Jus ad bellum and the Korean War : evaluating the conflict and testing the theory

Abstract

Under what conditions is it morally justified to go to war? This question has engaged scholars across the globe for millennia. There are as many as six criteria required by Just War Theory to justify going to war. What are the criteria and how should they be interpreted? I examine a number of differing accounts of each criterion – just cause, proportionality, last resort, prospects of success, right intention, and a brief note on legitimate authority – in order to better understand jus ad bellum (the conditions for justly initiating, and continuing, war). I then turn to the Korean War which, although a largely forgotten conflict, has a legacy which is extremely relevant to our contemporary world. In so doing, we are able to apply the differing interpretations of each criterion to a real- world case. This application allows for a moral evaluation of the Korean conflict itself, so that by its conclusion we will be able to better understand whether this conflict was justly initiated. Furthermore, we use the conflict in order to test the differing interpretations of each criterion. The project is thus dual-pronged: jus ad bellum enables us to view the war through a moral lens, while the war itself helps us to critique and streamline the theory.