Casus belli

Proschema (plural proschemata) is the equivalent Greek term, first popularized by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. The proschemata are the stated reasons for waging war, which may or may not be the same as the real reasons, which Thucydides called prophasis (πρóφασις). Thucydides argued that the three primary real reasons for waging war are reasonable fear, honor, and interest, while the stated reasons involve appeals to nationalism or fearmongering (as opposed to descriptions of reasonable, empirical causes for fear).^{[citation needed]}

Reasons for use

Countries need a public justification for attacking another country, both to galvanize internal support for the war and to gain the support of potential allies.^{[citation needed]}

In the

Braumoeller (2019) stated: "However idiosyncratic the casus belli may seem, however, there generally is one ... The issues that prompt most wars fit fairly well into one of a fairly manageable number of categories." He broadly summarised classical issues as territory, the creation or dissolution of countries, the defence of the integrity of countries, dynastic succession, and the defence of co-religionists or co-nationals.[10] He pointed out that in the modern field of peace and conflict studies, scholars also frequently list causes such as "struggle for power, arms races and conflict spirals, ethnicity and nationalism, domestic political regime type and leadership change, economic interdependence and trade, territory, climate change-induced scarcity, and so on".^[11]

In The Causes of War (1972), Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey mentioned general causes such as miscalculation, as well as specific causes such as "Death Watch and Scapegoat Wars", and emphasised the importance of mundane factors such as weather.^[10]

Theodore K. Rabb and Robert I. Rotberg explored the roots of major conflicts as a mixture of factors on the international, domestic and individual level in The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars (1989).^[10]

Kalevi Holsti catalogued and categorised wars from 1648 to 1989 according to 24 categories of "issues that generated wars".^[12][10]

A casus belli intentionally based on inaccurate facts is known as a pretext.

Historical examples

This section outlines a number of the more famous and/or controversial cases of casus belli which have occurred in modern times.

Second Opium War

Europeans had access to Chinese ports as outlined in the Treaty of Nanking from the First Opium War. France used the execution of Auguste Chapdelaine as a casus belli for the Second Opium War. On February 29, 1856, Chapdelaine, a French missionary, was killed in the province of Guangxi, which was not open to foreigners. In response, British and French forces quickly took control of Guangzhou (Canton).^{[citation needed]}

American Civil War

While long-term conflict between the Northern and Southern States (mainly due to moral questions caused by slavery, as well as socio-economic disparities) was the cause of the American Civil War, the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter (April 12–14, 1861) served as casus belli for the Union.^[13] Historian David Herbert Donald (1996) concluded that President Abraham Lincoln's "repeated efforts to avoid collision in the months between inauguration and the firing on Ft. Sumter showed he adhered to his vow not to be the first to shed fraternal blood. But he also vowed not to surrender the forts. The only resolution of these contradictory positions was for the confederates to fire the first shot; they did just that."^[14] Confederate veteran William Watson opined in 1887 that up until that point, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward had not been able to find 'a just cause to declare war against the seceded States', but Sumter gave him 'the casus belli he had sought'.^[13] Watson lamented how Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders were 'vainglorious[ly]' celebrating the victory at Sumter, while forgetting that making the first move had given the Confederacy the immediate internationally negative reputation of being the aggressor, and had granted Seward 'the undivided sympathy of the North'.^[13]

Spanish–American War

The

Austria-Hungary's casus belli against Serbia in July 1914 was based upon Serbia's refusal to investigate the involvement of Serbian government officials in the equipping, training and paying the assassins who murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo. The Serbian government refused the Austrian Démarche, and Austria-Hungary declared war.^{[citation needed]}

For Britain, the direct cause of entering the war was the German invasion and occupation of Belgium, violating Belgian neutrality which Britain was bound by treaty to uphold.^{[citation needed]}

In 1917, the German Empire sent the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, in which they tried to persuade Mexico to join the war and fight against the United States, for which they would be rewarded Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, all former Mexican territories. This telegram was intercepted by the British, then relayed to the U.S., which led to President Woodrow Wilson then using it to convince Congress to join World War I alongside the Allies. The Mexican president at the time, Venustiano Carranza, had a military commission assess the feasibility, which concluded that this would not be feasible for a number of reasons.^{[citation needed]}

World War II

In Japanese Manchuria, Japan staged the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937 as a casus belli to initiate the Second World War.

In his autobiography Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler had in the 1920s advocated a policy of Lebensraum ("living space") for the German people, which in practical terms meant German territorial expansion into Eastern Europe.^[19]

In August 1939, to implement the first phase of this policy,

In 1941, acting once again in accordance with the policy of Lebensraum, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, using the casus belli of preemptive war to justify the act of aggression.^{[citation needed]}

Vietnam War

Many historians have suggested that the Second

The first Gulf of Tonkin Incident (2 August) should not be confused with the second Gulf of Tonkin Incident (4 August). The North Vietnamese claimed that on August 2, US destroyer USS Maddox was hit by one torpedo and that one of the American aircraft had been shot down in North Vietnamese territorial waters. The PAVN Museum in Hanoi displays "Part of a torpedo boat ... which successfully chased away the USS Maddox August 2nd, 1964".[23]

The casus belli for the Vietnam War was the second incident. On August 4, USS Maddox was launched to the North Vietnamese coast to "show the flag" after the first incident. The US authorities claimed that two Vietnamese boats tried to attack USS Maddox and were sunk. The government of North Vietnam denied the second incident completely. Deniability played favorably into the propaganda efforts of North Vietnam throughout the war, and for some years to follow.^{[citation needed]}

1967 Arab-Israeli War

A casus belli played a prominent role during the

During the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, China's leader Deng Xiaoping told the United States that its plan to fight the Vietnamese was revenge for Vietnam's toppling of the Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia, an ally of China. However Chinese nationalists have argued that the real casus belli was Vietnam's poor treatment of its ethnic Chinese population, as well as suspicion of Vietnam trying to consolidate Cambodia with Soviet backing.^[24]

2003 invasion of Iraq

When the United States

After the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin argued that Crimea and other regions "were not part of Ukraine" after it was taken in the 18th century. The ethnic Russian population in Crimea and eastern Ukraine has been seen as a casus belli for Russia's annexation.^[29] The Foreign Ministry claimed that Ukraine tried to seize Crimean government buildings, citing this as a casus belli.^[30]

2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Prior to the

• Casus foederis
• False flag
• Jus ad bellum
• List of Latin phrases
• Status quo

References

Literature

• Braumoeller, Bear F. (2019). Only the Dead: The Persistence of War in the Modern Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 288.
  ISBN 9780190849542
  .
• Donald, David Herbert (5 November 1996). Lincoln. Simon & Schuster.
  ISBN 978-0-684-82535-9
  .
• Holsti, Kalevi (1991). Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order, 1648–1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 379.
  ISBN 9780521399296
  .
• Slater S.J., Thomas (1925). "Book 6: On War" . A manual of moral theology for English-speaking countries. Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd.

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Casus Belli".