When I think of war, I immediately think of weapons, extreme violence, innocent deaths, and inevitable suffering. The belligerence that drives war conflicts with the fundamental ethics of civilization because it hinders the individual's right to peace, security, subsistence and freedom. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay As a predominantly Christian philosophy, just war theory states that under certain conditions, war can be morally justified. The ideologies of just war theory were first coined by Plato and Cicero, Greek and Roman philosophers, and were eventually developed by the Christian theologians Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. For a war to be considered just, it must meet six specific conditions. The first and perhaps most important criterion is that the war must be for a just cause. However, this continues to be an area of ​​controversy as there is disagreement over what constitutes just cause with examples presented such as self-defense or corrective punishment. The next criterion to be met is that war must be declared by a legitimate authority. Consequently, wars must be fought with the right intention otherwise fighting, for example, for material gain, undermines the justice of war. Beyond this, the declaration of war must represent the last resort after the exhaustion of all other plausible alternative means of solving the problem. Since violence without probable gain cannot be justified, all declarations of war must provide for reasonable chances of success on the part of states. And finally, wars must be fought with proportionality, in other words, the ends must justify the means. It is also said that a war can cease to be a just war when civilians and innocent people are harmed and when excessive force is used. Although the concept of just war seems logical in theory, to date there has never been a just war, or at least according to the criteria of just war theory. The 20th century saw the world's two largest wars, as well as hundreds of regional wars, conflicts and civil wars. According to official statistics, the total death toll from all these wars reached a staggering 150 million, of which 80% were innocent civilians, and this figure excludes the many other wounded and disabled people. Now, in the 21st century, wars continue in full swing and threaten to turn into disasters of an even larger scale. What is even sadder is that the global powers and leaders behind these wars consider them “wars of necessity”. For example, the 2003 Iraq War, which ended in 2011 under the direction of Britain and the United States, saw more than a million Iraqis lose their lives, most of whom were civilians. Following a UK commission, it was revealed that Iraq posed no threat to opposition countries and the severity of the danger posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was not justified. Therefore, the war launched in Iraq was not a “war of necessity” but rather a “war of choice” based on different agendas and imperfect information. Furthermore, with the rapid development of modern technology, armaments, and machinery, some advocate the idea that because current weapons are too lethal, sophisticated, and widely accessible, the very idea of ​​a “just war” is obsolete. The possible uses of biological, chemical and nuclear warfare cannot be limited exclusively to just the combatants in a war and the damage done is immeasurably greater.