*["In the midst of arms the laws are silent." Cicero.]
No war of independent states against each other can rightly be a war
of punishment (bellum punitivum). For punishment is only in place
under the relation of a superior (imperantis) to a subject (subditum);
and this is not the relation of the states to one another. Neither can
an international war be "a war of extermination" (bellum
internicinum), nor even "a war of subjugation" (bellum subjugatorium);
for this would issue in the moral extinction of a state by its
people being either fused into one mass with the conquering state,
or being reduced to slavery. Not that this necessary means of
attaining to a condition of peace is itself contradictory to the right
of a state; but because the idea of the right of nations includes
merely the conception of an antagonism that is in accordance with
principles of external freedom, in order that the state may maintain
what is properly its own, but not that it may acquire a condition
which, from the aggrandizement of its power, might become
threatening to other states.
Defensive measures and means of all kinds are allowable to a state
that is forced to war, except such as by their use would make the
subjects using them unfit to be citizens; for the state would thus
make itself unfit to be regarded as a person capable of
participating in equal rights in the international relations according
to the right of nations.
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