Military Review English Edition September-October 2014 | Page 105

IRREGULAR WARFARE

exceptions he calls revisions. In addition to sovereign
nation-states, Walzer recognizes that international
society contains independent political communities,
nonstate entities, and geopolitical conditions that at
times may legitimately counter state or international
order. His justifications for intervention can be paraphrased as—
responding to imminent threat,
assisting secessionist movements of legitimate
political communities,
balancing prior nation-state interventions in civil
wars,
rescuing those threatened by massacre, and
applying prudence by limiting war aims.11
Beyond these exceptions, Walzer discusses the
exception of supreme emergency, but only under strict
criteria of a danger’s imminence and the nature of
the threat.12

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Concepts of Legitimacy
In addition to terms such as the legalist paradigm
and its revisions, defining ideas such as legitimate political community and self-help helps clarify how concepts
of legitimacy relate to the morality of war.
Legitimate communities and self-help.
According to Walzer, understanding what constitutes
a legitimate political community within a nation-state
can help another state determine when an intervention on a community’s behalf is morally justified.
According to his theory, a legitimate community
passes what he calls the self-help test: “a community
actually exists whose members are committed to
independence and ready and able to determine the
conditions of their own existence.”13 For example,
Walzer argues that intervening on behalf of a secessionist movement under the second revision of the
legalist paradigm requires sufficient evidence that the
movement has demonstrated forward progress in its
“arduous struggle” for independence.14
Acceptable purposes for intervention. Just war
theory prescribes that deciding when to intervene
also requires knowing the ends for which a state has a
moral right to intervene. The purpose of establishing
democracies or liberal political communities does
not meet just war theory’s acceptable ends; only the
establishment of independent communities does.
Intervening states do not have the moral authority to
MILITARY REVIEW  September-October 2014

carry out their own political goals with respect to a
political community they might be aiding. Moreover,
Walzer says that “domestic tyrants are safe [from
offensive action],” so long as they have no intent or
designs on posing an immediate threat of aggression
against another state in the international system.15
While domestic tyrants may be considered safe, from
a moral standpoint, from other nations waging war
to overthrow them, when communities within their
states decide to revolt, and the revolt meets certain
threshold conditions, then intervention by another
state on behalf of that community may be justified.
Legitimacy of a political group as an acceptable
strategic purpose for irregular warfare. I believe
the threshold conditions set by Walzer’s self-help test
are too high. For instance, a resistance movement
that represents a legitimate community committed
to the cause of independence might not pass this test
because it is not capable of carrying out its intent.
Attempting to morally justify resistance movements and insurgencies must begin with understanding their strategic purpose. State and nonstate actors
wage irregular warfare “for legitimacy and influence
over the relevant population.”16 Policy makers should
consider the movement’s strategic purpose in any
moral analysis.

A Moral Basis for Revolt and
Intervention
Walzer’s first four revisions to the legalist paradigm weigh the relationship between a nation-state
and the rights of its people. These revisions allow that
conditions within a state may provide moral grounds
for insurgency, guerrilla war, and intervention by an
outside entity.
Conditions within a state—a contract and
protected common life. Walzer views the rights of
nation-states as originating from the individual rights
of their citizens. The state, therefore, has obligations
to defend its citizens from outside state aggression and
to protect their rights, lives, and liberties, or “common
life.”17 A state’s failure to meet these obligations means
relinquishing the moral justification for its own defense.18 This assertion lays a foundation for justifying
revolt and intervention. By governing responsibly and
protecting individual rights, states derive their legitimacy from their people. This represents a functioning
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