Reasonable Success in War

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KyleD1

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I read in the Catechism that in order for a war to be just you have to have a reasonable chance of winning. This doesn’t make any sense to me. If someone’s attacking your country, dont you always have the right to defend yourself no matter the chances of winning? For example, wouldn’t this make the Catholics fighting at Lepanto immoral due to the fact there was a large chance they would be defeated by the Muslims? On a less serious note, wouldn’t the whole war in the Lord of the Rings be immoral for Gondor as they would be crushed if Frodo failed to destroy the ring?

Please explain this to me, I just dont get it.
 
Welcome to the forum!

I think the “reasonable chance of success” is a much lower bar than you are making it out to be. It clearly doesn’t have to be a certainty of winning, and I don’t think it even has be me most likely (>50%). There just has to be a chance of winning, and that chance has to be feasible. I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure this comes from St. Thomas Aquinas’s Just War Principle.

So for example, according to Wikipedia, the Christians were only outnumbered by the Muslims at Lepanto 11:10. There is definitely a reasonable chance of winning then. And for Lord of the Rings, you admit that Gondor does have a chance to win: if Frodo destroyed the ring. There didn’t need to be a certainty that Frodo would succeed, only a “reasonable chance” that he would. I think we also need to remember that fighting a defensive fight is almost always an advantage over attacking, so that needs to be factored in when evaluating if the chance of success is reasonable. Ultimately it is a judgement call for whoever has the authority to wage war.

Nevertheless, the principle stands that even a party that is in the right should not wage a hopeless war and it would be better to surrender to an unjust aggressor in such a case. I think the reason for this is that war is such a great evil, and the loss of life terrible (even the lives of soldiers of unjust aggressors) that waging a war you have no chance of winning is wrong. It’s wrong to cause extra death and destruction that won’t have any effect on the final outcome.
 
What about when Britain almost lost WWII in 1950 during the Battle of Britain? It just seems confusing that you cant defend yourself even if you will probably die or lose, because all you do is guarantee it your loss then. Also, hasn’t the aggressor lost the right to life also as long as they threaten you?
 
Maybe another thing we need to think about is the Just War Principle applies to decisions to wage a war, not an individual battle. So looking at Germany vs. Britain, they both had commensurate military forces (not equal, but definitely comparable), and Britain would be fighting a defensive war with a good strategic advantage, so there was a reasonable chance that they would prevail. Not a certainty they would prevail, not even necessarily better than 50:50 odds, just a reasonable chance, and that’s all that’s required.

A hypothetical example where it would not be moral to wage war would be if Germany had decided to invade Liechtenstein (and let’s say the Swiss would not help Liechtenstein). In that case, Liechtenstein would have no reasonable chance of winning, and so they could not be permitted to defend themselves even though they were otherwise in the right. The reason is that if they did, their soldiers would die, German soldiers would die, the evils of war would be invoked, and yet the outcome would be no different than surrendering.
 
But Frodo had a reasonable chance to destroy the ring. It took a lot of courage, and a good deal of cooperation, but he did it with no real miraculous help. Same with Lepanto, they won.

So their chance for success must have been reasonable. The Church does not say we have to be certain of winning, nor even likely to win, just that there is reason to think it can be won. Only a truly hopeless cause is prohibited by this part of just war theory.
Let’s take an hypothetical that we know won’t happen, let’s assume the US was to invade Mexico. Now, militarily, Mexico could not defeat us, but they still would have a reasonable chance to win by waging ongoing guerilla resistance. The politics of an waging an ongoing war of occupation could very well cause the US to abandon it’s full Hardy invasion and go home. Hence Mexico has a reasonable chance of victory.
 
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Personally, I think the difference is between “waging” war, being the aggressor, and defending. Defending your country from violent invaders would always be just. Waging war needs a larger threshold.
 
I just thought of a good way of explaining this:

War is evil. We have to acknowledge that. So we have to carefully consider under what circumstances can we use it. It makes sense that we can only use it to achieve some good that is at least the same weight as the evil of war.

If you wage a war while knowing that you have no reasonable chance of winning, then you admit that you are not using war to achieve any good, therefore it is immoral to do so.
 
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IdaCatholic said:
Defending your country from violent invaders would always be just.
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No, I think this still counts as war and is still subject to the Just War Principles. See my above hypothetical example of Germany invading Liechtenstein.
 
In WW II Denmark did not resist the German military takeover of their country. What the citizens of Denmark did do was to resist the Nazi persecution and deportation of their country’s Jews.
For instance, when the Nazis ordered that Jews had to wear a yellow star on their clothes, many Christians also decided to wear these stars. The Nazi persecution of Jews in Denmark met with very limited success compared to other occupied countries because of the resistance of the citizens.
 
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In the first century Israel was occupied by Rome and subjected to an onerous taxation. Jews expected that their Messiah, when He arrived, would free Israel from the Roman occupation. However, the Messiah did not do that, but instead advised obedience to the Roman authorities. (And there can be no doubt that, if He had led a military resistance, it would have been permanently successful.)

One hundred years later Simon bar Kokhba was accepted as the Messiah and led a revolt against Rome which was only briefly successful. His failure led to the deportation of Jews from Judea.

 
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Sauron lost.

The ottomans lost.

A better example might be something like the rebellion of John Brown.
 
It relates to proportion in self defense.
Ultimately the quest is for justice so it doesn t make sense to send people to die without a chance…
A disproportionate war isn t a just war.
 
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“Reasonable chance of success” must be understood in light of the consequences of surrendering. If the enemy intends to exterminate you, even the slightest hope that resistance will make them reconsider meets this criterion. Conversely, an enemy who merely demands tribute money would require a much greater probability of victory to justify armed resistance (leaving aside the other just war criteria for the sake of argument).
 
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