Is Victory Important for War?

Is victory a necessary concept in just war theory? Many argue against it, but this post explores why victory is not only essential to war but also to the politics of peace that follows.

At first glance, the question seems absurd. No matter how we define the purpose of warfare, achieving it constitutes victory. However, it turns out that, at least in certain circles, this claim is not so trivial.

For example, about a month ago, Prof. Avi Sagi, one of the authors of the Spirit of the IDF document (the document expressing the ethical principles of the IDF), was interviewed on a podcast by the Institute for Liberty and Responsibility at Reichman University. A short excerpt from the interview was cut and circulated online, and after reviewing the original context, it seems to me that the outrage over this segment—expressed in aggressive sharing of the clip—was justified.

In the podcast, Prof. Sagi was asked whether he believes that the IDF’s current campaign in Gaza—specifically referencing the accidental shooting of fleeing hostages and the Sde Teiman incident, which were raised by the interviewer—reflects the principles of the Spirit of the IDF document. In response, Sagi provided what he surely saw as a brief and technical explanation of the guiding principles of Just War Theory: namely, that there are two main criteria for determining whether a war is just—jus ad bellum (the justification for going to war) and jus in bello (the justification in conducting war).

Regarding jus ad bellum, Sagi made the statement that provoked the backlash:

"The justification for war is singular—self-defense. There is no moral permission to wage war for any purpose other than self-defense. There is no permission to wage war for territorial conquest, no permission to wage war to eradicate either imaginary or real evil, and no permission to wage war for the sake of total victory. That is an unethical concept. In the ethics of war, we do not recognize the concept of victory—only self-defense. And victory, as defined in the Spirit of the IDF document, is adherence to the mission, which is a mission of self-defense."

There are three distinct issues here:

1. Sagi’s unfamiliarity with contemporary Just War Theory literature, which, as we shall see, does address the issue of victory.

2. A conceptual confusion, typical of earlier stages in the field, regarding the concept of “war” as seen in Sagi’s statements—on the one hand, reducing it entirely to self-defense, and on the other, categorically rejecting the term "victory" as a justification for war.

3. The fundamental question—is victory important for Just War Theory in particular and for actual wars in general?

The paradigmatic work in recent years on the concept of victory in Just War Theory was done by O’Driscoll in his book Victory (Oxford, 2019), which has received deep engagement and discussion in the literature, though, of course, the concept was addressed before him as well. In his book, O’Driscoll provides a broad framework for handling the concept, specifically within Just War Theory. Following Sagi’s remarks, I would like to present O’Driscoll’s response to the moral concern that, in my view, underlies Sagi’s argument—or, at the very least, one that is prevalent among more updated theorists. Of course, there are other common objections among theorists, but within the scope of this discussion, they are beyond our concern.

After presenting this response, I would like to briefly offer an additional reason, from a broader ethical perspective, for the necessity of the concept of victory in the context of war.

The operative concept of war we will use is, of course, drawn from Clausewitz. Clausewitz characterizes victory in terms of subjugating the enemy to one’s will. While this definition is far from comprehensive, it already provides an initial insight: the rhetoric surrounding the term "victory" implies a zero-sum game. The immediate concern of modern theorists is that this logic could contribute to an escalation of warfare. If war is perceived as an all-or-nothing endeavor, the motivation to achieve victory may swell to the point of overriding all other ethical considerations.

In fact, these are precisely the arguments that contemporary international relations scholars have directed against Just War Theory as a whole. Surprisingly, the origins of these arguments can be traced to Carl Schmitt.

In short, Schmitt’s claim is that a war perceived as just creates conceptual pressure to view the enemy as an outlaw, a wicked person, ultimately leading to dehumanization and more brutal warfare. Schmitt himself suggested that Europe had developed an alternative framework, which was severely disrupted by World War I. In prewar Europe, war was seen as the prerogative of the sovereign, who could declare it regardless of the war’s moral justification. According to Schmitt’s reconstruction, Europe maintained a legal order known as jus publicum Europaeum, under which:

• States had the right to declare war.

• The enemy was considered an equal in legal and moral terms.

• Only the sovereign had the authority to decide whether a war was just.

• There was no objective way to evaluate the sovereign’s decisions.

As noted, contemporary international relations scholars critique Just War Theory on similar grounds. To quote Ken Booth:

"Since a justified cause [for war] requires unconditional commitment, the passion for justice and the imperative of proportionality are inevitably in tension. The former pushes toward escalation, the latter toward restraint. In an ideological era, with the possibilities enabled by modern technology, the ancient doctrine of restraint has become a modern justification for totality."

Of course, Just War theorists have responded to concerns of this sort. For instance, Michael Walzer seems to have believed that under normal war conditions, his distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello sufficiently neutralizes this concern. However, Walzer did acknowledge that in cases where war breaks out due to an emergency, the usual laws governing conduct within war might justifiably be suspended.

Jeff McMahan, on the other hand, argues against Walzer that the independence Walzer establishes between jus ad bellum and jus in bello is unjustified. According to McMahan, in jus in bello, for example, soldiers on both sides have equal rights and obligations. However, if one side has a just cause for war, it would clearly be immoral to grant its soldiers and the enemy’s soldiers the same moral status.

O’Driscoll demonstrates that in drawing this distinction, McMahan encounters an even greater contradiction than Walzer: he is forced to separate what he believes is morally right in war from what he believes should be legal in the current system. The reason for this is precisely the same escalation dynamic—the erosion of the rights of combatants on both sides, each of whom surely believes they have the just cause for war—coupled with the lack of an authority capable of arbitrating between them.

So, back to Schmitt.

As we see, the reasoning behind opposing the concept of victory—when it is based on escalation concerns—has been extensively examined and ultimately rejected by Just War theorists, simply because the alternative is to leave the teaching and study of moral war theory out of military education entirely, leaving these matters to the arbitrary whims of questionable political and ideological authorities. The case of victory is no different.

After reviewing at least one of the central objections in the literature to the use of the concept of victory in just war theory, we can now turn to what is, in my opinion, just one of the important reasons why this concept should indeed be in use. War is, first and foremost, a social practice. As such, it has organizing principles, internal purposes, and virtues—such as courage—that it cultivates among its participants. As we have seen, there is also a rather extensive tradition of thinking about this practice. But what, in fact, connects this practice to our lives? Where do the fundamental motivations to engage in a just war come from?

For war to be worth fighting, it must be, in Walzer’s words, “a war that it is urgent to win.” That is, we must be able to understand ourselves as people for whom fighting is urgent. We need a narrative. Yet war, unlike many other practices, has an exceptional feature as a component of narrative. We are accustomed to thinking about narrative in terms of plurality—that is, in terms of narratives. Where does that leave the narrative of war?

By definition, war is an antagonistic event. As we have seen, the concept of victory emphasizes this characteristic. The concept of victory, unlike some of the other concepts discussed here, has a narrative dimension. The antagonistic nature of the concept of victory spills over into the narrative dimension. War is also a form of conflict mediation between narratives, where victory in war produces a narrative convergence between the warring sides. In a war with winners and losers, there is an anchor point for future communication between the parties that once fought. The possibility of creating a shared future between the sides depends on such mutually recognized points of intersection between their narratives.

In other words, war primarily brings harm—but one of its positive outcomes, if it is decisively won by one side, is the thickening of the possibility for future politics. Ignoring or repressing the concept of victory, beyond the obvious problems it entails, risks creating a situation in which neighboring societies live in entirely solipsistic narrative worlds—something that, in itself, may only serve to escalate their conflict.

It seems, then, that not only is victory important to war—it is also important beyond it. To peace.