The Good War?
Pat Buchanan (yes, I know) had a provocative column on Friday questioning whether World War II can rightly be called “The Good War.” Here is a taste:
Britain declared war on Sept. 3, 1939, to preserve Poland. For six years, Poland was occupied by Nazi and Soviet armies and SS and NKVD killers. At war’s end, the Polish dead were estimated at 6 million. A third of Poland had been torn away by Stalin, and Nazis had used the country for the infamous camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz.
Fifteen thousand Polish officers had been massacred at places like Katyn. The Home Army that rose in Warsaw at the urging of the Red Army in 1944 had been annihilated, as the Red Army watched from the other side of the Vistula. When the British celebrated V-E day in May 1945, Poland began 44 years of tyranny under the satraps of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev.
Was World War II “a good war” for the Poles?
Can a war in which 50 million perished and the Christian continent was destroyed, half of it enslaved, a war that has advanced the death of Western civilization, be truly celebrated as a “good war”?
Buchanan is right, of course. It is unfortunate that the main Christian doctrine dealing with the morality of conduct in war goes by the name “Just War Theory,” leading people naturally to speak of whether a given war is just or unjust. War is never just; it always involves injustice on at least one side, and often on all sides. Participation in a given war by a particular country may be just, but the war itself never is.
One can, of course, speak loosely of a “just war,” meaning simply that the participation* by a particular nation in a given war was just. From the perspective of America, then, one might consider World War II a just war (as Pope Benedict says in Values In A Time Of Upheaval, “it is clear that the intervention of the Allies [in WWII] was a bellum iustrum, a ‘just war,’ that ultimately served the good of those against whose country the war was waged.”) From the perspective of Germany, however, WWII was not a just war. It was, in fact, a paradigm case of an unjust war.
It was the failure to make this sort of distinction, I think, that led to some of the controversy a while back over Pope Benedict’s statement that “war is the worst solution for all sides. It brings no good to anyone, not even to the apparent victors. We understand this very well in Europe, after the two world wars.” When the Pope made this comment, many in the U.S. were baffled by it, and read superficially it can of course seem inconsistent with the Pope’s above statement about the goodness and justice of the Allied intervention. The Pope’s point, however, was not that it is never legitimate to fight, but that all wars leave humanity (including the victors) worse off than they were before, and are for that reason, in the words of his predecessor, “always a defeat for humanity.”
To the extent that this was Buchanan’s point, he is on solid ground. Some of his past comments, however (along with the title of his upcoming book), make me think that Buchanan would go further than this. If I have read him right, it is his position not simply that the world would have been a far better place had Hitler not invaded Poland, but that we would have all been better off if the Allies had done nothing about it. As one character on the BBC show Yes, Prime Minister put the view: “There was nothing wrong with appeasement. All that World War Two achieved after six years was to leave Eastern Europe under a Communist dictatorship instead of a Fascist dictatorship. That’s what comes of not listening to the Foreign Office.” To which Buchanan appears to want to add that if it weren’t for the Allied intervention there would have been no Holocaust.
Playing “what if” is always a tricky matter, but this strikes me as being absurd and naive. Hitler’s invasion of Poland was simply the latest in a long series of aggressive moves by Hitler, and from his unpublished sequel to Mein Kampf, it’s clear that he planned eventual wars with Russia, France, and the United States as well. and while the war accelerated Hitler’s plans for getting rid of the Jews, I don’t think that long lasting Nazi rule (which is what not stopping Hitler would have meant) would have ended up being to their benefit (certainly there are very few Jews who think so, or who would feel gratified by Buchanan’s obvious concern for their safety). As such, while I expect that Buchanan’s book will be quite fascinating in parts, I still must agree with John Zmirak’s opinion that “I cannot help being glad that Franklin Roosevelt maneuvered America into the Second World War.”
*As opposed to all the actions undertaken during the course of that participation.
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Blackadder,
Great post! I’ve always had some sympathy for Buchanan’s arguments, and even as a politically precocious twelve-year-old supported him (I’m still a fan, but the wisdom of my twenty-four years has tempered my support.), but I believe that you ultimately make a fine case, as did the wonderful Dr. Zmirak, in favor of intervention.
Cheers!
“Good war”? Is that something like “good cancer”? Or, “military justice”?
I’m one neanderthal. As you all may know, not a deep thinker. My question would be, would it have been a ‘just war’ if France and Britain, or the League of Nations, had taken military action to stop Germany from occupying the Rheinland? Or, Czechoslovakia? Or, ??
I understand that’s playing the ‘what if’ game. As in, “What if Custer had machine guns?”. In fact, Custer refused to deploy two gatling guns because they would have slowed his march.
Buchanan has been singing this song for some time.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44210
Buchanan’s view is that Hitler would have left the West alone if England and France had not declareded war on Germany after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. Lunacy is my one word summation of his position.
Good post BA,
WWII is always the War given as an example of jus ad bello. The allies had a just cause for going to war, which does not necessarily mean the war was waged in a just manner (jus in bello), for example, America’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
However, we cannot judge wars out of their proper context. As you alluded there was evidence of injustice on the part of Hitler before war was officially declared. Someone could have done something to stop him. The world payed for its earlier, relatively minor, sins of omission with the horrible atrocities which followed. Furthermore, WWII cannot be judged without reference to WWI. If true justice, the justice that leads to peace had been reached after WWI, WWII would not have happened. If true justice had been reached after WWII. Poland would not have found itself of Communist rule.
Our Pope’s warned us about this. Quoting a previous post from Nate:
Throughout history, our Church has demanded that men and nations turn away from the way of violence, and pursue another path – a path of mercy:
We implore those in whose hands are placed the fortunes of nations to hearken to Our voice. Surely there are other ways and means whereby violated rights can be rectified. Let them be tried honestly and with good will, and let arms meanwhile be laid aside . . . Let them not allow these words of a friend and of a father to be uttered in vain.
– Pope Benedict XV (1914 Encyclical Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum)
In 1914, at the beginning of WWI, our Pope asked men to try another way to restore justice. But they had more faith in ‘the way of violence’ than the way of mercy. ‘The way of violence’ did eventually work to end the killing, but it did not work to end the injustice – an injustice which led straight to WWII.
“The Great War . . . did not serve to lessen but increased, by its acts of violence and of bloodshed, the international and social animosities which already existed . . . Peace indeed was signed in solemn conclave between the belligerents of the late War. This peace, however, was only written into treaties. It was not received into the hearts of men, who still cherish the desire to fight one another”
– Pope Pius XI (1922 Encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio)
Justice, even international justice between warring states, cannot be achieved aside from the Gospel force of merciful love!
“Thank God, one may believe the time has passed when the call to moral and Gospel principles to guide the life of states and peoples was disdainfully thrust aside as unreal. The events of these war years have given ample evidence to confute, in a harder way than one could ever have imagined, those who spread such doctrine. The disdain that they affected towards this supposed unreality has been changed into stark reality: brutality, iniquity, destruction, annihilation.”
– Pope Pius XII (1944 Christmas Message)
John H. Yoder, in The Politics of Jesus attempts to show that the OT wars and atrocities therein were results of the Israelites lack of faith and patience in God. When they truly trust in God and follow his commands to the letter, war is averted. it is only when they try to force God’s hand that horrible wars result.
I have not yet had the time to look at his thoughts in a more detailed manner, but in light of JEsus’ words Yoder’s thought seems convincing. Nevertheless war is ALWAYS a failure for humanity. Even IF we can “justify” it given a current situation, that only means that all parties involved have failed in their efforts to love and bring about peace. A declaration of war should be an admittance of guilt and of past failures to bring about justice and peace and in a non-violent manner. However, we tend to glorify it. St. Bail the Great, for example, thought if Christians must absolutely participate in war, they should be denied communion for three years because their hands were unclean. Furthermore, in the past the whole community participated in penance with soldiers for the sins of war upon their return from battle.
I know that none of you are saying that war is, generally speaking, a good thing. But the way we, as a country, tend to celebrate and fail to even consider doing penance for it is, frankly, unChristian
What so many American Catholics who have latched onto the “liberation through military force” ideology convenienently forget is that a just war can only be just if if it is a last resort, and that sets the bar pretty high. And yes, a last resort is, by definition, a sign of failure, which does explain why war itself is always a sign of failure. (and by the way, this new theology of liberation associated with the likes of George Wegel is every but as flawed as its Marxist-inspired predecessor).
And whether or not WW2 was ius ad bellum, it most certainly cannot be classified as ius in bello. The indiscriminate bombings of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki speak plainly to that point.
‘If I have read him right, it is his position not simply that the world would have been a far better place had Hitler not invaded Poland, but that we would have all been better off if the Allies had done nothing about it.’
I think you’re right, BA. Mr. Buchanan, in matters of foreign policy at least, seems to be the reincarnation of Fr. Coughlin. Plus ca change…