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Tagged: Just war

International / Reflections on Ukraine / Rights / War

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Just War Theory and The Russia-Ukraine War

A photograph of male and female Ukrainian soldiers standing in a line.
Ceremony on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Photo: President of Ukraine, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Public Domain

This is a guest post by Professor Jeff McMahan (Oxford University), as part of the Reflections on the Russia-Ukraine War series, organized by Aaron James Wendland. This is an edited version of an article published in Studia Philosophica Estonica. Justice Everywhere will publish edited versions of several of the papers from this special issue over the next few weeks.

There are three wars currently in progress in Ukraine: the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian war against Ukraine, and the Ukrainian war against Russia. It is necessary for the purpose of evaluation to make these distinctions, for the first of these wars is, like the Second World War (understood as a war between allied and axis powers), neither just nor unjust. Only a war fought by one or more belligerents against an opponent can be just or unjust. Many or most of what we refer to as wars consist of a just war on one side and an unjust war on the other – or, to be more precise, a war with predominantly just aims on one side and a war with predominantly unjust aims on the other.

There is no credible understanding of a just war according to which the Russian war against Ukraine is a just war. It is a wholly unprovoked war of aggression intended by those who initiated it – primarily Putin – to conquer Ukraine, annex its territory, and assimilate its population. The motives of the war’s planners are doubtless many and various but some stand out as obvious and dominant. One is to expand the Russian empire until it is at least coextensive with its earlier boundaries under the tsars and the post-revolutionary Soviet dictators. Another motivation echoes the American concern about “falling dominoes” as a reason for invading Vietnam. Many of the states that were ruled by Soviet puppet regimes during the Cold War have, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, been adopting more and more elements of Western culture, in particular liberalism and democracy. Ukraine was a falling domino that threatened to become a fully independent, economically flourishing democracy in a large border territory that Russia had repeatedly ravaged in the past – a state that would be an example, highly visible to Russians, of an appealing alternative to Putin’s tyrannical kleptocracy.

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General / International / War

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Is there a place for mercenaries in the future of war?

A photograph showing group of young people standing in front of a tank being transported through the Russian city Rostov-on-Don by Wagner Group mercenaries.
People standing in front of a Wagner Group tank in Rostov-on-Don, 24 June 2023. Fargoh, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

They have been active in Ukraine since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and in Syria as early as 2013 (in the form of predecessor, the Slavonic Corps). They have significant presence in countries including the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali. But it is their involvement in the invasion of Ukraine since early 2022 that has pushed the Wagner Group into headlines across the globe. Now, especially after the abortive mutiny in late June, everyone knows who they are.

However, Wagner Group, though perhaps especially brutal, and especially shadowy, is far from unique. From Aegis to G4S to Blackwater (now Academi), recent conflicts have seen an increasing number private contractors take on logistics, training and even security and combat roles. (Though in the case of Wagner, it’s somewhat questionable how “private” they really were). It’s the latter, often called mercenaries, which are particularly controversial. But what are mercenaries, and how worried should we be about their proliferation?

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