A 'Strategy for Defeating Global Jihad'

At the National Press Club last Friday, the Center for Security Policy unveiled its "Strategy for Defeating the Global Jihad Movement.” As the former inspector general of the Department of Defense, I am honored be to be part of this vital effort to help Americans understand our enemies.

That our commander-in-chief repeatedly fails to acknowledge our enemies is more than a scandal. It is evidence that President Obama is trying to lead this nation into an unjust war.

Fortunately for the American people, our Constitution provides a number of checks and balances on abuses of power by our federal government, including the explicit power of Congress to “define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations; To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water” (Article I, Section 8).

Under Just War Theory, as developed in the Middle Ages by Thomas Aquinas (1274 A.D.) and others, wars are justified under the following three conditions:

1. it must be on the authority of the sovereign (auctoritas principis);

2. the cause must be just (justa causa), e.g., self-defense is almost always considered to be a just cause; and

3. the combatants must have the right intentions (recta intentio), intending the extension of good and avoidance of evil.

Modern interpretations of Just War Theory have added the following further conditions:

4. last resort — all reasonable peaceful alternatives must have been exhausted or have been deemed impractical or ineffective. . . . ;

5. proportionality — the good that is achieved by waging war must not be outweighed by the harm. . . . ; and

6. probability of success — the achievement of the war's purpose must have a reasonable chance of success.

This last modern condition of Just War Theory — a reasonable chance of success — implicates Sun Tzu’s admonition in his seminal treatise on military strategy, “The Art of War": “One who does not know the enemy but knows himself will sometimes be victorious, sometimes meet with defeat. One who knows neither the enemy nor himself will invariably be defeated in every engagement.”

In the face of political correctness, the U.S. Congress can and should use the Center for Security Policy’s newly unveiled strategy to help Americans know the jihad-motivated enemy that has raised its ugly head recently in Paris, France, and in Nigeria, so that we have “a reasonable chance of success” in defeating this enemy.

Without any constitutional check by Congress, it is clear that our current commander-in-chief will continue to obfuscate our enemies as “violent extremists” engaged in “work place violence,” and President Obama will continue to try to lead this nation into an unjust war.

Joseph E. Schmitz served as inspector general of the Dept. of Defense from 2002-2005 and is a Partner in the law firm of Schmitz & Socarras LLP. Read more reports from Joseph E. Schmitz — Click Here Now.