Germany’s Zeitenwende and the Just War/Just Peace Debate
By Christian Braun
Russia’s war of aggression is on everyone’s mind these days. Besides the horrors that have been unleashed in Ukraine, Putin’s war has caused a sea change in the attitude of many NATO members toward their militaries. It seems that the post-Cold War allure of “cashing in the peace dividend” by cutting defence spending has come to an abrupt end. The shock wave caused by Russia’s aggression has hit Germany especially hard. The new Olaf Scholz government has proclaimed a Zeitenwende, the dawn of a new era, that is supposed to break with previous German policies in radical ways, including sending defensive weapons to Ukraine and a major spending boost for the Bundeswehr.
Importantly, the new government’s turnaround is receiving broad public support. Considering Germans’ attitude toward its armed forces, which a former German president once referred to as a “friendly disinterest,” the term Zeitenwende really does seem to capture the moment. Among the voices who support the decision to send defensive weapons to Ukraine and appropriately equip the Bundeswehr have been the German Catholic Bishops. The Bishops have also forcefully condemned Russia’s war of aggression and affirmed Ukraine’s right to self-defence. At the same time, the Bishops’ position has attracted criticism by Catholic pacifists. Such disagreement points to the Church’s historic fault line on war and peace between advocates of armed force within a dual theme of permission and restraint on the one hand, and pacifists on the other.
Speaking of questions of war and peace in the context of the Catholic Church the just war framework immediately comes to mind that for centuries has informed the Catholic understanding of the rights and wrongs of war. Until the present day, the “just war” has its official place in Church doctrine, as it is discussed in paragraph 2309 of the Catechism. That said, however, it cannot be denied that the just war has received an ambiguous treatment in contemporary Catholic Social Thought. Modern popes have generally shied away from employing the term just war, without breaking with the framework entirely. Consider, for example, Pope Francis’s latest encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Francis powerfully condemns the horrors of modern war and, doubtlessly, seeks to avoid an affirmation of the just war framework. However, Francis also writes that it is “very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war.’” Note that he defines the task as “very difficult,” not as “impossible.”
The contemporary scepticism toward the just war framework has been even more pronounced in the writings of the German Bishops. The German Bishops no longer employ the term just war when they defend what they see as justifiable uses of armed force. Clearly, the Bishops take no pacifist position, but they deliberately seek to move away from just war. Only in the negative sense do they refer to the framework. In a recent publication in which they reflect on their predecessors’ role during the Second World War, the Bishops even list the inherited just war teaching as one explanatory factor for the unwillingness to openly resist Hitler’s aggression. Most recently, Bishop Georg Bätzing, the Chairman of the German Catholic Bishops’ Conference, has condemned Russia’s war against Ukraine as an “unjust war.” However, whilst defending Ukraine’s legitimate right to self-defence, he does not attach the label “just war” to Ukraine’s war effort.
The German Bishops’ apparent rejection of the language of just war is most immediately manifest in their embrace of the novel just peace framework. In the year 2000, the German Bishops published a document entitled A Just Peace that spells out their thinking on questions of war and peace and to which they refer to as their “Magna Charta” of peace ethics. In their defence of just peace that is developed in contradistinction to just war, the German Bishops are part of a wider movement in Catholicism that seeks to “transcend” the older framework. The critique of just war relies on two main aspects: Just peace thinkers seek to make the use of armed force exceptional. They feel uneasy about the just war framework that, in their eyes, is too permissive. Secondly, the just peace seeks to build a bridge between Catholic pacifists and just war thinkers by emphasising tools of nonviolence.
Having provided a brief overview of the contemporary thinking of war and peace in the German Church, what should be made of the attempt to abandon the just war framework? In a forthcoming article in International Theory, I suggest that the distinction between just war and just peace is not truly meaningful. As noted above, both advocates of just war and just peace affirm that there may be circumstances that allow for the use of armed force. Clearly, neither adherents of just war nor of just peace are pacifists. The only authentically significant distinction in Catholic thought about war and peace continues to be that between those who defend the use of force if certain conditions have been met and those who reject any use of force. Consequently, seeking to abandon the just war in favour of just peace, whilst continuing to defend the use of force, is mainly a semantic undertaking.
In this context, it is worth mentioning that the (over-)emphasis of nonviolence by just peace thinkers – without denying the justifiability of using force per se – can lead to slightly confusing arguments. Lisa Sowle Cahill, one of the leading just peace scholars, has described the Ukrainian resistance against the Russian invasion as follows: “They are simply saying NO WAY! to the Russians, and in the absence of adequate weapons, using every scrap of ingenuity to foil the invaders’ advance.” Crucially, Cahill refers to such acts as “nonviolent resistance.” Labelling the Ukrainian resistance that, doubtlessly, includes the use of lethal force as “nonviolent resistance,” in my eyes, is indicative of a general shortcoming of the just peace framework. The deliberate de-emphasis of violent tools cannot obscure the fact that just peace is no pacifist framework.
All in all, I think that the tools of nonviolence, which just peace thinkers often discuss in the context of jus ante bellum (right before war) and jus post bellum (right after war), foreground important areas of concern that deserve more attention. That is why I argue to supplement, rather than replace, the inherited just war framework with the aspects that just peace scholars seek to highlight. The just war framework has always been open for development and can accommodate the input from just peace. In other words, just peace should unfold within just war. Nonviolent tools, such as mediation efforts, demobilisation, development of infrastructure, post-conflict reconciliation and human rights promotion, could all be parts of a richer just war framework. That said, turning the just war into a taboo word of sorts cannot circumvent the inconvenient truth that there can be circumstances that justify the resort to armed force.
Christian Nikolaus Braun is a Radboud Excellence Initiative Fellow at Radboud University. His primary area of research is the ethics of war and peace. Christian has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, including International Relations, the Journal of Military Ethics and the Journal of International Political Theory. His first research monograph provisionally titled Limited Force and the Fight for the Just War Tradition is under contract with Georgetown University Press. Twitter: @ChristianBraun