War and Peace

War and Peace

Introduction

War can be described as an actual and intended armed conflict between the political groups. Minor issues and fights between individuals, street gangs, or feuds cannot be considered as war. War is something that occurs between political communities only, which are actual states or intend to become states.

War is something very evil and brutal. But still it has always remained common in the human history. The threat of war and war itself, continue to be the forces in our lives. Recent events related to war prove this proposition. For example the attacks of 9-11, and then the counter attack on Afghanistan, bringing down the power of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the bombings that took place in London and Madrid, Darfur crisis in Sudan and the continuous war on terror. The twentieth century has seen extreme cases of warfare.

Because of The brutal and violent nature of the war, there are many moral questions that come in the minds of a thoughtful person. For example if war always is a wrong thing to engage in, or are there any such situations where we can justify the step of war, or will the war always stay in some way or we can do something to make it end for good, is there a reasonable way of waging war or is it just an unreasonable and cruel slaughter, when the war ends, how can we speed up the post war restoration and who should head it all, what exactly are our rights regarding all this when our own society is the one to initiate it. (Ceadel, 1987)

Discussion

Just War Theory

The just war theory is the most significant view point regarding the ethics of war and peace. The theory can be divided into three parts. First part is the jus ad bellum which is related to the justification of going to the war. Second part is the jus in bello, which is related to the justification of demeanor within the war, after it has started. The third part is the jus post bellum which is related to the peace agreements and the end part of the war. (Campbell and Dillon, 1993) 

The rules of jus ad bellum are for the head of the state's first. Because it is the political leaders who go on to initiate wars, they are most accountable for the rules of jus ad bellum. They will be considered as committing war crimes if they do not adhere to these principles. The just war theory says that to justify the initiation of any war, it is necessary that they the political group or the state must fulfill these six requirements:

Just cause: this is the most important rule. The rule says that a state may initiate or launch a war if it has the right reason to do so. The just reasons may include resisting to aggression, protecting the innocent people from aggressive and brutal leaderships, self defense from some outside attack, defending others for the same reason, and punishing for any ...