This post stolen wholesale from this excellent comment
According the Christian doctrine of Bellum Iustum, just war, just war requires
- Jus Ad Bellum, the right to go to war.
- Jus In Bello, Justice in War.
- jus post bellum, Just ending of the war.
Jus Ad Bellum requires:
- Auctoritas competens, right authority.
You need a sovereign who can make peace or war, and if he says “war” everyone in his ingroup is at war with the outgroup, or hangs as a traitor, and if he says peace, everyone is at peace with the outgroup, or hangs as a terrorist, or is extradited to the outgroup.
Russia has a ruler who can make peace or war, and is therefore able to negotiate a peace or threaten war. America has far too many authorities that can make war, and it is likely to be very difficult for the president to make peace and ensure that America adheres to any agreement he negotiated, There are a whole lot of military, spy, and quasi military agencies whose heads he needs to be able to kill or send to Russia, and if he cannot, America will find it very difficult to make peace and to have a peace that sticks.
America has broken so many agreements that it has made with Russia, often without the American president knowing until Putin complained directly to the president, as for example with American involvement in the Chechen war, that it is going to be very difficult for the president to make another. When the Japanese emperor decided to make peace, it was argued that he had no right to make peace without the consent of cabinet. In the ensuing disagreement on this topic, the imperial palace suffered a whole lot of bullet holes, and a whole lot of very important Japanese wound up dead. It is possible that in order to make peace on the Ukraine, Trump may be forced to employ similar measures.
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- Causa bella, just cause
The war criteria of “just cause” means that, in some overt way, a nation’s sovereignty is directly threatened. A hostile nation intent on actively pursuing ethnic cleansing of your ethic group, on your border, which is negotiating with a belligerent nuclear-armed opponent for the installation of military bases on your border also definitely ticks that box. Also, American expansion in eastern europe since 1991 is ungodly under Genesis 11:8, which states God deliberately scattered the nations and intended for them to remain thus. Collecting the nations into a single group is therefore ungodly, and how appropriate that the EU building in Brussels is styled after the tower of Babel.
The aggression against ethnic Russians living in Ukraine was promulgated by the authorities within the Ukrainian government (at the gleeful prompting of the Biden government and the Obama government). Multiple people directly involved in burning people alive in Odessa are now ministers under Zelenski.
Ukraine’s actions are morally wrong according to biblical rules and Russia’s actions bringing the war are morally right – this should be apparent to anyone not blinded by one-sided media coverage. There’s a 2016 documentary titled “Ukraine on fire”, which might help clarify Ukraine’s antagonism if you’re one of the people who never heard of the place before 2022.
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- Recta intentio, right intention
The clearly-stated purpose of the war is to stop Ukraine’s murderous actions and ensure the safety and political freedom of the people of Lugansk and Donbass in the eastern regions of Ukraine. Had Zelenski and Co. not tried to pull a fast one, this would have all been avoided.
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ultima ratio, last resort
All other reasonable means of resolving the conflict were seriously tried and exhausted – NATO encouraged Ukraine to negotiate between 2014-2022 only with the intent of rearming Ukraine to continue its vicious policy in the eastern provinces. Boris Johnson instructed Zelenski to not agree to any sort of negotiated peace treaty when fighting began in 2022.
All war must be undertaken with reluctance, sobriety and counsel. Those who engage in war must do so with great sorrow. As Psalm 68:30 says: “He has scattered the peoples who delight in war. In retrospect, Russia should have invaded in 2014, but from 2014 to 2024 endlessly tried to find a peaceful solution, making agreement after a agreement, and each Minsk agreement was broken by the west, often because there were far too many people in the west who could initiate warlike acts, and no one person who could force everyone to stick to an agreement to keep the peace, a problem that has now become more menacing than ever due to liberally granting security guarantees to barking Chihuahuas, as in the lead up to World War one, Imperial Russia gave security guarantees to Serbia, a nation incapable of choosing between peace and war, and in the lead up to World War II, the allies gave security guarantees to Poland, which promptly set about attacking its German minority.
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spes successus, hope of success
The relative populations and production capability of Russia and the Ukraine made it inevitable that Russia will be able to accomplish its objective of a Ukraine that is a neutral, non aligned, and denazified buffer state.
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- proportionem servans. proportionality of results.
The positive results of the war’s success must be greater than the losses that will inevitably occur from pursuing the war.
When Russians look westwards at the new rules based order they see an aggressive empire bent on dominating the entire world by violent means and transforming all people and nations into its own image, and they do not want to be dominated and remade. The period of subjugation from 1990 to 2000 was very unpleasant. When they look westwards at democracy and freedom, they see political opponents being burned alive in the Ukraine, Christians imprisoned, and Churches desecrated, and in America and Europe they see alarmingly large numbers political opponents being imprisoned, and a disturbingly large number of Churches burned.
Russia will gain stability, peace for ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, and reduced global support for US government warmongering like what led up to the present crisis.
What’s the point of anyone posting when you keep banning debate and commentary on this topic???
Anyone can pass the shill test regardless of his political position and what he wants to say. (Anyone who does not have a supervisor breathing down his neck who forbids him to notice certain crime thoughts, even to rebut them.) And anyone who passes the shill test can post anything he likes, other than endless unresponsive repetition.
Notice to all those pro war spammers. Your spam is being silently deleted. If you want it to appear, read the moderation policy and pass the shill test.
I would love to debate this war with a human supporter of the Ukraine capable of engaging in debate. Not so keen on robotic spam.
You forgot “racistus racistus”, the Democrat right to use Ukraine as a money laundering machine for their campaign coffers and personal gain.
It must feel weird being you, Jim. When this site started, heck, furries were more mainstream. But the absurdities, urgencies and emergencies of genocidal collapse 2016-present have brought your ideas and perspectives — maybe once or twice “laundered”, but still — to the world’s cognitive doorstep.
But please do keep the heat on. Don’t “sell out” or lose interest like Pearl Jam or whoever.