Leonard Cheshire morality of force
Title
Leonard Cheshire morality of force
Description
Talk on the morality of force at the RAF Staff College. Confined to force used by legitimate government which involves loss of life. Humans have different standards concerning dignity of a human being. Talks of different kinds of law: human and eternal (divine). Introduces Christian faith into discussion. Talks of violence and laws and introduces pacifism. Discuses decision to use force and uses the war as example. Mentions use of air forces in war, bombing of Dresden and use of atomic bomb. Relates augment to current Northern Ireland situation. Discusses individual conscience and supplies conclusions. Submitted with caption 'Leonard Cheshire speaking at an unnamed RAF Staff College in December 1975 on the morality of war from his own viewpoint and experience'.
Creator
Date
1975-12
1976-01
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Language
Type
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Audio recording 00:53:01
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This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.
Identifier
SCheshireGL72021v20008-0001, SCheshireGL72021v20008-0001-Transcript
Transcription
Leonard Cheshire Resonate Project
File Title: Talk on the morality of force at the RAF Staff College in December 1975
Preservation copy
Duration: 53min 06sec
Transcription Date: 2 March 2020
Archive Number: AV-S_013
Start of Transcription
00:00 to 00:08 Group Captain Leonard Cheshire: January 8th, Talk to RAF Staff College, Subject: Morality of force
00:10 GLC: Commandant, ladies and gentlemen. On my side I would like to say that I do count it a very great privilege to have been invited to come and talk at all at the staff college, let alone on this particular subject. The Commandant says that it has been troubling military men from the beginning of history. I'd like to assure you Commandant that it's troubling me quite a bit now [laughs from audience].
00:43: I think I'm conscious that this is a subject that affects every one of us very deeply, whatever our position in life, and of course particularly members of the armed forces. I am also conscious that it's a subject one can't satisfactorily answer. There can be no clear cut solution offered for every situation that one may find oneself in and I know that the second half of our evening is devoted to discussion and so on my side I'd like to say that for me it’s a challenge. In the first place it's forced me to try and collect my thoughts on this subject and secondly, it's given me the opportunity, or will give me the opportunity, of hearing what you have got to say. And all that I can do is to try and outline as I see them some of the problems and perhaps some of the criteria by which I think we should try to judge what to do.
02:02: Well the subject given to me is the morality of force. Well as regards to force, for the purposes of tonight I am presuming that what we are talking about is force used by a legitimate government or on behalf of a legitimate government. Not force used by private individuals to put right a supposedly severe injustice. I am also assuming it's force of a kind that involves either, or must involve, loss of life or at least very serious maiming, not just a force of taking somebody by the arm and putting him in a police cell. And in dealing with it, I'd like to cover not only the actual use of force - the time of what one is using force - but the circumstances leading up to its use and the circumstances after it - that evolve out of it. Because as I see it all those three stages are linked and we have a duty, a separate duty, but a related duty in each of those three periods. The problem of course comes to morality. By what standards do we judge morality? And obviously people throughout the world are going to vary greatly at any rate in certain respects on the subject of morality. It would be very difficult to find a common denominator with which everybody is going to agree.
04:00: Possibly the one denominator that I think all men of goodwill would agree is that we should live and act in accordance with the dignity of a human being. That we should do nothing that offends the dignity of the human being either to another or with regards our own lives. But of course, the problem comes when one is faced with an ideal to pursue or a danger to ward off … and we know from our own experience and from looking at history that people standards vary very, very greatly when they are under that kind of pressure. But, in talking about morality for the purposes of tonight, I don't think that we should confine ourselves to just what as human beings we think is the criteria of human behaviour. I am really more concerned with the moral law and therefore I think I must start by defining what I understand law to be. I understand it to be an ordnance of reason, made for the common good and promulgated by the person or body of persons responsible for the particular society - whatever level that might be.
05:48: In other words, it's a product of reason and its purpose is the wellbeing of the community and the pursuit of its particular objectives and aims so that if the law is broken, order is disrupted, you introduce disorder into society, the society can no longer satisfactorily run and achieve its objective. And although there are many different ideas of law and many different laws in the world, I think we can say that broadly speaking they fall into two categories. What we might call the human law and what we would call the divine law or the eternal law. The first is a law which is made on the basis - for my definition at the moment - on the basis that there's nothing beyond this mortal life that we know. The other, the divine law is made on the basis that this life is the preparation for an eternal life and clearly for the second law, for the eternal law, that cannot be made by a human being because he would not know what kind of law was necessary to lead us towards the goal of eternal life. If there is such a thing as an eternal law, it can only be made and promulgated by the creator, by God.
07:42: Now in respect of the first one, human law, there is as you will know what people usually call the natural law. I suppose one could describe that as a body of principles generally accepted throughout the world as valid for all human beings. The divine law of course is the product of different or is in the custody of different religions in the world, but I think, and they do differ obviously in quite a number of respects. But in the Commandant's brief, I was asked one question - what is a Christian's duty when serving under arms in war? And so, I feel that briefly I should touch on that particular aspect as we in this country are officially a Christian country. Not that I think there is going to be all that great difference when we come to the question of violence. But one thing I do think I must state, is that you cannot judge the Christian, the true Christian attitude and instruction about behaviour merely by isolating some of the teachings of Christ as written in the Gospels. For one thing, there are many paradoxes in them, you can pick out one for instance that says our instruction is to love one another, another that says unless you hate your father and mother you can't be a disciple of mine. We have to understand them in the literary form in which they were spoken and in the specific historic setting in which they were spoken. And I don't think that we can understand the Christian attitude or judge it except by looking at Christianity as a whole. It's not my function to describe Christianity tonight but I think I must in two or three sentences try and set that position out so that when that matter is discussed, we know what it is that we are basing our judgment on.
10:26: Christianity is a historical religion. It postulates existence of a creator, a God of love who has called men essentially to love one another. But at some time in history after the emergence of man as a being capable of reflective thought - man as we know him today - God infused into man an immortal soul. Entered into a personal, intimate relationship with him and destined him for a life in eternity with God as it is said partakers of the divine nature. But man, unfortunately didn't respond to this, he fell. He thought somehow that he could achieve all this by his own, by himself. And therefore, that plan went wrong. And a principle of evil entered the world and the story of Christianity, really, is the story of that struggle or war between good and evil and the story of the steps that God has taken since that time in order to put that fall right, to set man back on the right direction and to lead him eventually to the goal for which he was destined. And as one of the means by which we were to know what to do, we were given a law, given progressively throughout history but essentially and finally by the person of Christ, of Christian law.
12:35: Tonight of course we are only concerned with that law as it relates to violence. But, if we come to look at the Christian position, I think we have to bear in mind this - that the Christian sees and believes himself and all men, whoever they are, as destined for an eternal life. He sees man as essentially the unifier that man’s role is to bring together all the diverse elements of this world until they become an integrated, harmonious entity. I personally would go so far as to say that the entire world, with all its elements, is slowly evolving closer together and higher until eventually - however improbable it may seem now - it is destined to become a corporeal being, personalised and capable of thought, of thinking as a being and that man’s supreme role is precisely unity and harmony. That is the destiny for which we are all ultimately destined. Whatever we do in the difficulties of this, the world in which we live, that destiny should be borne in mind.
14:23: We are now coming to the question of violence and those two laws - the nature law and the eternal law in relation to it - I only finally want to say that although those two laws obviously have a different end in view, they are not in contradiction. In fact, one could say that the natural law is nothing but a reflection or a participation of the eternal law in the rational being, man. So, I don't think for the purposes of what we are discussing tonight there will be a great difference. The Christian of course would know in his heart and in his conscience, what different duty he may have in a particular situation. I can only as best I can go through the general sort of situations in which we find ourselves in human affairs.
15:27: Well first, looking at violence, I think we have to take a look at one particular point of view - pacifism. Now I know that you can't generalise over pacifism and there are many different type of pacifists and so on. But all of them basically say that one should not resort to force, no matter what the provocation you should not resort to force if it's going to involve killing. The argument very often is a very noble one, a very appealing one. A lot of people subscribe to it and lot of people who don't subscribe to it, find it very difficult to answer. I have listened to a number of discussions and arguments between those who support the use of force and pacifists. I feel bound to say that usually the pacifist comes out better and the reason is, I think, and I think this is very important, that the man who is taking the opposite point of view who argues that there are moments when you have got to use force, fails to make it clear that he too would far rather see peace and therefore you get the situation where the one man is appearing to be arguing in favour of peace, and the other man is appearing to argue in favour of war. The two positions have become polarised.
17:27: Pacifism in my opinion cannot hold water. Whereas it is true if it is just a question of another man and myself, I have a right, if I wish, to let him do me in and not fight back, then it's only my life that I give. I obviously have a right to do that and many people would say and probably quite rightly that would be a nobler thing to do than to fight him. But that is not the situation that we find ourselves in in life because we are members of a community. And what would be at stake normally is not just our safety, but the safety of other people and if we have a duty as a pacifist will say towards the soul, and the person of the aggressor, we also have a duty to the victim and we have to make up our minds in that concrete situation which is the greater duty and how we should act. But I cannot hold that it is in conformity with Christian doctrine to allow an aggressor physically to attack and seriously harm another person and not intervene.
19:00: It's further argued that by remaining passive, ultimately you will convert the aggressor. But history doesn't bear that out. Normally an aggressor if he gains one victory, an easy victory, only gets an appetite for another act of aggression. It would be naïve to think shall we say somebody like Hitler would be won over by passive resistance. He wasn't. There were many Germans who tried to resist him passively to the best of their abilities. There were countries he overran before 1939 who didn't fight back. That didn't stop him. And so, it would be naïve to think that just by remaining kind and using the power of words one could convert somebody who was really bent on doing harm.
20:09 Usually I find that this argument is conducted in a vacuum. That's to say outside a concrete situation and this is where it falls down. Ideally speaking obviously war is wrong and we don't want to fight, but the argument has to be conducted in the context of actual facts. And I further find that if you meet a pacifist who waxes very strong, very sincerely and very eloquently on his theme, you then divert him onto something that he feels very strongly about, perhaps South Africa, you find that he is becoming militant because suddenly he's got an injustice that he feels deeply about. And so, the principles appear differently. Nonetheless, I know that we have to treat the pacifist view seriously and respect the sincerity of the person who holds it. But I also think that we need to know how to answer him. We need to know how to meet his arguments with other reasoned arguments because a great deal is a stake, if we make a mistake. The true duty as I see it is this, first we know and acknowledge that force ideally speaking is wrong. But we don't live in ideal situations, we live in a world where clearly there is ill-will, misunderstanding and discord and there will inevitably be situations where not to use force, assuming we use it in the right way, would be dereliction of one’s moral duty and I would say one’s Christian duty.
22:34: The tests, as far as I can set them out, are these in my opinion. As regards the decision to use force first, have we explored all the available avenues of solving the problem other than by force? - Have we genuinely done that? - Secondly, is force the right countermeasure. It is possible that it may not be. Thirdly, is the timing right? Should we use it now or should we wait later. By waiting later, one gives more time for the other person to change his mind but, you may also weight the scales against you. If having weighed up all the consequences that it is possible to foresee of the alternative courses of action, using force or not using force, and if in one’s opinion less harm will be done by using force than by not using it, then we should use it. And if we use it, then we should use it professionally and put our whole heart into its application. But we should not use more force that is absolutely necessary. We should be just in the use of it and if possible, merciful. Because after all we have to remember our objective. Our immediate objective of course is to remove the oppression or whatever it might be, the aggressor. But, the long term objective is to achieve peace, justice, freedom, harmony. In other words, all the qualities that we want for this world so that everybody, whatever his race or situation can live in freedom. And if by using force in a particular way we prejudice that long-term objective, then perhaps we have done the wrong thing. And so clearly this calls for some very clear thinking, and in order to think clearly, we have got to be absolutely certain that we are objective, that we are not carried away by some emotion. And again, if one looks at history, one can see that many decisions have been taken, wrong decisions, because somebody was biased, or in a bad mood, or he was motivated by spite or any of the human failings to which we are all subject. We have an absolute duty to think out as clearly as we can all the implications of an action. But, if we once take it, we sincerely done our best to come to the right decision in the interests of everybody, not just our own little community, then I think that we should not look back over our shoulder. We should not question because once you're committed to the use of force, at any rate if it's war, and you don't put your whole heart into it, you won't succeed. And its probable that by being efficient and quick, you will cause less suffering than being inefficient and half holding back and dragging it out. So, into this situation I put the clear obligation of the armed forces to be totally professional, totally masters of their particular job so that if they have to use it, they can use it as efficiently as possible. And I'd like, if I might, to take one or two concrete examples so that we can look at it in an historical context.
27:25 First, I'd like to take the Second World War. … Now the Second World War was a situation, I think that most people would agree, where this country and its allies had no option but to fight. Once that decision was taken, I doubt whether there was anybody in this country other than a very, very small minority who had any doubts about it. We knew. And it was the fact of knowing that cause, however unpleasant was necessary and just in those circumstances that gave this country a unity and a sense of purpose to see it through. But, if you look at the circumstances leading up to that war, one can see where we made our mistakes and how greatly costly those political mistakes were. And unfortunately, there weren't only political mistakes. To a certain extent there were military mistakes. Without going too much into the details of the middle 30s and the late 30s and having to simplify it obviously for the purposes of this evening, the truth is that Hitler started from a position of weakness, militarily he was outnumbered. His Generals said to him 'but you can't do this militarily'. His answer was never mind; they won't fight. The key to the European situation was Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia lay at the heart of Europe and Czechoslovakia with 37 Divisions that it then had in 1938 matched, man for man and gun for gun, the German army. In the short term, the Czech army could have held the German army - not of course in the long term. Hitler always said that the one thing he must never do was fight on two fronts at once. He had to get rid of Czechoslovakia to start his ambitions in the East, and therefore if we had not forced Czechoslovakia to give in, Hitler would have had to fight it. The moment he fought it, he would have declared his hand and France who had 87 Divisions or 85 Divisions I think, against Hitler's 36 or 37, and Britain with our 6, we would have had had to come in and fight. In the East was the unknown quantity of Poland. Hitler's Generals knew that he could not succeed and in fact at the moment of Munich were ready to overthrow Hitler, the moment that we stood firm and said he could not have Czechoslovakia, they couldn't believe it when they heard what we had done.
31:02: I am trying to say that had we faced up to the reality of that situation, and used a little bit of firmness and strength and taken a certain amount of risk, that World War would not have been a World War. It would have been a fight between a weaker Germany against allies that couldn't have failed to have won. And furthermore, at that time there were plenty of people in Germany itself wanting to get rid of Hitler.
31:40: The Air Force did not help unfortunately, although in a sense the RAF provided the foundation for winning the war by thinking out its air force strategy so clearly - more clearly in fact than the Luftwaffe. The Air Force had overestimated the effects of aerial bombing and the result of this was to make the politicians anxious at all costs to avoid a war. I think if we're honest, our fault was that we were too inward looking. We were too concerned with domestic problems - Europe was the other side of a channel. We didn't think in those broader terms, we were insular, and I think this is a failing that goes on through the generations, a particular party-line. We all of us as citizens of the country have a duty to make our views felt in this respect.
32:50: Another example I'd like to take is the bombing of Dresden. Looking at it in hindsight, I think I feel justified in saying that was a mistake. It was a mistake based partly on false intelligence. I know that the Russians told us that there were two German armoured divisions re-forming in Dresden. I also know that it was bombed for strategical reasons because fear that the ME262 or whatever the jet and so on. But when you look at the effect that that has had upon history, upon the criticism that that's enabled people to level at the RAF and Britain in general, and at the fact that there were no armoured troops in Dresden at the time, I think we can say it was a mistake. I'm not saying that just to show that we made a mistake, I mention it because of the consequences. We have to acknowledge that force, however just, maybe the decision to use it will always have repercussions and violence inevitably breeds violence. Therefore, force really is a last resort, necessary unfortunately, but it's the worst solution if only we can find another.
34:41: Another and final example out of that last war if I might, is the atom bomb. Today probably the atom bomb is remembered and spoken about more than anything else in the War. As you probably know, I was a member of the team that went out on those B-29s to drop the atom bomb, so I personally know the feelings of those who took part and so on. Considered against the alternative, I cannot see there was any option other than to drop the atom bomb. The only known way to make Japan give in was to invade the mainland of Japan itself and for that purpose the Americans were going to land 3 million men into the southern island, I think in December '45, and another 2 or 3 million into the main island in March 1946. An estimated year fighting, an estimated 3 million casualties - 2 million Japanese and 1 million American and allied. Against that, the two atom bombs took approximately 120,000. Measured in those terms I don't honestly see what anybody could have done other than decide to drop it and I think that if I were back in that situation again today, I would want to do the same thing. But, I must qualify that. I think that it was a mistake to have dropped the bombs on a city, or to have dropped the first bomb on a city. If the first bomb had been dropped in open country or just off the coast in the sea - where it could be seen. And a warning given, as it was given by Truman, that if Japan didn't give in there would be a rain of such bombs from such as the world had never seen I think were his words, I don't think it would have made any difference to the Japanese high command. The first bomb didn't in any case, they didn't even tell their people that an atom bomb had been dropped. But I do think that the verdict of history would have been different, because it would have least have given the Japanese an option and if they'd have rejected it, then the responsibility would clearly have been on their shoulders. I know that the two alternatives were discussed and that it was decided that unless a bomb was dropped on a city nobody would believe that it could do such damage. But I'm convinced that the allied cause was [unclear word 38:18] in the eyes of the world by, the fact that the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
38:29: Coming to more up to date times, and on a more difficult subject because we haven't the hindsight of history now, Northern Ireland and Vietnam. You will appreciate that I left the service at the end of the war and therefore, I don't have any first-hand experience, I can only talk as an outsider. There is a difference in kind in these two types of war, in fact I suppose you could categorise wars, the use of force, into three. A total war, a global war like the first two World Wars, or particularly the second where the entire nation is totally involved. A limited action using conventional weapons where there is only a limited objective and anti-terrorist. In the first, in a total war our duties are different because everybody on both sides is totally implicated, I do not see that you can talk about an innocent civilian as against the man in uniform, the civilian is totally dedicated to that cause and he is spending his time making munitions or making something that the country needs. I don't see that there's all that distinction between the two. In a conventional limited war, there is of course a distinction. It's primarily a fight between two armies. In the anti-terrorist action - into which I put Northern Ireland and perhaps wrongly, Vietnam, but from one sense I mean that - we have a completely different situation. Here we have a group of people infiltrating into a country who are hostile to oneself, who are prepared to go to any lengths to achieve their particular objective. But that is not so of the country as a whole. I can quite see that there are two you can put a case both ways for armed intervention for sending in the army into Northern Ireland or rather you could at the beginning. The other argument, as I once heard put to me by a senior police officer, was that if the army was sent in, they wouldn't really have a hope of containing all the terrorists and it’s effect would only be to escalate violence. The better solution would be to send, in effect, intelligence agents as policemen in who knew their way around and would be able to deal with the situation in a different way. I have no idea which is the correct solution, I don't know the facts. I do know that once one is committed to using force, to sending the army in, one cannot retreat because to retreat would be to leave a worse situation than the one entered and so I do see that this is a very difficult and very painful decision for whoever has to take. One can also see that one has to be quite different in the way one applies force, … because if one applies force in such a way as to antagonise an otherwise potentially friendly population, all the loss of life and the courage and everything else that has gone into it will have been not productive. I think that in the world that we live in today, this really is the primary danger that we face - anti-terrorist/terrorist activities and this is a subject that I would like most of all, if you are willing, to discuss when we come to our moment of discussion.
43:30: I would then like to come to the question of individual conscience. What is the duty of an individual if he is faced with an order that he thinks is wrong and obviously any of us if we are at war could find ourselves in such a situation? All religions will agree that conscience has priority and if a man truly and sincerely feels in his conscience that he should not do something, then he shouldn't do it. But, when it comes to war, there are two distinct situations one can find oneself in. To begin with, if one joins the armed forces one knows perfectly well that one is there in order to carry out the objectives of the government and the very fact that one joins the armed forces puts one in a position where one agrees to do what the government asks one. It is in effect a vote of confidence in the particular political system of one’s country. If one is conscripted, I suppose the position is a little bit different. But when it comes to the actual battle, one may be given an order to do something that one feels is wrong, but one still has a duty to the other men in one’s unit. And if what one is going to do is going to disrupt that action and endanger the men that ones with, I question whether other than in very extreme circumstances one has a right to opt out. If on the other hand it's something in isolation from a battle, then it is different. If, again if I may take an example, the men who are ordered to mete out the punishment that was part of life in the concentration camps, who were asked to do something that was not directly contributing to the war. Those were prisoners, they were out of the war. Therefore, to administer any form of torture to them was clearly wrong. Any soldier would have a right to refuse to do that. Some did and paid for it with their lives and are greatly respected today. Any action which is purely retaliation or vindictiveness is wrong. Not just morally wrong, it will ruin, to certain limits, ones cause and therefore even on grounds of expediency thinking of the good of one’s own cause, one has a duty to stand up and not do it and we know that there have been situations in recent wars. In Vietnam one or two where people did things that have been judged wrong, where they could have stood firm and said, 'I won't do it'. I don't underestimate the difficulty because when one is at war of this kind, the difficulty of an anti-terrorist war is that is it not so easy to see what is right and what is wrong. In a global war - like 1939 - there was no doubt. Everybody was behind you, it was easy. In a war like Vietnam or even Northern Ireland it is not so easy. With the best will in the world, people don't know quite what is the right thing in certain situations. So, in my view, this is the area that requires the greatest thought and that perhaps needs working out by all those who can as well as possible.
48:23: And in conclusion, I would like to turn to what is our duty as citizens of the world in peacetime, because this is a question of prevention. The ideal is to prevent conflict rather than have to stifle it once it's broken out. And I think we tend to feel that as individuals there isn't anything we can do. But there is. If I may be personal just for a moment, I remember very clearly at the end of the last war, the big question in most peoples' minds was well we've fought a war that's going to end wars and it hasn't ended conflict. What therefore can we as individuals do about it? At the time I thought that the only way one could ensure there could never be war was for the Allies to be so strong militarily that nobody would fight them. There is a certain truth in that, that every country should be strong according to, relative to, it’s situation and should let a potential aggressor know that if it is attacked, it will fight. And I apply that to our own country, because if we don't let people know that we really mean it and that relative to our resources we are going to be armed and strong, it opens the door to a potential aggressor. In a certain sense Hitler could have said, 'well I didn't know you were going to do that - you never gave me that impression' and the same could be true today. So, I do feel that we should see to it that our own country is prepared and is strong. But clearly the key to peace doesn't lie in armed strength. It lies in the hearts of men. And although one of the causes of war is ill-will, that will always be so, one of the other causes of war is injustice and, in the world, clearly today there is great injustice. I'm not talking at the moment about political injustices, as they tend to be more localised, I'm talking about the great disparity between the poor of the world and the better off. In this, I see the greatest potential threat to our future security because we are one family destined for one end and how can we allow so many of the human family to be so poor, so deprived and then expect there to be harmony and peace in the world? There won't be. And therefore we should recognise our duty as citizens of the world within our ability not only to do something to put it right, but to let those who are poor and deprived know that we mean it, know that we are as best we can, or want to be, their champions. We are put off because we think there is nothing we can do. It's not that there is nothing that we can do, it's merely that there is little we can do. But many little acts do add up and as in the 1930s we were too inward looking, too unwilling to face the outside realities of the world, so I think today we should be more outward looking. More conscious of those realities and more conscious of our total involvement a members of the one human family.
53:02: Thank you, Commandant.
53:04: End of speech
53:07 End of transcription
File Title: Talk on the morality of force at the RAF Staff College in December 1975
Preservation copy
Duration: 53min 06sec
Transcription Date: 2 March 2020
Archive Number: AV-S_013
Start of Transcription
00:00 to 00:08 Group Captain Leonard Cheshire: January 8th, Talk to RAF Staff College, Subject: Morality of force
00:10 GLC: Commandant, ladies and gentlemen. On my side I would like to say that I do count it a very great privilege to have been invited to come and talk at all at the staff college, let alone on this particular subject. The Commandant says that it has been troubling military men from the beginning of history. I'd like to assure you Commandant that it's troubling me quite a bit now [laughs from audience].
00:43: I think I'm conscious that this is a subject that affects every one of us very deeply, whatever our position in life, and of course particularly members of the armed forces. I am also conscious that it's a subject one can't satisfactorily answer. There can be no clear cut solution offered for every situation that one may find oneself in and I know that the second half of our evening is devoted to discussion and so on my side I'd like to say that for me it’s a challenge. In the first place it's forced me to try and collect my thoughts on this subject and secondly, it's given me the opportunity, or will give me the opportunity, of hearing what you have got to say. And all that I can do is to try and outline as I see them some of the problems and perhaps some of the criteria by which I think we should try to judge what to do.
02:02: Well the subject given to me is the morality of force. Well as regards to force, for the purposes of tonight I am presuming that what we are talking about is force used by a legitimate government or on behalf of a legitimate government. Not force used by private individuals to put right a supposedly severe injustice. I am also assuming it's force of a kind that involves either, or must involve, loss of life or at least very serious maiming, not just a force of taking somebody by the arm and putting him in a police cell. And in dealing with it, I'd like to cover not only the actual use of force - the time of what one is using force - but the circumstances leading up to its use and the circumstances after it - that evolve out of it. Because as I see it all those three stages are linked and we have a duty, a separate duty, but a related duty in each of those three periods. The problem of course comes to morality. By what standards do we judge morality? And obviously people throughout the world are going to vary greatly at any rate in certain respects on the subject of morality. It would be very difficult to find a common denominator with which everybody is going to agree.
04:00: Possibly the one denominator that I think all men of goodwill would agree is that we should live and act in accordance with the dignity of a human being. That we should do nothing that offends the dignity of the human being either to another or with regards our own lives. But of course, the problem comes when one is faced with an ideal to pursue or a danger to ward off … and we know from our own experience and from looking at history that people standards vary very, very greatly when they are under that kind of pressure. But, in talking about morality for the purposes of tonight, I don't think that we should confine ourselves to just what as human beings we think is the criteria of human behaviour. I am really more concerned with the moral law and therefore I think I must start by defining what I understand law to be. I understand it to be an ordnance of reason, made for the common good and promulgated by the person or body of persons responsible for the particular society - whatever level that might be.
05:48: In other words, it's a product of reason and its purpose is the wellbeing of the community and the pursuit of its particular objectives and aims so that if the law is broken, order is disrupted, you introduce disorder into society, the society can no longer satisfactorily run and achieve its objective. And although there are many different ideas of law and many different laws in the world, I think we can say that broadly speaking they fall into two categories. What we might call the human law and what we would call the divine law or the eternal law. The first is a law which is made on the basis - for my definition at the moment - on the basis that there's nothing beyond this mortal life that we know. The other, the divine law is made on the basis that this life is the preparation for an eternal life and clearly for the second law, for the eternal law, that cannot be made by a human being because he would not know what kind of law was necessary to lead us towards the goal of eternal life. If there is such a thing as an eternal law, it can only be made and promulgated by the creator, by God.
07:42: Now in respect of the first one, human law, there is as you will know what people usually call the natural law. I suppose one could describe that as a body of principles generally accepted throughout the world as valid for all human beings. The divine law of course is the product of different or is in the custody of different religions in the world, but I think, and they do differ obviously in quite a number of respects. But in the Commandant's brief, I was asked one question - what is a Christian's duty when serving under arms in war? And so, I feel that briefly I should touch on that particular aspect as we in this country are officially a Christian country. Not that I think there is going to be all that great difference when we come to the question of violence. But one thing I do think I must state, is that you cannot judge the Christian, the true Christian attitude and instruction about behaviour merely by isolating some of the teachings of Christ as written in the Gospels. For one thing, there are many paradoxes in them, you can pick out one for instance that says our instruction is to love one another, another that says unless you hate your father and mother you can't be a disciple of mine. We have to understand them in the literary form in which they were spoken and in the specific historic setting in which they were spoken. And I don't think that we can understand the Christian attitude or judge it except by looking at Christianity as a whole. It's not my function to describe Christianity tonight but I think I must in two or three sentences try and set that position out so that when that matter is discussed, we know what it is that we are basing our judgment on.
10:26: Christianity is a historical religion. It postulates existence of a creator, a God of love who has called men essentially to love one another. But at some time in history after the emergence of man as a being capable of reflective thought - man as we know him today - God infused into man an immortal soul. Entered into a personal, intimate relationship with him and destined him for a life in eternity with God as it is said partakers of the divine nature. But man, unfortunately didn't respond to this, he fell. He thought somehow that he could achieve all this by his own, by himself. And therefore, that plan went wrong. And a principle of evil entered the world and the story of Christianity, really, is the story of that struggle or war between good and evil and the story of the steps that God has taken since that time in order to put that fall right, to set man back on the right direction and to lead him eventually to the goal for which he was destined. And as one of the means by which we were to know what to do, we were given a law, given progressively throughout history but essentially and finally by the person of Christ, of Christian law.
12:35: Tonight of course we are only concerned with that law as it relates to violence. But, if we come to look at the Christian position, I think we have to bear in mind this - that the Christian sees and believes himself and all men, whoever they are, as destined for an eternal life. He sees man as essentially the unifier that man’s role is to bring together all the diverse elements of this world until they become an integrated, harmonious entity. I personally would go so far as to say that the entire world, with all its elements, is slowly evolving closer together and higher until eventually - however improbable it may seem now - it is destined to become a corporeal being, personalised and capable of thought, of thinking as a being and that man’s supreme role is precisely unity and harmony. That is the destiny for which we are all ultimately destined. Whatever we do in the difficulties of this, the world in which we live, that destiny should be borne in mind.
14:23: We are now coming to the question of violence and those two laws - the nature law and the eternal law in relation to it - I only finally want to say that although those two laws obviously have a different end in view, they are not in contradiction. In fact, one could say that the natural law is nothing but a reflection or a participation of the eternal law in the rational being, man. So, I don't think for the purposes of what we are discussing tonight there will be a great difference. The Christian of course would know in his heart and in his conscience, what different duty he may have in a particular situation. I can only as best I can go through the general sort of situations in which we find ourselves in human affairs.
15:27: Well first, looking at violence, I think we have to take a look at one particular point of view - pacifism. Now I know that you can't generalise over pacifism and there are many different type of pacifists and so on. But all of them basically say that one should not resort to force, no matter what the provocation you should not resort to force if it's going to involve killing. The argument very often is a very noble one, a very appealing one. A lot of people subscribe to it and lot of people who don't subscribe to it, find it very difficult to answer. I have listened to a number of discussions and arguments between those who support the use of force and pacifists. I feel bound to say that usually the pacifist comes out better and the reason is, I think, and I think this is very important, that the man who is taking the opposite point of view who argues that there are moments when you have got to use force, fails to make it clear that he too would far rather see peace and therefore you get the situation where the one man is appearing to be arguing in favour of peace, and the other man is appearing to argue in favour of war. The two positions have become polarised.
17:27: Pacifism in my opinion cannot hold water. Whereas it is true if it is just a question of another man and myself, I have a right, if I wish, to let him do me in and not fight back, then it's only my life that I give. I obviously have a right to do that and many people would say and probably quite rightly that would be a nobler thing to do than to fight him. But that is not the situation that we find ourselves in in life because we are members of a community. And what would be at stake normally is not just our safety, but the safety of other people and if we have a duty as a pacifist will say towards the soul, and the person of the aggressor, we also have a duty to the victim and we have to make up our minds in that concrete situation which is the greater duty and how we should act. But I cannot hold that it is in conformity with Christian doctrine to allow an aggressor physically to attack and seriously harm another person and not intervene.
19:00: It's further argued that by remaining passive, ultimately you will convert the aggressor. But history doesn't bear that out. Normally an aggressor if he gains one victory, an easy victory, only gets an appetite for another act of aggression. It would be naïve to think shall we say somebody like Hitler would be won over by passive resistance. He wasn't. There were many Germans who tried to resist him passively to the best of their abilities. There were countries he overran before 1939 who didn't fight back. That didn't stop him. And so, it would be naïve to think that just by remaining kind and using the power of words one could convert somebody who was really bent on doing harm.
20:09 Usually I find that this argument is conducted in a vacuum. That's to say outside a concrete situation and this is where it falls down. Ideally speaking obviously war is wrong and we don't want to fight, but the argument has to be conducted in the context of actual facts. And I further find that if you meet a pacifist who waxes very strong, very sincerely and very eloquently on his theme, you then divert him onto something that he feels very strongly about, perhaps South Africa, you find that he is becoming militant because suddenly he's got an injustice that he feels deeply about. And so, the principles appear differently. Nonetheless, I know that we have to treat the pacifist view seriously and respect the sincerity of the person who holds it. But I also think that we need to know how to answer him. We need to know how to meet his arguments with other reasoned arguments because a great deal is a stake, if we make a mistake. The true duty as I see it is this, first we know and acknowledge that force ideally speaking is wrong. But we don't live in ideal situations, we live in a world where clearly there is ill-will, misunderstanding and discord and there will inevitably be situations where not to use force, assuming we use it in the right way, would be dereliction of one’s moral duty and I would say one’s Christian duty.
22:34: The tests, as far as I can set them out, are these in my opinion. As regards the decision to use force first, have we explored all the available avenues of solving the problem other than by force? - Have we genuinely done that? - Secondly, is force the right countermeasure. It is possible that it may not be. Thirdly, is the timing right? Should we use it now or should we wait later. By waiting later, one gives more time for the other person to change his mind but, you may also weight the scales against you. If having weighed up all the consequences that it is possible to foresee of the alternative courses of action, using force or not using force, and if in one’s opinion less harm will be done by using force than by not using it, then we should use it. And if we use it, then we should use it professionally and put our whole heart into its application. But we should not use more force that is absolutely necessary. We should be just in the use of it and if possible, merciful. Because after all we have to remember our objective. Our immediate objective of course is to remove the oppression or whatever it might be, the aggressor. But, the long term objective is to achieve peace, justice, freedom, harmony. In other words, all the qualities that we want for this world so that everybody, whatever his race or situation can live in freedom. And if by using force in a particular way we prejudice that long-term objective, then perhaps we have done the wrong thing. And so clearly this calls for some very clear thinking, and in order to think clearly, we have got to be absolutely certain that we are objective, that we are not carried away by some emotion. And again, if one looks at history, one can see that many decisions have been taken, wrong decisions, because somebody was biased, or in a bad mood, or he was motivated by spite or any of the human failings to which we are all subject. We have an absolute duty to think out as clearly as we can all the implications of an action. But, if we once take it, we sincerely done our best to come to the right decision in the interests of everybody, not just our own little community, then I think that we should not look back over our shoulder. We should not question because once you're committed to the use of force, at any rate if it's war, and you don't put your whole heart into it, you won't succeed. And its probable that by being efficient and quick, you will cause less suffering than being inefficient and half holding back and dragging it out. So, into this situation I put the clear obligation of the armed forces to be totally professional, totally masters of their particular job so that if they have to use it, they can use it as efficiently as possible. And I'd like, if I might, to take one or two concrete examples so that we can look at it in an historical context.
27:25 First, I'd like to take the Second World War. … Now the Second World War was a situation, I think that most people would agree, where this country and its allies had no option but to fight. Once that decision was taken, I doubt whether there was anybody in this country other than a very, very small minority who had any doubts about it. We knew. And it was the fact of knowing that cause, however unpleasant was necessary and just in those circumstances that gave this country a unity and a sense of purpose to see it through. But, if you look at the circumstances leading up to that war, one can see where we made our mistakes and how greatly costly those political mistakes were. And unfortunately, there weren't only political mistakes. To a certain extent there were military mistakes. Without going too much into the details of the middle 30s and the late 30s and having to simplify it obviously for the purposes of this evening, the truth is that Hitler started from a position of weakness, militarily he was outnumbered. His Generals said to him 'but you can't do this militarily'. His answer was never mind; they won't fight. The key to the European situation was Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia lay at the heart of Europe and Czechoslovakia with 37 Divisions that it then had in 1938 matched, man for man and gun for gun, the German army. In the short term, the Czech army could have held the German army - not of course in the long term. Hitler always said that the one thing he must never do was fight on two fronts at once. He had to get rid of Czechoslovakia to start his ambitions in the East, and therefore if we had not forced Czechoslovakia to give in, Hitler would have had to fight it. The moment he fought it, he would have declared his hand and France who had 87 Divisions or 85 Divisions I think, against Hitler's 36 or 37, and Britain with our 6, we would have had had to come in and fight. In the East was the unknown quantity of Poland. Hitler's Generals knew that he could not succeed and in fact at the moment of Munich were ready to overthrow Hitler, the moment that we stood firm and said he could not have Czechoslovakia, they couldn't believe it when they heard what we had done.
31:02: I am trying to say that had we faced up to the reality of that situation, and used a little bit of firmness and strength and taken a certain amount of risk, that World War would not have been a World War. It would have been a fight between a weaker Germany against allies that couldn't have failed to have won. And furthermore, at that time there were plenty of people in Germany itself wanting to get rid of Hitler.
31:40: The Air Force did not help unfortunately, although in a sense the RAF provided the foundation for winning the war by thinking out its air force strategy so clearly - more clearly in fact than the Luftwaffe. The Air Force had overestimated the effects of aerial bombing and the result of this was to make the politicians anxious at all costs to avoid a war. I think if we're honest, our fault was that we were too inward looking. We were too concerned with domestic problems - Europe was the other side of a channel. We didn't think in those broader terms, we were insular, and I think this is a failing that goes on through the generations, a particular party-line. We all of us as citizens of the country have a duty to make our views felt in this respect.
32:50: Another example I'd like to take is the bombing of Dresden. Looking at it in hindsight, I think I feel justified in saying that was a mistake. It was a mistake based partly on false intelligence. I know that the Russians told us that there were two German armoured divisions re-forming in Dresden. I also know that it was bombed for strategical reasons because fear that the ME262 or whatever the jet and so on. But when you look at the effect that that has had upon history, upon the criticism that that's enabled people to level at the RAF and Britain in general, and at the fact that there were no armoured troops in Dresden at the time, I think we can say it was a mistake. I'm not saying that just to show that we made a mistake, I mention it because of the consequences. We have to acknowledge that force, however just, maybe the decision to use it will always have repercussions and violence inevitably breeds violence. Therefore, force really is a last resort, necessary unfortunately, but it's the worst solution if only we can find another.
34:41: Another and final example out of that last war if I might, is the atom bomb. Today probably the atom bomb is remembered and spoken about more than anything else in the War. As you probably know, I was a member of the team that went out on those B-29s to drop the atom bomb, so I personally know the feelings of those who took part and so on. Considered against the alternative, I cannot see there was any option other than to drop the atom bomb. The only known way to make Japan give in was to invade the mainland of Japan itself and for that purpose the Americans were going to land 3 million men into the southern island, I think in December '45, and another 2 or 3 million into the main island in March 1946. An estimated year fighting, an estimated 3 million casualties - 2 million Japanese and 1 million American and allied. Against that, the two atom bombs took approximately 120,000. Measured in those terms I don't honestly see what anybody could have done other than decide to drop it and I think that if I were back in that situation again today, I would want to do the same thing. But, I must qualify that. I think that it was a mistake to have dropped the bombs on a city, or to have dropped the first bomb on a city. If the first bomb had been dropped in open country or just off the coast in the sea - where it could be seen. And a warning given, as it was given by Truman, that if Japan didn't give in there would be a rain of such bombs from such as the world had never seen I think were his words, I don't think it would have made any difference to the Japanese high command. The first bomb didn't in any case, they didn't even tell their people that an atom bomb had been dropped. But I do think that the verdict of history would have been different, because it would have least have given the Japanese an option and if they'd have rejected it, then the responsibility would clearly have been on their shoulders. I know that the two alternatives were discussed and that it was decided that unless a bomb was dropped on a city nobody would believe that it could do such damage. But I'm convinced that the allied cause was [unclear word 38:18] in the eyes of the world by, the fact that the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
38:29: Coming to more up to date times, and on a more difficult subject because we haven't the hindsight of history now, Northern Ireland and Vietnam. You will appreciate that I left the service at the end of the war and therefore, I don't have any first-hand experience, I can only talk as an outsider. There is a difference in kind in these two types of war, in fact I suppose you could categorise wars, the use of force, into three. A total war, a global war like the first two World Wars, or particularly the second where the entire nation is totally involved. A limited action using conventional weapons where there is only a limited objective and anti-terrorist. In the first, in a total war our duties are different because everybody on both sides is totally implicated, I do not see that you can talk about an innocent civilian as against the man in uniform, the civilian is totally dedicated to that cause and he is spending his time making munitions or making something that the country needs. I don't see that there's all that distinction between the two. In a conventional limited war, there is of course a distinction. It's primarily a fight between two armies. In the anti-terrorist action - into which I put Northern Ireland and perhaps wrongly, Vietnam, but from one sense I mean that - we have a completely different situation. Here we have a group of people infiltrating into a country who are hostile to oneself, who are prepared to go to any lengths to achieve their particular objective. But that is not so of the country as a whole. I can quite see that there are two you can put a case both ways for armed intervention for sending in the army into Northern Ireland or rather you could at the beginning. The other argument, as I once heard put to me by a senior police officer, was that if the army was sent in, they wouldn't really have a hope of containing all the terrorists and it’s effect would only be to escalate violence. The better solution would be to send, in effect, intelligence agents as policemen in who knew their way around and would be able to deal with the situation in a different way. I have no idea which is the correct solution, I don't know the facts. I do know that once one is committed to using force, to sending the army in, one cannot retreat because to retreat would be to leave a worse situation than the one entered and so I do see that this is a very difficult and very painful decision for whoever has to take. One can also see that one has to be quite different in the way one applies force, … because if one applies force in such a way as to antagonise an otherwise potentially friendly population, all the loss of life and the courage and everything else that has gone into it will have been not productive. I think that in the world that we live in today, this really is the primary danger that we face - anti-terrorist/terrorist activities and this is a subject that I would like most of all, if you are willing, to discuss when we come to our moment of discussion.
43:30: I would then like to come to the question of individual conscience. What is the duty of an individual if he is faced with an order that he thinks is wrong and obviously any of us if we are at war could find ourselves in such a situation? All religions will agree that conscience has priority and if a man truly and sincerely feels in his conscience that he should not do something, then he shouldn't do it. But, when it comes to war, there are two distinct situations one can find oneself in. To begin with, if one joins the armed forces one knows perfectly well that one is there in order to carry out the objectives of the government and the very fact that one joins the armed forces puts one in a position where one agrees to do what the government asks one. It is in effect a vote of confidence in the particular political system of one’s country. If one is conscripted, I suppose the position is a little bit different. But when it comes to the actual battle, one may be given an order to do something that one feels is wrong, but one still has a duty to the other men in one’s unit. And if what one is going to do is going to disrupt that action and endanger the men that ones with, I question whether other than in very extreme circumstances one has a right to opt out. If on the other hand it's something in isolation from a battle, then it is different. If, again if I may take an example, the men who are ordered to mete out the punishment that was part of life in the concentration camps, who were asked to do something that was not directly contributing to the war. Those were prisoners, they were out of the war. Therefore, to administer any form of torture to them was clearly wrong. Any soldier would have a right to refuse to do that. Some did and paid for it with their lives and are greatly respected today. Any action which is purely retaliation or vindictiveness is wrong. Not just morally wrong, it will ruin, to certain limits, ones cause and therefore even on grounds of expediency thinking of the good of one’s own cause, one has a duty to stand up and not do it and we know that there have been situations in recent wars. In Vietnam one or two where people did things that have been judged wrong, where they could have stood firm and said, 'I won't do it'. I don't underestimate the difficulty because when one is at war of this kind, the difficulty of an anti-terrorist war is that is it not so easy to see what is right and what is wrong. In a global war - like 1939 - there was no doubt. Everybody was behind you, it was easy. In a war like Vietnam or even Northern Ireland it is not so easy. With the best will in the world, people don't know quite what is the right thing in certain situations. So, in my view, this is the area that requires the greatest thought and that perhaps needs working out by all those who can as well as possible.
48:23: And in conclusion, I would like to turn to what is our duty as citizens of the world in peacetime, because this is a question of prevention. The ideal is to prevent conflict rather than have to stifle it once it's broken out. And I think we tend to feel that as individuals there isn't anything we can do. But there is. If I may be personal just for a moment, I remember very clearly at the end of the last war, the big question in most peoples' minds was well we've fought a war that's going to end wars and it hasn't ended conflict. What therefore can we as individuals do about it? At the time I thought that the only way one could ensure there could never be war was for the Allies to be so strong militarily that nobody would fight them. There is a certain truth in that, that every country should be strong according to, relative to, it’s situation and should let a potential aggressor know that if it is attacked, it will fight. And I apply that to our own country, because if we don't let people know that we really mean it and that relative to our resources we are going to be armed and strong, it opens the door to a potential aggressor. In a certain sense Hitler could have said, 'well I didn't know you were going to do that - you never gave me that impression' and the same could be true today. So, I do feel that we should see to it that our own country is prepared and is strong. But clearly the key to peace doesn't lie in armed strength. It lies in the hearts of men. And although one of the causes of war is ill-will, that will always be so, one of the other causes of war is injustice and, in the world, clearly today there is great injustice. I'm not talking at the moment about political injustices, as they tend to be more localised, I'm talking about the great disparity between the poor of the world and the better off. In this, I see the greatest potential threat to our future security because we are one family destined for one end and how can we allow so many of the human family to be so poor, so deprived and then expect there to be harmony and peace in the world? There won't be. And therefore we should recognise our duty as citizens of the world within our ability not only to do something to put it right, but to let those who are poor and deprived know that we mean it, know that we are as best we can, or want to be, their champions. We are put off because we think there is nothing we can do. It's not that there is nothing that we can do, it's merely that there is little we can do. But many little acts do add up and as in the 1930s we were too inward looking, too unwilling to face the outside realities of the world, so I think today we should be more outward looking. More conscious of those realities and more conscious of our total involvement a members of the one human family.
53:02: Thank you, Commandant.
53:04: End of speech
53:07 End of transcription
Collection
Citation
G L Cheshire, “Leonard Cheshire morality of force,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 14, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/40106.