Pacifism: Equipment or Accessory of War?

It is my intention to attempt to define pacifism, in its engagement and concept, as a necessary requisite of war and military action, following a phrase used over a hundred years ago by Franz Rosenzweig when speaking of pacifism as “necessary equipment of war.” I will try to defend the importance of pacifism as an integral part of war (as such, pacifism as a requisite of war ought to shorten the period of war and mitigate destruction) and oppose this concept of pacifism to Jan Narveson’s old attempt at constructing pacifism as a position and then designating it as “untenable and unreasonable,” and then further oppose this to his later attempt to find in pacifism the cause of further (and more) violence for ever more vicious wars.     

Does the War End When the Shooting Stops? The Psychological Toll of War1

The unremitting conflict between Israel and its neighbors has created a situation that often exposes soldiers to the repeated stress of a number of wars. Studies conducted by the Research Branch of the Mental Health Department in the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps have focused on the long-term mental health effects of such trauma. This article brings together the findings of a recent series of studies that examine the effects of both single and repeated exposure to the stress of battle, in terms of: (a) psychiatric breakdowns on the battlefield (Combat Stress Reaction); (b) enduring symptomatology (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder); and (c) the reactivation of previous traumas. Additional findings highlight the transgenerational effects of trauma as evidenced in the susceptibility of offspring of Holocaust survivors to combat stress reactions.     

Shari’a Reasoning and the Justice of Religious War

Most contemporary advocates of the Just War Tradition (JWT) condemn religious war. If they are correct, waging war should be a secular affair, fully justifiable on non-religious grounds. This secularized understanding of the JWT draws on normative commitments that lead many political theorists to advocate in favor of a secularized politics in western liberal polities. As a matter of historical fact and contemporary commitment, many Muslims have rejected the secularized conception of the morality of war found in contemporary conceptions of the JWT. I argue that, given appropriate distinctions between relevantly different kinds of religious war, advocates of the JWT have excellent reason to rethink their antipathy to religious war. Specifically, I argue that distinct kinds of religious war can enjoy differential normative standing and that there is no compelling reason to believe that religiously justified wars must be waged in a morally improper manner, viz., in a way that violates the JWT's in bello requirements.     

Factors Related to the Long-Term Course of PTSD in Older Ex–Prisoners of War

This study examined relationships between socioenvironmental factors occurring in later-life and current and changing PTSD symptom levels in a sample of 177 community-dwelling World War II and Korean era ex–prisoners of war. Factors examined included negative life events, negative health events, social support, and death acceptance. PTSD was assessed at Time 1. PTSD and the later-life factors were then assessed 4 years later (Time 2). Cross-sectional analysis examined the relationship of the later-life factors to current PTSD symptomatology. Longitudinal analysis examined their relationship to changing PTSD symptomatology over the 4-year interval. Negative health changes, social support, and death acceptance were significantly related to current and changing PTSD symptomatology, but negative life events were not. The authors conclude that health and psychosocial factors that may occur in later-life can be related to PTSD symptom levels even many decades after a traumatic experience.     

War Crimes and Expressive Theories of Punishment: Communication or Denunciation?

In a paper published in 2006, I argued that the best way of defending something like our current practices of punishing war criminals would be to base the justification of this practice on an expressive theory of punishment. I considered two forms that such a justification could take—a ‘denunciatory’ account, on which the purpose of punishment is supposed to communicate a commitment to certain kinds of standard to individuals other than the criminal and a ‘communicative’ account, on which the purpose of the punishment is to communicate with the perpetrator, and argued for a denunciatory account which I developed at some length. In this paper I would like to reconsider the plausibility of a communicative account. One difficulty that such accounts face is that the punishment of war criminals often involves the inflicting of harsh treatment on them by individuals who are members of states other than their own. On a communicative account this is problematic: on such an account—or at least on the version of it proposed by Duff (2000)—it is essential that those who are punish and those who punish them belong to a single community. When this requirement is not satisfied harsh treatment does not constitute punishment. Duff has argued that the problem can be solved by regarding all human beings as members of a single moral community: here I argue that this suggestion is unsatisfactory and propose an alternative. One consequence of my account is that if it is correct there may limitations on the range of kinds of war criminal that can legitimately be punished by international tribunals.     

Welcome to the ‘Paradigm War’: the case of antidepressant medication

Mindfulness-based therapies are a recent development within the cognitive-behavioural tradition and an important element of the third wave cognitive behavioural therapy models. A number of these therapies could be considered to have mindfulness as a major component of the therapy. There has been a considerable growth of interest in these therapies with an accompanying increase in their evidence base. While a number of reviews have been conducted, these therapies were not comprehensively appraised. The most prominent of these therapies, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, was developed to reduce relapse in recurrent depression. We conducted a meta-analysis which looked at therapies considered to have mindfulness as a major component. We investigated whether this group of therapies was effective in reducing current depressive symptomatology as measured by the Beck depression inventory (BDI). A total of 11 studies were included in the analysis. We found a significant mean reduction score in current depressive symptomatology, as measured by the BDI, of 8.73 points (95% confidence interval?=?6.61, 10.86). We found evidence for the effectiveness of these major-component therapies in reducing levels of active depression. The robustness of these findings is discussed alongside the implications for research and practice within the context of the current literature.     

Does War Hurt? Effects of Media Exposure After Missile Attacks on Chronic Pain

This study focused on the effects of exposure to terrorist missile attacks on the physical and mental well being of chronic pain patients. In this prospective and longitudinal design, 55 chronic pain patients treated at a specialty pain clinic completed self-report questionnaires regarding their pain, depression and anxiety pre- and post a three week missile attack on the southern region of Israel. In addition, levels of direct and indirect exposure to the attacks were measured. Results of regression analyses showed that exposure to the attacks through the media predicted an increase in pain intensity and in the sensory component of pain during the pre-post war period, but did not predict depression, anxiety or the affective component of pain. These findings contribute to the understanding of the effects of terrorism on physical and emotional distress and identify chronic pain patients as a vulnerable population requiring special attention during terrorism-related stress.     

Christianity: Maidservant to War?

In this multi‐book review article, the author examines three new texts that make the case for a deeper, richer understanding of the Christian tradition of nonviolence. All three authors argue that traditions of nonviolence, and misgivings and suspicion regarding the sanctioned shedding of blood, are central to the understanding and practice of Christianity, and deserve to be taken more seriously by researchers and practitioners alike.     

Suspicious Minds at Risk? The Role of Meaning in Processing War and Peacekeeping Experiences

The purpose of this study was to examine meaning as a mediator between perceived threat and posttraumatic stress responses among a sample of 1,561 veterans who participated in war or peacekeeping operations. Data were collected by questionnaire. Path analysis was performed to assess the expected relationships between the observed variables. Meaning in terms of distrust and personal benefits partially mediated the relation between perceived threat and posttraumatic stress responses. Distrustful beliefs about others and the world were strongly associated with perceived threat, as well as intrusive and avoidant thoughts. Creating meaning in terms of a positive worldview appears to be an important mission after military deployment.     

Nowhere to Run? Punishing War Crimes

This paper’s aim is to pose problems appropriate for the first paper of this issue, to provide something of an overview of the punishment of war crimes. It considers first the rationale of the law of war, the identification and scope of war crimes, and proceeds to consider the justification of punishing war crimes, arguing for a consequentialist view with side-constraints. It then considers the alternative of reconciliation.     

Selling the War? System‐Justifying Effects of Commercial Advertising on Civilian Casualty Tolerance

In times of war, news media coverage of the plight of civilian casualties plays a critical role in shaping attitudes regarding war's human costs. We proposed that these attitudes may also be surreptitiously influenced by the commercial advertisements that often accompany this coverage. Specifically, we hypothesized that when newspaper articles pertaining to civilian victims of war are flanked by luxury ads, conservatives, relative to liberals, will subsequently exhibit less concern for these victims. This proposition was based on the notion that commercial ads, particularly those promoting luxury items, make salient the gap between the “haves” and the “have‐nots” and thereby, at least implicitly, threaten the legitimacy of the current socioeconomic system. Drawing upon system justification theory, we posited that this threat would lead individuals with stronger system‐justification tendencies (conservatives), relative to those more open to challenging the current system (liberals), to show greater tolerance for civilian war casualties in order to defend the system's integrity. Evidence consistent with this hypothesis was found in a quasi‐experimental study (n = 329).     

Moral transgression during the Vietnam War: a path analysis of the psychological impact of veterans’ involvement in wartime atrocities

Background and Objectives: Involvement in wartime combat often conveys a number of deleterious outcomes, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, hostility, aggression, and suicidal ideation. Less studied is the effect of engagement in wartime atrocities, including witnessing and perpetrating abusive violence.

Design and Methods: This study employed path analysis to examine the direct effects of involvement in wartime atrocities on hostility, aggression, depression, and suicidal ideation independent of combat exposure, as well as the indirect effects via guilt and PTSD symptom severity among 603 help-seeking male Vietnam War veterans.

Results: Involvement in wartime atrocities was predictive of increased guilt, PTSD severity, hostility, aggression, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation after controlling for overall combat exposure. Combat-related guilt played a minor role in mediating the effect of atrocity involvement on depression and suicidal ideation. PTSD severity had a larger mediational effect. However, it still accounted for less than half of the total effect of involvement in wartime atrocities on hostility, aggression, and suicidal ideation.

Conclusions: These findings highlight the heightened risk conveyed by involvement in wartime atrocities and suggest that the psychological sequelae experienced following atrocity involvement may extend well beyond guilt and PTSD.     

Honor War Theory: Romance or Reality?

Abstract

Just War Theory (JWT) replaced an older ‘warrior code,’ an approach to war that remains poorly understood and dismissively treated in the philosophical literature. This paper builds on recent work on honor to address these deficiencies. By providing a clear, systematic exposition of ‘Honor War Theory’ (HWT), we can make sense of paradigm instances of warrior psychology and behavior, and understand the warrior code as the martial expression of a broader honor-based ethos that conceives of obligation in terms of fair competition for prestige. Far from being a romantic and outmoded approach to war, HWT accounts for current conflicts and predicts moral intuitions that JWT either rejects or cannot comfortably accommodate. So although it is not recommended as a replacement for JWT, there is good reason think that a fully mature, realistic, and yet properly normative theory of war ethics will incorporate a variety of insights from HWT.     

Can Patriots Be Critical after a Nationalist War? The Struggle Between Recognition and Marginalization of Dissenting Voices

Previous research suggests that the relationship between ingroup identification and reactions to moral violations perpetrated by ingroup members depends on the mode of identification: while glorification lowers group‐based guilt, critical attachment enhances it. In our first study, based on comparative survey research, this pattern was replicated in Serbia, but not in Croatia. In Croatia, highly attached respondents tended to reject criticism of the past war irrespective of their mode of identification. In a second study, we sought to explain the Croatian results by examining how critical attachment is denied legitimacy. We analyzed the rhetorical structure of a parliamentary debate around regime‐critical media coverage. The analyses show how the marginalization of critics is anchored in (1) a monolithic construction of the nation, which sacralizes particular elements and places them beyond discussion, and (2) a construction of the international context as too threatening to permit any dissent. Overall, the results of this mixed‐method study highlight that the opportunity to be recognized as a critical patriot depends on a nation's sociopolitical climate.