The Limitation of Warfare
A just war theorist is loath to see the order and tranquility of peace disturbed. For him war is justified only as an extreme measure. A contemporary just war theorist is not unaware that war has often involved the use of illicit means, i.e., that the force employed has not always been proportionate to legitimate military necessity; at times non-combatants have been killed. It is because of these inherent dangers that war is, above all else, a moral problem. The question of just war today is essentially a question of using forceful means moderately. What is the debitus modus and how does it apply to the bombing of cities?
Scholastics, including St. Thomas, lay down three distinct conditions for a just war. They are: a just cause, right intention, and legitimate authority. In 1317 the Franciscan author of Summa casuum conscientiae adds a fourth condition, which he calls "modestia."1 Similarly, Gabriel Biel (c. 1425-1495) discusses the fourth condition and introduces the term debitus modus. 2 In De jure belli Vitoria substitutes a broader consideration for St. Thomas' recta intentio and asks what and how much it is licit to do to the enemy in a just war. 3 Bellarmine also mentions moderation as one of the conditions of a just war. "The fourth condition is propriety of manner, which consists principally in this: that the innocent are not harmed."4
One should not misinterpret the comparatively late development of the debitus modus condition. It appears that up to the time of the late thirteenth century the jurists and moralists are preoccupied with the justification of the jus ad bellum. That war should be limited was so patently obvious to the Christian that it did not seem necessary to discuss it at any length. The heart of the controversy was whether war in any form could be allowed. For this reason the treatises of many early scholastics are concerned first of all with whether a state has the right to war and if so under what conditions this right may be invoked. On the one hand the theorists wish to eliminate private wars by limiting the right to war to the legitimate ruler of the state. On the other hand, they wish to show that not only the Emperor but the ruler of every self-sufficient state can resort to war if necessary. We do find the subject of legitimate means discussed even though such restrictions were not put down as a condition of just war. In 1139, for instance, there is a conciliar proscription of the crossbow. 5 St. Thomas considers the legitimacy of stratagems and deception in war. There is also the Church law regarding noncombatants. Excommunication could be incurred for not observing the exemption of the clergy or the right of sanctuary. It is true, however, that many of the Church laws pertained primarily to private wars. This actually was the source of much dispute, for it was debated whether the laws pertaining to private wars, the rules of the Truce of God, were equally valid for public wars. Both the civil powers and the Church attempted to eliminate or at least limit the abuses of these private wars. In order to do this, certain conditions required for a just war were stipulated and attempts were made to restrict the right of war to rulers and to restrict the parties at war to combatants. 6
In St. Augustine's writings and in the formulation of the just war theory by St. Thomas the morality of means appears to be a matter covered by the recta intentio. Once the proper intention was present the state and its warriors were presumed to be acting justly and with moderation. This is sound theory. If there are no sentiments of ambition or revenge or self-aggrandizement, then it is safe to expect that warfare will be limited to the legitimate use of force.
Once the scholastics were in agreement that the right to war belonged to the state, they turned their attention more and more to the problems of warfare itself. There was the problem of restitution and how much the unjust party in war could be compelled to restore. Moreover, there were questions about the law of reprisals and about which acts in war could be considered merely revengeful. The theorists ask whether it is permitted to lay siege to a city, whether it is licit to cut off a city's water and food supply, whether it is permissible to poison the enemy's water, whether noncombatants may be indirectly killed and so forth. Vitoria is the first author to discuss these matters at length. Although he is liberal in allowing whatever is necessary to win war it is with him that the terms "apt" and "necessary" become an integral part of any discussion of legitimate means.7
The Debitus Modus And The Bombing Of Cities
In a work written in 1933 and revised in 1940, Msgr. John K. Ryan regards the claim to indirect killing in obliteration bombing as an "official fiction."8 But prescinding from the facts of contemporary warfare he examines the argument on its own merits. His conclusion is that such bombardments cannot be justified under the principle of the double effect. To rain an unlimited series of bombs over a large city, he writes, on the score that this is only incidental to the military targets "in other parts of the city, cannot stand the slightest critical examination either moral or logic, as an instance of the principle of double effect."9 Msgr. Ryan, of course, is writing about bombs that can be used with a certain amount of precision. Since residential sections of cities are discernible and clearly defined, precision bombing of military targets is incidental to the destruction of the whole city. The good effect is achieved "along with, or better, even after and on account of the evil" effect. 10
If obliteration bombing is illicit and immoral we may ask at once why the bombing of cities with hydrogen bombs is not a fortiori forbidden. Even if such a bomb has no radioactive after-effects, it is by its very nature and magnitude a weapon that cannot be used with precision. Discussion of its possible morally licit use is ordinarily made dependent on two conditions or factors. The first is that there are in existence military targets, which only large nuclear bombs can effectively destroy. The second factor has to do with noncombatants. It is contended that, given a supremely important target upon which it is permissible to drop a hydrogen bomb, it can be argued that noncombatants are killed incidentally and therefore indirectly. Furthermore, although it is admittedly difficult, it is still possible to have a just proportion between killing many noncombatants and the good effect.
The argument most often adduced in support of the first condition is the factor of time. In a sudden and large scale nuclear war it is held that precision bombing would be suicidal. That the good effects outweigh the evil effects is usually established by comparing the salvation of Western civilization with the death of many enemy noncombatants. Among those who discuss this case, many authors assume or imply that a nuclear war, the next war, or a war between the free world and communism is going to be total and unlimited in every sense. However, Ford thinks that the "either the Soviets or us dilemma" is an oversimplification. 11 Zalba discusses whether a nation may use an atomic bomb first. 12
The second moral determinant of legitimate means is even more important. In order to wage a just war, the size of the explosive must be commensurate with the target, which is attacked and within the demands of precision. In World War II the size of the bombs was generally not excessive. The immorality arose from the indiscriminate use of many bombs. To approach an area, especially by night, and to deliver a great many explosives on a target marked only by the perimeters of a city is to ignore the existence and rights of noncombatants.
Among our military strategists there is general agreement that in a nuclear war industrial cities and centers of population would not directly affect the military strength of a nation at war. Although some envision a nuclear exchange involving the mutual destruction of a number of cities it is generally admitted that such a war is most likely to be of brief duration and fought with weapons available at the initiation of the conflict. Consequently it may be argued that cities will have far less to do with the outcome of a nuclear war than they did in World War II. Moreover, as the counter-force theorists point out, the ability of an enemy to distinguish between military areas and centers of population will diminish the size of any contemplated attack and is likely to insure a nuclear assault limited to military targets.
In many instances it can be shown that the United States has attempted to distinguish clearly between military and civilian areas. For the protection of our own citizens nuclear bombs are manufactured in remote and totally military areas such as Oak Ridge, Tennessee. They are tested in desert areas in Nevada and New Mexico. Undoubtedly they are stockpiled in remote arsenals. Our government has equipped submarines with nuclear missiles and deployed them throughout the world. At one time there was a plan to move minuteman missiles around the country on railroad cars. Our SAC bombers are kept on bases, which are widely scattered throughout two thirds of the globe. While the primary objective in the wide disbursement and isolation of weapons systems is the invulnerability of our defenses it also separates nuclear forces from civilian populations.
Recently, however, some question has arisen whether our government is as careful as it should be in distinguishing between defense installations and civilian populations. For example, the Air Force has built a complete ring of Titan missiles around Tucson, Arizona, and plans to construct facilities for firing 150 missiles near the densest population centers in New England. In the minuteman complex in Montana there is a missile site equipped with a nuclear force equivalent to 800,000 tons of TNT located II miles from the city of Great Falls, which has a population of more than 75,000. One of the apparent reasons for building missile sites near cities is the cheap labor available for the construction work. It has also been suggested that the morale of the personnel attached to these cities would be endangered if the sites were too isolated.
Although this pattern of building atomic forces close to major cities is not inevitable and could be changed, the Air Force shows no sign of doing so… Thus present choices for missile sites actually unite rather than separate American atomic forces from American populations. 13
On moral grounds only the gravest of reasons can justify the confusion of military areas and civilian populations. There may be, for instance, some justification for constructing an anti-missile missile defense near a major city if it is felt that this affords the city a stronger defense. But in most instances a government that does not take serious pains to separate nuclear forces from civilian populations would be guilty of grave criminal negligence.
Opinions On The Morality Of H Bombs
Recent theorists have turned their attention to the morality of nuclear weapons. From these writings it appears that the morality of high level nuclear bombs depends first of all on whether military targets exist which can be made the legitimate objects of these bombs, and, secondly, on whether or not the good effect of these weapons outweighs their certain and vast evil effects. John McCarthy does not believe that the matter is open to debate. The hydrogen bomb, he writes, "is a grossly unlawful instrument of war" and "no set of conceivable circumstances, however grave, can justify its use."14 The other extreme is represented by John Connery, who believes that the use of the superbomb can be justified. "Granted a sufficiently important military target," he writes, "which could not be safely eliminated by any less drastic means" and presuming "that the good to be achieved is at least equal to the expected damage" nuclear bombing can be morally justified. He implies that there are circumstances in which both of these conditions can be "granted" and "presumed." Other authors, while manifesting a willingness to discuss the matter and apply the principles of the double effect, are much less certain that nuclear bombing can ever be justified in practice.
Ford asks whether it would ever be permissible to bomb the New York-Newark area with an "all-out multimegaton H-bomb." There are ten million inhabitants in this metropolitan center and certainly a number of important military targets. Ford does not think such an attack can be justified.
It is my contention that the civil and military leaders who would plan and execute the dropping of a series of high megaton H-bombs on an area like Moscow or New York: 1) would not in practice avoid the direct intention of violence to the innocent; 2) could not avoid such an intention even if they would; and 3) even if they would and could avoid it, would have no proportionate justifying reason for permitting the evils which this type of all-out nuclear warfare would let loose. 15
According to Ford, there are two fundamental reasons why this type of bombing cannot achieve its intended good effect without at the same time causing greater evil effects. With a hydrogen bomb it is no longer possible to speak of the incidentality of the evil effect. There comes a point "where the immediate evil effect of a given action is so overwhelmingly large in its physical extent" that it is impossible to say "that it is merely incidental" and not "directly intended."16 In the second place. Ford contends that it is not possible to show that there is a proportion between the good effect and the evil effect in such an attack. "It is illegitimate to appeal to the principle of the double effect when the alleged justifying cause is speculative, future, and problematical, while the evil effect is definite, enormous, certain, and immediate."17
While most Catholic moralists would surely agree with Ford that hydrogen bombs may not be used on an area such as New York and Newark, they do not seem to agree that hydrogen bombing precludes the possibility of indirect killing. Most authors approach the problem theoretically. Connell writes, "I do not intend to disregard Catholic theological teaching and to condemn the use of the bomb without qualification merely because there is grave reason to fear that in the near future it will be used in an immoral way."18 McReavy insists that the same principles hold good today as in the days of the bow and arrow. However, he admits that the enormity of nuclear weapons reduces the number of legitimate targets. However, "it would be difficult to prove apodictively that there can never be such a target."19 Connery is willing to go a step further:
However distasteful, the use of violence may be perfectly legitimate, and although the regret and distaste may increase with the degree of violence demanded by the situation, neither the intensity of the distress nor the measure of the violence to can be used as independent moral yardsticks. 20
The professional moralist treats the rifle and the hydrogen bomb as belonging to the same species of weapons. This is the source of much futile controversy. It leads authors, like Gordon Zahn, to conclude that the theologians do not appreciate the enormous forces of nuclear weapons. The dispute between Fr. Connell and Gordon Zahn concerning the differences between a tiger and a kitten clearly indicate the two approaches to this problem. Nonprofessional moralists and many relative pacifists prefer to determine the morality of nuclear bombs on the ground that in se and by their very nature such violent and brutal forces are immoral. The moral theologian is inclined to determine the morality of such forces by the way they are used and by the targets toward which they are directed, the governing principles being the welfare of innocent citizens. 21
Theoretically, if there are legitimate targets for nuclear bombs, the morality of nuclear bombing may be defended. When the destruction of a target involves the killing of many noncombatants the morality, in this instance, depends on the justifiable proportion between the evil effect and the good effect (the military destruction). If this proportion can be said to exist, and presuming that military targets do exist which only nuclear bombs can effectively destroy, then again one may defend the morality of nuclear bombing. There are many authors, perhaps the majority, who admit, at least in theory, that there are such legitimate targets and that it is still possible to envision a justifiable proportion between the good and evil effects. For example, Kelly writes: "Granted that the objectives are military targets, and granted the necessity of eliminating them in order to resist atheistic aggression, I am of the opinion that the concomitant civilian devastation can be justified."22 One of the conclusions is that since military targets exist and since a justifiable proportion can be established, it is licit to manufacture and store nuclear weapons, and to rely on their deterrent value. 23
Authors who admit the possibility of justifiable nuclear bombing do not conceal the difficulty of designating legitimate military targets. Connell says that the target must be of "supreme importance." As examples, he suggests the only factory making H-bombs or the building containing all the enemy leaders. He also considers a fleet at sea, a large body of troops, a railroad center, a road used by enemy supply trucks and an ammunition dump as legitimate targets. He does not mention cities at all. 24 McReavy says that a "predominantly civilian town" cannot be a legitimate target. To bomb a predominantly civilian city with an H-bomb he agrees with Ford that, "you cannot claim that you intend only the destruction of its war potential." The only city, which McReavy suggests as a legitimate target for an H-bomb is Oak Ridge, Tennessee. 25
Connery, it seems, is more willing than most moralists to admit that the conditions of a just war can be satisfactorily applied to nuclear bombing. The case he proposes involves two industrial centers with a residential area in between. If it is possible to destroy these two industrial centers with conventional precision bombing, then this must be done. But if precision bombing would be "very costly to me both in money and in the lives of my own men" and if "my losses in such bombing would be proportionate to the loss of civilian life" in the total obliteration bombing of the whole industrial area, then "the use of the superbomb would be morally justified." The same holds if the case involves two industrial areas in the same city or even, "though the application is more appalling," two industrial cities in the same region. 26
To determine a justifiable proportion between the death of noncombatants and the good accomplished, Connery believes that the military strength and striking force of the enemy is "an important consideration." Thus, if the enemy has nuclear bombs, which there is good reason to believe he would use, the "more leisurely" precision bombing would be "suicidal." The existence of an enemy with nuclear bombs and the avowed intention to use them do not permit direct attacks on civilian populations, but the enemy war potential may be eliminated as effectively as possible "even with a tremendous loss of civilian life." Determining factors in Connery's reasoning are the war potential of the enemy and the time factor in nuclear war. If there were more time it would be necessary to use smaller bombs. 27
In the case proposed by Connery, the intended effect of the nuclear bombing of industrial cities is the destruction of "war plants," "industrial areas in the same city" or "industrial cities in the same region." The reluctantly permitted bad effect is the death of noncombatants in these cities or areas. If it is likely, Connery argues, that losses from precision bombing would be proportionate to the enemy losses from the superbomb, then the use of the superbomb may be justified. If precision bombing will be very costly "in money and in the lives of my own men," a justifiable proportion would seem to exist and it would be permissible to drop the bomb and permit the indirect killing of the noncombatants. By the phrase "my own men" Connery appears to refer to noncombatants because there could never be any justifiable proportion if the probable losses were many combatants and much money and the enemy losses were actually a great many noncombatants. How could the loss of all combatants and much money ever justify an attack upon the innocent noncombatants of the enemy? This was one of the arguments advanced by the government of the United States in using the first atomic bomb. It was rejected by the majority of moralists.
At this crucial point Connery's solution to his proposed problem becomes exceedingly imprecise. To say that there is a justifiable proportion between the probable loss of many noncombatants and the actual death of many of the enemy noncombatants does not seem to satisfy the demands of the double effect. First of all the proportion is not between the probable losses of the just state and the destruction of an enemy city or region, but between the destruction of an enemy military target and the loss of enemy noncombatants. Granting that the good effect does not have to be immediate in time, it still seems unrealistic and rhetorical to imagine that any of the goods of humanity or the Christian heritage of the West is going to be saved by bombing one or all of the communist cities.
Connery's interchange of terms manifests his difficulty and the weakness of his solution. He begins with the bombing of one residential area between two industrial centers. To justify such a bombing he argues that in the present state of nuclear weapons precision bombing may be suicidal and therefore the whole war potential of the enemy may and must be destroyed rapidly. In the end, the moral case he solves is no longer the case of one residential area between two industrial centers or even several industrial centers in a region but the case of the civilian population of the just side versus the "war potential" of the enemy. The argument would seem to be then that since there is a proportionate reason to justify the destruction of the enemy war potential in order to save our population there is also a proportionate reason to justify the destruction of the two enemy industrial centers with the residential area in between. But the moral problem is not our noncombatants or civilians versus the enemy war potential. There is in fact no moral problem here for it is always licit to destroy the enemy war potential to save the noncombatants of the just side. The problem involves both the war potential of the enemy and the enemy noncombatants. If there is no proportion between the destruction of enemy targets and the violence done to enemy noncombatants then, according to the conditions of the double effect, a proportion cannot be said to exist and the H-bomb cannot be used.
It is difficult to conceive of a situation in which Connery's position could be followed. If the war is a total war that is supposedly to be decided in a few minutes, a war in which nuclear superiority both offensively and defensively will be the deciding factor, there is no reason why cities should be considered military targets. If it is a limited war in which only conventional or small nuclear weapons are being used, a war in which industrial centers will be intimately bound up with the war effort, there is no reason to excuse oneself from the demands of precision bombing. If the extreme situation arose in which a nation has certain knowledge that in a matter of minutes a desperate enemy was about to launch a wholesale nuclear attack on all of its major cities there would be no justification for a preventive or retaliatory attack on all of the enemy cities, because this would be an attack against a predominantly innocent population. Moreover, it would not deter the threatened attack and it would most certainly endanger our own cities even further. 28
Conclusion
It is unreasonable to think that we could preserve our lives or our civilization by an indiscriminate attack upon enemy centers of population. The threat we face lies in communism and in its nuclear war potential. Neither would be destroyed by bombing their cities. "Ideas have a way of surviving bombardments," Ford writes, "but the millions of innocent do not survive."29 Must we not also consider the vulnerable position of the free world once it unleashed such an attack? After witnessing such an onslaught would the survivors be any less our enemies? Would they then see the ideological supremacy of the democratic and Christian world of the west?
Dr. Alain Enthoven, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, notes that the "potentially catastrophic character of thermonuclear war has forced practical decision makers, reasoning in a secular context, to adopt a set of criteria very much like those of the traditional Christian doctrine."30 To a certain extent this is true and is another encouraging indication that there is a reentry of reason into the prevailing theories of warfare. It is true that unconditional surrender terms, obliteration bombing, atomic bombing of Japanese cities, as well as massive retaliation, are now quite generally criticized even "in a secular context." But this recent reappraisal, however welcome, cannot be simply equated with anything like a general reaffirmation of the efficacy of relevant moral absolutes.
Under present circumstances the stance that a moralist assumes on the question of noncombatants is vital and altogether pivotal. It is the unanimity and unvarying insistence on this absolute, which makes the theorists of the just war tradition a cogent guide in our present impasse. The problems are enormous and complex, but outside of the just war tradition the only alternatives are either bellicism or pacifism. Both extremes hold that the distinction between civilian and combatant no longer obtains. Although this position is supported by different arguments, the conclusion is nonetheless similar and to a traditional moralist it is quite appalling. The bellicists who propose counter-value warfare and speak of being driven to the destruction of enemy society, regarding these as legitimate military alternatives, are saying in so many words that there is no such thing as a noncombatant in 20th century warfare. However, it seems that many, if not most, of the pacifists, nuclear pacifists, and relative pacifists make this identical presupposition a fundamental part of their case. For the uninhibited calculator there is no longer any innocent parties in war or at least warfare may be conducted as if there were none. The pacifist may deny this in principle but he feels safe in assuming that in practice warfare today cannot and will not be waged moderately. The irony of these two extreme positions is that their long-range effects on policy making are strangely similar. First of all, since war is beyond the control of man, there is no longer any accountability for acts posited in defense of one's country; secondly, pacifism and bellicism are remarkably interchangeable positions. Whether war need not or cannot be moderated becomes a matter of insignificance once war comes. Immediately prior to World War II opposition to a standing army in Britain and the United States was widespread. Yet, in what amounted to a few months these same countries planned the systematic obliteration of ninety German cities, issued unconditional surrender terms, dropped two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, and heard the English prime minister advising the German people to flee to the hills to watch their home-fires burn.
Limited war, therefore, is not to be confused with the limitation of warfare insisted on by just war theorists. Recognizing the expedient factors responsible for this saner policy is in no sense an adverse criticism of limited war, although it must be observed that the secular context of its origin does not guarantee that the rights of noncombatants will be respected.
* Professor of Philosophy at The College of Great Falls, Great Falls, Montana. Ph.D. and S.T.L. (Catholic University).
1 Robert Regout, S.J., La doctrine de la guerre juste, de saint Augustin a nos jours (Paris: Pedone, 1935), p. 97.
2 Ibid., p. 117.
3 F. Vitoria, Comentarios a la secunda secundae de Santo Tomas, in II-II, 40, 1, II, 278 and De jure belli, 1, II, 390 and 15-19, II, 401-405, cited by Thomas C. Donohue, Warfare and Justice in Sixteenth Century Scholasticism (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, St. Louis University, 1960), p. 99.
4 Bellarmine, De laicis. Chap. 15, cited by John K. Ryan, Modern War and Basic Ethics (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1940), note 24, p. 126.
5 Charles J. Hefele, Histoire des conciles (Paris: Letouzey et ane, 1912), p. 29. The proscription was first formulated by the Second Council of the Lateran under Pope Innocent II. It is repeated in the Decretales Gregorii IX (Lib, V, tit. XV, cap. un. in Corpus Juris Canonici, II, 805): "Artem autem illam mortiferam et Deo odibilem ballistariorum et sagittariorum adversus Christianos exerceri de cetero sub anathemate prohibemus."
6 Ernest Nys, in "Introduction" to De indis et de jure belli relectiones. The Classics of International Law, ed. James Brown Scott (Washington: The Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917), Vol. 7, p. 57.
7 Ibid., pp. 92-94.
8 Ryan, op. cit., p. 104.
9 Ibid., p. 104.
10 Ibid., p. 105.
11 John Ford, "The Hydrogen Bombing of Cities," in Morality and Modern Warfare (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1960), p. 103.
12 M. Zalba, Theologiae Moralis Summa (Madrid: Biblioteca De Autores Cristianos, 1953), Vol. II, p. 313. He holds that a just state may use an atomic bomb even if the enemy has no such weapon, provided all of the conditions of double effect are fulfilled. If both sides have atomic bombs but neither has used them an atomic bomb should not be used first because of the danger of reprisal. However, Zalba permits the use of an atomic bomb in a preventive war against a state that is imminently prepared to launch an atomic war or against a godless state ("sine lege morali"), which is just waiting for a favorable time to begin an atomic war. Preventive war in these instances would be defensive.
13 Arthur I. Waskow, The Limits of Defense (New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1962), p. 23; cf. also "Can Nuclear War Be Limited?", editorial. The Christian Century, Vol. 79 (July 4, 1962), p. 833.
14 John McCarthy, "The Morality of the Hydrogen Bomb as a War Weapon," Irish Ecclesiastical Record, LXXIV (1950), p. 359. He argues that the very nature of the hydrogen bomb is such that it cannot avoid killing many noncombatants. "It involves deliberate destruction which is out of all proportion to or does not compensate for any possible good which might be achieved."
15 Ford, op. cit., pp. 98-103.
16 Ibid., p. 101.
17 Ibid., p. 102.
18 Francis Connell, "Reply to Gordon Zahn," Commonweal, 52 (September 29, 1950), p. 606.
19 L. I. McReavy, "Morality and Nuclear War." Commonweal, 68 (June 6, 1958), p. 247.
20 John Connery, "Morality of Nuclear Armament," Morality and Modern Warfare, op. cit., p. 92.
21 Commonweal, Exchange of views between G. Zahn and Fr. Connell, loc. cit., p. 606.
22 G. Kelly, S.J., "Notes on Moral Theology," Theological Studies, XII (1951), p. 58.
23 Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R., "Is the H-Bomb Right or Wrong?," Sign, 29 (March, 1950), p. 14.
24 Ibid., p. 13.
25 McReavy, op. cit., pp. 247 and 248.
26 Connery, op. cit., p. 95.
27 Ibid., pp. 95f.
28 Strategists construct many possible patterns, which a nuclear war might conceivably follow. Thus Kahn classifies defense theories under four main headings: finite deterrence, counterforce as insurance, pre-attack mobilization base, and credible first strike capability. Cf. Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton, N, J.: Princeton University Press, 1961), Chap, V, p. 3. Waskow divides theories into the counterforce theory, the balanced deterrent theory, the mix and the arms control only theory. Within each of these theories an endless number of variations may be expected, The morality of each case must be determined carefully with due attention to the extenuating circumstances. Here it is merely stated that a deliberate attack on American noncombatants would not thereby justify a retaliation in kind. Cf. John B. Sheerin's criticism of Secretary of Defense McNamara's Commencement Address at the University of Michigan (June 1960), Catholic Standard, Washington, D.C., Vol. XII, No. 27 (July 6, 1962), p. 7.
29 John Ford, Morality and Modern Warfare, op. cit., p. 102.
30 "Reason, Morality and Defense Policy," America, 108 (April 13, 1963), p. 496.
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