The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...

58 C. Brown
grey would seem to make it well equipped to guide our thinking on so-called
humanitarian interventions, and indeed it has been used in this way, by me
among others (Brown 2000, 2002). Predictably enough, realists and pacifists
find nothing to admire in the distinctions Just War thinking encourages us to
make, but what is slightly more puzzling is the opposition of thinkers who fall
into neither camp. Ken Booth, a long-standing anti-realist, but a thinker whose
radicalism is not pacifist in any conventional sense of the term, provides an illustration
of the hostility of this camp in an essay written in response to the Kosovo
campaign of 1999 entitled ‘ten flaws of just wars’ (Booth 2000). His ten flaws
summarize two different kinds of criticisms which ought to attract different
kinds of responses. The first set is essentially contingent; he suggests that Just
War thinking encourages bad strategy, self-righteousness, self-delusion and disregard
for human security. In response, one might agree that these are bad things
in any circumstances, but one would also want to add that such vices are by no
means the prerogative of Just War thinkers but rather can be – and have been –
exhibited by realists and pacifists (and pretty well everyone else for that matter).
Booth’s second set of criticisms are much more to the point; the propositions
that Just War is used to justify escalation, destroy opponents, promote the militarization
of problems and legitimize war contain much more specific, less
generic, charges, and the reasons given for these criticisms are much more
closely related to the structure of Just War thinking than to the personality faults
of Just War thinkers. Just War thinking does indeed legitimize some kinds of
violence, arguing that some problems should be militarized; the sense that in a
conflict where one has justice on one’s side escalation and destruction may have
a dynamic of their own is not simply an expression of self-righteousness. There
are real issues here – although it would be perfectly possible to share Booth’s
critique of the Kosovo campaign while preserving the notion of a Just War,
arguing that while there might be Just Wars, this wasn’t one.
The American comedian Henny Youngman had a mildly sexist response to
the question ‘How’s the wife?’ – ‘Compared to what?’ 3 A good question for
social scientists in general but especially apposite here. What seems out of place
with this set of criticisms, to me at least, is not their general cogency, but the difficulty
of placing them within a wider framework. What is the alternative to Just
War thinking? Compared to what does it legitimize war, promote escalation,
etc.? Booth – who is used here as representative of a particular kind of radical
thinking in international relations – is not a pacifist and certainly not a realist.
Within what kind of framework can his critique of Just War thinking be placed?
The thought of Carl Schmitt may be helpful here – not so much because
Booth is a closet Schmittian but because Schmitt makes much the same criticisms
of the idea of Just War as Booth and other radicals but goes further, providing
a fully worked out context within which these criticisms make a great
deal of sense. Moreover, although Schmitt does have some affinities with at least
classical realism, his critique of Just War is far more deeply grounded than their
critique: realists who are bitterly critical of Just War thinking essentially base
their opposition on the pragmatic argument that prudence is the most important