Military Review English Edition September-October 2014 | Page 106

Figure 1.
contract and a protected common life. In contrast,
governing oppressively causes a state to lose legitimacy
in the eyes of its population; however, the state’s ability
to wield power and influence still enables it to enforce
the contract, albeit without any guarantee that it will
safeguard the common life of its citizens.
Such a circumstance may leave no recourse for the
population other than forcibly changing the government or its policies. When a state becomes tyrannical
and oppressive, a population’s violent struggle against
the state should be considered morally justifiable. In
just war terms, a state’s deliberate efforts to oppress and
harm its citizens constitute a form of aggression that
should justify an internal response to it.
Coercion as a form of state aggression. A prominent just war theorist named Brian Orend, author
of The Morality of War, recognizes violation of human rights using coercion as a form of aggression. He
concludes, “either states or nonstate actors can commit
aggression, which we have seen is what roots a morally justified resort to war.”19 Tyrannical governments
might confront their citizens with a choice equivalent
to state aggression: “your rights or your lives.”20 The
citizens’ attempt to compel a government to alter its
policies through the use of force, even if it means overthrowing the government, is arguably a kind of independence movement.
A proposed sixth revision to the legalist paradigm. As our own nation arose from revolution, our
values “give us the credibility to stand up to tyranny.”21
Therefore, I believe there is room for exception in just
war theory’s treatment of domestic tyrants and suggest adding one more revision to the legalist paradigm.
104

This revision should allow for aiding violent resistance
movements of peoples victimized by government
harm and persecution, even if their political community has yet to fully gain the ability to determine its
own existence. This means that intervention in a nation-state to stop its oppression of, or deliberate harm
to, its citizens may be a morally prudent and justified
policy choice.

Decision-Making Models for
Choosing Just War
Walzer navigates between two moral extremes for
choosing to wage war, either when it is never justified
or when survival is at stake. The latter refers to responding to aggression or helping another state in its response
to it, which are both the only morally justified reasons
under the strict conditions of the legalist paradigm.
A decision-making model under Walzer’s legalist
paradigm. The decision model under the principles
in the legalist paradigm may look like figure 1. The
moral decision point for war becomes absolute under a
national interest of survival or when coming to the aid
of another state in its struggle for survival.
Walzer’s first four revisions to the legalist paradigm
allow some room between these two poles. For example, Walzer describes cases that justify outside intervention, such as when a state’s violation of the rights
of its citizens stands out as “so terrible that it makes
talk of community or self-determination or ‘arduous
struggle’ seem cynical and irrelevant.”22 He also allows
for humanitarian intervention and rescuing people
from massacre where the goal is limited solely to rescue
without any additional political objectives.23
September-October 2014  MILITARY REVIEW