War is the absolute worst expression of humanity. Given our technology today, almost any war can result in the mass murder of innocent people. While there may exist arguments to mitigate punishment in certain cases, any harm to any innocent person is always unjustified and deserving of legal consequences for the aggressor. We must urgently coalesce around a firm commitment to avoid all wars. The best way to accomplish this goal is to convince the reasonable people of the world to accept and live in accordance with the 3LP. War cannot occur without someone or some government resorting to the initiation of aggression. We should always employ reason and conversation as our best tools to avoid all physical disputes.

However, we should expect there will always be people who will initiate force. The existence of aggressors is simply an unfortunate reality of the world. Ordinary principles of self-defense apply to such situations. It is always appropriate to use proportional force defensively in response to another’s substantial and imminent threat of, or actual initiation of, force. However, using force against a person who has not violated the 3L Legal Principle is never permissible. Nor is it ever acceptable to use more force than necessary to repel another’s aggression, as that would violate the 3L Legal Principle. As such, it is hard to imagine a justified use of a weapon of mass destruction. By their very nature, such weapons always initiate force against non-aggressors when used anywhere on Earth.

The reasonable people of the world should immediately insist that all governments urgently find ways to negotiate and enter into reasonable, enforceable, and verifiable agreements requiring all countries to reduce and quickly abolish virtually all weapons of mass destruction. The very existence of humanity should never depend on the reasonableness of any person’s judgment, nor should it hinge on the perpetual avoidance of a single horrible accident.

Unfortunately, there may be times when defensive physical force is necessary on a governmental level in response to either an imminent threat or actual use of force by another hostile government or group of people. The self-defense analysis on a governmental level is identical to the self-defense analysis on an individual level. There is never a justification to use force against innocent citizens living under the rule of a hostile government threatening or initiating force. Therefore, there may be a proper occasion for a strictly limited and targeted defensive use of force against individuals controlling the mechanisms of a hostile government violating the 3L Legal Principle or any of its instrumentalities.

Questions about using force on a government level are often complex and especially fact-intensive. As such, we cannot thoroughly analyze and discuss this issue in a short section of this book. There may be occasions when governmental force, or force used in a coordinated manner by a private defense agency or agencies, can be appropriately employed as a defensive measure consistently with the 3L Legal Principle. Such force should always be a last resort, strictly proportional, and intentionally directed carefully at legitimate targets only. Such force is consistent with the 3L Legal Principle only when a genuine imminent and substantial threat exists. It may suffice to say that whatever the factual scenario, we must always carefully reason through the issue with the goal of avoiding physical force and with a strict allegiance to the proper application of the 3LP in all cases. We should always employ open-mindedness, tolerance, civility, and reason in our best efforts to avoid physical force while also being cognizant that force is sometimes necessary to repel determined aggressors.