When a violent conflict ends, the question of what should be done next is often extremely difficult to answer comprehensively. Several moral theories aspire to help people think and act reasonably and constructively in such circumstances, guiding them toward the formulation of potential ways forward by identifying, clarifying, and perhaps ordering the issues at stake, and undertaking a principled consideration of the possible practical consequences of these formulations. In this article, I consider how one body of moral theorizing in particular—just war theory—may be equipped to contribute to the morality of postconflict reconstruction.

In the first instance, of course, just war theory's objectives are to restrain the resort to war and/or the ways in which it is conducted. Recently, however, some thinkers have argued that we should expect more of the theory, namely, that it should also furnish us with guidelines on how to end a war and—of prime relevance to the present analysis—on how its aftermath should be handled: that is, an account of jus post bellum to supplement the venerable prescriptions of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. In particular, I argue that a morality of postconflict reconstruction, which it is in part the purpose of jus post bellum to posit, can contribute to just war theory in the following ways. (I think it could also help to frame what should be done after an unjustified war, but I leave that possibility aside from my discussion.Footnote 1) First, it can inform the original justification for going to war. For example, if just combatants can be said to have responsibilities with respect to postwar reconstruction, a willingness and ability to shoulder them at the outset may be more or less decisive with respect to the war's permissibility in the first place. Second, the question of which tactics are justified in the conduct of a just war is surely answered in part with some reference to the subsequent ability of just combatants to discharge, where possible, their reconstruction responsibilities appropriately and effectively.

There is also the issue of how a reconstruction morality fits with, for example, other rights and permissions granted to just combatants in the aftermath of some wars, such as the right to reparations. It is this last issue to which this article devotes the most attention, for I believe it important to recognize that these additions to just war thinking may come at a price for the theory under certain circumstances. The problem I have in mind arises when we ask what it is that we expect just war theory to do for us. Its various tenets all pose questions that need to be raised regarding the justification of war and its conduct, and jus post bellum is specifically designed to address the various aspects of the question, “what should and should not be done in ending a war, and in its aftermath?” The tenets are, of course, general in form, and some employ concepts that are reasonably contested (“reasonable” itself being one example) both in terms of their intrinsic meaning and with respect to how they should be applied in the analysis of concrete situations. Although we should not underestimate how readily just war theory can uncontroversially rule out the justifications for many wars and/or aspects of their conduct, it is not the function of such a moral theory always to provide clear and decisive answers to the questions it asks. Instead, just war theory structures the debate that we are enjoined to have, establishing its terms, rather than ending the debate before it has even begun, as it were.

A potentially significant indeterminacy in the application of just war theory occurs, however, when its moral considerations appear to conflict in a particular situation: that is, where one or more of the considerations cannot be satisfied unless at the expense of others. This does not necessarily point to a deficiency in the theory (it is sometimes only an unavoidable limitation indicative of the “messiness” of moral life); and it is the responsibility of moral agents to deliberate their way out of such an impasse. While moral theories need not always serve to provide action guidance in order to be worth positing, they often do present themselves as action-guiding, and I would propose that people typically invoke just war arguments for exactly this purpose.Footnote 2 The problem that concerns us here, then, is that there may come a point at which the theory generates such levels of internal contradiction, confusing us fundamentally as how it wishes to guide us, that it fails in its prime purpose and can no longer deflect objections over this failure on the basis that it is simply reflecting the messiness of moral life.

Specifically, I wish to consider whether the ostensibly most robust or attractive form of jus post bellum is vulnerable to this “action-guiding” problem. I will illustrate the problem via the notion of a “just occupation” of a defeated unjust aggressor by just victors after a just war. (“Humanitarian intervention,” insofar as it also entails a form of occupation, can therefore give rise to a similar internal contradiction.) If the vulnerability charge stands, jus post bellum could thus fall foul of Alex Bellamy's contention that its addition to just war theory may in fact be seriously misguided.Footnote 3

I am not mounting a wholesale rejection of jus post bellum. For a start, given the relative novelty of the theory, what jus post bellum might have to say about postconflict situations is yet to be fully gauged. For instance (acknowledging another of Bellamy's criticisms), there is, of course, a wide range of possible postconflict scenarios that a fully adequate theory should be capable of addressing, and the literature on this topic is far from having identified and analyzed them all.Footnote 4 I will, in fact, propose a further set of action-guiding principles to jus post bellum in partial response to the problem I identify, and others might well follow once the theory is subjected to more extensive treatment. But I also suggest that what we should generally expect of jus post bellum in terms of its action-guiding potential needs significant further consideration. A full appreciation of its place and function in just war theory has yet to be achieved.

“RESTRICTED” AND “EXTENDED” CONCEPTIONS OF JUS POST BELLUM

I take it as axiomatic that, in general terms, the goal of a just war is ultimately a just peace, and that what this means and entails crucially depends on (1) the specific nature of the conflict and the postconflict condition, and (2) the account of the rights and responsibilities of the just (ex- )combatants. In addressing the latter, I have elsewhere proposed that we distinguish between “restricted” and “extended” conceptions of jus post bellum, and I have suggested that theorists of jus post bellum have hitherto tended to offer only the former in their accounts.Footnote 5 Its “restriction” is manifest in the relatively short time span envisaged for the discharge by the just combatants of their post bellum responsibilities and/or the relatively limited nature of the postulated contributions to be made by the just (ex- )combatants in pursuit of the just peace.

Brian Orend's influential version of jus post bellum exemplifies this formulation, focusing upon just peace terms and just compensation or reparations, with deeper involvement in a justly occupied state permitted only when what he calls “rehabilitation” is desirable.Footnote 6 It is a restricted conception because (1) it is largely confined to matters of the ending and immediate aftermath of a just war; and (2) it focuses on the rights of just combatants, whereas their responsibilities are apparently limited in the sense that they are largely negative in character (specifying what just combatants are not allowed to do). True, some longer-term rights and responsibilities are recognized in the acknowledged possibility of a just occupation, and sometimes the opportunity for regime change, which Orend entertains, is not a matter of permissibility so much as necessity. Still, in this conception the occupiers' rights and responsibilities, hedged with conditions and contingencies, remain conspicuously limited to the promotion of “minimal” justice, eradicating the “depravity” of the old regime, and leaving or establishing enough capacity for the defeated country “to begin its own reconstruction” (emphasis added).Footnote 7 Key conditions for what we might call the “just exit strategy” for occupiers are thus sufficiently satisfied once these minimal reforms have been carried out.

Although such a conception may be a sufficient guide in certain postconflict situations, I resist the claim that it is a satisfactory general formulation of jus post bellum, for three reasons. First, when an occupation scenario is at issue, restricted conceptions sometimes remain silent about certain crucial matters. We can see this by reflecting on the bloodily chaotic aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, recognizing that its ad bellum and in bello injustices do not impugn the appropriateness of the example. Consider, for example, the profiteering by U.S. companies in the postwar reconstruction of Iraq and, more generally, the nature of the neoliberal economic regime imposed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Consider, too, the failure to protect Iraq's cultural heritage. Questions of how an occupied society should be managed and reconstructed can clearly go well beyond what is required to remove “decrepit” institutions and practices to incorporate deeper, longer-term matters of what form the society should take; and responsibilities may stretch far beyond simply what is required to allow the occupied society to get back on its own feet.

The central point here is that a just occupation can draw the occupiers into the fate of the occupied state more profoundly than restricted conceptions fully acknowledge or allow. A just occupation may last a long time and, even if it does so because of the difficulty in securing the objectives of merely a restricted jus post bellum, just occupiers will still find themselves enmeshed in other, longer-term political, social, and economic affairs of the occupied country with respect to which they surely need further moral direction. Note that I am not saying that the responsibilities of just occupiers in building a just peace run as far as establishing a comprehensively just society. Occupiers do not have to eradicate every systemic injustice to establish a just peace in the occupied society. However, I do think that in occupation scenarios we can presume that there is some overlap: the “depravities of the old regime” are not the only injustices that are to be avoided in the processes of reconstruction. So, though we might agree that all conceptions of jus post bellum will include the kinds of criteria that populate the restricted conceptions, in at least some situations we may need to extend jus post bellum's scope, adding supplementary concerns, concepts, and criteria to its structure.Footnote 8

The second reason is that international laws, conventions, and policies have, especially in recent times, concertedly embraced a commitment to postconflict reconstruction as a necessary corollary of military action, and jus post bellum needs to accommodate this fact. For example, in the 2001 report of the Independent Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which eventually led to the official recognition of the “responsibility to protect” at the 2005 World Summit, we find the following statement:

Insofar as jus post bellum wishes to work within current international understandings and practices, it is manifestly required to embrace the morality of reconstruction as an imperative subsequent to (justified) war. Jus post bellum's advocates could thereby argue that their theory is furnishing this official global commitment with its underpinning moral foundation and/or contend that their theory is evolving by creatively engaging with this kind of legal and political initiative. Either way, my claim is that restricted conceptions do not properly account for the implications of the responsibility to protect.

I believe these two reasons provide a sufficiently robust case for conceptualizing extended versions of just war theory. However, through my third reason, I want to open up a debate that is prompted by a further criticism of jus post bellum by Bellamy, particularly of those versions that stretch beyond the restricted conceptions' scope—which he calls “maximalist” conceptions. Bellamy claims that these lack a justification of why the victors' responsibility toward the defeated should be extended beyond the “minimalist” specifications of restricted conceptions, especially in instances where the victors had not initiated the war (for example, when they were the victims of an unjust attack) or where their war effort unambiguously caused much less harm than would have otherwise been the case (for example, a successful humanitarian intervention to prevent genocide).Footnote 10

It might be thought that enough has already been said to undermine this claim, but in fact I agree that conceptions of jus post bellum may not have made clear the full nature of just combatants' post bellum moral situation or standing. Specifically, restricted conceptions may not render properly explicit the contention that just combatants' general range of responsibilities should be seen as in crucial part arising from the moral fact (as I argue just war theory should see it) that a just war is the “lesser of two evils”—though still, of course, a very great evil—given the death and suffering involved. Venturing into some especially controversial territory, then, I want to suggest a case for saying that there may be a sense in which even just combatants, however justified they were in going to war, do bear certain substantial responsibilities by virtue of the evil (the violence) that they have nevertheless done, and this importantly informs the basis for their post bellum responsibilities.

MORAL FOUNDATIONS FOR POST BELLUM RESPONSIBILITIES

To begin, some remarks are in order on the idea of a just war being a “lesser” (or “necessary”) evil, which is, admittedly, a characterization not every just war theorist will be disposed to accept. However, such a claim helps just war theory to confront a criticism it frequently encounters: that by furnishing the possibility of war as morally justified, the theory treats war as a potentially noble enterprise, when in fact it is always terrible—even when it is the best possible course of action under the circumstances. To be sure, Hannah Arendt suggests that the lesser-of-two-evils characterization may not always succeed in making this point:

This weakness, however, is a contingent and not a necessary feature of the lesser-of-two-evils construal. In just war theory, where the just war is nevertheless seen as a tragic turn of events (“tragic” because it would be even worse not to go to war), the concept of it being a lesser and necessary evil is meant to concretize in the minds of just combatants that what they are doing, though justified, is nevertheless terrible and therefore must be done with heavy hearts. I do not deny that wars may witness individual acts of admirable heroism and self-sacrifice, but even many such acts would not make war itself a noble and glorious undertaking.

The evil that is a just war is not simply that which is permitted under jus in bello's discrimination principle, namely, the unintended but often foreseeable deaths of “innocents”—though this is itself a vital consideration in establishing the moral liability of just combatants with respect to their post bellum responsibilities to their former enemies. Rather, it is the more general fact that anyone has to be killed that affects the just combatants' moral situation. Killing is not a good act even when it is a justified one; if morally justified circumstances have nevertheless turned you into a killer, that is still a matter for deep regret. Certainly, who one is called upon to kill has significant bearing on the depth of such moral negativity. Surely, most would argue that killing members of genocidal death squads is not as horribly regrettable as the killing of teenage conscripts who find themselves forced to fight an unjust war. But just combatants should still regret that anyone has to be killed, and that they are the ones who have to do the killing.

It might be objected that genuinely just combatants, because they engage in justified “necessary evil,” are not to be punished and have nothing to atone for. Hence, though what is done in war is horrific, the use of the “lesser evil” description in just war theory is in fact only a rhetorical device to suppress vainglorious attitudes about war; the “just” side of a just war is not truly evil precisely because it is sanctioned by justice. Of course, a central assumption of just war theory is that there is a decisive moral distinction between just and unjust violence, and so it is bound to be sympathetic to this position. But I venture to claim that the situation should not be seen as so clear-cut by just war theory, and not just because of the contingent fact that war crimes and “mistakes” can obviously be committed in the course of just wars, which then do require punishment and/or atonement.

The thought that I believe just war theory should reckon with is famously expressed by Immanuel Kant (despite the fact that he was not a classic just-war theorist.) In Perpetual Peace, he remarks that:

The suggestion is that there should be considerable moral humility on the part even of just victors, which I think should be manifest in a commitment to do what they can, where appropriate, to repair the world that they will subsequently share with (some of) their former enemies, and to commit themselves where possible to peace—even when knowing that, perhaps, they may one day be forced to resort to a just war once more. It may be going too far to talk of this in Kant's terms of atonement, but what might be justly required of just victors need not stand at a vast distance from it, either.

Richard Swinburne argues that atonement comprises four elements: repentance, apology, reparation, and penance (though they are not always all required in adequate manifestations of it).Footnote 13 I would add a fifth, which is implicit in each, namely, a commitment not to do the atoned-for wrong again. Arguably, each of these seems to be what one would reasonably expect from unjust defeated aggressors. And though just victors may hope never to have to go to war again, they do not morally regret having made the choice they did (which is distinct from regret at having had to make such a choice), and they would be prepared to do so again if morality sanctions it. But something not unlike atonement may not be so strange a requirement to levy on the just victors, that is, to express, and commit to act upon, a profound regret at having had to go to war. Just combatants should be sorry to have had to inflict pain and suffering on the enemy—a sorrow of regret rather than admission of wrongdoing. After all, even if those targeted were genocidal criminals and not hapless conscripts, killing them would still traumatically affect the society around them (for example, their loved ones, who may have no degree of culpability in, and perhaps even knowledge of, their crimes). And if it is not penance that motivates a commitment to postconflict reconstruction, neither is it a magnanimous, supererogatory act of charity to one's vanquished enemies. Rather, it is a manifestation of a duty, derived from the original taking-up of arms, to do what one can to build a new, durably peaceful, and just world.

This argument is provisional, of course, and deserves much more detailed articulation and scrutiny. A central reason for pursuing it, however, is that it is at least one way of bringing out the full personal dimension of the responsibility that just combatants have in postwar situations. This is something that may sometimes be lacking in invocations of the more familiar “pottery barn” principle regarding the responsibility to reconstruct, which reduces it to the casual slogan “You broke it, you own it.” The problem with this principle is that it might encourage just victors to say to their devastated opponents, “Well, you brought this on yourselves,” and consequently avoid accepting any reconstruction responsibility of their own. The foregoing argument is one way of establishing that, even where the enemies did bring it on themselves, there is still deep personal post bellum liability on the part of just combatants. We need to ensure, then, that responsibility of combatants to rebuild does not rest upon overly shallow moral foundations.

JUS POST BELLUM: A “COVERING STATEMENT”

As noted, the variety of possible postwar scenarios implies that the demands of jus post bellum will vary from situation to situation, and any general statement needs to respect that fact. I propose, however, that the following constitutes a satisfactory “covering statement” to account for the extended responsibilities that may sometimes be appropriate, identifying the various moral considerations that need to be observed when one seeks to work out the requirements of jus post bellum in a particular situation.

To secure the post bellum justice sought in the resort to war, just combatants must be prepared to:

1. (1) set peace terms that are proportionately determined to ensure a just and stable peace as well as to redress the injustices that prompted the conflict;

2. (2) take full responsibility for their fair share of the material burdens of the conflict's aftermath in constructing a just and stable peace;

3. (3) pursue those national and international political initiatives for conflict prevention (and/or, sub-optimally, conflict containment and postconflict reconstruction); and

4. (4) take full and proactive part in the ethical and socio-cultural processes of forgiveness and reconciliation, which are central to the construction of a just and stable peace.Footnote 14

These guidelines reflect the claim that the default position of jus post bellum should be “extended,” and that it is the slimming-down—not the beefing up—of post bellum responsibilities that stands in need of justification.

“Forgiveness” and “reconciliation” may be thought to be overly unfamiliar elements in jus post bellum, and it is appropriate here to consider the objection that these are too specific and demanding as moral requirements in this context—that they are illegitimate extensions of post bellum concerns into matters of personal ethical character and the nature of a society's culture. In fact, so the objection might further run, conflicts are sometimes successfully concluded without substantial forgiveness or reconciliation (especially on a large-scale national or international basis). Another objection states that there are rival reasonable conceptions of forgiveness and reconciliation, and what criterion (4) is asking for is therefore too critically indeterminate and/or disputed on reasonable grounds to be useful.

In reply: these concepts are to be understood in minimal terms that allow us to identify them as necessarily present in some form if peace (let alone just peace) is to be properly achieved. Forgiveness I treat as an attitude, or mind-set, that allows the process(es) of reconciliation to begin. Andrew Schaap conceptualizes this in a way that expresses the “thinness” of the concept:

This setting aside to begin anew does not conceptually require any ethical negation of the past wrong; this is something that may be possible and appropriate only in certain situations, to be ascertained when one thinks about how to interpret and apply “forgiveness” to particular circumstances. It may be that in some postconflict circumstances such ethical negation would not be desirable or even necessary. Similarly, with reconciliation: thinly understood, it refers only to the business of developing means by which former enemies can live on the same planet without fighting each other. There is no necessary requirement that their relations should become amicable. Sometimes, however, it may be desirable to try to develop relationships that are closer than mere mutual forbearance. The general point is that forgiveness and reconciliation are always required in some minimal form, but that what they actually mean and entail will vary according to circumstances.

Given the foregoing argument concerning the moral humility of the just victors, it should hardly need adding that forgiveness and reconciliation will typically be a two-way process: victors and vanquished forgiving each other. To insist again (the point bears repetition), there will doubtless have been mistakes for which just combatants will need to ask forgiveness; and even what they have justifiably done to their former enemies should yield a regret that must shape the relationship they seek to reconstruct with them.

THE SOVEREIGNTY/SELF-DETERMINATION PRINCIPLE

Now for the problem at the heart of this article's concerns, which arises by virtue of a crucial element currently absent from the covering statement and which may be stated thus:

1. (5) Where just combatants occupy the defeated unjust aggressor, and/or are present in another territory in the aftermath of a humanitarian intervention, they have a duty to restore sovereignty/self-determination to the territory as soon as is reasonably possible.

This criterion is implicit in other versions of jus post bellum (Orend, for example, posits the aim to “follow an orderly, not-too-hasty exit strategy when the new regime can stand on its own two feet” in his account of justified regime changeFootnote 16), but I think it is important that the theory spell it out explicitly. To be sure, the concept of the “reasonable” as used here can be especially elusive. Determining when a state is ready for total self-governance can be problematic, not only because the empirical evidence is difficult to assess but also because we may differ on the rival normative considerations incorporated in the concept of “reasonable,” which may be a compound of potentially conflicting normative standards. Indeed, there may be instances when the criterion does not apply at all—for instance, when it is judged that there are good reasons (such as severe ethnic tensions) why a state should not in fact be reconstituted in its antebellum form. There was no serious discussion of the reconstitution of Yugoslavia following the conflicts of the 1990s, for example, nor have we exhausted the debate about the future of the post-invasion Iraqi state.

As we have seen, we should expect such latitude as to where jus post bellum's tenets may lead. But having made the case for a responsibility-heavy extended jus post bellum for just combatants, particularly in occupation scenarios, the question now is whether the very presence of criterion (5) in the just war theory sets up such a powerful countervailing requirement on just combatants that it confounds the concept of the “reasonable” to the point that we are uncertain as to exactly what it is that jus post bellum expects of just occupiers. This, then, is my example of the general problem raised by Bellamy: extended or “maximalist responsibilities” have been posited at the expense of another decisive responsibility, which, certainly in this case, would definitely be posited in a minimal, restricted conception.Footnote 17 The more you add to the theory, the more such tensions are potentially built into its application, and there may come a point at which it unravels.

“Mission creep” on the part of occupying forces illustrates the kind of phenomenon I have in mind. It occurs when occupying forces find that their responsibilities deepen and expand as time goes by, setting in motion a cycle of ever-lengthening occupation. The continued denial of full sovereignty or self-determination is exacerbated by the fact that nonindigenous authorities in such instances find themselves increasingly substituting (and thereby undermining prospects) for self-determination: the more they become embedded in governance, the more they enervate the potential for the occupied people to develop their own governmental and administrative institutions and practices. Perhaps the most striking example of this phenomenon is present-day Bosnia, where the Dayton Agreement created what many commentators saw as an “informal trusteeship” that has essentially turned the territory into an EU protectorate.Footnote 18 Hence, tensions arise in the guidelines of jus post bellum between considerations (1)–(4) and (5). The agents deliberating as to how to balance these considerations may be faced with a dilemma that goes beyond the threshold of indeterminacy that we would be prepared to accept (or tolerate) in a theory that we think would still be capable of substantive action guidance.

Certainly, there do not appear to be any ready-to-hand guidelines for the mission creep problem in the theory sketched thus far. For example, it might be tempting to claim that (5) expresses a right that trumps other rights and related moral considerations. So whatever obligations just occupiers have with respect to the occupied people, these have only pro tanto status and are to be set aside whenever they come into conflict with (5). Supporters of this claim might contend that just war theorists cannot coherently oppose it, for the idea that a sovereign state may justly defend its sovereignty against unjust external aggression is central to their account of just cause. By this reasoning, just war theory cannot consistently fail to prioritize a sovereignty principle post bellum given the weight it attaches to it at the ad bellum stage.

But just war theory has generally held the weightiness of sovereignty in war to be that much greater on the side of justice than that of injustice; and the right to protect has, so it seems, placed definitive and decisive normative limits on state sovereignty in the international order. Unjust aggressors, after all, forfeit a range of rights by their actions, and thus it is hardly clear that any of them are to be restored to their full weight—the right of sovereignty above all—almost immediately upon the war's end. Most obviously, for example, sovereignty's overriding status can hardly be granted if its restoration would be dangerously premature. We should not assume that a recently defeated, occupied people are always in the best position to judge the propriety of their sovereignty's restoration. If this sounds patronizing—a tone which one must take considerable care to avoid in contexts such as this one—we should ask: Who could “the people” be who would make such a demand, or, more precisely, who could be their voice? We can hardly assume with confidence that it would always be possible to constitute “the people” as a viable political entity without first providing substantial post bellum assistance.

Some might contend that sovereignty tends to be a problem insofar as it is the interests and motives of the occupying power that endanger the prospects of restoring it to the occupied state. Thus, they may urge that, even if a war has been waged by individual states rather than by regional or international authorities, jus post bellum should require just occupations to be administered by, for example, the United Nations—in this case, with reconstruction being at least in part overseen and undertaken by the Peacebuilding Commission—to help ensure that the occupation does not ultimately undermine the sovereign interests of the occupied people through the corruption of the occupiers.

I believe this proposal has some merit, not least because many actual post bellum scenarios are in fact international in character. Even when the original military intervention has been unilaterally undertaken, there is a ready resort to transnational nongovernmental organizations, say, in the business of postconflict administration and reconstruction. But it is hardly obvious that this constitutes a satisfactory response to the tension, and not only because, as Alexandra Gheciu and Jennifer Welsh point out, for a variety of reasons the Peacebuilding Commission may not be adequate to the task.Footnote 19 It is not just the motives of occupying forces that generate the tension: after all, even the most well-intentioned occupation is still compromising the sovereignty of the occupied. Self-interested or otherwise nefarious intentions of occupiers merely compound—they do not create—the problem. On a practical level, transnational occupation could even make the problem worse: a state unilaterally occupying another state may have more pressing reasons to exit early than would a multinational set of agencies. Nor need we think the latter is necessarily any freer from corruption, especially given the increasingly ubiquitous practice of “outsourcing” to private companies in postwar reconstructions.Footnote 20

A JUSTIFIED EARLY EXIT?

It is time to take stock. I have assumed that a full discharge of just combatants' post bellum responsibilities is what justice demands, and that without the full satisfaction of these responsibilities a just peace cannot be said to have been achieved. Relatedly, an unreasonably prolonged occupation at the expense of the occupied people's sovereignty cannot constitute a just peace either. But if just occupiers find themselves unable to satisfy certain obligations without undermining their ability to meet others, then it may be appropriate to rethink the “just peace” goal itself. Perhaps occupiers should be prepared in the final analysis to do something that should never be entertained as the goal from the outset, namely, to settle for a suboptimal “acceptable peace”—recognizing that sometimes one has no reasonable alternative but to sacrifice elements of what one ideally ought to do (or what one set out to do). In fact, it might fairly be pointed out that “just peace” is not always a readily quantifiable state of affairs (if it ever fully is). One cannot be sure that one has done what justice demands, and one might therefore be justified (or, at least, not wholly unjustified) in resting content with what has been achieved—even if there were, in fact, more that should have been done had, crucially, circumstances permitted.

This proposal, however, may be merely displacing, not resolving, the problem. “Acceptability” obviously requires determinate operational criteria of its own, not least—though not only—because any shortfalls from just peace require justification in order to show that no moral backsliding is going on. When does the acceptable shade into the unacceptable? Without an answer to this question, jus post bellum becomes significantly more indeterminate and hence emptied of some of its practical normative value as a guide to action.

Darrel Moellendorf has recently proposed that just war theory needs a theory of jus ex bello, an account of the just early termination of war.Footnote 21 I believe we also require a theory of the justified early termination of occupation, to kick in precisely when the full range of post bellum obligations cannot be fully satisfied.Footnote 22 I call it a theory of “justified” rather than “just” termination because we appeal to it when the demands of justice levied by jus post bellum cannot be properly or fully satisfied: it is a regrettable shortfall that the theory seeks to legitimize. One group of people who may be attracted to such a theory are those Afghan citizens who still think that the 2001 invasion to overthrow the Taliban was justified (69 percent of those polled in December 2008–January 2009 by the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research in Kabul), but who now think that the occupation is failing badly (only 32 percent believe that U.S. troops are doing a good job), and may thus be inclined to think NATO's presence should end.Footnote 23

What criteria should this theory include? General considerations in their selection include the need not to excuse occupiers from their responsibilities too lightly while at the same time acknowledging that the possibility of moral and practical dilemmas means that the criteria must recognize the shortcomings that occupiers may exhibit with respect to their duties. The theory can take its cue from just war theory's own criteria, and I thus suggest it would include the following:

• • A consequentialist consideration. Clearly, the consequences of early termination must be considered to be better than those of remaining—and it will typically be the consequences for the occupied society that should count in the first instance (unless the occupation is, for example, increasing the possibility of a new conflict with other states). As elaborated below, while the internal politics of the occupying state are not irrelevant to the justification of a prematurely terminated occupation, its interests should not be presumed to have equal, let alone trumping, weight when compared with those of the occupied people. After all, due preparedness to shoulder the burdens of conflict and its aftermath is part of the original justification for a just war such that, should those burdens become more difficult and costly than expected, just combatants are nevertheless not readily released from these self-assumed obligations.

• • A last-resort consideration. This has two aspects. The first is that occupiers do all that could reasonably be expected of them in trying to discharge their full range of post bellum responsibilities. The second is that all reasonable alternatives to withdrawal be properly explored. Once more, we have the concept of the “reasonable” bearing an important, if potentially vague, function in the requirement. While there is therefore room for disagreement over particular applications of the last-resort criterion, in many cases it will be quite easy to work out what counts as unreasonable—for instance, what amounts to an unjustified cut-and-run—and, hence, one must not overestimate the criterion's indeterminacy.

• • A countervailing values consideration. One must be sensitive to the possibility that an early termination of occupation, even when supported by some sound consequentialist (and other) reasons, may be sacrificing some other pertinent values (of perseverance, honor, and such) that also have pro tanto force and that are not so easily weighed in the consequentialist calculation.

• • A hand-over requirement. Departing occupiers must do what they can to ensure that alternative governance arrangements are in place. If it has not already occurred, this may entail the internationalization of the postconflict situation (for example, bringing in the United Nations or a relevant regional organization).

• • A public justification/accountability consideration. Early termination must be accounted for by the occupiers both to the occupied peoples and the international community.

• • An ongoing responsibility consideration. Departing occupiers may be expected to retain reasonable responsibilities—for example, paying for reconstruction—even if they are no longer directly involved on the ground.

Having followed certain criteria from jus ad bellum in this examination, it is natural to ask whether the proposed theory should have its own version of the sincerity/right intention consideration, which would require the occupation to be terminated for the right reasons. In fact, it is arguably implicit in the last-resort consideration: occupiers must sincerely have tried their best to do their duty with respect to the occupied people, and should therefore quit with heavy hearts. But to illustrate how the internal politics of the occupiers might have some bearing on the issue, we should recognize that their weakness of will could sometimes count as a relevant justificatory reason for early termination. The occupying power's leadership may lose the will to carry on for a variety of reasons, not least because of a shift in the mood of their electorate. And while it may not be good that they do so—it is not right that they should withdraw because the occupation has become unpopular with their citizens—this loss of domestic support may compromise their ability to continue the occupation in an appropriate manner. In such circumstances it might be better for the occupiers to leave, even though they will do so for reasons that ought not to have arisen. (For example, though the British perhaps should not have been in Basra in the first place, declining political will may well have terminated their occupation of the city prematurely with respect to the condition in which they should have left it, but they left justifiably according to this kind of theory.) Thus, I think that this theory will not mirror jus ad bellum in adopting a version of the sincerity consideration.

CONCLUSION

As I emphasized at the start, jus post bellum is still relatively novel and it is thus not unexpected that our conceptualizing of it is in flux. This article reflects that fact: its arguments concerning the moral bases of jus post bellum help to establish the case for extending its range of concerns and prescriptions, but the latter have the potential to come into conflict with the similarly persuasive sovereignty/self-determination consideration. The account of the justified early termination of occupation may help on occasion, but we should probably not be completely sanguine about the upshot that, unless the substitute arrangements can do the job properly, this may well permit just occupiers legitimately to leave behind their obligations having achieved only an acceptable, rather than just, peace. This loosening of the standard for the goal of just war may encourage, even if only inadvertently, a greater permissiveness in the resort to war than just war theory ought to wish. This is troubling, and it is what prompts my claim that much more thought needs to be given to jus post bellum and its role in just war theory.

However, against Bellamy's arguments that it may be premature to add jus post bellum to just war theory, I maintain that it is Bellamy who is premature in his argument: the case for jus post bellum retains much prima facie strength, and I do not see that its addition to just war theory should be reversed altogether. What I do not doubt is that more work of the kind done here is needed to show not simply how just combatants must be prepared to commit themselves to a substantial morality of postconflict reconstruction, which I claim is central to the strength of the most attractive form of jus post bellum, but also how the implications and difficulties of that commitment may be best theorized and played out in practice.