Just War Analysis

From the earliest origins of the human race people have found reasons and excuses to engage in conflict and ultimately kill each other. Starting with the proverbial story of Cane and Able and the rock used to commit murder man has also searched for new and inventive implements to be harnessed in an attempt to make killing more efficient. Unfortunately, as education, innovation, and technology has increased so has the effectiveness of these weapons. As man has moved from the rock, to the sword, to the bow and arrow, and later into weapons of mass destruction the threat to non-combatant populations has exponentially. Thus, it seems only prudent that the understanding of a just war doctrine and a treatise on how to use these weapons honorably

This contrasts glaringly with the events of Hiroshima and the use of nuclear weapons by the United States. In order to minimize the amount of civilian causalities Israel began with targeted long range missile strikes to known rocket locations. While this tactic was efficient and would be justified by proponents of kriegsraison the Israeli’s discovered that many of these attacks resulted in large amounts of collateral damage which is a violation of just war doctrine. Thus, Israel escalated their approach to targeted airstrikes which placed their pilots in danger but allowed for more accurate targeting and reduced civilian casualties. However, airstrikes that fell off target or were too close to civilian areas in the densely populated Gaza city still created an unacceptable amount of collateral damage. With this in mind, the Israeli leadership altered tactics again and opted for a route which would cause the least amount of collateral damage while still effectively ending the rocket strikes. To accomplish this mission Israeli Defense Forces deployed ground troops to Gaza to directly engage and eliminate the Hamas rocket positions. This allowed for the most accurate differentiation between combatants and civilians and thus created a situation where collateral damage could be reduced to a minimal level. The drawback to this strategy was that it placed Israeli lives in danger but it was a proper application of the just war doctrine’s principle of military efficiency vs. moral restraint. Through this campaign Israel set a standard and example which stands as a beacon for other conventional militaries to