Woodstock Report | 250 Instruments of Peace

On the morning of October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the New York Times reported that North Korea stood on the brink of testing a nuclear weapon, and that Western nations had rejected a proposal by Iranian officials to end the nuclear standoff with their regime. The Times also reported that eight American soldiers had been killed in Baghdad the day before, the most in any day since July of last year.

Clearly, not everyone is petitioning the Lord to "make me an instrument of Your peace," in the words of the Prayer of St. Francis. And, from the headlines that morning, one could reasonably infer that not every political figure is reflecting deeply upon what the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz styled as the "fog of war."

Yet on that evening, nearly 250 people gathered in an auditorium at Georgetown University to hear a thoughtful and civil conversation about the morality (or immorality) of war, and the possible roadmaps to peace. The occasion was a Woodstock Theological Center forum marking the publication of the book, Just War, Lasting Peace: What Christian Traditions Can Teach Us (Orbis Books), which stemmed from a November 2003 symposium co-sponsored by Woodstock and the U.S. Jesuit Conference.

"The purpose of this forum is not to sell books," said Woodstock senior fellow Dolores Leckey in her opening remarks as both moderator and general editor of the book. "Our purpose is to encourage thinking people to understand the development of just-war theory, its application to our moment in history, and to see more clearly, the importance of becoming communities of conscience."

There are multiple reasons why such a dialogue would be urgent, and Leckey underlined one of them - that "preventive war" has become a pillar of American foreign policy, in response to the threats of international terrorism.

Leckey related that the book - authored by the Jesuit Conference's John Kleiderer, freelance writer Paula Minaert, andWeston School of Theology student Mark Mossa, S.J. - defines preventive war as "going to war to prevent an attack that is foreseeable or conceivable at some time in the future." This is distinguished from preemptive war, which is "going to war to counter an attack that is imminent," said Leckey, who is now giving talks and lectures based on the book.

The Bush administration articulated its doctrine of preventive war following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and rode this doctrine into Baghdad. The administration argued that the 2003 invasion was justified at least in part by the need to fend off the use of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (which, famously, did not materialize after the invasion).

More recently, not simply the doctrine but the specter of preventive warfare has shadowed the nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea. On October 9, North Korea carried out its intention to conduct a nuclear test.

And so, moral questions about this political doctrine threaded through much of the discussion held October 4 in Georgetown's Bunn Intercultural Center Auditorium. Featured at the forum were presentations by Robert Royal, a Catholic writer and scholar who directs the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington; Maryann Cusimano Love, a Catholic University of America political scientist; and Marie Dennis, executive director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, together with assessments by co-authors Kleiderer and Mossa.

According to Royal, the Catholic just-war tradition sanctions the use of deadly force to prevent an attack, even when the attack is not imminent. He applied the theory to Iran, which, he believes, has decided to build a nuclear arsenal.

"Prudence and wisdom in the Catholic tradition tell us that in circumstances like that, it may be the wisest, it may be the holiest, it may spare the most lives to resort to force earlier rather than later," Royal said. He acknowledged that diplomatic options have yet to be exhausted and that perhaps a strategic mix of carrots and sticks will shift Iran off its nuclear course. But, referring to those carrots and sticks, he added quickly and ominously - "I happen not to think that they will" dissuade Iran.

Royal subscribes to what Just War, Lasting Peace designates as the "classical" just-war position, which takes a less restrictive view of the use of deadly force than does the "contemporary" view. The latter view is held prominently by the Catholic Church's hierarchy, which upholds the value of non-violent resistance to evil but allows for a limited use of force "when repeated attempts at nonviolence fail," Father Drew Christiansen, S.J., editor of America magazine, explains in the book.

Cusimano Love of Catholic University, who shares this perspective (in substance if not delineation), regards preventive warfare as outside the limits of Catholic just-war teaching.

"It may be the wisest . to resort to force earlier rather than later" -Robert Royal

Some Catholic commentators say that today's terrorist threat requires an expansion of the church's teaching to make room for this strategic doctrine, but Cusimano Love countered, "This [argument] makes a number of empirical and moral assumptions that I think are just wrong. It assumes that force is the best way to address these issues, [and] that force is effective to disarm or prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction." She added, "The record of preventive war is that it doesn't work."

If that doesn't work, what does? Among other successes, Cusimano Love pointed to a host of international treaties and mechanisms that have limited the number of nuclear nations to far fewer than what was generally predicted in the early 1960s.

Maryknoll's Dennis, who is also vice president of the Catholic peace organization Pax Christi International, believes the most authentic Christian hope is for nations to develop the tools of absolute non-violence, but she indicated that this could take decades. The reports from Pyongyang and Tehran suggest that those who reflect upon issues of war and peace will have to think much faster than that.

William Bole is a Woodstock fellow. Video excerpts of this forum can be viewed online at woodstock.georgetown.edu/forum/justwar/.