{"id":168525,"date":"2026-02-07T19:04:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T03:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=168525"},"modified":"2026-02-07T15:20:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T23:20:55","slug":"decoding-the-good-war-preparations-for-a-war-against-civilians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=168525","title":{"rendered":"Decoding The \u201cGood War\u201d: Preparations for a War against Civilians"},"content":{"rendered":"

This 2016 paper by Amanda Alexander<\/a> examines how the cultural narratives and legal absence of the interwar period prepared the way for the aerial bombardment of civilians in World War II. Using my four favorite analytical tools, we can decode how the concept of the “civilian” was sacralized, managed by experts, and used as a strategic coordination point.<\/p>\n

The Shift from the Profane to the Sacred<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Jeffrey Alexander\u2019s model<\/a>, a crisis begins when an event shifts from the “profane” level of mundane politics to a “sacred” level of normative violation. Amanda Alexander shows that after World War I, the “trench poets” sacralized the suffering of soldiers, portraying them as “murdered” boys sacrificed by an “impure” home front.<\/p>\n

This created a generalization of consciousness where the safety of civilians was no longer a profane administrative detail but a moral “pollution”. The literary canon established a binary: the “pure” suffering soldier versus the “impure,” indifferent civilian. This moralization anticipated and justified the extension of war to the entire population as a form of “fairness” or “justice”.<\/p>\n

Alliance Theory and the Civilian “Polluter”<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Pinsof\u2019s Alliance Theory<\/a> suggests that moral outrage is a tool for coordination. The interwar narrative of civilian culpability served as a focal point for a new military-political alliance. By framing civilians as “active enemies” who “sent the young men out to be murdered,” military strategists and air force leaders coordinated a new doctrine of aerial warfare.<\/p>\n

Under this framework, the “outrage” at the slaughter of soldiers in the trenches allowed diverse groups to synchronize around a “short, sharp” war directed at the “seat of the opposing will”\u2014the civilian population. The civilian was reclassified from a “private citizen” outside the conflict to a “polluter” who shared the “inhumanity” of war.<\/p>\n

Expertise as the Foundation of Absence<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stephen Turner<\/a>\u2019s analysis of expertise explains how the “legal cartel” of the time maintained power through a “closure” of the field. International lawyers in the interwar period did not advocate for civilian protection because they were trapped by their own disciplinary conventions and histories.<\/p>\n

These experts act as “priests” who define the boundaries of the possible. Between the wars, legal experts shared a “deeply pessimistic” history of the failure of law in the Great War. They used their specialized knowledge to argue that international law was “vague, inadequate, and certain to be broken”. By claiming that law must “reflect reality”\u2014a reality they defined as “totalitarian”\u2014they ensured that no strong legal or ethical objections to bombardment could reach the “sacred center” of international discourse.<\/p>\n

The “Everything is Bullshit<\/a>” Framework<\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally, applying Pinsof\u2019s “everything is bullshit” framework reveals that the high-minded debate between “positivism” and “natural law” was often an adaptive deception. While the world “dared to dream about the triumph of legal process” in areas like trade and territorial waters, this enthusiasm masked a strategic “lack of interest” in the protection of the civilian.<\/p>\n

The “bullshit” narrative of a “Good War” as a war that protects civilians is a modern creation. In the interwar period, the “Good War” narrative was ironically used to justify bombardment as a “more humane” way to conclude a conflict with less bloodshed for soldiers. The legal absence was not a failure of law, but the “realization of the prevailing story” that allowed the elite alliance to pursue total war while maintaining its reputation for strategic rationality.<\/p>\n

ChatGPT says: Alexander shows that civilians became legitimate targets not because law collapsed, but because a cultural narrative redefined what a \u201cgood war\u201d was, and international law followed that narrative rather than resisting it.<\/p>\n

1. Alliance Theory. How elites coordinated permission for civilian bombing<\/p>\n

Alexander\u2019s paper is fundamentally about elite alliance convergence across three domains.<\/p>\n

\u2022 military strategists
\n\u2022 political leaders
\n\u2022 international lawyers<\/p>\n

After World War I, these groups converged on a shared story: civilians were no longer innocent bystanders but morally implicated participants in war.
\nThis narrative solved an alliance problem.<\/p>\n

Modern war required national mobilization, industrial production, and civilian morale. Targeting only soldiers was strategically insufficient. The alliance needed a moral framework that allowed total war without shattering legitimacy.<\/p>\n

Alliance Theory predicts this exactly. When elites face strategic constraints, they align narratives that expand permissible action. Law does not constrain power here. It coordinates it.<\/p>\n

International lawyers did not resist. They adapted, because their authority depends on remaining relevant to elite practice rather than vetoing it.<\/p>\n

2. Alexander\u2019s sacralization model. Rewriting the \u201cGood War\u201d<\/p>\n

This paper is almost a textbook application of Jeffrey Alexander\u2019s model, even though it is historical rather than contemporary.<\/p>\n

Profane phase<\/p>\n

World War I begins with civilians still formally outside war. Bombing them is morally ambiguous.<\/p>\n

Normative shift<\/p>\n

By the late 1920s, a new narrative hardens. Civilians are blamed for sending soldiers to die while remaining safe. This reframes immunity as moral unfairness.<\/p>\n

Pollution reversal<\/p>\n

Civilians are no longer sacred. They become morally polluting. Their safety is framed as unjust privilege.<\/p>\n

Generalization<\/p>\n

The \u201cgood war\u201d is redefined. A fair war must touch the whole nation. Total war becomes ethically legible.<\/p>\n

Ritual legitimation<\/p>\n

Strategic bombing doctrine, air force planning, and legal silence function as purification rituals. The practice becomes normalized before World War II even begins.<\/p>\n

The key insight Amanda Alexander gives is devastating. The sacred\/profane boundary flipped before the bombs fell.<\/p>\n

3. Pinsof. Why lawyers could not say \u201cthis is wrong\u201d<\/p>\n

Pinsof\u2019s logic explains why international lawyers behaved the way Alexander documents.<\/p>\n

Lawyers were not cynically evil. They were signaling alliance membership.<\/p>\n

To insist on strong civilian immunity would have signaled:
\n\u2022 detachment from strategic reality
\n\u2022 moral na\u00efvet\u00e9
\n\u2022 professional irrelevance<\/p>\n

So instead, lawyers adopted ambiguity. They treated bombardment as unsettled rather than prohibited. That is a classic signaling move. It preserves status while avoiding direct endorsement.<\/p>\n

Pinsof\u2019s rule applies perfectly here. The behavior was not about belief. It was about not breaking ranks.<\/p>\n

Alexander explicitly shows lawyers constrained by disciplinary conventions and cultural narratives, not by lack of awareness.<\/p>\n

4. Turner. Expertise as moral anesthetic<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s framework explains why this moral transformation happened without democratic revolt.<\/p>\n

War planning, air power doctrine, and international law were treated as expert domains. Civilians were conceptually present but practically excluded from judgment.<\/p>\n

Experts redefined killing civilians as:
\n\u2022 strategic necessity
\n\u2022 future deterrence
\n\u2022 unfortunate but rational<\/p>\n

Once expertise framed the issue, moral intuition was sidelined. Democratic publics were not asked whether civilians should be bombed. They were told experts had decided this was unavoidable.<\/p>\n

This is exactly Turner\u2019s warning. Expertise did not inform democratic judgment. It replaced it.<\/p>\n

How the four tools fit together<\/p>\n

Alliance Theory explains why elites converged.
\nSacralization explains how civilians lost moral immunity.
\nPinsof explains why professionals complied.
\nTurner explains why resistance never crystallized.<\/p>\n

Alexander\u2019s paper shows that mass civilian death was not an accident of modern war. It was a culturally prepared outcome.<\/p>\n

The key insight<\/p>\n

The most disturbing conclusion of the paper, when decoded through your tools, is this:<\/p>\n

International law did not fail to stop civilian bombing.
\nIt helped make it thinkable.<\/p>\n

That pattern should feel very familiar to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This 2016 paper by Amanda Alexander examines how the cultural narratives and legal absence of the interwar period prepared the way for the aerial bombardment of civilians in World War II. Using my four favorite analytical tools, we can decode … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42954],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t