THE MEANING OF
VICTORY
Beatrice Heuser
Strategic Studies
University of Reading
(currently Paris)
“Victories“?
• Gulf War I
• Gulf War II
• Afghanistan
• (and the many defeats
in the Cold War)
Debate about victory
• General Petraeus: “This is not the sort of struggle
where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home with
a victory parade … It’s not war with a simple slogan.
(11 Sept. 2008)
• Robert Mandel
• William Martel
• Colin Gray
• Angstrom & Duyvesteyn
• Boone Bartholomees
• Pres. Obama: “Let’s not talk about victory” (June 2011)
The Age of the NapoleonicClausewitzian Paradigm
• 19th century until 1945 (or even later,
especially US armed forces – Col Harry
Summers)
• Obsession with victory for its own sake
• Defined as: “imposing one’s will upon the
enemy” (Clausewitz), negation of any giveand-take.
• And…
Pursuit of Victory at all cost
• Brian Bond: The Pursuit of Victory from Napoleon
to Saddam Hussein
• American Civil War: unconditional surrender.
• Franco-Prussian War: Peace “Diktat”,
unaffordable Reparations, extensive humiliation
of defeated party. Perceived injustice.
• World War I: Versailles “Diktat”, unaffordable
Reparations, extensive humiliation of defeated
party. Perceived injustice.
• World War II: unconditional surrender.
By contrast: earlier thinkers…
ARISTOTLE
• The end of the medical art is health, that of
shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory,
that of economics wealth. (Nicomachean
Ethics I.1)
• We are busy that we may have leisure, and
make war that we may live in peace. … no-one
chooses to be at war, or provokes war, for the
sake of being at war. (Nicomachean Ethics X.7)
Just War
• Goes back to pre-Christian ROMAN concepts
• Preconditions for Just War:
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–
–
–
–
Just cause (self-defence or defence of another)
Just aim: the pursuit of peace
Was is the last resort
Carried out with moderation (proportionality),
And balance of consequences, i.e. the destruction and
suffering caused must not outweigh the evil that is
fought.
– After a formal declaration. (all in Cicero).
Classical Literature on the Art of War
Onosander (1st century):
The causes of war … should be marshalled with the
greatest care; it should be evident to all that one fights on
the side of justice. For then the gods also, kindly
disposed, become comrades in arms to the soldiers, and
men are more eager to take their stand against the foe.
For with the knowledge that they are not fighting an
aggressive but a defensive war, with consciences free
from evil designs, they contribute a courage that is
complete; while those who believe an unjust war is
displeasing to heaven, … enter the war with fear.
Just War (cont.)
• Adopted by the Roman Augustine of Hippo, who
fused it with Christianity (c.400 AD)
– Adds: need for legitimate authority (God, or the
legitimate government)
• Codified by Thomas Aquinas (13th century)
• General acceptance in International Law:
– UN Charter (1945) only allows defensive war or war
authorised (Chapter VII.51), or action authorised by
UN in protection of international security (Chapter VI)
– UN High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and
Change (2004): ‘A More Secure World: our shared
responsiblity’.
See over…
“A more secure world” (UN 2004)
five basic criteria of legitimacy (for authorization of action by UN):
(a) Seriousness of threat. Is the threatened harm to State or human security of a
kind, and sufficiently clear and serious, to justify prima facie the use of military
force? In the case of internal threats, does it involve genocide and other large scale killing, ethnic cleansing or serious violations of international
humanitarian law, actual or imminently apprehended?
(b) Proper purpose. Is it clear that the primary purpose of the proposed military
action is to halt or avert the threat in question, whatever other purposes or
motives may be involved?
(c) Last resort. Has every non-military option for meeting the threat in question
been explored, with reasonable grounds for believing that other measures will
not succeed?
(d) Proportional means. Are the scale, duration and intensity of the proposed
military action the minimum necessary to meet the threat in question?
(e) Balance of consequences. Is there a reasonable chance of the military action
being successful in meeting the threat in question, with the consequences of
action not likely to be worse than the consequences of inaction?
From Antiquity to Napoleon:
Peace is self-evidently the war-aim.
• Both Pagan and Christian Roman
• East Roman (Byzantine)
– Especially Emperor Leo VI (c. 900 AD)
• Western Medieval
• Early Modern
(from Christine de Pizan to eve of French
Revolution)
Victory is the preferred way to peace…
… but not the only one
Rühle von Lilienstern
• ‘War is the means of settling through chance and the use
of force the quarrels of the peoples. Or: it is the pursuit of
peace or for a legal agreement by States with violent
means.’ (On War, 1813)
• ‘Some say that the aim of war is victory. Others say it is
peace. Even others say it is the defence … or the conquest
of large pieces of land. In some cases any of these
definitions may be right. In general, however, one is as
unsatisfactory as the other, for otherwise each of these
{three definitions} would have to State the same. Victory,
however, is not always the necessary condition of conquest
or of peace, and peace is not always the necessary result of
victory and conquest.’ (Handbook, 1817)
Rühle von Lilienstern (cont.)
• ‘Victory and conquest are often causes of the
continuation, the renewal and the
multiplication of war.’
• ‘{It should be the case} that one only wages
war for {the sake of} peace, and that one
should only wage war, in order afterwards to
build it the more firmly and intensively on the
lawful understanding between States.’
Rühle von Lilienstern (cont. 2)
‘But in our experience and with individual real wars it does not
always work like that. There are … political contexts … in which a
warring State only concludes peace for the sake of the next war,
in which it regards peace as a convenient and irreplaceable
period of calm, in order to continue thereafter the struggle that
has been decided upon the more forcefully and completely.
There are other contexts … in which a State derives some
substantial, or perhaps only imaginary, gains from the
continuation of war. In such cases, war is by no means waged for
the sake of peace, as this would be a quite undesired event, but
for the sake of the hoped-for gains, to be achieved through war.
Such wars include those that are waged for passion and personal
interests of individual military men or officials, of the army – in
short, because of some subordinate interest, but not the general
welfare of the State.’
Sir Basil Liddell Hart
• ‘The more intent you appear to impose a
peace entirely of your own choosing, by
conquest, the stiffer the obstacle you will raise
in your path. … if and when you reach your
military goal, the more you ask of the
defeated side the more trouble you will have,
and the more cause you will provide for an
ultimate attempt to reverse the settlement
achieved by war.‘ (1939)
So: Victory alone not a good aim?
• Imposed peace conditions after Napoleonic victories
led to Prussian, Spanish, … Revanchism and antiFrench coalition.
• Imposed peace conditions of Franco-Prussian War
led to French Revanchism, contrib. to World War I
• Peace of Versailles led to German Revanchism,
contributed to World War II
• Arab-Israeli Wars
• Defeat of Iraq 1991 not accepted by Saddam Hussein
• …
Immanuel Kant
• ‘The field of battle is the only tribunal before
which states plead their cause; but victory, by
gaining the suit, does not decide in favour of
the cause. Though the treaty of peace puts an
end to the present war, it does not abolish a
state of war (a state where continually new
pretences for war are found)…’
(On Eternal Peace, 1795)
Victory through pietas and uirtus
Labarum, C 4th AD
Zeus nikepohoros, C 3rd BC
Peace with JUSTICE
Just war theory: you may fight the adversary only until your
just cause is served.
• Machiavelli (1513): ‘Victories are never so
overwhelming that the conqueror does not have to
show some scruples, especially regarding justice.’
• Matthew Sutcliffe (1593): ‘In the execution of wars,
this precept must be diligently remembered, that no
cruelty should be used. There is moderation even in
the execution of justice, not only in the other actions
of war.’
‘To keep our conquest, there are two principal means
which are necessary; force and justice.’
Peace and justice
(Tiepolo; Corrado Giaquinto)
Peace with Clemency
• Polybius (2nd C BCE) ‘[G]ood men should not make war on
wrongdoers with the object of destroying and exterminating
them, but with that of correcting and reforming their errors.’
• Raymond de Beccarie de Pavie, Baron de Fourquevaux
(1548): ‘the true office of the conqueror is to pardon and to
have pity upon the conquered. ‘
• Giacomo di Porcia (1530): ‘the duty and office of any political
leader, after the battle is won and victory achieved, [is] to
save lives [of those] who have not been excessively cruel and
overly resistant. For what would be less gentle, indeed more
like to the cruel and fiercely brutal beasts, than to handle your
enemy without any mercy and meekness. Undoubtedly a
leader acting thus will kindle the minds of men against him…’
Peace with Clemency II
• Paul Hay du Chastelet (1668):
What one has to do after having won a battle:
{the captain} has to preserve a generous
humanity for the vanquished, to have
compassion with them, to comfort them in their
disgrace, and through good treatment, sweeten
their rude misfortune. … It is a sign of the
greatness of a victorious prince if he … make[s] it
easier [for the defeated enemy] to fulfil the
condition of the treaties, proportionately to the
fact that [the victor] has won the greatest
advantages. …
Justice is taken to mean…
• A just settlement of the dispute (acceptable to
both sides)
• Justice and clemency in punishment
• Sparing wounded soldiers and POWs
• Good governance of the occupied areas, no
arbitrary arrests, requisitions, seizure of
property, let alone crimes against noncombattants …
Three components of conflict
resolution:
• Military Victory: yes, if
circumstances require. BUT:
• Lasting Peace as the only just
aim.
• Justice must be perceived by both
sides.
Sir Maurice Hankey (1950)
”The first aim in war is to win, the second is to
prevent defeat, the third is to shorten it, and the
fourth and most important, which must never
be lost to sight, is to make a just and durable
peace. …
It must always be kept in mind that after a war
we have sooner or later to live with our enemies
in amity.”
For sources and references…