionally, his historical analysis is really cherry picking facts. (On WWI he completely ignores the growing tide of historical work demonstrating that the war was the result of political blunders, not a well thought out moral crusade).

All in all, the book fails to live up to its title.

[Michal Paszkiewicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting and quite surprising read. The author has surprising clarity of thought and discusses many difficult topics throughout the book. I was entirely persuaded by his argument that the battle of the Somme was just, that the intervention of Kosovo was just and rather less so that the invasion of Iraq was just. Even though the last case was not entirely persuasive, the arguments were well presented and at least provide empathy and understanding for that position. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in international politics and interventions

[Kit]

Listening 11/21/19 to Q interview from 5/15/19 with author.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The essays on Proportionality in the First World War, Legality and Morality and Kosovo, and Constructing Judgement: The case of Iraq were well constructed and important in this day and age. Plainly, Nigel Biggar takes the inherent messiness and uncertainty of life and warfare and applies them where many would like only to see clear absolutes, reminding all of us is that there are worse things than warfare in this world.

[Robert Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Biggar's book is probably the most important work on theories of war in decades, certainly within Christian circles. The worthy dialectician of Yoder, Hauerwas, and Hays, I take Biggar's work to be the seminal Christian work on war going back to Yoder's work (which, I believe, should not be mentioned without mentioning from Yoder's legacy of sexual abuse). I think it is the most important work on war, period, since Machael Walzer's magnum opus, 'Just and Unjust Wars'.

Biggar's grasp of the subject matter and literature base is astounding, and the nuance he provides helps him to outmaneuver many pacifists as his argument in 'In Defence' does the nitty-gritty detail-work necessary to make an argument about war in all of its complexities.

He opens by arguing against pacifists, going in-depth against Yoder, Hauerwas, and Hays, but also answering many secular pacifists as well. I find his argument here to be extremely persuasive. Biggar's argument then moves on to an analysis of the psychology of war to examine if love, or virtue, can be present in soldiers and commanders--Biggar says they can. His argument here seems to be less persuasive, mostly because it comes across as a defensive argument against pacifists, whereas I think Biggar may benefit from a more positive re-casting. However, this may merely speak to the nature of war, that its essence is a tragic, not heroic, narrative.

Biggar then provides an analysis of the doctrine of double-effect, and a few other of the major issues in the debate, before providing a point-by-point defense of the '03 invasion of Iraq as a just war...in the UK...pretty ballsy. Biggar's goes point-by-point, and makes a persuasive case. I have still not decided whether I buy it or not.

Biggar's book should be read widely, not only because of its importance, but also because of its depth and beautiful prose. As far as academic works go, this is a masterpiece of writing skill.

It is one of my favorite books, and I will read it again and again in the years to come.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent take on a complex and important issue. Highly recommend.