Reforming War as a Response to Experience

Insofar as war is experienced and the nature of war witnessed, there can be a reaction that is both positive and conducive to peace. One way this takes place is in reforming the strategies, laws, and customs of warfare so as to work against unnecessary suffering. As such, war experience can act as a unifier against unethical conduct, and seek to amend such practices after wrongs have been committed. Experience therefore motivates subsequent action and generates a discussion on how best to move forward. There are a number of examples which highlight the way that experience can motivate and construct national and international reform.

The end of WWI generated a theme of desiring peace internationally and not merely between individuals, giving rise to an institutional attempt for collective security in the form of the League of Nations, whose purpose was to preserve the peaceful order by making its members culpable for defending one another against aggression. Its aim was “as a useful means of ending diplomacy and finding a new framework in which to settle

international disputes without resort to war” (McDonough, 1998, p.16). Despite its failings in effectively enforcing collective security – and the absent membership of the USA and USSR – it demonstrated how the visceral reactions to suffering, as was the case after WWI, can generate an appetite for reform. Additionally, although Neville Chamberlain’s

appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany can be viewed as a reluctance to go to war, the critics of appeasement often favoured a different avenue for reform, whereby; “most critics, except those on the communist fringe and in the socialist league, forward support for the League of Nations, and the upholding of principles of collective security”

(McDonough, 1998, p.111). As such, the route of reform offered by the League of Nations

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was appealing and demonstrated the way in which humans are capable of learning from events, and desiring effective change as a result.

The Geneva Conventions on the LOAC created post-WWII are also an example of

international reform in response to conflict. Attempts to codify the acceptable practices of armed conflict and to institute mechanisms which hold actions accountable serve to entrench ethical conduct. The development of the UN Security Council in 1945 also highlights the demands for greater efforts at pursing peace as a response to conflict. We can recognise the benefits that experience of war has on developing large scale

institutional reform, and acknowledge the way that humans can move towards a more ethically permissible waging of war in response to experience, and equally what is lost when these processes of reform are bypassed via technology.

The reform of war in response to experience can take place on the national level too.

During the period of 1918-1939, British foreign policy was changed as a result of WWI.

McDonough (1998) argues that there was disenchantment towards the use of military force, such that “finding peaceful solutions to international conflict” (p.33) and encouraging the “reconciliation of defeated powers and to promote international cooperation and disarmament” (p.16-17) became central themes of British foreign policy and therefore determined its ends to be more peaceful. Foreign policy reform is significant since it dictates the external output and attitude of nation-states. Experience as a

motivator for reform has positive utility in turning more than merely individuals against needless conflict and suffering, and therefore is also conducive to peaceful ends.

Additionally, reforms can be on a smaller scale, yet still possess value. For example, WWI ignited a degree of distrust in leaders and thus was a catalyst for an alternative informal approach by some generals in WWII. Montgomery, Rees, and Horrocks are examples of Generals who took up this approach. Montgomery even said himself that he had suffered under faceless generals during WWI and vowed to do things differently given the

opportunity (Sheffield, 1997, p.34). Furthermore, WWI affected how military strategy and planning was conducted in the future. Connelly (2010) argues that “[f]or the professionals in the military, the shadow of the Great War was equally significant … Most British generals were anxious to avoid another trench stalemate” (p.54). Much like the aforementioned reforms by way of the Geneva Convention, the specific changes in military strategy are conducive to ethical warfare, and allow the experience of warfare to teach us about avenues for improved behaviour.

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The importance of recognising the utility of learning lessons from experience in war comes from the words of Norman Chamberlain, the cousin of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who sent a letter shortly before he was killed in France during WWI. His words had such an impact on Neville Chamberlain that he published them in private memoirs in 1923. Norman Chamberlain writes that “[n]othing but immeasurable improvements will ever justify all the waste and unfairness of this war – I only hope that those who are left will never, never forget at what sacrifice those improvements have been won” (Chamberlain, 1917, p.140, italics in original). This is the response to suffering and sacrifice that we should have when talking about experience of war; that such lives were lost and suffering endured to improve the lives of others. It is improvements Chamberlain speaks of and thus we must be

cognisant of what is possible when talking about reform.

Without being readily mistaken for advocating for suffering, let me clarify that my stance is that we should recognise suffering and take heed of its lessons, rather than preferring to create machines which ignore the lessons of conflict. As Shay pleads in the introduction to Achilles in Vietnam (1995);

“Learn the psychological damage that war does, and work to prevent war. There is no contradiction between hating war and honouring the soldier. Learn how war damages the mind and spirit, and work to change those things in military institutions and culture that needlessly create or worsen these injuries” (p.xxiii, italics in original).

Thus, we must recognise the suffering that war causes, lament its contingent presence, and seek to move beyond it. Rather than advocating for suffering, this argument advocates for acknowledging suffering, and using its axiomatic inevitability within war as a motivator for moving beyond it.

It is of immeasurable value to understand the power that experience can have on the future. If we are willing to opt for the preventable measures which LAWs provide, yet which fail to eradicate suffering, then by what means can we envisage mechanisms for reform arising so pressingly, or meaning being derived from the actions of war? The preventable benefits of LAWs are welcome, yet without an understanding of what humans bring to war and its subsequent conclusion, we deny ourselves the information and opportunity to discuss the ramifications for the implementation of LAWs.

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