WW II in many ways is the beginning of the end of Western Christian civilization.
The Just War Theory and the attempt to prevent and eliminate civilian casualties was a hallmark of Christian West.
WW II brought, for all intents and purposes, an end to that ideal of Western Civilization. Now even with precision weapons that can send a bomb through a specific window and in to a building before blowing up civilian casualties are considered acceptable.
Christianity and Christian Charity are considered archaic principles and even the word Christian is now offensive. Besides ending the lives of 65 million people WW II ended Christian Era.
I have a contrary option.
Just War Theory (first expressed by St Thomas Aquinas), is to define our Christian approach to war (best book on the subject is by Walzer).
Prior to Just War there was total war—attacking the enemy, all of them, military and civilian alike, with the aim of total destruction.
Just War prohibits waging total war.
For Christians, to be a Just War, we aim to mitigate the suffering of the innocent. Islam does not—everyone is a target, no matter if they are military or civilian.
Just War also defines when wars are to be conducted and to what end (defensive, retaliation, not retribution). So, if someone attacks you, you have a duty and Christian obligation to defend yourself.
If the attacker forces you to fight and casualties ensue (like they do), the number of causalities is immaterial if you strive to limit the the number of causalities (military and civilian) to no more than necessary.
Precision weapons comport well with Just War. Limiting innocent causalities is the aim of Just War and precision weapons do that well. For example WWII it took over 8,000 free-fall bombs to achieved a 90% Pk on a 90’ x 100’ target (Air University study). Today, with PGMs, like the SDB, it takes one, just one weapon to achieve the Pk. This means less bombs off-target and less collateral (”innocent civilians”) damage/deaths.
Sending a bomb to just blow-up innocent civilians because we can is not allowed by Just War, LOAC and by ROE.
Can “innocent civilians” be hit? Yes, but ONLY under certain conditions.
If they are contributing directly to the war effort, like working in a munitions factory, they can be causalities of striking the factory.
However, we are prohibited by Just War and LOAC from hitting a farmer in the field, as he may be growing food for an army but that is not contributing directly to the war and the food he grows has a dual use, like feeding other civilians.
Innocents may also lose their protected status if the enemy army uses them as a shield, like say, setting up in a hospital and raining death on friendly troops. We are not, under Just War and LOAC, prohibited from striking back. Responsibility for the innocent lives lost resides with the enemy using them, not us.
So, bottom line, it is not acceptable to strike a bunch of innocent civilians just because they are there, however, there are certain conditions, limited conditions, where striking them is in accordance with Just War and LOAC.
Long time lurker, very rare poster, but your comment and the response really got my goat so to speak.
You could not be more wrong. The idea of “Just War” is neither a hallmark of Christianity or actually designed to prevent civilian casualties. Rather “Just War” is the logical outcome of the Whig/Marxist dialectic and by innate design, encourages totalizing wars of annihilation. The logic may seem counterfactual, but as with usual leftists plots, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
Total war isn’t actually a modern concept, it is actually an ancient and primitive one. The complete destruction of an opposing group was the de-facto way of war since man was using wood clubs and flint spears. Even with the arrival of Christianity, this didn’t change much since the default method of warfare in Europe up into the late middle ages from the collapse of the Roman Empire was the Chevauchee, i.e. the civilian massacre.
The big break actually came following the bloodletting of the Thirty Years War and the new European balance of power that lasted up until the beginning of the 20th century. The general trend of European warfare from the late 17th century onwards were characterized by frequency but remarkably few casualties both military and civilian given the number of combatants involved. What generally happened was when once side was losing, they would surrender en mass or retreat and the other side would accept it and not murder all the captives as generally tended to happen before.
The reason why wars became less bloody at this time was not because of “Just War” but rather because war became legitimized for all parties involved. That is to say following Westphalia, notions of justice were simply irrelevant and wars became more like sporting contests. Sure you lost round one, but there is always next season and when all parties accepted the legitimacy of state aggression, the costs of losing wars became less onerous for the participants and thus the incentive to completely annihilate the others in an all or nothing gambit disappears.
“Just War” on the other hand returns us back to the earlier era where the legitimacy of all parties involved is not de facto acknowledged. Instead of recognizing winners and losers of political contests, it sees only the “Righteous” and the “Criminal”. Upholders of the so-called International Order and breakers of the Peace. Paradoxically, “Just War” theory rather than preventing conflicts which arises from differences in interests, serves to maximize grudges and encourage escalation. When all parties see one another as illegitimate enemies instead of competing principals, the stakes become all the higher and chancy wars of annihilation and the resultant civilian massacres become certain.
Actually, World War I marked the beginning of the end of Western Civilization. World War II was just a continuation.