3 - 1999

Germany and the War in Kosovo

Peace: The Real Thing

War as Last Means

by Michael Strauß

The war in Kosovo presented the churches in Germany with the question of whether they should make their own the arguments of those who approved the NATO attack as a last means in the face of the violations of human rights by the Yugoslavian government or of those who criticized it.

Hesitantly and full of self-doubt the churches in Germany approved of the NATO combat action against the Serbian dictator Milosevic and his murdering military in Kosovo. On the one hand, they knew that the one guilty of war sat in Belgrade and not in Brussels. On the other hand, they argued for an end to the institution of war on the basis of their convictions about the ethics of peace.

Particularly because even the military and politicians agree with the churches that the use of force cannot produce real peace, but at best represents merely the prerequisite for it. Peace results in the end only through political agreements that make possible and support the reconciliation between people.

Nonetheless a massive protest against the NATO strategy failed to materialize. Quite unlike the Gulf War eight years ago, when many churches and Christians stood at the head of a peace movement which vehemently rejected the military attack against Saddam Hussein. To be sure, the more it turned out in the past weeks that the air strikes against the Belgrade regime would not bring quick success, the greater the reservations, especially of many church groups, about the military action. However, the vociferous pacifism which accompanied the peace involvement of the churches up to the Gulf War of 1991 has fallen silent.

One reason for this is assumedly the prevailing perplexity in the society at large as to how the genocide in Kosovo could have been stopped other than by military action. That the NATO this time cannot simply be stereotyped as the enemy - as during the Gulf War, for example - also plays an important role. The honesty of their motives is scarcely to be denied due to the flagrant violations of human rights of the Serb military and paramilitary forces. With regard to the development in the churches of opinions on the ethics and politics of peace, two further observations are of inestimable value. Until the beginning of the nineties they were, first, strongly influenced by positions that the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva introduced into the discussion.

From the near-confessional formula of the first WCC Assembly in 1948 in Amsterdam, "war is contrary to the will of God", to the sometimes stark ethical demands regarding peace of the conciliar process for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation which reached its highpoint in 1990 in Seoul (South Korea) and 1991 - during the Gulf War - in Canberra (Australia).

Trapped in the "Cold War"

These positions were at times closely related to the particular political and military situation expressed in the phrase "Cold War". They were a reaction to the thinking in blocks, to the atomic armaments race, to the fear of total annihilation as well as to a negative estimation of the USA.

In spite of the political change of 1989 this attitude still provided to a large extent the "intellectual humus" for the political convictions about peace at the time of the Gulf War, especially in the churches. The fall of the eastern block was too recent for thinking beyond the East-West confrontation to have developed.

It is precisely this that is different today. Reunification and the progress in European unity, NATO’s extension to the east and a "partnership for peace" with Russia as well as a growing economic and cultural exchange between eastern and western Europe have strengthened the hope for a peaceful life together of peoples and nations.

Particularly in West Germany. Polls in East Germany suggest that the "Cold War" seems to have left behind deep marks to the present day, because here the majority of the population disapproved of the air strikes against Serbia. The pacifism of the conciliar process is still more alive in the churches there than in the West German ones. At any rate their representatives formulate the clearest criticism of NATO.

As a whole, the political changes in the world of the past ten years have largely contributed to a de-ideologizing of the ethical positions on peace in the church. This can also be gathered from the document to which they primarily refer, the contribution of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), "Steps on the Way of Peace" from 1994.

This says that the use of military force can be supported the more, the closer it remains related to the protection of threatened people, their lives, their freedom and the democratic structures of their society, in the sense of self-defense or emergency aid. The "hindrance of greater damage" represents for the churches therefore a justification for military action. This is by no means an equivalent of the concept of the "just war". That, say the churches, is repudiated through history and outdated ethically and legally. The use of force, even as self-defense, can only be understood as an exception oriented proportionally to the need, but no longer as a normal means of carrying out a conflict.

In this way a legitimization of war in principle is replaced by an orientation in principle toward peace. Peace alone can be the goal of the Christian, not war - even when it should become necessary due to political insight and moral conviction. For only through the primary option for peace does war truly remain the "ultima ratio".

This is the transformed situation in which the churches find themselves in comparison to the times of the "Cold War". It is in many ways characterized by great soberness, which grows from the realization that ethical judgements about peace are always accompanied by contradictions in a world grown more complex. Perhaps the most impressive is: whoever wages war for peace becomes guilty. This is the reason that war is the real thing when it comes to peace.

The commentary appeared in the monthly magazine "Evangelische Kommentare", vol. 5/99, translated for publishing in this issue.