Killing "Innocents" In War

A certain argument is common among libertarians who oppose American national defense and demand that, rather than go to war to defend ourselves, we retreat from the world in the hopes that this will quell the threat. "The civilians of the aggressor country," they say, "are as innocent the soldiers of the country that was attacked, since neither has initiated force. If a soldier harms a civilian, then, he is initiating force. Any act of war that harms civilians is therefore indefensible."

This argument represents the worst sort of context-dropping and the crudest form of evasion.

A war is a conflict between nations, not individuals. During a war, the proper question is not, "Did this individual initiate force against that individual?" but rather, "Did this nation initiate force against that nation?" If the answer is yes, then the nation that was attacked should respond by retaliating against the aggressor nation in an effort to destroy that nation's capacity and willingness to fight. It must be guided by a single principle: self-defense.

Just as an individual shouldn't sacrifice his own life for fear of harming an innocent bystander in the course of defending himself, so an innocent nation shouldn't sacrifice the lives of its citizens in order to avoid harming or killing the citizens of an belligerent nation. A government's responsibility is to protect the rights of its citizens. The moment it willingly sacrifices them for any reason whatever, it's betraying that responsibility.

"The moral principle," writes Onkar Ghate, "is: the responsibility for all deaths in war lies with the aggressor who initiates force, not with those who defend themselves."

At this point, one might raise the legitimate question, isn't this collectivism? Aren't we holding innocent individuals culpable for sins of their government, sins they did not commit?

Let me quote Ayn Rand's answer and then expand on her formulation:

Q: What should be done about the killing of innocent people in war?

AR: This is a major reason people should be concerned about the nature of their government. If by neglect, ignorance, or helplessness, they couldn't overturn their bad government and choose a better one, then they have to pay the price for the sins of their government—as all of us are paying for the sins of ours.

That's why we have to be interested in the philosophy of government and in seeing, to the extent we can, that we have a good government. A government is not an independent entity: it's supposed to represent the people of a nation.

If some people put up with dictatorship—as some do in Soviet Russia and as they did in Germany—they deserve whatever their government deserves.

Rand's point is that someone will always pay the price for an evil government. That price will be paid either by the innocent nation's citizens (its soldiers in particular) or the civilians of the aggressor nation. The libertarian premise is that both are equally innocent and so therefore the innocent solider must not "initiate force" by harming the civilian.

But this premise is false. Force has been initiated – by the civilian's nation. The civilian, then, must bear responsibility for that fact, either by helping to fight his government, fleeing the country, or recognizing the innocent nation's right to defend itself, even if it costs him his life. This follows directly from the nature of rights.

A right, according to Ayn Rand, is a right to action, not to the object of that action. The right to life, for example, is the right to take those actions necessary to support one's life – the responsibility for taking those actions is one's own. The same is true for man's right to liberty. The right to liberty is the right to take those actions necessary to secure one's liberty – the responsibility for taking those actions is one's own.

When a man's government steps beyond its proper bounds, when it violates his liberty, it is his responsibility to secure his liberty (either by working to change the government or by leaving the country). If he doesn't, or can't, he has to endure the consequences (just as he must endure the consequences if he won't or can't feed himself).

The citizen of an aggressor nation may very well be innocent (although usually he isn't), but he cannot ask the innocent nation (or its soldiers) to bear the painful consequences of the actions his government initiated – since he is responsible for his government.

This is why nothing overrides the principle that a nation defending itself may use whatever means necessary to destroy its enemy as quickly as possible with as few casualties on its side as possible. And it is that principle that makes the use of the atomic bomb to end World War II one of the most profoundly moral acts of the 20th Century.

Don Watkins is a writer and research specialist at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. The Ayn Rand Center is a division of the Ayn Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”