Peace

Norms and Religion

Rules governing the conduct of war have existed in virtually every culture. The Aztecs, for example, developed elaborate rituals that preceded conflict, including dispatching ambassadors, providing an opportunity for a prospective foe to submit peacefully to Aztec rule. (Failure to accept three such offers was required before military operations could commence—even though the process meant abandoning all possibility of surprise and, since the ambassadors traditionally brought gifts of weapons, the opponent's military capacity was increased.) War itself, however, was typically regarded as a natural state. Early Western philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato gave relatively little thought to war as an atypical phenomenon. The seeds of what is now the just war tradition, limiting not only the conduct of war but the recourse to war itself, lay in the transformed perception of war from being the norm to being an exceptional state that required justification.

Christian theology contributed much of the content of the just war tradition but only after literal interpretations of Christ's injunction to “turn the other cheek”—on its face a doctrine of radical pacifism—could be rationalized by St. Ambrose and St. Augustine into a dualistic framework that [Page 1838]separated inward disposition from outward action. This dualism lives on today in the principles of double-effect, right intention, and proportionality, each important to the modern legal framework for the use of force.

Religion has been significant at both ends of the spectrum of peace and war. Gandhi, among others, stuck to the utopian position of extreme nonviolence—adopted as a way of life rather than simply a tactic. Similar pacifist tendencies continue to inform much research on peace, despite some views relegating it to the margins of international affairs. At the other extreme, radical Islam has elevated the traditional Muslim notion of jihad (literally “struggle”) to a holy war against all infidels and any Muslim who collaborates with them.

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