Just-war theorists reject prioritizing own soldiers’ safety over enemy civilians’ safety.

Evidence

Theorists of just warfare considered this doctrine a monstrosity. Michael Walzer and Avishai Margalit energetically rejected Kasher and Yadlin’s position: “Their claim, crudely put, is that in such a war the safety of ‘our’ soldiers takes precedence over the safety of ‘their’ civilians. Our main contention is that this claim is wrong and dangerous. It erodes the distinction between combatants and non-combatants, which is critical to the theory of justice in war (jus in bello).” Pointing out that “the crucial means for limiting the scope of warfare is to draw a sharp line between combatants and non-combatants,” they added: “For Kasher and Yadlin, there no longer is a categorical distinction between combatants and non-combatants. But the distinction should be categorical, since its whole point is to limit wars to those—only those—who have the capacity to injure… . This is the guideline we advocate: conduct your war in the presence of non-combatants on the other side with the same care as if your citizens were those non-combatants.” — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 442

Categorization

• XREF: Walzer’s jus in bello principle of the combatant/non-combatant distinction is being dismantled by drone-era doctrine. — connects to: Accepted zero-risk killing would collapse just war theory; Hyperprotecting soldiers shifts the burden of risk onto civilians — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 300

Related

• Just-cause theorists grant only the just warrior the right to kill (similarity 0.84)
• Accepted zero-risk killing would collapse just war theory (similarity 0.84)
• Soldiers’ lives were redefined as citizens deserving protection above enemy civilians. (similarity 0.83)
• Risk-free warfare erodes the legal principles justifying the right to kill in war. (similarity 0.83)
• Hyperprotecting soldiers shifts the burden of risk onto civilians (similarity 0.83)
• A state can prioritize its own soldiers’ lives over unlimited foreign civilian casualties. (similarity 0.82)
• Zero-risk warfare implies radical inequality in the value of lives (similarity 0.81)
• Kasher and Yadlin formally ranked national soldier lives above enemy civilian lives (similarity 0.81)
• Removing risk reduces the soldier to a mere executioner in need of new victimhood (similarity 0.81)
• US ground forces in Afghanistan and Iraq also privileged soldier protection over civilians. (similarity 0.80)
• The drone reconciles liberal security statehood with unrestricted waging of war. (similarity 0.79)
• Risk-free drone operators morally resemble assassins, not soldiers (similarity 0.79)
• Drone warfare adopts assassination ethics while refusing assassination’s self-sacrifice (similarity 0.79)
• Radical protection from death transforms war into one-sided slaughter or hunting (similarity 0.79)
• Combat indifference to killing spread to accept civilian deaths by mistake (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Hyperprotecting soldiers shifts the burden of risk onto civilians #corroborates (0.85) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 300
• Accepted zero-risk killing would collapse just war theory #expands (0.70)