POST-HIERARCHICAL ANALYSIS · 011

Can a Christian Go to War?

A post-hierarchical analysis of Gabrielius Satkauskas and Austėja Žalalytė’s text on legitimate defence

Terms marked with ? are explained without leaving the article.

Just war doctrine asks when armed defence can still be moral. Post-hierarchy takes the question deeper: why does civilisation entrust peacebuilding to the very structures of power to which conflict may bring more authority, resources, and legitimacy?

From love of the enemy to the duty to protect another

The text prepared by Austėja Žalalytė from ideas expressed by Father Gabrielius Satkauskas in a podcast begins with a tension that is uncomfortable for Christianity. Jesus commands people to love their enemies and turn the other cheek, yet a person is responsible for more than oneself. When a child, a community, or a state is attacked, non-resistance may mean not peace but permission for violence to continue. The text distinguishes revenge from legitimate defence: love of the enemy does not require abandoning the enemy’s victim.

Drawing on Cicero, St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it presents the just war tradition. Military force can be justified only in the face of grave and certain harm, after other means have been exhausted, where there is a reasonable prospect of success, and where force will not produce a greater evil. Even legitimate defence must protect civilians, remain proportionate, avoid revenge, and have peace as its ultimate purpose.

These principles are applied to Russia’s war against Ukraine and to Lithuanian partisan resistance to Soviet occupation. The authors clearly distinguish the aggressor from the defender and remind us that helping the attacked to defend themselves is not the same as desiring war.

Context: a moral rule in an extreme situation

Historically, just war doctrine developed as a constraint on power and violence. Its question is not “how can we win?” but “when does the use of force remain within moral limits?” This is an important civilisational achievement: even when confronting aggression, a political community may not declare that the end justifies every means.

Yet the doctrine enters only after a conflict has reached an extreme stage. It assesses whether war may be waged, but says much less about who should have recognised escalation in time, who should have developed alternatives for peace, who verifies the claims of governments, and who decides when defence has achieved its moral purpose. It constrains warfare, but does not itself create an architecture for collective decidement toward peace.

What the article does especially well

Where the authors’ argument ends and the post-hierarchical analysis begins

The post-hierarchical shift: not whether war is permissible, but how peace becomes a continuous practice

In post-hierarchy, peace is not an interval between wars or the good intention of a ruler. Preventing war, containing escalation, and ending a war already under way become civilisation’s continuous modus operandi.

The question “Can a Christian go to war?” addresses individual conscience, yet wars are usually begun, prolonged, and ended not by isolated individuals but by hierarchical states, their leaders, military commands, and closed security institutions. An individually framed moral question can therefore conceal the institutional level: who created a situation in which a person is left with only two extreme choices—to use lethal force in defence of others, or not to resist and allow the aggressor to kill them?

The post-hierarchical view neither denies the right of defence nor creates moral equivalence between aggressor and victim. It argues that civilisation must not limit itself to making an ethical choice after catastrophe has already occurred. It must build a decision infrastructure that systematically reduces the probability that such a choice will become unavoidable.

The weakest link: the criterion of “legitimate authority”

In St Thomas Aquinas’s formula, war may be declared by legitimate authority. But the legal status of a government does not establish its epistemic competence, moral impartiality, or the truth of the information it supplies. A government may be lawfully elected and still misjudge a threat, conceal alternatives, inflate a symbolic territorial issue, or prolong conflict because it fears the political cost of compromise.

Three things must be distinguished here: operational command, political legitimacy, and collective knowledge. During battle, an army cannot submit every tactical decision to public deliberation. But it does not follow that the same chain of command should alone define war aims, acceptable casualty limits, negotiating terms, and the moment of peace. Operational hierarchy may be necessary for a particular function, but it must not become a monopoly of sovereignty.

Three mechanisms by which hierarchy multiplies the risk of war

This analysis is extended by three mechanisms identified in the Post-Hierarchy Papers essay on war as a structural feature of hierarchy. First, centralised power amplifies individual error: one leader’s fear, misperception of a threat, or pursuit of prestige can become a national catastrophe through the chain of command. Second, information becomes distorted as it travels upwards: subordinates learn to report what the centre is willing to hear, loyalty competes with accuracy, and unfavourable facts reach the top too late. Third, the right to decide is separated from consequences: those who set war aims and define its acceptable price rarely fight themselves, while those who die, lose their homes, or raise traumatised children do not formulate those aims.

In a hierarchy, decision power travels upwards, information is filtered on the way up, and the consequences of decisions travel downwards.

War therefore cannot be explained only by moral corruption or diplomatic failure. Even decent people inside such an architecture operate in an environment that magnifies error, weakens truth, and disperses responsibility. The novelty of post-hierarchy is not a promise that everyone will become peaceful, but the institutional possibility of eliminating a single centre of escalation, verifying information horizontally, and returning decision power to those who will bear its cost.

Why conflict may be politically useful to those in power

The claim that leaders sometimes benefit from threats is not merely cynical. Political science has long studied the rally ’round the flag effect: during an external crisis, society may temporarily rally more strongly around the executive. John E. Mueller’s classic study showed a relationship between international crises and changes in the popularity of US presidents. Later studies qualified this effect: it is neither automatic, uniform, nor durable. Yet the incentive is real—a threat can increase the centre’s visibility, justify a concentration of resources, and narrow the space for domestic criticism.

International-relations research also examines the diversionary incentive for conflict: a government may try to use external tension to eclipse domestic problems. Empirical results are mixed, so it would be wrong to claim that leaders generally want war. But decision architecture should not rely on the virtue of a leader; it should remain robust where political survival and social peace do not coincide.

Group psychology reveals another danger. Under threat, in-group cohesion grows, while a complex history is easily compressed into the moral dichotomy of “us” and “them”. Deliberation among like-minded people can move the group to a more extreme position than its members initially held. A closed security cabinet is therefore not protected against group polarisation merely because it contains professionals.

What is the highest value?

In the hierarchical discourse of the state, war is often described in terms of territory, sovereignty, prestige, and historical right. These are not irrelevant: territory gives people homes, institutions, and protection. But territory is not a moral subject in itself. It has value because people can live there.

The highest value is not territory but human life. Territory should be defended because it protects people’s freedom and lives—not people sacrificed so that territory may be preserved as an abstract object of power.

This ordering does not mean giving the aggressor everything it demands. A concession that encourages further aggression may kill many more people. The priority of life is therefore not the simple arithmetic of “fewer deaths today”. It requires assessing long-term consequences, the violence of occupation, the probability of future wars, human freedom, displacement, and the collapse of civilisational rules. But the burden of proof changes: every aim used to prolong a war must show how it protects people, not merely the symbolic integrity of the state.

Peace is not merely a negotiation between two summits

A hierarchical conception of peace often reproduces the architecture of war. A few centres control the conflict, so the same centres are expected eventually to sit down and agree. Yet leaders may be trapped by earlier declarations, electorates, reputations, security apparatuses, and the fear of appearing weak. Two summits may have less freedom for peace than their societies.

A post-hierarchical peace infrastructure would operate continuously, not only during formal negotiations. Conflict specialists, international lawyers, security experts, economists, psychologists, regional experts, refugees, residents of occupied territories, and other affected groups could develop and evaluate many partial solutions: humanitarian corridors, prisoner exchanges, civilian-protection regimes, verifiable ceasefires, security guarantees, reparations mechanisms, temporary territorial administration, conditions for modifying sanctions, and long-term policies for reducing trauma.

An alternative for peace rarely appears as one ingenious plan. More often, it is an architecture of mutually coordinated solutions. A collective-intelligence environment makes it possible to construct this architecture from many forms of competence instead of waiting for the will of one diplomat or ruler.

A decision participant is defined by competence, not identity

In hierarchical negotiations, the right to formulate solutions is usually granted by office, a state mandate, military rank, or membership in a recognised institution. Entry into post-hierarchical collective decidement follows a different criterion. Any person who understands the field under examination can become a decision participant—regardless of race, nationality, citizenship, gender, age, social position, or institutional status. What matters is not who the person is in the social hierarchy, but whether they possess knowledge relevant to the specific problem cluster and can contribute meaningfully to the shared search for solutions.

This is especially important in resolving war. A valuable solution for monitoring a ceasefire, establishing a humanitarian corridor, or reducing trauma need not come from a senior diplomat. It may emerge from the experience of a local doctor, a logistics specialist, a refugee, a regional historian, a citizen of the adversary state, or a young researcher. Nationality makes a person neither competent nor incompetent; office likewise does not prove that a proposal is best. In an environment of accountable anonymity, a proposal is evaluated first by its content, not by its author’s name, origin, or flag.

Openness does not mean that everyone automatically becomes an expert on every subject. Competence is tested for the specific cluster, can grow through participation, and is not permanently conferred by a degree or position. The formation of such a group is explained in greater detail in the Post-Hierarchy Atlas article “Who Will Decide? How a Group of Decision Participants Is Formed”.

How to prevent societies from becoming two camps that can no longer communicate

War requires not only weapons but also a cognitive infrastructure: a narrative in which the other group becomes homogeneous, immutable, and essentially evil. When people see only their own side’s victims, arguments, and experts, even a peace proposal can be treated as betrayal.

Post-hierarchy does not erase the moral difference between aggression and defence, but refuses to equate people with their government. The Russian government, the Russian military, and every Russian citizen are not the same subject; Ukrainian society likewise contains different experiences, fears, and thresholds of acceptable risk. Recognising these distinctions does not weaken resistance to aggression; it reduces the reproduction of collective hatred.

In an environment of accountable anonymity, a proposal is evaluated primarily by its content, not according to whether it came from a soldier, pacifist, Ukrainian, Russian, cleric, or refugee. The system can reveal not only an average but genuine divergence in evaluations. Such divergence is not a reason to suppress one side; it is a diagnostic signal that a new alternative is needed to address the risks seen by both groups.

The larger purposes of civilisation

War narrows the time horizon to the next attack, the next city, or the next front line. But the purpose of societies is not to remain forever prepared to destroy one another. They must create culture, knowledge, health, mutual trust, and economic conditions in which human beings can develop.

Post-hierarchical peace analysis therefore asks not only “what will the borders be after the war?” but “what civilisation will be possible after it?” How many young people will be lost? What price will both societies pay in education, science, and culture? How many decades will trauma endure? What institutions will prevent the next generation from inheriting the same conflict? These questions are not an appendix to security. They define what protecting life actually means.

How post-hierarchical collective decidement for peace would work in practice

1. Priority of values. Human life, dignity, and long-term freedom are established as the highest criteria; territory, prestige, and institutional continuity are assessed by how well they protect those criteria.
2. Facts are separated from evaluations. Data on aggression, casualties, occupation practices, military capabilities, economic consequences, and genuine negotiating possibilities are independently verified. Uncertainty is made explicit.
3. An open group of competent decision participants is formed. Specialists in conflict, security, law, economics, psychology, history, and regional affairs create alternatives in a collective-intelligence environment. Anyone knowledgeable about the specific cluster may join, regardless of origin or institutional status. Competence is verified, while office confers no automatic decision weight.
4. A portfolio of solutions is created, not a single agreement. Combinations of de-escalation, civilian protection, ceasefire monitoring, guarantees, justice, reconstruction, and long-term reconciliation are evaluated.
5. Content is evaluated anonymously. Participants do not see the status of proposal authors and try to anticipate how a wise collective of competent participants would evaluate each alternative. This reduces the influence of leaders, institutions, and group loyalty.
6. Polarisation is used diagnostically. If evaluations divide into groups, the goal is not majority victory but discovery of the cause: different threats, facts, time horizons, or values. New alternatives are then created.
7. Affected societies evaluate expert alternatives. Knowledgeable participants prepare possible solutions, while directly affected people use the same collective-intelligence environment to decide which risks and compromises are acceptable. No summit of power alone appropriates the right to set the price of their lives.
8. Operational command implements but does not monopolise the goal. Military and diplomatic institutions retain the command structure required for their functions, but act within publicly defined limits, verification, and a continuously renewed mandate for peace.
9. Decisions are treated as testable hypotheses. Ceasefires, corridors, guarantees, and reconstruction measures are monitored; results return to the system, and the next step is adjusted according to their actual effects on life and security.

Post-hierarchy is not naïve pacifism

Naïve pacifism might assume that goodwill and dialogue are enough. Post-hierarchy makes no such assumption. It recognises aggression, deception, asymmetry of force, and the need at times to stop violence immediately. But it also rejects the claim that military hierarchy offers the only realism.

Defence may be necessary so that the search for peace remains possible at all. But that necessity does not give a government unlimited power to define how long, at what cost, and toward what end a war must be fought. Post-hierarchical realism requires two capacities at once: the ability to stop an aggressor and the refusal ever to cease constructing a path by which violence ends.

Scientific sources cited

• John E. Mueller, “Presidential Popularity from Truman to Johnson”, American Political Science Review, 1970. DOI: 10.2307/1955610.
• James D. Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War”, International Organization, 1995. DOI: 10.2307/2706903.
• Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow, The Logic of Political Survival, MIT Press, 2003. Publisher’s page.
• Cass R. Sunstein, “The Law of Group Polarization”, Journal of Political Philosophy, 2002. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9760.00148.

Conceptual continuation: Saulius Norvaišas, “War Is a Structural Feature of Hierarchy”, Post-Hierarchy Papers No. 55, 2025.

flowchart TD
    A["Aggression"] --> B["Legitimate defence"]
    B --> C["Just war criteria"]
    C --> D{"Who decides?"}
    D -->|"Hierarchical summit"| E["War aims and termination concentrated at the centre"]
    D -->|"Post-hierarchical process"| F["Stage I: alternatives from conflict specialists and other experts in a CI environment"]
    F --> G["Stage II: decision by affected people in a CI environment"]
    G --> H["Defence + continuous search for peace"]
    H --> I["Life, freedom, and non-recurrence"]
    classDef conventional fill:#f3f1ec,stroke:#9b978f,color:#25261f
    classDef post fill:#fff8f4,stroke:#a93b2b,color:#25261f,stroke-width:2px
    class A,B,C,D,E conventional
    class F,G,H,I post