The introduction tells us what is inherently weak about Just War Theory.

1. Introduction

Historically, the just war tradition--a set of mutually agreed rules of combat—may be said to commonly evolve between two culturally similar enemies. That is, when an array of values are shared between two warring peoples, we often find that they implicitly or explicitly agree upon limits to their warfare. But when enemies differ greatly because of different religious beliefs, race, or language, and as such they see each other as “less than human”, war conventions are rarely applied. It is only when the enemy is seen to be a people, sharing a moral identity with whom one will do business in the following peace, that tacit or explicit rules are formed for how wars should be fought and who they should involve and what kind of relations should apply in the aftermath of war.

So, we can easily think of relevant examples.
Contrast the colonists' conduct towards their British adversaries vs. their later conduct in the Indian wars.
Contrast the Nazi conduct of war towards the British vs their conduct towards Russians and Poles.

Just War Theory's weakness is that we discard it when dealing with people who are dissimilar enough to dehumanize the Other.

Last edited by Goose (8/12/2017 7:44 am)