Introduction

In his book In Defence of War the author Nigel Biggar aims to tackle the intellectual prevalence of
pacifism in the academia offering determined argumentation in support of the early Christian just
war theory. Besides the issues usually connected with this question such as pacifist reading of the
New Testament, he also bravely includes the defence of military action that is globally seen as
controversial at best. He argues that the cases of the Allies in the WWI, NATO’s bombing of
Serbia over Kosovo, and the invasion of Iraq, belong to the just war category. The thrust of
Biggar’s argument is that if the just war theory is biblically supported, then it requires not only to
somewhat sheepishly permit going to war for the achievement of some greater good, but that rather
that it is a good thing to do, and that it is something that pleases God.

In this abbreviated presentation I will discuss several points in Biggar’s argument that I consider
not obtaining to their claims.

1 On Richard Hays

Responding to Richard Hays concerning his interpretation of the NT soldier narratives Biggar
finds him wanting on four accounts. 1) Soldiers are presented as sinners, but it does not say what
their sin consists of; 2) The confession Jesus as the Son of God by the centurion is dramatic, but
not because he is a soldier, but because he is a pagan; 3) The Centurions at Capernaum and
Cornelius are not described as sinners. Rather they are gentiles who are not treated as unclean; 4)
The other sinners mentioned in the NT are required to renounce their sinful practices. Not so the
soldiers.

If the New Testament understood Jesus to mean non-violence simply, and

regarded participation in the military profession as intrinsically sinful, then
surely its authors have taken care to tell us that soldiers who became
Christian disciples renounced military service? That they do not amounts
to a silence that speaks volumes.1

We know that the Christian church in the Pre-Nicaean era did not permit military service, among
other things, because of the pagan rituals involved. If one has to assume, as Biggar suggests that
the Gospel of Luke “… on no occasion does it suggest that a soldier’s salvation involves the
renunciation of military service as such,”2 then one can make the equal assumption about the pagan
practises involved in the military service and which were required by default. As a matter of fact it
was the explicit rejection to perform similar pagan rituals, such as offering sacrifice to the emperor
as divine, which brought many Christians to persecution. Shall we then conclude that because
there were not explicit commands to the soldiers to reject ritual worship of the emperor or other
pagan deities, they were actually free to go on with that practice? We know from other parts of the
New Testament that such worship has to be rejected. And also we are told in other parts of the
New Testament that we shall not retaliate and use violence in resolving our grievances against

1
Biggar 41-42
2
Ibid,

1
other individuals or the state. With this aspect considered, Biggar’s argument out of silence is not
so loud perhaps.

In his reading of Hays Biggar finds him wanting on the interpretation of Rom. 13:4, 12:19 as well.
According to Biggar the mandate of the official from Rom. 13:4 is not only for non-Christians, but
for Christians as well, and the admonition against vengeance in 12:9 is not absolute, but it is
qualified with the desire for social order, and therefore Paul advises endurance of some tolerable
injustice. This pattern of thinking also extends to the teaching of Jesus whose dismissal of violent
response to the Roman occupiers of Judea shall be read strictly in the context of religious
nationalism. According to Biggar, Jesus would have none of that. On the contrary he is first of all
interested in social order and therefore he recommends the turning of the other cheek and walking
the second mile.3

However, a more serious injury, although we are not quite told at what point a tolerable injury
becomes intolerable, and especially injury against one neighbour demands a response that in some
cases might include violence, and even killing.

Biggar muses “I might deliberately kill an aggressor, not at all because I hate him, nor because I
reckon his life worth less … nor because I want him dead, but because, tragically, I know of not
other way to prevent him from perpetrating a serious injury on an innocent neighbour.”4

Biggar’s argument comes from what shall be read between the lines in the New Testament
instructions on non-retaliation. Any withdrawal from acting on behalf of an innocent neighbour is
deemed sinful as it fails to show one’s love for that neighbour. But then Biggar does not bother to
tell us what shall we think of instances of such flagrant murderous injustice such as in the case of
the murder of Stephen. All the text in Acts tells us is that no one of his Christian fellows stood up
to protect him. They simply took his body and buried him. If it is true as Biggar claims that
defending a third party from unjust harm and violence is not only legitimate for Christians, but
their solemn duty, then the early church, the apostles included, sinned by not trying to rescue
Stephen. On the other side we may take the case of Steven as an example where Christians do not
take the law into their hands so that they disturbed public order. Bu then, the definition of suffering
some tolerable injustice has to be radically redefined, as there will be little left to come under the
category of some injustice suffered for the cause of public order.

If Jesus was so concerned for public order with his teaching on suffering some injustice, then one
has to ask how is then that Biggar takes his action in clearing the temple, and the harsh words
against the establishment as an argument for just use of violence. Following Biggar’s argument,
making the outer court of the temple into a market place, and being rotten hypocrite surely are not
offences that require violent action. What is so much at stake that they vouchsafe the disturbance
of public order? But if one grants to Biggar his way in presenting these actions and teachings of
Jesus, the context does allow different reading. Rather then giving free reign to violent action
against the offences of the Jewish establishment, the action of Jesus in the temple, and his

3
On this account one is allowed to wonder what was the duty of Joseph upon receiving the instruction to flee to
Egypt knowing that many other infants will be slaughtered. Not that he did not try to protect the innocent
neighbours, but from the text one can infer he did not warn any of them about the forthcoming bloodshed.
4
Ibid, 49.

2
vociferous denunciation of hypocrisy and injustice points to a significant part of his mission on the
Earth. Jesus is addressing his own people, the people of God, the descendants of Abraham, and
their specific mandate to be light to the other nations. What Jesus does is to address those closest to
him, and those whose role should have been to make sure the oppressed, and the powerless are
treated justly.

If anything this is an address to his own home, and by that token this is an address to his immediate
disciples and the church through the centuries. One can say that Jesus was teaching his people, like
a parent their child, how not to retaliate to their peers in school. He was strict with his own,
because he wanted them to be able to embrace and forgive others.

Who are then the others? In Jesus parables they are usually those who were seen as public sinners
and enemies. According to Jesus, they also must be counted as neighbors. When Jesus spoke of
other ethnic groups traditionally perceived as enemies, he did not use any of the harsh words
reserved for his own people. On the contrary, he used them as an example of compassion and
justice, like the case with the Good Samaritan.

2. Expectations vs case merit

A common feature that connects all the cases, which Biggar defends as war with a just cause, is
that in each instance he finds a precedent that justifies the reasoning of the just party to take
military action. For example in his assessment of the just cause of the USA to go to war against
Iraq, even without the clearest of evidence for crimes against humanity, the action is justified
because Sadam’s regime has already performed war crimes and atrocities in the past. The logic
being, if Sadam and his henchmen have done this in the past, one is to assume that they will do it
again.

This is fair enough, and it is logical. To be able to predict future course of action based on previous
habits is simply prudent way of using our cerebral faculties. However, there is a twofold problem
with Biggar’s use of this human capacity, viz., one-sidedness. On one hand he would not give the
benefit of this reasoning to the parties whom he deems unjust and deserve coercive military action
against them. Take for example the Serbs. In the territories of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina
civilian Serbs were the main aim of the Croatian Ustasha’s killings during the WWII. In the early
nineties of the last century, most of the Serbian extended families had a member with a living
memory of these atrocities. After all the concentration camp of Jasenovac was created not so much
for the extermination of the Croatian Jews, but for the Serbs and the Gypsies. Were not the Serbs
right to take arms as a way of preventing this slaughter happening again?

The other part of Biggar’s one-sidedness is concerning the just war agents, NATO, and especially
the USA in this case. Namely that USA had a less than honorable record in waging wars all over
the world, which could not be called just by any stretch of imagination. Biggar has the following
advice: In the case of the USA when deciding on the just cause to wage war, every case should be
examined on its own merits. For USA Biggar requires that former unjust military conduct of the
USA should not be taken into consideration. But if Iraq was to repeat the war crimes it did in the
past, what is the guarantee that the USA will not do the same?

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One significant omission in Biggar’s treatment of the Iraq invasion is the question of how Sadam’s
regime became so bloodthirsty and totalitarian? Was it not the USA who supported him in the war
against Iran? Why then the same power that destroyed Sadam’s regime was the same that looked
on him favourably and supported him in a previous war that lasted nearly a decade? How it come
that in the 80’s the Iraqi regime was assessed as just, and worthy of support, which in the early
90’s suddenly was announced as unjust and guilty of war crimes? Also one can ask, if he used
WMD against the Kurds is it unlikely to believe that he did so against the Iranians too?

Maybe in his interpretation of the just war theory we have to take into account what Prof. Biggar is
aware that there is no such thing as a monopoly on vice. He writes, “Of course, as a Christian I do
not believe that anyone has a monopoly of vice; but the fact that its spread is wide does not make it
even. If all are somewhat culpable, some might still be more culpable than others.”5 Maybe Serbs
and Iraqis, on the overall, are more culpable then the NATO forces. But how is this culpability
going to be measured? How culpable was for example the Soviet Union of war crimes when they
joined the allies against Germany? If one judges by Biggar’s standards they were very culpable.
The moment they joined the allies the Soviet regime had already killed millions of its own
innocent citizens by the purges in the thirties. But not only that, they were extremely culpable
when the allies welcomed them in the war against Nazi Germany on a specific account of mass
murdering. The British received intelligence about this war crime, but kept quiet. Namely in 1939
when Germany invaded Poland, the Red Army invaded the Polish eastern border, only later to
change sides. When 1943 the Germans found a mass grave with some 22 000 Polish officers and
intellectuals at a forest nearby Katyn, they informed the British and the International Red Cross for
that. As a result Stalin cut all ties with the Red Cross. In the case of the 22 000 POW, all of them
were killed by the Soviets at close range, and in cold blood with a bullet in the head. The archives
opened in 1989 provided evidence that the killing was masterminded by Lavrenty Beria and
approved by Stalin.

3. The legality vs legitimity of the bombing of Serbia

The case of the Albanians in Kosovo, was an on-going story that goes way back into history, one
memorable event being the battle on Kosovo in 1389. The case is problematic for Biggar to defend
on three accounts.

First the bombing of Serbia by NATO in 1999 was in essence war against civilians, not the Serbian
army. American victory over Kosovo was not won by conventional waging war, army against
army, not even in the way that air raids were used in other wars. Although the NATO air forces
were supposedly to aim at military facilities, in reality they bombed many civilian targets, such as
the bridges on the Danube and Sava, the TV building in downtown Belgrade, the railway with
civilian trains and other similar targets. Serbia gave in because it was the civilian population that
suffered the most, both in casualties and in the indirect consequences from the bombings such as
power cuts, water restrictions, and fear for their lives from the bombs that fell in such populated
places such as downtown Belgrade and Novi Sad. Judged by the allies’ description of the
German’s blitzkrieg over London as barbarous and as a war crime against humanity, one can draw
a parallel with the case of Serbia too. Of course, the real aim was to topple Milosevic, but the
means of achieving it were the civilian population. There were hardly any casualties among the

4
army.

The cause for the conflict on Kosovo was a typical case of religious nationalism, a case about
which Biggar says that it was disqualified as a cause for just war. As a matter of fact all the
principles that Biggar brings as disqualifying armed resurgence, can be applied to Kosovo. The
main reason for the Albanian insurgencies ever since 1981, a year after Tito’s death, had been
religious nationalism, rooted in a strong acrimony based on religion – Islam, and ethnicity and
language – Albanian versus the Serbian religion - Eastern Orthodoxy, and language. However the
question remains if the teachings of Jesus can be applicable to non-Christians and their religious
nationalism. After all, they are not bound by the teachings of Jesus. Biggar however provides the a
precedent which can be followed here too. He uses the early Christian just war theory to refute the
philosophical pacifism of David Rodin. He should then allow this to be applied to other cases. If
for the sake of the argument one agrees that Biggar is correct in the interpretation of Jesus’
teaching on nonviolence, and apply it exclusively to religious nationalism, then the Kosovo ethnic
Albanians did not have just cause to armed rebellion.

To this one can add another New Testament teaching that concerns government authorised
coercion and the prohibition of individual vengeance. Paul teaches this, according to Biggar in the
interest of public order. Kosovo Albanians fail to comply with this. In the interest of the public
order they should have endured tolerable injuries by the Serbian regime, rather than causing
numerous casualties on both sides and finally the displacement of tens if not hundreds of thousands
of Serbs as a final result of the conflict.

Biggar’s main argument is with the legality of Serbia’s bombing by NATO. According to him, on
a narrow reading of international law, NATO might have acted illegally, but nevertheless its
actions were moral. Following the early Christian just war reasoning which recognizes the
superiority of the moral over positive law, Biggar insists that there was no breach of justice since
the moral law trumps the positive law, and therefore one has to make a distinction between legality
and legitimacy. In this case too Biggar is allowing only one possible right view of the matter. He
does not consider how this illegal, but legitimate military action affected the neighboring countries,
and especially Macedonia. Macedonia was in particularly difficult position. Without legal approval
of the UN security council, it could not give formal support to the bombardment, and in effect
prohibited NATO to use its airspace to carry the attacks. NATO bomber flew through its airspace
nevertheless.

With this flagrant breaking of one countries territorial sovereignty NATO did not consider
Macedonia and its citizens a worthy party in a dialogue. Of course, Macedonia could not do
anything to prevent this violation, but NATO, in need to save face had to publicly deny that it did
violate Macedonian air space. The situation was rather grotesque. The speaker of the Parliament at
the time, Radmila Kiprijanovska, when asked about this issue stated rather emphatically, “Let me
repeat that Macedonian territory won't be used for any attacks against Yugoslavia.”6 When the
6

5
roaring of the aircraft’s engines was heard every overnight by the Macedonian citizens,
Kiprijanova went as far as to claim that that night what we all heard were the thunders from a
storm.

Further, in order to maintain the appearance of legitimate military action the NATO countries did
all that is in their power to defeat Russia’s proposal for the UN to condemn the bombing of Serbia
as illegal. To Biggar this is not controversial at all. He cites, according to him, a “highly
tendentious article” which authors say that the proposal was mainly by the five NATO countries.
Biggar then comments, “they discreetly omit to mention the role of the other seven votes cast
against Russia by non-NATO states. Quite how a minority of five votes can inflict a defeat ‘in
large part’ is a puzzle.”7

It is not puzzling at all, and it is easy to see how a minority of five votes can inflict defeat. On the
basis of precedents it is quite likely the votes of the other seven countries were extorted the same
way the USA administration extorted the support of exemption of USA military charged with war
crimes from being prosecuted by the International Law in Hague, Macedonia being one of them.
This of course did not seat well with the EU, but it did not stop the USA bullying its way into an
exemption which was in essence an extortion, to give a true example of something legal but
illegitimate.

And how the extortion worked is summarized in the following quote:

America responded to what seemed to be a face-saving deal by demanding
that other countries sign private agreements to exempt US citizens
completely. They have also threatened to withdraw military aid from any
country that refuses to comply.8
For the hypocrisy to be complete, NATO members and other important strategic allies were
exempt from the threat. Threat or not, it is not a surprise that Israel was the first country to sign the
agreement. The second country to sign, Romania, found itself in a precarious position, and the then
Romanian foreign minister, Mircea Goana, expressed regret for not consulting first the EU about
this and apologized to the displeased president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi.

Finally, the case which was used as the main reason for NATO to attack Serbia in protection of the
Albanian population from atrocities, was the so-called Račak Massacre. Biggar mentions it, but he
fails to announce that the case has been controversial from the beginning, and that in the tiem of
the writing of his book but significant light has been shed n it. In 2008 the biography of Helena
Ranta, the Finnish pathologist in charge of the forensic examination on the Račak casualties was
published. In it she witnessed that both, the Finish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the William
Walker, the head of OSCE forced her to present the case as if it undoubtedly pointed to cold killing
of civilians by the Serb troops. According to her Walker was so frustrated with her reluctance to
make the Serbs directly complicit for civilian murders that he broke a pencil in two and throw it at
her. In other words, the case was much less clear than the official report will have it.

4. Proportionality
7

6
When writing on proportionality in just war, Biggar states clearly that one of the principles of the
just war is the predictability of success and proportionality of what will be achieved with it. Biggar
admits that this is the “weakest elements in just war reasoning … There is no common currency in
terms of which together the evils caused … and the goods achieved. These evils and goods are
incommensurable.” Nevertheless, according to Biggar this does not disqualify just war reasoning
since “… such impression and uncertainty about effects are the condition of all human deliberation
about action. … Might it not, therefore, be reasonable to venture an act of war?” 9

A good example of prudence concerning proportionality is the Russian military action in

Chechnya. Biggar says that regardless of the equal brutality and, obviously in his eyes,
unjustifiable military action of the Russian army on its own territory, it was right that NATO did
not bomb Russia as it did Serbia. The reason being that Russia would have started a war over
Chechnya, but not over Kosovo. At the same time when trying to gauge the success of the Iraq
invasion his final verdict is that this it is difficult to do so currently, and that, even if it did not get
the full scale success, some thing are worth fighting for, regardless their outcome. Therefore it
becomes unclear what is Biggar stance on this issue, to avoid war in the absenece of clear
proportionality, or to wage just war regardless of its likable outcome? And who can tell that a war
against Russia over Chechnya would not have brought a new balance in the world that would have
vouchsafed long lasting peace? Had this happened while Russia was in a rather vulnerable position
in the nineties, we might have been spared from the crisis in Ukraine today.

Biggar should decide how to resolve this contradiction. On one side he says that the outcome and
the benefit of waging war must be greater than not waging war, and yet when pressed with the
logic of this reasoning like with Iraq, he ends up saying that after all it is our duty to wage war
even if that was not the case. So what will it be, wage war or not wage war? It cannot be both at
once. This means that NATO should have bombed Russia over Chechnya, and China over the
massacre of the Uighur people.

If the logic of proportionality is to be followed as Biggar suggests then countries that want to go
unpunished for their atrocities against innocent people should make sure that they are powerful
enough so waging a just war against them will prove disproportionate, therefore further
accelerating the arm race.

Discussing proportionality Biggar thinks that one has to be realistic and pragmatic. Thus a prudent
just war action is proportionate according to him not only if the prospects of going to war are such
that it will result in alleviating and not aggravating human suffering, but also the public opinion of
the electorate. Britain was prudent to intervene in Afganistan in the 2001 as it had such support.
But in the case of Darfur, Biggar thinks such support would have been out of the question.10 It
turns out after all, that the mandate of loving one’s neighbor is a relative command. One that
depends on the whimsical will of the electorate.

However, how such course of action is just remains unanswered. If NATO and UN peace forces
are then obliged to act in cases of humanitarian disasters and genocide, they are then bound to act
9
Biggar, 32
10
Biggar, 323.

7
in the places they can whenever that is military possible. If that is the dictate of the higher natural
law, then it follows that whenever these powers fail to act where the situation requires it, and the
six principles of just war are met, they should be held accountable for this. If as Prof. Biggar
claims pacifists are equally responsible for someone’s death, then this must be applicable to those
who have the resources and the force to act, but refuse as this will endanger their staying in power.
Consequently the apology for humanitarian military action only in some places becomes
extraneous. In other words, every time they are justified to wage war, they must be condemn them
if they retract from action.

5. The motives of the soldier

Biggar’s discussion of the motives of the soldiers is meticulous and informative. Much of the
indiscriminate views of soldiers full of hatred and malice in the heat of battle has to yield to the
sobering report that Biggar provides. We are presented with numerous examples of military
personnel from generals to privates who repeatedly say that they do not even mean harm to the
enemy soldiers. Their aim is to stop them in their atrocities and, if that includes killing them, they
do it only reluctantly. Biggar provides few instances of soldiers showing compassion, even love, to
the wounded and captured enemies.

These do not make the majority though. Most of the soldiers according to Biggar’s findings do not
fight for any particular reason, not even ideology or patriotism, but simply on behalf of the buddies
right and left from them. For the enemy troops they usually do not feel anything in particular, but
they are rather indifferent.

Indifference however is not to be mistaken for love and benevolence. Judged by Christian
standards it is a sin. It amounts to disregard for other human wellbeing, and it is one of the
characteristic of the vice of listlessness. If the majority of the combatants engaged in just war,
according to Biggar are simply indifferent this certainly does not exempts them from guilt, and the
justice in their waging war become questionable.

One can also ask the question why do professional soldiers enlist in the army? To make sure there
is peace and justice in the world? Not really. Most of them enlist as a way of progressing on the
social scale, a good number to have prospects of higher education, and some simply because it
gives them the thrill.

This brings us to the example Biggar uses to indicate the horrors of war, which he will
counterbalance latter with gruesome example of what he calls the horrors of peace. We are
introduced to corporal US Ranger Duncan Crookston. He died on the eve of his twentieth birthday
before that suffering horrendous mutilation and pain. Biggar leaves us only with the example and
the musings of David Finkel who popularized his story, who to his own questions if all that body
count in Iraq was worth it, he answers with yes.

A further inquiry into the story tells us that Crookston was not the average person who joins the
army. His scores were good enough to attend Ivy League colleges. His high school counsellor was
encouraging him to apply to an elite college. But according to his childhood friend Estevan Ruiz,
Crookston did not want to go with the flow, and he liked the toughness of the Army.

8
On the average it seems that the army is usually a place for the not so intelligent. Crookston seems
to have belonged to a tiny minority, an exception that proves the rule. One wonders why is that so?
Is it the privilege of the not so fortunate with the cerebral faculties to wage just wars then?

Or take for example the average age of a soldier who enlists into the army for the first time. It is
usually younger than twenty. Most of them enlist when they are 18 years of age. It is ironic that in
the USA at that age they will be considered minors and not capable to discern for themselves if
they can drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. For that privilege one needs to be 21 at least. Not so for
killing other people. As a matter of fact that is considered a desirable age. Further support that this
is so comes from Israel. The regular mandatory military service for men and women is two years.
But that is only for those who will enlist before they go to college. Those who enlist after finishing
college are required to serve for three years. One can has pretty good guess why is that so.

My informed guess is that by the time they are 25 young people are busy with getting their first
jobs after University, have much more independent views of the national and global politics of
their government and by that time is too late to lure them into the exiting life of the army that goes
by the fancy commercial “be all that you can be”. I guess also it is a bit too late to tell a 25 or 30
years old developed persons that “we make marines and we win battles.” They have been there and
done that on their Nintendos already.

Epilogue. The outcome of Iraq and Kosovo

When Biggar was writing the book ISIS was not on the horizon. Although he admits that he had
changed his mind several times on whether the intervention was a just war, he does not yield any
space in the book that the process of making the decision to go to war was less than
straightforward or clear. From his writing one has to conclude that all the received intelligence on
which bases it was decide to attack Iraq, was solid and unequivocal. He does not even mention that
the UN Security Council did not find Colin Powell’s presentation particularly convincing.

With the latest development though one can leave the evidence to speak for itself. Although one
can also think that the current situation in Iraq and Syria and the mindless brutality of the ISIS
terrorists plays rather well in the hands of NATO and the USA military as this seems to prove the
reason of their existence.11

As for Kosovo, the case can be said that it has more merit, but the situation is complex as well.
Kosovo is still far from a free democracy, some of its senior leaders are being investigated for
possible involvement in organ trafficking, and the radical Islam, including of the ISIS type is on
the rise.

Biggar also shows confidence in the book that the warnings that Kosovo will be used as a
precedent for other similar annexations, the world should be assured, that this is special case, and
no others were to follow its example. Unfortunately, the secession of Crimea from Ukraine by the
Russian Federation speaks otherwise.

11
http://www.tomdispatch.com/