Avenging of Injuries. The Revival of Punishment as an Objective of War
Keywords:
Punishment, legalism, war, just war theory, Russia, Ukraine
Abstract
In this essay, I question the modern meaning of punishment to justify the use of military force. First, I trace why and how the punitive doctrine of war appeared. Its authors and operators were Christian theologians who, for a long time, consolidated the punitive concept’s dominance. Punishment was aimed at interrupting and removing sin. This religious approach was revised in early Modern times against the backdrop of the modern state’s strengthening. Next, I consider the legalist approach to war relevant to this period. Its general approach was to recognize just war, which was a response to an offense. States used war as a means of protecting their rights. I note that this approach remains dominant today, but at the same time the idea of punishment is being restored. Finally, I give examples of how the concept of punishment and retribution, including those interpreted religiously, have been used during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. These examples allow us to draw some conclusions about the limitations of the modern primitive concept of war.
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Elshtain, Jean Bethke (2003). Just War against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World. New York: Basic Books.
Furukawa, Terumi (1993). “Punishment.” In A Normative Approach to War: Peace, War, and Justice in Hugo Grotius, ed. Onuma Yasuaki, 221–243. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Geddert, Jeremy Seth (2014). “Beyond Strict Justice: Hugo Grotius on Punishment and Natural Right(s).” The Review of Politics 76(4): 559–88.
Grotius, Hugo (1925). The Law of War and Peace in Three Books. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
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Hula, Erich (1946). “The Revival of the Idea of Punitive War.” Thought: Fordham University Quarterly 21(3): 405–34.
Johnson, James T. (1987). The Quest for Peace. Three Moral Traditions in Western Cultural History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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Kant, Immanuel (1917). Perpetual Peace. A Philosophical Essay. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Kellner, Douglas (2007). “Bushspeak and the Politics of Lying: Presidential Rhetoric in the ‘War on Terror’.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37(4): 622–45.
Kerrigan, John (1997). “Revenge Tragedy: Aeschylus to Armageddon.” Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kumankov, Arseniy (2023). “Nazism, Genocide and the Threat of The Global West. Russian Moral Justification of War in Ukraine.” Etikk i Praksis—Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics 17(1): 7–27.
Langan John (1984). “The Elements of St. Augustine's Just War Theory.” The Journal of Religious Ethics 12(1): 19–38.
Lederach, John Paul, and Scott R. Appleby (2010). “Reconciliation: An Ethic for Peacebuilding.” In Strategies of Peace, eds. Daniel Philpott and Gerard Powers, 91–118. New York: Oxford University Press.
Luban, David (2011). “War as Punishment.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 39(4): 299–30.
MacMillan, Margaret (2003). Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. New York: Random House.
Mattox, John (2006). St. Augustine and the Theory of Just War. New York: Continuum.
McMahan, Jeff (2008). “Aggression and Punishment.” In War: Essays in Political Philosophy, ed. Larry May, 67–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Medvedev, Dmitriy (2022). “Why is Our Cause Just?” https://t.me/medvedev_telegram/206.
Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (2022). “Ministry’s of Defense of the Russian Federation Report on the Progress of a Special Military Operation on the Territory of Ukraine (08.01.2023)” https://t.me/mod_russia/23279.
Neff, Stephen C. (2005). War and the Law of Nations: A General History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O'Donovan, Oliver (2003). The Just War Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Driscoll, Cian (2008). The Renegotiation of the Just War Tradition and the Right to War in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Orend, Brian (2006). The Morality of War. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press.
Origen (1980). Contra Celsum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putin, Vladimir (2022a). “Address by the President of the Russian Federation.” Kremlin.Ru, 24 February. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843.
Putin, Vladimir (2022b). “Address by the President of the Russian Federation.” Kremlin.Ru, 21 February. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828.
Putin, Vladimir (2022c). “Concert Marking the Anniversary of Crimea’s Reunification with Russia.” Kremlin.Ru, 18 March. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68016
Putin, Vladimir (2022d). Telephone conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Kremlin.Ru, December 2 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69971
Reichberg, Gregory M. (2013). “Culpability and Punishment in Classical Theories of Just War.” In Just War: Authority, Tradition, and Practice, eds. Anthony F. Lang Jr., Cian O'Driscoll, and John Williams, 157–80. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Russell, Frederick H. (1975). The Just War in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Salter, John (1999). “Sympathy with the Poor: Theories of Punishment in Hugo Grotius and Adam Smith.” History of Political Thought. 20(2): 205–24.
Schmitt, Carl (2006). The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europeaum. New York, NY: Telos Press.
Schmitt, Carl (2007). Die Wendung zum diskriminierenden Kriegsbegriff. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
Singer, Peter (2004). The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush. New York: Dutton.
Smith, Christopher (2022). Ukraine's Revolt, Russia's Revenge. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Smytsnyuk, Pavlo (2023). “Rationalizing the war in Ukraine through religion: The Orthodox Church and Russia’s Imperialist Motif (A response to Hans-Herbert Kögler).” European Journal of Social Theory 26(4): 542–47.
Strelkov, Igor (2023). Strelkov Igor' Ivanovich https://t.me/strelkovii/3695.
Tertullian (1959). “The Chaplet.” In Tertullian: Disciplinary, Moral, and Ascetical Works, eds. Rudolph Arbesmann, Edwin A. Quain, and Sister Emily Joseph Daly, 255–58. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.
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Thomas Aquinas. (1947). Summa theologica. Vol 2. Second Part of the Second Part. New York: Benziger Bros.
Tuck, Richard (1979) Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Vattel, Emer de (2008). The Law of Nations. Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns. Indianapolis. Liberty Fund. Von der Leyen, Ursula (2022). 2022 State of the Union Address by President von der Leyen https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/ov/speech_22_5493
Walzer, Michael (2015). Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustration. New York: Basic Books.
Wogaman, J. Philip (2010). Christian Ethics, Second Edition: A Historical Introduction. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.
Wynn, Philip (2013). Augustine on War and Military Service. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
Yoder, John H. (1996). “War as a Moral Problem in the Early Church: The Historian’s Hermeneutical Assumptions.” In The Pacifist Impulse in Historical Perspective, ed. Harvey L. Dyck, 90–110. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Zelenskyy, Volodymyr (2022a). “Democracy can Lose on the European Continent if Words are not Backed up by Action.” Address by the President of Ukraine to the participants of the Copenhagen Democracy Summit. 10 June 2022. https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/demokratiya-mozhe-prograti-na-yevropejskomu-kontinenti-yaksh-75721.
Zelenskyy, Volodymyr (2022b). Address by the President of Ukraine on the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation. 8 May 2022. https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/zvernennya-prezidenta-ukrayini-z-nagodi-dnya-pamyati-ta-prim-74885.
Zelenskyy, Volodymyr (2023a). “We must do everything we can so that next year we will be able to pray with thanks for the obtained salvation from evil.” Volodymyr Zelenskyy's address to the participants of the National Prayer Breakfast in the United States. 2 February 2023. https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/mayemo-zrobiti-vse-shob-nastupnogo-roku-mi-zmogli-pomolitisy-80741.
Zelenskyy, Volodymyr (2023b). “February. The year of invincibility.” Address by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 24 February 2023. https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/zvernennya-prezidenta-ukrayini-volodimira-zelenskogo-lyutij-81213
Zelenskyy, Volodymyr (2023c). “Rashism Must Face a Total Defeat: Military, Economic, Political, Legal.” Address by the President of Ukraine. 2 April 2023. https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/rashizm-povinen-projti-cherez-povnu-porazku-vijskovu-ekonomi-82037.
Published
2023-12-31
How to Cite
Kumankov, A. (2023). Avenging of Injuries. The Revival of Punishment as an Objective of War. Stasis, 11(1-2). Retrieved from https://stasisjournal.net/index.php/journal/article/view/242
Section
Articles
