War

People often contemplate doing things that are harmful to others.  Usually they do these things because they believe the actions will have some beneficial effect.  Sometimes they are right, but other times they are wrong.  Even in cases where they are right, however, it is not necessarily the case that the harm is justified.  For example, it is possible that there is some less destructive alternative.  It is also possible that most people would consider that the harm done by an action outweighs the benefit.  People who want to avoid interpersonal comparisons can say that actions of the type being considered would be such that as a matter of principle the action should be seen as being unacceptable.

War is very destructive, but many would argue that it is necessary under certain circumstances.  However, war is so destructive that some would even go so far as to claim that there will always be a better alternative.  In order to shed light on this subject, we will need to examine the causes where war is alleged to be justified and see if non-violent alternatives could effectively be used instead.

War is typically justified for the purpose of protecting national sovereignty or to protect human rights.  I see national sovereignty and human rights to be goals worth pursuing.  Human rights is obvious, but the case for national sovereignty needs some explanation.

National sovereignty is the principle that our government has exclusive jurisdiction over us.  It extends from the rights of people to determine how they ought to be governed, but even if we didn't except this principle we would still support national sovereignty.  If one authority has control over the type of coercion that governments are involved in, this individual or organization will have a long term interest in the prosperity of the people being governed.  Exclusive jurisdiction prevents a tragedy of the commons, where one authority has will have a tendency to apply more coercion because proceeds derived from coercion will accrue to the one applying the coercion, whereas future earnings derived by allowing the people to prosper by reducing coercion will be shared by more than one individual or organization.

Government's derive their power from the moral and ethical values of the people.  In order for a government to collect taxes, it must find people who consider taxation to be morally justified.  If you send someone to collect taxes they consider illegitimate, what is to prevent them from reaching an agreement with the taxpayer to collect a smaller bribe so as to avoid the tax.  The government can send in people to enforce tax collection, but unless they believe that taxation is just, we will have the same problem here.  The tax collector could pay them off with a smaller bribe.

When the people disobey their leader, the leader can tolerate it or send in the police and armed forces.  If the leader tolerates it, then this sets a precedent that will undermine his authority.  If he sends in the armed forces then the success of this action will depend on whether or not the armed forces carry out the instructions of their leader.

If the opponents of the government fire on its soldiers, the soldiers are likely to fire back.  They are unlikely to adopt the point of view that being a soldier in the service of the existing government is an offense that should be punishable by death.  If alternatively, those same opponents were to explain to those same soldiers and other people why they believe that the existing government is illegitimate and why the armed forces should not apply force against them, they might be more successful.  It is difficult to get soldiers to believe that they are justified in firing on unarmed civilians particularly if they are their own countrymen.

When the government tells the armed forces to fire on the people, and the soldiers don't follow their orders, then the regime is finished.  Its authority has been destroyed.

By widely disseminating information about non-violent resistance and liberalizing immigration policies we can improve human rights abroad.  Non-violent resistance can also be used to protect national sovereignty, although it will admittedly be less effective since the soldiers will not share the same nationality.