by Josef Steiff
By paying attention to the animals around her and seeking to befriend them, Nausicaa has also learned that the Ohmu are not mere monsters, but sentient beings that communicate telepathically. They do not seek to annihilate humanity but merely to protect the jungle and ensure that it eventually purifies the planet. This discovery plays a pivotal role during the anime’s climax, which I won’t needlessly ruin. But suffice to say, that had Nausicaa not known that the Ohmu were sentient creatures, capable of compassion, Kushana’s misguided attempt to destroy the jungle and Pejite’s attempt to avenge Tolmekia’s destruction of the Pejite kingdom, would have been the end of the Valley of The Wind.
One of the most compelling things about Nausicaa’s emphasis on how she treats others rather than what she is trying to achieve is that she is able to enjoy her life, even though she lives in an extremely harsh environment. Whereas Kushana sees the world as a miserable and dangerous place that one must always be on guard against, Nausicaa is able to marvel at the world around her. She can appreciate and fully understand her world in a way that Kushana never could. This is not because Nausicaa is naive. It is rather because she pays attention to what she is doing and not just to what she seeks to accomplish.
The Legend Has Come True. The Wind Has Come Back
There needs to be ethical limits on human behaviour, even after the end of the world. Whether fighting zombies, robots, giant insects, or other humans, throwing all restrictions on action out the door and doing whatever it takes to survive leads to a cycle of endless atrocity. Humans are capable of terrible acts in the name of survival, but we’re also capable of noble action in pursuit of the same goal. Nausicaa’s plea is that we recognize that the best way to ensure that the pursuit of our lofty goals actually has a positive effect on the world is by concerning ourselves not only with what we are trying to achieve, but the way in which we go about accomplishing what we set out to do.
Conflict
10
Just War Is No Gouf
LOUIS MELANÇON
Compared to the Earth Federation, the national resources of Zeon are less than one thirtieth of theirs. Despite this how is it that we have been able to fight the fight for so long? It is because our goal in this war is a righteous one. It’s been over fifty years since the elite of Earth, consumed by greed, took control of the Earth Federation. We want our freedom. Never forget the times when the Federation has trampled us!
—GIHREN ZABI, 6th October, 0079 Universal Century
The concept of war is not new to the human race. War, whether thought of as the management of organized violence or socially condoned killing, has been occurring for thousands of years. In the vision of Yoshiyuki Tomino, as expressed through the franchise of Mobile Suit Gundam, humans are likely to continue to wage war for thousands of years into the future. Whether thinking about reality or the Mobile Suit Gundam universe, this shouldn’t require a spoiler alert for anyone. Nestled among the battling robots is an insight into the relationship between war and mankind.
There’s plenty of fertile ground here to talk about the damage done to individuals in war, such as Kamille Biden at the end of the Gryps War in Zeta Gundam—a lost family, a dead love interest, and locked in a vegetative state mentally cut off from the rest of the humanity. While this is compelling, I want to draw our attention to the very intriguing implications in the franchise about the relationship between war and society as a whole—about how we go about waging war.
Our focus will not necessarily be on the tools of destruction (although those mobile suits are nifty), but rather on the legal, moral and ethical mechanisms that are used to conduct war, and perhaps more importantly, the mechanisms which take a society to war in the first place. The Just War Theory (JWT) provides a great mechanism for this in the real world as well as in the Universal Century of Mobile Suit Gundam, though the theory does have some problems, which are nicely illustrated through the political landscape of the Mobile Suit Gundam universe, most notably:• If any side in a war can claim just cause, is there truly such a thing as a just war; and
• Have weapons of mass destruction changed the very nature of how war can be waged in a just fashion?
There’s More to War than Big Metal Robots
Before we delve too far into this topic, we need to face two basic facts. First, the waging of war, even in a non-defensive fashion, can sometimes be justified. Pacifists would challenge this; but as the US Catholic Conference stated in the 1983 “Pastoral Letter on War and Peace,” a core document in modern discussion of Just War, “a totally and permanently peaceful human society is unfortunately a utopia.” If conflict will occur, then we can make the assertion that some wars, beyond even those in defense to physical aggression, can be justified.
Second, going to war has to be justified. Realists would say that justification is an unnecessary step; conflict, even to the point of bullets flying, is part of the human experience. And it is true that the need to justify war in certain periods of Western Civilization was less than hip. But there is a solid, clear pedigree from Cicero in the Roman Empire through a series of evolutions which have spawned such things in modern times as the third Geneva Convention and the Hague Protocol. The need to justify going to war is now firmly entrenched in modern society. Let’s look at two recent examples.
The first is the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990: Iraq made an argument for justifying the invasion based on economic warfare (slant drilling and refusal to eliminate debts) and a perceived Kuwaiti alliance with countries conspiring to topple the Iraqi regime. Other countries rejected this argument and authorized a United Nations-approved military action to restore the recognized borders of Kuwait. Fast forward to 2003 and the US-led invasion of Iraq where justifications were also assembled to topple the regime through military action. For now, let’s avoid the minefield of whether these arguments were valid or invalid; the point is that the US government at the time felt that it had to offer a justification.
The same is true in Mobile Suit Gundam. Look back at the excerpt that started this chapter—it’s from Gihren Zabi’s “Seig Zeon” speech given at the state funeral of his brother Garma. Even though the One Year War began ten months previously, the leadership of the Duchy of Zeon continues to make a case for why they started this conflict—they claim their cause is righteous. Fourteen years later, in the Second Zeon War, Char Aznable defends his actions against the Earth Federation by once again touting the claim of a justified war due to trampled rights. But is simply claiming justice enough? It is at this point that we can start to see some difficulties with Just War Theory.
Jus ad Londo Bellum
Just War Theory consists of two elements; the first is jus ad bellum, or going to war in a just manner. This involves a series of criteria that must be satisfied for a country to initiate a war in a just fashion (if a country is attacked, then the right of defense automatically justifies responding with violence towards the aggressor—the “how” of the response we’ll look at shortly). The criteria, as outlined by the US Catholic Conference in the Pastoral Letter are: just cause, competent authority (although there can be exceptions in the event of a “just revolution”), comparative justice, last resort, right intention, probability of success, and proportionality. A few of these are self-explanatory, and rather than going through item by item to see if the Duchy of Zeon or the Neo-Zeon movement fulfilled each one, we’re going to look at the most problematic: comparative justice.
This term isn’t quite so self-explanatory. For a state to meet the criterion of comparative justice, the injustice that is suffered must be of such significance that the taking of lives in combat is considered appropriate. Basically, one side is more “right” than the other, and this “rightness” allows them to start a war against those who committed the wrong. It may be that one of your eyebrows went up just now. How can “rightness” be measured, who measures the “rightness,” and how can one side therefore be more just than the other?
A problem with Just War Theory i
s that it opens up opportunities for any given regime, especially those that may be aggressive and infused with militarism, to create a hollow case within the Just War Theory framework and initiate conflict without the war truly being just. Mobile Suit Gundam demonstrates this very well. In the One Year War, the Duchy of Zeon initiated a war because, as stated in the “Sieg Zeon” speech, the rights of those colonists living in Side 3, also known as the Duchy of Zeon, had been suppressed by the Earth Federation—they were unable to fulfill their potential as spacenoids, humans who had migrated to space and viewed themselves as the next evolutionary opportunity for mankind. This is the comparative justice they claim allows them to initiate the One Year War and attack the Earth Federation. But do these perceived rights infringements really provide a justification for the Duchy to kill billions of people within the opening weeks of the war?
With the glimpses we get of the ruling Zabi family and their decision-making process, it is clear that militarism has a firm hold on the Duchy of Zeon—war would happen, and so they must create a just war argument and the weakness of comparative justice allows them to do this. As shown in the feature film Char’s Counter Attack, Char Aznable with his Neo-Zeon movement in the Second Zeon War takes the same devious path. In his speech to the members of his fleet, he discusses the injustices thrust upon the colonists and former Zeon soldiers by the Earth Federation and how this permits them to conduct the current conflict in which the primary goal is to change the climate of the Earth in order to make it uninhabitable for humans.
But again, is the claim of justice simply a mechanism that Char can use to manipulate spacenoids to support his ideas and militarism? Of course it is. The story shows that Char’s militarism and ego are exploiting not only the people who support him, but an important weakness in the Just War Theory as well. This weakness—the difficulty of measuring the comparative justice of the combatants—raises concerns about the true utility about the theory, as any state can claim justness in initiating war if it supports their less-than-just agenda. But there’s more to the theory than just going to war.
Etiquette in War: RSVPs for Bombing?
Jus en bello is the second half of Just War Theory, which deals with the behavior of the combatants in war. The Pastoral Letter identifies two criteria for this: discrimination (acts of war are directed against combatants, and non-combatants are not directly targeted) and proportionality (an attack on a military capability should not result in greater civilian casualties than the advantage gained from the destruction of the military target). However, there is a third commonly accepted criteria, highlighted by Michael Walzer in Just and Unjust Wars, of military necessity: military attacks must be intended to assist in achieving the military defeat of the opponent, not simply to cause death and destruction.
To have a just war, a state must satisfy the criteria of both jus en bello and jus ad bellum. If a state violates jus en bello, the validity of their jus ad bellum position comes into question. However the converse is not true—a state that conducts combat operations fully within the parameters of jus en bello in a conflict that did not meet jus ad bellum cannot rehabilitate their position in starting an unjust war.
Let’s consider Ramba Ral, the Zeon lieutenant sent to avenge the death of Garma Zabi: a master of guerrilla warfare and mobile suit combat, Ral inspires and heroically leads his men to capture or destroy the Federation’s secret weapons of the White Base and Gundam. When encountering civilians in the villages they pass through, he and his men do not spread destruction. When they realize that children are on board the White Base, the assaulting soldiers differentiate their targets; they recognize that children are not combatants and should not be harmed if at all possible in the attack. Though these particular soldiers fought honorably, the Zeon prosecution of the One Year War was still unjust. This isn’t particularly problematic until the criteria and linkages between jus en bello and jus ad bellum are placed in the context of a specific type of weapon: a weapon of mass destruction.
Have Colony, Will Drop
Much thinking on jus en bello since the invention and battlefield use of weapons of mass destruction (primarily nuclear, but not let’s not forget chemical and biological) has generally centered on the idea that any use of these weapons is unjust as they violate proportionality and likely military necessity. But this is not just use in the offense—it extends to use in the defense (whether in response to the use of a weapon of mass destruction or a conventional attack); the Pastoral Letter explicitly states that use of these weapons in defense is not legitimate and cannot be justified.
What is being said here is that it isn’t solely the act of using these very powerful weapons that would be immoral, but that the immorality lies within the weapons themselves. That is a fairly standard line in Just War Theory. The use of these weapons in Mobile Suit Gundam seems to support this stance. The One Year War begins with the Three Seconds of Declaration, a three second delay between the declaration of war by the Duchy of Zeon against the Earth Federation and an all out attack with chemical and nuclear weapons against space colonies aligned with the Federation.
The Zeon argument of military necessity starts with the claim that these attacks were against Federation garrisons which would have mobilized and taken to the field of battle against the Zeon forces and so were valid, necessary targets. But the effects of such weapons, especially in the confined atmosphere of a space colony can be horrid, as seen in Shiro Amada’s flashback in the 08th MS Team episode “Reunion” to his first hand experience of the attack. The massive, indiscriminate death and destruction of life due to the enclosed nature of a space colony quickly pushes aside any plausible claims of validity or necessity. The same can be said of the improvised weapons of mass destruction that the Zeon and Neo-Zeon use—twenty kilometer long, dead space colonies and asteroids dropped onto the Earth in the hopes of creating nuclear winter-like conditions. Neither the Zeon nor the Neo-Zeon, as political entities controlling armed forces, conduct themselves within the limits of jus en bello—but is this really due to the effect of the weapons, or the intent of the states which used them?
Regardless of the immoral actions of the Zeon and Neo-Zeon in combat, this characterization of a particular weapon of war or use of that weapon as being other than amoral is another weakness of Just War Theory. The assertion behind the characterization of immorality is based on the claim that the damage and destruction caused by these weapons is something unprecedented in human history, and so they are “game changers.” It is true that these weapons have the potential to deliver destructive capability on a much wider scale than other weapons, but hasn’t mankind used less potent weapons to cause just as much death and destruction in the past? Why yes, we have.
Someone has always found a way to expend that extra effort needed to perform an immoral act with the less powerful tool; be it bombs, machine guns, machetes, or (fictionally) mobile suits—directed disproportionate and indiscriminate killings in times of war have always occurred. Furthermore, it may not be true that there is no possible scenario in which these weapons would be able to meet the conditions of jus en bello. I can’t think of one scenario in the real world where they could; but I also can’t claim to have imagined every scenario. It’s highly unlikely, but not impossible, that such a scenario may exist; and Mobile Suit Gundam does give a fictional example where the conditions of jus en bello are met: Operation Stardust. Here, Anavel Gato, “The Nightmare of Solomon” leads the rag-tag Delaz Fleet in an attack with a nuclear weapon against the Earth Federation fleet review occurring around the space fortress Konpeitoh, formally known as Solomon under the Duchy of Zeon.
Putting aside the question of whether there was proper jus ad bellum on the part of the Delaz Fleet, they meet jus en bello criteria here: they targeted only combatants (discrimination), and there were few, if any, non-combatant casualties in the attack (proportionality), plus if the Delaz Fleet and the approaching Axis Advance Fleet were to have any hope of militarily defeating or at least stale
mating the Federation, it was a military necessity to cripple as much of the fleet as possible while minimizing the damage to their own few ships. Could they have used a more conventional weapon and still achieved their goal? Possibly—this wasn’t a job that only a nuke could do—but it was a valid tool here.
It seems more reasonable to say that there is no scenario in which the only possible tool that could be used is a weapon of mass destruction. As such, we should conclude that the weapons are amoral and can be placed alongside more conventional weapons as tools for use—the use only becomes immoral when placed in the specific context of the intent of their use and the judgment of the jus en bello criteria. But with these weaknesses in both jus ad bellum and jus en bello, does Just War Theory remain useful?
Freeing Clausewitz’s Soul from Gravity
The short answer is yes—Just War Theory remains a useful framework for not only making sure that a war being entered into is itself just, but also that the goals of the conflict remain clear in the minds of those leading the state into war. That may seem like a ridiculous statement—surely people would understand what they want to achieve in a war and wouldn’t lose sight of that goal. But even a cursory examination of the history of warfare demonstrates that this does, in fact, happen. And if we are going to discuss goals in war, we have to resurrect the Dead Prussian. Often, when someone brings up Clausewitz, a call back to realism is assumed; but Realists don’t have exclusive rights to him and there is a role within the Just War Theory for Clausewitz.
Carl von Clausewitz, in his book On War, is credited for establishing the idea that war is an amoral force—with its own logic and tendencies—tendencies to pursue itself into a self-generating cycle, seeking always for that ever elusive state of the absolute war, a pure war with no limits, no measure of control and the goal only of perpetuating itself. Realists often point to this concept of absolute war as a basis for setting aside Just War Theory in pursuit of the concept of total war, where any action is acceptable in pursuit of the state’s objectives. But there is a problem with absolute war—it can’t actually exist for a significant reason highlighted by Clausewitz. War is started to achieve a political goal—while the military goal may be distinct from the political goal, it is shaped, guided, and nested within the political goal. Shaped, guided, and nested: that seems to straightforwardly imply the placing of limits. It does become critical, as war is always seeking to break those limits and achieve that absolute state, that those limits be constantly assessed and adjusted as needed in the context of the political goals. And here is where Just War Theory becomes so useful.
