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Chapter 7 - Forever Wars

Time and Value in War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2023

Graham Parsons
Affiliation:
United States Military Academy
Mark Wilson
Affiliation:
Villanova University, Pennsylvania
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Summary

We are increasingly living in a world of forever wars, wherein neither party has a foreseeable determinate pathway to victory. This chapter explores three challenges for traditional just war theory raised by forever wars. First, I discuss and reject the claim that forever wars necessarily fail the proportionality and reasonable prospect of success conditions of jus ad bellum. Second, although forever wars may not be disproportionate, they do suffer from compounding errors and indeterminacy in assessing likely future costs and benefits. Finally, I consider time-variant value and discounting, wherein future goods are deemed to possess less value than present goods. Discounting is a feature of the appraisal of financial and monetary goods, and it seems to play a role in some moral judgements also. Subjecting the expected costs and benefits of war to discounting over time significantly impacts the moral permissibility of forever wars. Time variability impacts ad bellum judgements about the justification of war as well as in bello decisions, generating a reason to prefer weapons that generate immediate strategic advantage, but whose collateral costs often occur far in the future.

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How to End a War
Essays on Justice, Peace, and Repair
, pp. 132 - 149
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Forever Wars
  • Edited by Graham Parsons, United States Military Academy, Mark Wilson, Villanova University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: How to End a War
  • Online publication: 02 March 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108992640.008
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  • Forever Wars
  • Edited by Graham Parsons, United States Military Academy, Mark Wilson, Villanova University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: How to End a War
  • Online publication: 02 March 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108992640.008
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Forever Wars
  • Edited by Graham Parsons, United States Military Academy, Mark Wilson, Villanova University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: How to End a War
  • Online publication: 02 March 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108992640.008
Available formats
×