3. The same may be said of the desire to change dwelling-place, to leave marshes, deserts, in order to settle in a more fertile country.
4. It is no less unjust to make attempt upon the rights and liberties of a people under pretext that they are less intelligent or less civilized than we are. The cause of civilization is, then, not a cause for just war so long as we have not ourselves been attacked by barbarians.
5. Nor is it just to conquer a people under pretext that our conquest may be to its advantage, bring it riches, or liberty, or morality, etc.
115. Defensive and offensive wars.—We distinguish two kinds of war, defensive and offensive. The first consists in defending the national territory, the second, in attacking the enemy’s territory.
It would be a mistake to confound defensive and offensive wars with just and unjust wars, and to believe that only the defensive wars are just, and all offensive ones unjust. This distinction has nothing to do with the causes of the war, but concerns the manner of engaging in it; sometimes one’s interest lies in allowing one’s self to be attacked, sometimes in attacking. He who has done us injustice may very well wait for us to come to him, instead of carrying arms to us; this does not prove him to be in the right. He who, on the contrary, takes up arms to obtain reparation for an injustice or an insult, does not prove thereby that he is in the wrong.
116. Precautions and preparations.—Even in the case of just causes, there are certain precautions and preparations necessary in order that the war be called a just one.
1. The subject must be of great consequence. It is criminal, for a frivolous cause, to expose men to all the evils that accompany a war, even the most fortunate.
2. There must be some probability of success: for it would be criminally rash to expose one’s self foolhardily to certain destruction and, to avoid a lesser evil, throw one’s self into a greater.
3. If we had no gentler means at our disposal.
There are two ways of settling a dispute between nations, without recourse to arms: 1, an amicable conference between the parties; 2, the intervention of a disinterested third party, or arbitrament. A third means, much rarer and now abandoned, is that of casting lots. When all the means of settling the difficulty amicably have been exhausted, there remains, before taking up arms, a final obligation, namely, to declare to the enemy the resolution of employing the last means: this is what is called a declaration of war.