Powerful piece by Tom Englehardt on the problems with relying on air power in war, something that has become more central to the US’s way of war over the last half-century or so. The problem, in essence, is that so-called collateral damage, the “unintentional” killing of large numbers of civilians, is such an inextricable part of air war that it becomes increasingly dubious to claim that these deaths are really unintended or accidental in any meaningful sense. And this problem will only become more acute as it seems that the US and its allies will increasingly rely on air power as a form of “imperial policing.”
"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal
8 responses to “The problem with air power”
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And this is why the principle of double effect requires not only that the harm to non-combatants be unintended but also that it not be very large.
As the civilian death toll gets larger and emerges as an almost universal feature of attacks, even if it can still be maintained they are not intended it becomes apparent that the attackers are at best only indifferent to the loss of innocent life.
Indifference to human life is just morally impermissible reckless disregard, and is far from compatible with any claim that the point of the military actions is to save the civilian population from harm at the hands of those who are the actual targets of the attacks, the Taliban or Al-Qaeda fighters.At least no one claimed the daylight bombing of German cities like Dresden or the nuking of two militarily insignificant Japanese cities was intended to save German or Japanese civilians from harm.
But we (no doubt fraudulently) claim to be fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to save those people from the bad guys!
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I think this is why Cardinal Ratzinger, in 2003, not only opposed the war in Iraq, but also questioned whether the very idea of just war was intelligible in modernity.
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To defend modern war, (note the sarcasm), It could very well be argued that modern warfare is MORE just than medieval and ancient warfare was.
It’s hard to do precision strikes with a catapult, crossbow or blunderbus. Modern airpower and artillary is more accurate so (assuming they aren’t being tageted intentionally) fewer civilian deaths and fewer “friendly” fire incidents. Warfare in those societies was largely an upper-class affair as well, as opposed to the democratic enterprise it is now.
On the other hand, technology has made it easier and easier to kill large numbers of people at once. As violent as the Middle Ages were, there’s only so many people you can hack to bits with a sword or a battle axe over an 8 hour period. You can kill almost unlimited numbers of people with modern weapons.
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If Englehardt is to be believed, civilian casualties have increased proportionately in modern war, not just in sheer numbers. In addition to the point about modern technology enabling us to kill many more people, pre-modern war seems like it was (at least at times) more likely to be confined to two armies slugging it out on a field somewhere.
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Medieval war was better?
“Kill them all. God will recongize his own.”
A good many whole towns destroyed in the Albigensian Crusade, for just one example.
Ancient war was more just?
Troy. Carthage.
Any number of cities entirely wiped out, the adult men and old women exterminated and the rest carried off into slavery by Rome during its rise as documented by Livy.
Roman conduct was not exceptional.
And so on and so on.
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There are countless massacres in Medieval and Ancient Warfare, but that’s not the point. They stand out because they were against the norm. The Albegensian Crusades, the Fourth Crusade, Charlemagne’s massacre of Saxon POW’s and the horrific campaigns of Timur and so on and so on have been remembered precisely because they were so shocking, even at the time.
Most of those cities allegedly “wiped out” by the Romans and others always seem to have mysteriously recovered within a few decades. Livy and other ancient and medieval historians were prone to exagerating troop numbers and casualties to serve their political agendas. This can be found from Herodotus and Thucydides down through the Napoleonic wars (at least).
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I’m no historian, but I find myself doubting whether we can really know how many casualties past wars had. Heck, there are still arguments about how many casualties present wars have. Either way, it seems to me to be a side issue in the question of the morality of current events.
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It may not be possible to have absolute figures but it is possible to come to reasonable estimates through comparing sources and looking at archaelogical remains, the same way any historical information is established. Just because we can’t get exact information doesn’t mean we should just throw up our hands and declare it all bunk.
It matters because the princples of just war were established in pre-modern societies with different technologies and techniques than ours. If we are to translate and/or critique this bit of the Christian Tradition (or any bit for that matter) our first step should be to establish the context in which the doctrine developed.
As it has been said elsewhere, text without context is pretext.
A Thinking Reed 
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