War is Contrary to National Self-Interest
Must war be in self-interest
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A common argument used to object to a particular war is that the conflict somehow fails to serve "national interests." This is a favorite objection of isolationists who argue that their country should never involve itself in foreign disagreements, but even those who approve of engaging closely with other nations may object when that engagement involves sending the military to achieve some change through force and violence.
The interests in question are usually political or economic, although other interests may also play a role at times - for example, a war might be objectionable because it would reduce the security of a nation's citizens both at home and abroad. Because one of the most important interests of any government should be the safety and welfare of its citizens, it would be wrong for that government to pursue a course of action which needlessly endangers them.
One thing to note is that this sort of argument makes little in the way of any overt moral claims. It is not, for example, argued that the cause of perhaps freeing a nation from tyranny or oppression is in any way immoral or unjust; instead, the morality of the cause is set aside in favor of pragmatic calculations regarding what benefit might accrue to the nation. The only moral component one generally finds here is the assumption that the pursuit of national economic and/or political interests is sufficiently moral to oppose at least some wars.
One problem with this argument is that it often conceives of "national interests" in particularly narrow economic (oil or other vital resources) or political terms (defending an ally). If we aren't fighting for such reasons, then presumably there is really no point in fighting at all. But why can't "national interests" also include more ephemeral goals, like freeing people from tyranny? Can't a nation have moral interests in what happens in the world?
Sometimes those who raise this argument don't conceive of "national interests" in those terms; instead, the only "national interests" which would justify the use of military force would be a military attack from some other nation. Thus, the only justified wars are wars of self-defense. Anything else, whether to secure some political benefit or even to free some other nation from tyranny, is an immoral use violence.
This objection suffers from a flaw found in some other antiwar arguments: we are asked to adopt the principle that there is a genuine moral difference between acts of commission and acts of omission. To understand why, it must be kept in mind that this position argues that any war which is not waged in self-defense is immoral.
Consider the case of a dictator who is repressing an ethnic minority in his own country, even to the point where that minority faces being driven out or killed. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with such situations, economic and political sanctions have failed to produce any change or improvement. The best conclusion seems to be that only military action will achieve liberation - but of course that has nothing at all to do with self-defense because this dictator has made no threats at all against us. So long as we leave him alone, he'll leave us alone.
If a war is immoral and unjust when not waged in self-defense, then this war must necessarily also immoral. Should we then conclude that our only moral option is not to act at all, even though by not acting we are allowing many people to continue to be killed and oppressed. Which is worse, launching a war against someone who does not threaten us or allowing an innocent ethnic minority to be wiped out?
This argument that only wars of self-defense are moral indicate that minding our own business isn't as immoral as launching a war of aggression, regardless of the consequences. That is a deontological position because it privileges a moral rule (fight only in self-defense) over the possible consequences (preventing innocents from being killed); as such, it is an argument which might be made by a deontological pacifist, but not by a pragmatic pacifist.
Perhaps this is the most moral and the most reasonable position we can take, but that isn't obviously true. Indeed, many would argue that a person who was never being willing to use force or violence for the protection of anyone by himself is particularly selfish and that adopting such a principle is not very moral. It seems to be an error of this argument to assume that the killing people is always wrong except in self-defense because it only assumes that the self has sufficient value to warrant such measures.
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