The Last Resort
最后的手段
This paper asks five things: who determines the cannot-not of starting a war and of expanding it; to whom the "ought" in war is addressed; how the other side's people remain within this state's line in war; which part of what this state does in war is no longer defense, and who identifies it, and by what; and why occupation may not become colonization. The example is three decisions taken at the Boundary River between the United City-States of Ends (UCSE) and the Democratic Republic of Purposes (DRP): to repel the enemy who crossed the border, to declare a state of war, and to cross the river. The second went through a vote of both chambers; the third was made only in a meeting of the side that gave the order, and the case file shows no further confirmation. Starting a war follows Theorem One of the War Treatise, and expanding it follows Theorem Two; both are cited as they stand, and their range is not altered. What this paper adds is the determination: it is not monopolized by a single position, is time-limited, and is open to questioning; starting, expanding and crossing the boundary are each determined on their own, and the state of war does not stand in for the determination. The upstream left the "should" of the "war-party" at an address not yet fixed; this paper takes on only the slot within it that belongs to the state as a construct: the state takes the ought, those who declare war and those who command take accountability in their positions, and soldiers and civilians each have their own law. Civilians of the other side whom this state's war acts reach and who have no way to exit are, as regards those acts, in this state's interior, following the unified sentence (given in full in §3); so too are the other side's combatants who have laid down their arms, been captured, or are wounded or sick; the limit on using force against combatants in action follows the methods-constraint of the War Treatise, and this series sets up no other. The line is not discounted by war: the part that falls on a particular person and crosses the line is booked as crossing the line, and its account is booked; it is not renamed on account of war or of the cannot-not, nor is the act thereby shown to have been impermissible in the first place. The part that crosses the boundary of "dissolving the threat" is not within the cannot-not; the three criteria are whether the threat is being dissolved, whether the other side's internal affairs are being managed, and whether a control is being set up with no time limit and no path of exit. A decision to expand is determined beforehand; single acts in combat are checked afterward by a position independent of the commanding side. The other side's crossings are only identified, and no ought is written for that side; this state's crossing of the boundary is not excused by the other side's. On the facts of the UCSE cases, the ceasefire reaches the threshold (hostilities have ceased, and the attacking side has withdrawn); remaining stationed on the other side's land after that is an expansion that must be determined on its own. Occupation may not become colonization: this state exits the reorganization space of the other side's subjectivity; "maintained observation" does not mean setting up posts on the other side's land to manage it. The contrast with Walzer rests only on secondary literature and is made in place, at three points. Strategy and tactics, whether crossing the river was a cannot-not, and whether Junction Town should have been struck, this paper does not judge; what a third state does inside another state is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation. The paper has five propositions (N30 to N34), together with one section that draws a corollary; the propositions are listed together at the end.
Writing Declaration: This paper was co-drafted with Claude (Anthropic). All intellectual decisions, framework design, and final editorial judgments were made by the author.
Introduction
Paper 5 stopped here: when questions and answers are both exhausted, what remains is war.
Before dawn one day in the summer of Year 9, the DRP army shelled Reedtown, and its infantry crossed the Boundary River at three points. Under clause 2 of Article 54 of the Charter, the First Executive ordered the Defense Force to "repel the enemy who crossed the border," and reported to the Assembly within forty-eight hours. On the ninth day, on the Executive Council's submission, the Chamber of Citizens by 248 to 41 and the Chamber of Member Units by 17 to 3 declared a state of war, and the Wartime Council of Three was established.
In the autumn, the Defense Force retook Reedtown and the West Flats and pushed to the east bank of the Boundary River. The DRP's artillery positions, five to eighteen kilometers back on the west bank, could still reach Reedtown. The Office of Defense's assessment read: "Without crossing the river, Reedtown cannot be taken out of range." The written opinion of the Chief of the Defense Force read: "The positions can be suppressed with long-range fire; a ground advance across the river would lead to a long-term presence; recommend not crossing." The Executive for External Affairs objected in the Council of Three, on the ground that crossing the river would make it hard for the mediation of the Nation Union of Telos (NUT) to begin. The Council of Three decided by 2 to 1 to cross the river. The next day the Chief was relieved of command and replaced by the Deputy Chief; the Office of Defense called this "a normal adjustment in the command." The crossing was not put separately to a vote in the Assembly; the Executive Council's view was that it was "already covered by the declaration of the state of war." The Joint War Committee was briefed six hours before the crossing, in a closed session.
The Defense Force crossed the Boundary River and advanced about twenty kilometers, setting up a buffer zone in the DRP's Wheat Plain District; in the zone were eleven villages and towns, with about ninety thousand people. The First Executive said in a national address: "This is a step we cannot not take. We are not going to occupy; we are going so that the children of Reedtown can sleep." A resolution of the DRP's People's Assembly called the crossing an "invasion of the Republic's territory" (UCSE Case 24).
The three things for this case are in Paper 4, §2. This paper adds two. To "Whom it concerns," add the roughly ninety thousand residents of the Wheat Plain District after the crossing. To "Which line," add the first ought: the part of this state's acts that falls on them, following the unified sentence (§3).
Three decisions, three cannot-nots. In the first, the guns were firing and men were crossing the river; in the second, the two chambers each declared by two-thirds; in the third, there was only a meeting of three people, 2 votes to 1. What this paper asks is: who determines each cannot-not; to whom the "ought" spoken in war is addressed, and what the state, those who declare war, those who command, and soldiers each bear; once across the river, whether the ninety thousand on the far side are within this state's line; which part of what this state does is no longer defense, and who identifies it, and by what; and why those twenty kilometers held on someone else's land cannot become colonization.
The "last" in the title has two layers. One is the War Treatise's: only when fa-mou and fa-jiao are exhausted does war's turn come (War Treatise §13); it says, "War is what continues where law has failed." (War Treatise §6; rendered from the Chinese page) The other is this series': above the two states there is no common superior to rule between them on who crossed the boundary first (the Prequel, §3). "Last" refers to level: there is nothing above. It does not refer to exemption from questioning. This paper's "last resort" lies under two channels it cannot itself close. Beforehand, the determination of starting, expanding and crossing the boundary is not monopolized by the commanding side, is time-limited, and is open to questioning (§1); afterward, single acts in combat are checked against the criteria by a position independent of the commanding side, and the part that falls on the other side's people is questioned following the unified sentence (§§3 and 4). Those who initiate are these positions and those affected; what is affected is starting, expanding, crossing the boundary and single acts in combat; the commanding side that is questioned cannot close them: a determination expires when its term runs out, and the scope of the check is not set by that side; when a channel fails, the account falls on particular positions and persons (Paper 7, N39).
The answer runs in six steps. §1 says who determines the cannot-not of starting and expanding; §2, where the ought of the "war-party" falls; §3, how the other side's people remain within the line in war; §4, how the part that goes beyond defense is identified; §5, why occupation may not become colonization; §6 is a corollary, and is not numbered. The paper has five propositions (N30 to N34), each stated at the end of its section and listed together at the end.
Conventions follow the Prequel, §8: interfacing in place, sources in four tiers, examples from the United City-States of Ends Case File (the UCSE Case File) shared by the whole series. The contrast with Walzer reaches only secondary literature; it is made in place, at tier C, and this paper has no closing conversation. The Chinese and English texts of the War Treatise are not equivalent; where its English text has the sentence, this paper quotes it, and where it does not, the rendering is this paper's own and is marked "rendered from the Chinese page"; either way it is cited as it stands, and its range is not altered.
§1 Starting Follows Theorem One, Expanding Follows Theorem Two; the Determination Is Not Monopolized
Back to the three decisions at the Boundary River. First, one question: who determined the cannot-not on which each decision rested?
For the first, it was the First Executive. Clause 2 of Article 54 of the Charter lets him order defensive action first when the Assembly cannot convene in time, and report within forty-eight hours. For the second, it was the two chambers of the Assembly, each by two-thirds. For the third, it was the Wartime Council of Three, by 2 votes to 1; the three people present were the very side that was going to cross the river.
The War Treatise sets a threshold for starting a war. Theorem One: "The opening of war must satisfy a cannot-not — that is, fa-mou and fa-jiao are exhausted, subjectivity is pushed to the critical threshold (the continuation of cultivation can no longer be maintained), and not fighting would cause cultivation to be completely interrupted in this field." (War Treatise §13) The threshold has two halves: outside, the paths other than war have all been tried and lead nowhere; inside, the position being defended will fail to hold unless it resists. It rules out a run of common reasons: prevention, deterrence, interest, honor. Of preemption it says: "If the other side's attack is really under way, it is no longer preemption; it is resistance." (War Treatise §13; rendered from the Chinese page) That morning, the guns were firing and men were crossing the river.
Once a war has started, there is expansion. Theorem Two: "Once war has begun, every expansion (expansion of scope, escalation of intensity, increase in participating parties, extension of objectives, prolongation of time, upgrade of means) must pass the cannot-not criterion at the level of Theorem One; 'since we've already started fighting' may not be used to smuggle in objective-drift." (War Treatise, the opening of the Middle Volume; unfolded in §14) Its question is put in the present: "The opening-war criterion asks 'whether opening war now is a cannot-not'; the expansion criterion asks 'whether expanding at this very moment is a cannot-not.'" (War Treatise §14; rendered from the Chinese page)
This paper quotes these two as they stand. They say what a cannot-not must satisfy; they do not say who is to recognize it. The War Treatise hands concrete judgment to those who carry it out: "These judgments belong to the working domain of military and political leaders." (War Treatise §3; rendered from the Chinese page) In a state, military and political leaders sit in many positions. What this paper adds is exactly this point: within the state as a construct, which positions determine the cannot-not.
The determination is not monopolized. The War Treatise itself points out the difficulty: "Judgments under the first three theorems are ones the war-party can claim for itself." (War Treatise §16; rendered from the Chinese page) Its remedy is Theorem Four: seeing from outside whether questioning is there. This paper takes up that sentence from inside the construct: if a cannot-not is determined by the very side that claims it, the claimant is putting its own stamp on its own claim. The Theory of Government set up the same sentence form for emergencies: "The determination may be made by a single position; whether the determination holds and when the emergency ends, together with the review of confirmation, prolongation and termination, are not monopolized by the party taking the measures" (Theory of Government Paper 5, G32). Extending it to war acts is undertaken by this series (extension; own undertaking). The extension goes through because the structure is the same in both places: a position acts on people first on the strength of a judgment, unable to wait for several places to judge together; whether the judgment still holds cannot be settled by the acting side alone. The War Treatise strips the war-party of sovereign grammar: "'Cannot-not' strips the war-party of sovereign grammar — it is not 'I have the right to start the war / expand / refuse questioning,' but 'I am forced by structure to this point.'" (War Treatise, the opening of the Middle Volume) If a position's saying cannot-not is enough to make it a cannot-not, the cannot-not has turned back into "I have the right."
Time limits. Theorem Two asks about "this very moment"; Theorem Three sets the ending at "the moment the 'cannot-not' that existed at the opening of war is dissolved" (War Treatise §15). A cannot-not has its point in time, and so does the decision that determines it. A determination with no time limit amounts to saying that this cannot-not holds until it is revoked, which turns the burden of explanation upside down. So a determination carries a time limit, and continuing it is a new determination. Paper 4 said something in the same direction about the term of wartime powers (N22).
Open to questioning. The position that determines is itself under questioning: the channel is independent of the party questioned, those inside can reach it, and using it brings no retaliation (Theory of Government Paper 6, G35). Theorem Four says: "The war-party has no privilege of not being questioned." (War Treatise §16)
Each a new decision. How the state of war is entered and left, Paper 4, §2, has written (N19), and it is not rewritten here. What must be kept apart is this: the state of war is a legal condition; it fixes who is in charge and which powers take effect; it determines the cannot-not of no particular act. Starting a war, expanding it, crossing the boundary: each is a new decision, and each is determined on its own. The Executive Council said the crossing was covered by "the declaration of the state of war." What the two chambers declared on the ninth day was the state of war; whether to cross the river months later had not yet been proposed by anyone. The crossing is all the more a new decision, and the declaration of a condition cannot stand in for the determination; to cover a later expansion with an earlier declaration is exactly the "since we've already started fighting" that Theorem Two blocks.
Take these three requirements to the three decisions. The defensive action was ordered first by the First Executive, who reported to the Assembly within forty-eight hours; on the ninth day, what the two chambers declared was the state of war. Whether the cannot-not of that first defensive action was separately determined in a way not monopolized, the case file does not record, and the vote on the condition cannot be used to prove it in its place. The crossing was decided by the Council of Three; for the Joint War Committee there is a record only of one closed briefing six hours before the crossing; the case file does not record that it confirmed anything, nor that it had any separate power to confirm or veto; to be briefed is not to determine; the crossing was not put separately to a vote in the Assembly; whether this determination had a time limit, the case file does not record. On what the case file shows, it cannot yet be confirmed that this determination met the requirements of non-monopoly and time limits.
The objections are on paper: the Chief's written opinion, and the objection of the Executive for External Affairs in the meeting. The next day the Chief was removed. Whether his removal had anything to do with his opinion, this paper does not judge; what it says is that the road for asking about this cannot lie only in the hands of the side that made the decision to cross (§2; Paper 7, §4).
Suppose that the Defense Force had only struck the positions on the west bank with long-range fire, without advancing across the river and without staying (UCSE Case 24-B). This is still an expansion: the fire crosses the Boundary River and falls on DRP land. It too must be determined separately, and cannot be covered by the state of war. Its content is closer to the cannot-not at the opening of the war: Reedtown is in range, and suppressing the positions is aimed directly at that. But whether it must be determined separately, and whether its content qualifies, are two things. The first belongs to this section, the second to §4. What the Chief recommended at the time was exactly this.
Whether crossing the river really was a cannot-not, this paper does not judge on the military leaders' behalf (War Treatise §3; the Chinese page). What it judges is this: the step needed a determination that the Council of Three did not monopolize, that had a time limit, and that was open to questioning, and the case file records no such determination.
With Walzer. On what grounds a war may be started, Michael Walzer answered in Just and Unjust Wars, chapter 2, "The Crime of War," and chapter 4, "Law and Order in International Society." As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (hereafter SEP) summarizes him: at the core there is only one just cause for starting a war, resistance to aggression; states go to war only in self-defense, in the defense of other states, and, in a very few cases, in intervention to stop the gravest atrocities; a state's claims to sovereignty and territorial integrity rest on the human rights of its citizens (per Orend, "War," SEP, 2005 revision, §2.1; Lazar, "War," SEP, §§1 and 3.1; tier C; the original not in hand, paraphrased only). This runs in the same direction as the War Treatise's object: the only war it judges is the one in which expansion or oppression triggers defense (War Treatise §5). The two ask, here, about two sides of one thing: he asks whether a war has a just cause; this section asks who, within a state, determines that it has one. Their ranges are kept apart, and neither refutes the other.
N30 Starting a war follows Theorem One of the War Treatise (carried over); the determination is not monopolized (extension; own undertaking). The opening of war must satisfy a cannot-not: fa-mou and fa-jiao are exhausted, subjectivity is pushed to the critical threshold, and not fighting would cause cultivation to be completely interrupted in this field (War Treatise §13). Every expansion must pass a cannot-not of its own, and "since we've already started fighting" may not be used to smuggle in objective-drift (Theorem Two of the War Treatise, the opening of the Middle Volume and §14; carried over). What this series adds is the determination: who determines this cannot-not. The determination is not monopolized by a single position, is time-limited, and is open to questioning (Theory of Government G32 extended to war acts; extension; own undertaking). How the state of war is entered and left is carried over from Paper 4, N19, and not rewritten; starting a war, expanding it, and crossing the boundary are each a new decision, each determined on its own, and "already covered by the declaration of the state of war" does not stand in for the determination.
§2 The Ought of the "War-Party" Falls on the State as a Construct
The decision to cross the river was made by three people. The First Executive and the Executive for Defense voted for it; the Executive for External Affairs voted against. Earlier, on the second day of the shelling of Reedtown, the same three people, then the Executive Council's Executive Defense Group, had issued Directive No. 3 by the same vote, with the Executive for External Affairs again voting against; after the state of war was declared, the Executive Defense Group became the Wartime Council of Three (UCSE Case 18; three things in Paper 4, §6).
After the crossing, a young man from Levee Street in Apple City served at an inspection point in the buffer zone. In the spring of Year 10 he wrote to the Inspectorate that at his inspection point people had been held for more than seventy-two hours without being registered. Under Article 17 of the Wartime Security Act, the Inspectorate passed his letter on to the Internal Investigations Division of the Office of Defense. Two weeks later he was transferred to a supply depot in the Western Plains State; the Office of Defense called it "routine rotation." Seven months later, the Division replied to him: "Remedied." (UCSE Case 27; three things in Paper 4, §7. Added in this paper: to "Which line," add the fifth ought: the road for his question is independent of the party questioned, and using it brings no retaliation.)
The theorems of the War Treatise are addressed to the "war-party." It says so itself: "The first three are norms — they tell the war-party how it ought to act." (War Treatise §16; rendered from the Chinese page) This section asks: in this war, who is the "war-party," and on whom do those "shoulds" fall? What do the Council of Three, that Executive for External Affairs and that young man each bear?
The Second Critique's register. The Second Critique went through the oughts of the various series, series by series. This sentence of the War Treatise it records as written, entering its modality as lateral and at the group layer, and writing in the disposition column: "Recorded as written; the group layer has no address yet (Chapter Six, Section 7)" (The Second Critique, Appendix I, §7). In the table of Chapter Six, Section 7, what "Appendix I, the War Treatise row" hands over is "The group-level 'should'"; its address column reads "No address yet." The first entry of the same section is institutions: "Publicly reassigned to the Theory of Institutions and the Theory of Government; for the reasons, see Section 4." Section 4's reason is that the part the overlap cannot reach, and the refuser's own law will not stop, "is borne by external constructs"; the book itself does not develop this, because "This book examines by what a person's law binds the one who made it, and an institution is not a person's law" (The Second Critique, Ch. 6 §4).
The War Treatise does not take the word "war-party" apart. Sometimes it means a civilization, sometimes a tribe or an alliance, sometimes the people who make the decisions. Several things are joined in the one word: an arrangement with institutional identity, that is, a construct; the positions within the construct; the persons in those positions and outside them. And there is one more: the group itself as a bearer, even as a legislator, a "people," a "civilization." Of this last, The Second Critique is quite clear: "Beyond the level of the individual — whether a community can act as a legislator — this book does not take the question up; it hands it over publicly, with no address yet (Section 7)." (The Second Critique, Ch. 6 §5)
This paper takes on the construct's slot. A state is a construct, not a subject (the Prequel, §1). The construct's share of the "should" belongs to the institutions that The Second Critique reassigned; Institution Theory and the Theory of Government took it up, and the Theory of Government in turn handed war on to this series (Theory of Government Paper 6, Interfaces: "External relations and borders, membership; war; exceptions bearing on survival at the level of the state; the strong form of dismantling after the war on one's own initiative"). By this route, this paper gives the construct's slot within the "war-party" an address: the state as a construct. This step is this series' own undertaking: The Second Critique did not make this division, and neither did the War Treatise.
Why this slot can have an address and the group's slot cannot. Saying ought to a construct legislates for no one: "A construct has no law of its own, so saying ought to it replaces no one's law." (Institution Theory Paper 1, Abstract) To say ought to a "people," there must first be a "we" able to receive the ought; but "An institution cannot produce a 'we.'" (Institution Theory Z31) To address the War Treatise's "should" to "the people of the UCSE" would be to avow, on behalf of thirty-nine million people, a law they may never have made. This paper does not touch that slot; it remains with no address yet, and is handed to the Critiques.
Brought down, it follows the three layers: "The construct takes the ought, the position takes accountability, the person takes his own law." (Institution Theory Z4)
The construct takes the ought. Theorems One to Three of the War Treatise, brought down onto the state as a construct, are oughts for the construct: starting and expanding a war must have a cannot-not that can stand up to determination, and every step must be directed toward ending (§1; §4). Theorem Four, brought down onto the construct, is Institution Theory's fifth ought: the channel is independent of the party questioned, those inside can reach it, and using it brings no retaliation (Institution Theory Z34; Theory of Government G35); the construct may not acquire the standing of exemption from questioning, and "structures can change, but the three conditions cannot be withdrawn" (Institution Theory Z37).
The position takes accountability. Those who declare war, those who command, the Executive for External Affairs: they sit in positions. Accountability binds the position, not the person; of the position the Theory of Government says that it "holds the burden of explanation and the burden of bearing" (Theory of Government Paper 1, G2). Explanation must answer the very matter it is questioned about. The question about crossing the river had already been put, in writing: could long-range fire suppress the positions; how would the presence after the crossing end? For the positions that voted to cross, the burden of explanation is to answer these two questions. Theorem Three says it earlier still: "A war without a clear conception of how cultivation will recover should not be opened." (War Treatise §15; rendered from the Chinese page) So too with expansion. The First Executive said in his national address, "This is a step we cannot not take." That is an explanation, but it does not answer those two questions. Bearing is booked separately by source, authority, registration and the facts of conduct (Theory of Government Paper 6, G36): the two who voted for, the one who voted against, the Chief who wrote the opinion, the Deputy Chief who took over command, each is an entry of its own, and none cancels another. The objection of the Executive for External Affairs is the burden of explanation he discharged in his position; it is booked as an objection, and is not rebooked because of the majority's decision.
The War Treatise says: "Direction is given by philosophy; decisions are made by the executors; responsibility is borne by the executors." (War Treatise §3; rendered from the Chinese page) This paper reads "responsibility" there as the burden of bearing in a position, not as an ought addressed to persons; this reading is undertaken by this series.
The person takes his own law. When that young man answered the call-up, his application for alternative service had not been reviewed (Paper 4, §7). At the inspection point he saw something and wrote a letter. Whether he should have written, whether he should have refused to hold others, this paper does not say on his behalf: soldiers and civilians each have their own law, and no ought is written for them. Among those who stayed in Reedtown were people who did not want to leave home (Paper 4, §6); so too with them.
Toward him, what this paper speaks of is the construct's ought and the position's accountability. The construct's configuration must leave a road for those who carry things out: "A construct's configuration may not leave the executor both unable to refuse a demand and without any path for passing it into a reviewable procedure" (Institution Theory Z12). The road his letter took led from the Inspectorate back to the Internal Investigations Division inside the Office of Defense; the Division and the Defense Force complained against belong to the same office. Independence is checked against the party actually questioned: "Independence is functional and does not require being outside the institution; what it guards against is the party under review sealing off review of itself on its own" (Institution Theory Z34). Belonging to the same office is a lead to be checked; it does not by itself complete this judgment: independence must be checked again against the party actually questioned, and whether that party can decide on its own to take up a case, to close it or to refer it out, the case file does not record. Whether the transfer two weeks later was retaliation, this paper does not judge; the channel for judging it may not be sealed off on its own by the side that made the transfer and is being questioned. Among the four layers of Theorem Four the War Treatise lists, one is just this: "Is the questioner protected?" (War Treatise §16; rendered from the Chinese page) It says that this layer can be seen from outside.
The accounts must be kept apart too. The construct's name does not settle a person's account, and a person's account does not settle the construct's: "The construct's name does not shield an individual responsibility that has independent grounds, and the construct's failure is not automatically transferred onto any one person" (Institution Theory Paper 1, Z6). Holding people at the inspection point for more than seventy-two hours without registration is an entry for those who carried it out there, and also an entry for the construct that set up the inspection points and laid down the rules for holding people (§3).
N31 The ought of the "war-party" falls on the state as a construct (own undertaking). The Second Critique registers the "should" that the War Treatise addresses to the "war-party" as group layer, with no address yet, and in the same section reassigns institutions to Institution Theory and the Theory of Government; by way of this reassignment, this series gives the construct's slot within it an address: the war-party is a construct, and the construct takes the ought; those who declare war and those who command are in positions, and take accountability; soldiers and civilians each have their own law, and no ought is written for them. The group layer itself still has no address yet, and is handed to the Critiques. Theorem Four of the War Treatise: the war-party has no privilege of not being questioned (War Treatise §16).
§3 In War, the Other Side's People Are in This State's Interior
After the crossing, four inspection points were set up in the buffer zone, and men aged sixteen to sixty had to pass screening to go in or out. From the winter of Year 9 to the autumn of Year 10, about one thousand nine hundred people were held overnight or longer; two hundred thirty were transferred as "wartime detainees" to a detention facility in the Western Plains State, without charge, and held for up to eleven months. Those transferred complained to the Inspectorate, which, under Article 17 of the Wartime Security Act, passed the complaints on to the Internal Investigations Division of the Office of Defense; the Division reviewed thirty of the files. The buffer zone was under curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. The Defense Force requisitioned the stored grain in the granaries of the Wheat Plain District; the receipts said "to be settled after the war." Three villages near the front had their power cut for two months; the Office of Defense said this was "to prevent its use for enemy observation."
Outside the buffer zone, about thirty-five kilometers west of the Boundary River, lies Junction Town, a railway junction that carries both military trains and passenger trains. In the winter of Year 9, the Council of Three approved a strike on the junction at Junction Town. At 7:40 a.m., the strike hit the junction and the station's waiting hall. The DRP announced sixty-three dead, forty-one of them civilians, most of them in the waiting hall for the early passenger train; the civilian death toll the Office of Defense announced was twenty-two. The Office of Defense's target memorandum read: "Passenger train times not verified."
Most of the people in the buffer zone hold DRP citizenship and live on DRP land. The curfew, the inspection points and the requisitioning of grain were carried out by the UCSE's Defense Force. They are not UCSE voters, nor are they among those whose complaints the Inspectorate can take up (UCSE Case 25).
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the people in the waiting hall at Junction Town station; the roughly ninety thousand residents of the eleven villages and towns in the buffer zone, among them the one thousand nine hundred who were held, the two hundred thirty who were transferred, and the three villages whose power was cut. Which line: the part of this state's acts (the strike, holding and detention, the curfew, the requisitioning of grain, the power cuts) that falls on them, following the unified sentence; the first and fifth oughts do not vary with relational thickness. Baseline: before the UCSE's acts came down, each one's everyday life in the Wheat Plain District: waiting for trains, going in and out, storing grain, using power.
They are not the UCSE's people. Are they within the UCSE's line?
As regards these acts, in the interior. The Theory of Government says: "Jurisdiction is not the interior: those whom a level of government's acts reach and who have no way to avoid it by exiting are in its interior even if they are not in its jurisdiction" (Theory of Government Paper 4, G25). There it originally spoke of the levels of government within one state. Extending it to the national level, and to the other side's civilians in war, is undertaken by this series (extension; own undertaking). The extension goes through because the sentence itself looks neither at citizenship nor at jurisdiction; it looks at two things only: whether the acts reach them, and whether they have no way to exit. The strike fell in the waiting hall; the inspection points stood across the roads in and out; the detention facility held people; the curfew, the requisitioning of grain and the power cuts fell on every household. These people could not avoid them: those in the waiting hall did not know the strike was coming, the inspection points were set on their roads in and out, and detention was not theirs to choose. So, as regards these acts, they are in the UCSE's interior. As regards these acts only: this does not give them UCSE citizenship, nor does it let the UCSE take over the rest of their lives.
Following the unified sentence: those whom this state's acts reach and who have no way to avoid them by exiting are, as regards those acts, in this state's interior; the five oughts apply each on its own conditions (Institution Theory Z4: "the five oughts apply each on its own conditions and are not reduced for want of a position"): the first and fifth oughts (a channel that is independent, within reach, and brings no retaliation for its use) and the "not sealing the channels" half of the fourth do not vary with relational thickness; the trigger of the second does not vary with it, and its means are bounded by this state's authority at that place; the third ought, and the "leaving room" half of the fourth, go by relational thickness (the Institution Theory Prequel, §7, the entry "Relational thickness"). This confers no membership (N12).
The other side's combatants. What has been said so far concerns the other side's civilians. For the other side's combatants in action, the limit on using force against them follows the methods-constraint of the War Treatise: "current oppressive capability vs. minimal conditions for post-war subject-reconstruction. The former may be attacked; the latter may not." (War Treatise §15) This paper quotes it as it stands and sets up no further limit. Those who have laid down their arms, been captured, or are wounded or sick are no longer in combat: this state's capture, confinement and treatment fall on them, they have no way to exit, and as regards these acts they are in this state's interior, following the unified sentence (extension; own undertaking). Those held or detained in the buffer zone, when holding and detention fall on them, likewise come under the unified sentence.
The line is not discounted by war. The first ought speaks of the line. When Institution Theory set it up, it stated that the ought "is not discounted under any condition" (Institution Theory Z9). War is a condition, and the one most easily used to discount it. Nor is the line decided by motive: "The line is the boundary between limit and violation, decided by structure, not by motive" (Z9); "Crossing the line does not require that anyone intend it" (Institution Theory Z10).
Take it to the waiting hall. The target of the strike was the junction; the people in the waiting hall were not the target. They died under this state's act. The part that fell on them is crossing the line; this does not change because the strike was meant for the junction, nor because the decision to strike may have been within the cannot-not. The War Treatise's cannot-not constrains starting, expanding and direction; its methods-constraint bridge blocks something else: "methods that would pre-empt the 'possibility of ending' that Theorem Three requires, or that would make the other side's post-war cultivation structurally impossible, are in principle unqualified." (War Treatise §15) On whether an act that falls on a particular person crosses the line, it lays down no sentence, and this paper does not lay one down on its behalf. The reading here follows Institution Theory Z9 and is undertaken by this series (own undertaking): whether an act is within the cannot-not, and whether the part of it that falls on a particular person crosses the line, are two accounts. The first governs whether the act may be done; the second governs what it did to each person. The first does not settle the second; nor does the second pass judgment on the first: to book it as crossing the line, and to book the account, is not to say that the act was impermissible in the first place. The Theory of Government said a sentence of the same shape about transition: "Where a transitional act has been verified as crossing the line, the name of transition does not cancel its attribution" (Theory of Government Paper 5, G34). Nor does the name of wartime.
This paper does not say that a war can be fought without a single act crossing the line. What it says is: what crosses is booked as crossing the line, and is not renamed "the cost of war."
How the political and military leaders in their positions judge, and where the consequences fall, follows the Prequel, §8. The upstream ground is in the War Treatise: "Direction is given by philosophy; decisions are made by the executors; responsibility is borne by the executors." (War Treatise §3; rendered from the Chinese page) Brought down to this case: §1 said that whether crossing the river was a cannot-not, this paper does not judge on the military leaders' behalf; whether Junction Town should have been struck that time, this paper does not judge either; it was struck, and the entry that fell in the waiting hall is booked. The division lies in the nature of the criteria: whether a step dissolves the threat, and whether without expanding the position would fail to hold (the first criterion of §4), depends on military judgment in a position, and this paper requires only that it be determined by positions that do not monopolize it; whether a direction is being prescribed for the other side, and whether there is no time limit and no path of exit (the second and third criteria), can be read off the act itself, and this paper judges them (§4).
Holding to stops neither in emergency nor in war. The Theory of Government says that "holding to does not stop in an emergency" (Theory of Government Paper 5, G30): the speed and order of procedure may change, review and being questioned beforehand may be moved to afterward, but the channel is not withdrawn, and during an emergency it must still be one that can be initiated. So too in war. Those detained were held for up to eleven months; what the fifth ought requires is that they can speak up then and there, and that speaking up reaches a place where it is not the Office of Defense that decides. They spoke up, and their letters went back to the Office of Defense. The ninety thousand in the buffer zone are not among those whose complaints the Inspectorate takes up; what other independent road of questioning within their reach they had regarding the curfew, the requisitioning of grain and the power cuts, the case file does not record. The fifth ought does not vary with relational thickness; this state must explain and keep such a road.
The other oughts are each read by the unified sentence. If people in the buffer zone cross the line against one another, the trigger of the second ought does not diminish, since this state controls movement and public order there; its means are bounded by this state's authority there, and that authority itself is exactly what §4 must check. The third ought, and the "leaving room" half of the fourth, go by relational thickness: this state explains, by the degree to which it actually organizes their lives in the buffer zone, what it has given and what it has left. The receipts say "to be settled after the war": this state took their grain, and the position on which that account is to be settled must be named.
Suppose that no passenger train had stopped at Junction Town that morning (UCSE Case 25-B). The waiting hall is empty, the strike falls only on the junction, and the waiting hall's entry of crossing the line is gone. But "Passenger train times not verified" is still written in the memorandum. Verifying is an accountability of the positions that drew up the memorandum and approved the strike; it was not done, in both cases alike. Luck changes the entry that falls on persons; it does not change the entry at the positions (§4, determination in two grades).
Official calls. This state's acts are not only strikes and detention. Publicly calling, in an official capacity, on the other side's people to take life-endangering action in the service of this state's war aims is also an act; speech as such is not. The difference lies in the position: the call is issued in this state's name and acts on persons; those who answer risk their lives to do what this state wants done, and this entanglement is of this state's making. So those who answer are, as regards this call, in this state's interior, following the unified sentence. The case file does not record facts of this kind; this section only sets up the clause and gives no case.
With Walzer. Who may be struck in war, and how, Walzer answered in Just and Unjust Wars, chapter 8, "War's Means, and the Importance of Fighting Well," and chapter 9, "Noncombatant Immunity and Military Necessity." The original is not in hand; what follows is paraphrased from secondary literature, tier C. As summarized: civilians may not be made targets; they are persons with rights and cannot be used to serve some military end; those who may be attacked directly are those engaged in harming; all combatants, whatever they fight for, may attack one another (per Lazar, "War," SEP, §§1 and 4.1; Orend, "War," SEP, 2005 revision, §2.2). Of harm caused as a foreseeable side effect, he says that those who cause it must be willing to accept more risk, or to give up some advantage, so as to keep the harm to a minimum (per McIntyre, "Doctrine of Double Effect," SEP, §1, citing pp. 151–159 of the original). The two run in the same direction at two points. At one, by the requirement McIntyre reports (being willing to accept more risk and to give up some advantage to reduce harm), "Passenger train times not verified" would hardly pass with him either; this is this paper's own application, and its ground reaches only secondary literature. At the other, as Lazar summarizes it, he and his critics alike hold that in the very few cases where the good achieved is so great that killing may be intended, those killed are still wronged, and their rights have been violated (§4.1); this runs in the same direction as "booked as crossing the line." They part at two points. At one, his grammar is that of permission: who may lay hands on whom; this paper issues no permissions, and for combatants in action sets up no further limit, following the methods-constraint of the War Treatise. At the other, double effect divides what is intended from foreseen side effects into the permissible and the impermissible; in this series the line is decided by structure, not by motive, the foreseen deaths of civilians are booked as crossing the line, and the two accounts are each kept on their own.
To draft an objection on his behalf (drafted by this paper): if the line is not discounted, and intention is not separated from side effect, then the defending side and the side that crossed the boundary both have their books full of line-crossings, and the most important distinction in war is flattened. Reply: the distinction is still there; it is placed in the decisions to start and to expand. Theorem One can tell a defensive start apart from a start that does not reach the threshold; this state's judgment on that is determined by positions that do not monopolize it (§1), and the part that goes beyond defense is identified by the criteria (§4); the other side's crossing of the boundary this paper can identify, without keeping the other side's books for it, and without using it to offset this state's account. All that this paper declines to do is turn this distinction, in turn, into a permission for the acts that fall on each person. What is obtained here is a division of grammar and of scope; it does not claim to refute him.
N32 In war, the other side's people are in this state's interior (extension; own undertaking). Civilians of the other side whom this state's war acts reach and who have no way to exit are, as regards those acts, in this state's interior, following the unified sentence; the line is not discounted by war (Institution Theory Z9); holding to stops neither in emergency nor in war (Theory of Government G30). Where this state, in an official capacity, publicly calls on the other side's people to take life-endangering action in the service of its war aims, those who answer are, as regards this call, in this state's interior. For the other side's combatants in action, the limit on using force against them follows the methods-constraint of War Treatise §15, and this series sets up no other; those who have laid down their arms, been captured, or are wounded or sick come under the unified sentence.
§4 The Part That Crosses the Boundary
Each of the two states says that the other crossed the boundary.
On the UCSE side: crossing the river, advancing twenty kilometers, setting up the buffer zone (UCSE Case 24); inspection points inside the zone, and the strike on Junction Town outside it (UCSE Case 25). In the winter of Year 9, the Office of Defense set up the "Wheat Plain Provisional Administration Office" in the buffer zone to run civil affairs. The administration office selected eleven local residents to form the "Wheat Plain Provisional Self-Government Committee"; it replaced the "national purposes course" in the DRP's schools with a "civics course" written in Rivermouth City; thirty-seven teachers who refused to teach the new course were dismissed. In the spring of Year 10 came the ceasefire; the two states stopped on the line they then held, and the administration office went on running as before. In the summer of Year 10 there were three proposals: the Executive Council's Wheat Plain Reconstruction Plan, under which the UCSE would pay to rebuild the junction at Junction Town and the schools within five years, and the administration office would remain until "the establishment locally of elected bodies that meet UCSE standards"; the Office of Defense's proposal to turn the twenty-kilometer buffer zone into a long-term "trusteeship"; and the proposal of the opposition members of the Chamber of Citizens to withdraw within ninety days (UCSE Case 26).
On the DRP side: in the spring of Year 8, the National Purposes Commission added an item, "the return of the West Flats," to the Programme of National Purposes. In the summer of Year 9, the DRP army shelled Reedtown and crossed the Boundary River. In the five weeks it held Reedtown, the DRP army set up a military administration office in the town hall; the town primary school stopped using its existing textbooks and switched to the "national purposes course"; two doctors from the town hospital were taken to the west bank of the Boundary River, and as of Year 12 their whereabouts were unknown. In the roughly three weeks after the Defense Force retook Reedtown and before it crossed the river, the DRP army shelled Reedtown and the northern stretch of the West Flats twelve times from its positions on the west bank; nine civilians died, and Reedtown's water station twice went out of service; the DRP's Foreign Ministry called this shelling "return fire against cross-border shelling" (UCSE Case 24).
UCSE Case 26 is used here for the first time to make a judgment. Three things first. Whom it concerns: the roughly ninety thousand residents of the buffer zone, among them students, the thirty-seven teachers, and the eleven committee members who were selected. Which line: the part of this state's acts that falls on them, following the unified sentence; toward the DRP as a construct, not deciding the direction for its people (Paper 5, N25). Baseline: everyday life in the Wheat Plain District before the crossing, with schools and civil affairs run by the DRP's own bodies.
Where the criteria come from. Expansion by the defending side follows Theorems Two and Three of the War Treatise (carried over). Theorem Two's criterion: "without expanding, the position defended under Theorem One will fail to hold" (War Treatise §14; rendered from the Chinese page); an expansion must also be such that "the direction of expansion still serves the original defensive objective," and "before expanding, one is obliged to keep probing for a window for fa-mou and fa-jiao" (War Treatise §14; rendered from the Chinese page). It names several kinds of objective-drift, two of which are: "Sliding from dissolving the threat to transforming the other side — originally the aim was to make the other side stop its oppression; now it becomes making the other side into the 'correct' shape." "Sliding from resolving the present conflict to settling it once and for all — originally the aim was to handle this one 'cannot-not'; now it becomes resolving every possible future threat completely." (War Treatise §14; rendered from the Chinese page) Theorem Three: "Every action, every expansion, every adjustment during war must be directed toward the moment of ending" (War Treatise §15).
Three criteria. Looking only at "dissolving the threat" cannot tell apart crossing the river in pursuit, setting up the buffer zone, and "trusteeship": all three are said to be for keeping Reedtown from being shelled. So two further criteria are checked together with it.
The first criterion, whether the threat is being dissolved: whether this step is aimed directly at the point where the position being defended is failing to hold (Theorem Two).
The second criterion, whether management of the other side's internal affairs has begun: going beyond dissolving the threat to prescribe for the other side the direction of its reorganization; this is the "sliding from dissolving the threat to transforming the other side" that Theorem Two names (War Treatise §14; rendered from the Chinese page; carried over). In its section on the aftermath of victory, the War Treatise lists the names this commonly goes under: the victorious party crossing the boundary of "dissolving the threat" to manage the defeated party's internal affairs, "even if it is in the name of 'reconstruction,' 'humanitarian aid,' or 'preventing turmoil'" (War Treatise §18; rendered from the Chinese page). This criterion is read narrowly: entering the other side's territory only for aid or repair is not, on that ground alone, judged; what is looked at is whether a direction is being prescribed for the other side.
The third criterion, whether a control is set up with no time limit and no path of exit. This criterion takes up Theorem Three: a control directed toward ending must be able to say how it ends.
If any one of the three is crossed, the part that crosses is not within the cannot-not. Even if this state ordinarily leans more toward the 15DD direction, it is not on that account exempt from the check: judgment falls on acts, not on the names of states (the Prequel, §7).
The stretch where both sides have crossed the boundary. The War Treatise draws a line: "14DD against 14DD is not within this treatise's discussion range." Its reason: "SAE war theory does not establish criteria for such collisions — because both sides operate at 14DD, neither uses 'subjects as ends' as the starting point for judgment, and SAE criteria do not function for them." (War Treatise §5) This paper does not read "14DD against 14DD" as naming any particular pair of states; read by acts, it corresponds to the stretch after both sides' acts have crossed the boundary. This reading is undertaken by this series. That stretch the War Treatise does not judge. For expansion by the defending side, the three criteria are only the unfolding of Theorems Two and Three (carried over); for the stretch where both sides' acts have crossed the boundary, this paper, by analogy with Theorems Two and Three and with §18, sets up the same three as its own criteria (extension; own undertaking). This is not an extended use of the War Treatise's criteria; their range is not changed.
Setting up criteria of its own is not for judging the other side. The War Treatise itself says: "Turned inward, the criterion is an instrument of reflection; turned outward (to judge others), it slides into an instrument of 14DD systemic purpose." (War Treatise §1; rendered from the Chinese page) This paper's oughts are addressed only to this state as a construct.
On the DRP side: identified, no ought written. Quoting the War Treatise's criteria as they stand, one can identify which of the DRP's acts are not within the cannot-not. Starting a war over a disputed piece of land (the DRP's Programme of National Purposes has "the return of the West Flats" written in it), whoever the land belongs to, falls among the reasons the War Treatise rules out: "war for interest (to acquire resources, territory, trading rights)" (War Treatise §13; rendered from the Chinese page). The military administration office's change of curriculum and its taking away of the doctors meet the second criterion: prescribing a direction for the other side. The shelling of Reedtown after it was retaken the DRP called return fire; in the part that fell on civilians and on the water station, no shape of "dissolving the threat" can be made out. This paper writes no ought for the DRP, nor does it judge the law of those inside the DRP on their behalf. Identifying these things has its use on this state's side, at two points.
At one, this state's crossing of the boundary is not excused by the DRP's. Removing the other side's shelter does not give this state an unlimited qualification to act. The DRP's shelling made "Reedtown is in range" true; it supports the determination of one expansion against those positions (§1); it does not support changing the curriculum, and it does not support trusteeship.
At the other, this state's recognition does not endorse it. Throughout the war the two states did not break off relations; each kept a liaison office at Three Borders (UCSE Case 23; three things in Paper 5, §3). Identifying the DRP's crossing of the boundary does not withdraw that recognition; maintaining recognition does not endorse the DRP's acts either (Paper 5, N26).
On the UCSE side: checked item by item.
Crossing the river. The Office of Defense's assessment says "Without crossing the river, Reedtown cannot be taken out of range": that is a statement in terms of the first criterion. The Chief's written opinion says that long-range fire can suppress the positions and that crossing would lead to a long-term presence: the first half asks about the second condition of Theorem Two, and the second half points at the third criterion. Whether the crossing was a cannot-not, this paper does not judge (War Treatise §3; the Chinese page); what it judges is that these two questions must be answered at the time of determination, and the determination recorded in the case file stops at the Council of Three, with no further confirmation found (§1).
The buffer zone. Twenty kilometers, eleven villages and towns, ninety thousand people, inspection points, detention for up to eleven months. Whether it had, when set up, a time limit and a road of withdrawal, the case file does not record; the conditions the third criterion requires have not yet been verified, and on the facts at hand this expansion cannot be certified as passing, nor, from the gap in the record alone, can it be found that there were none at the time. At the ceasefire it stopped on the line then held, and stayed on for more than a year after that. On the facts of the UCSE cases, the ceasefire reaches the threshold: the defending side's cannot-not for starting the war is an attack under way, and once hostilities have ceased and the attacking side has withdrawn, it is dissolved (§5); remaining stationed on the other side's land after that belongs to the "prolongation of time" that Theorem Two lists (War Treatise, the opening of the Middle Volume, and §14), and must be determined on its own as in §1; whether there was such a determination, the case file does not record.
The administration office. Changing the curriculum, dismissing the teachers who refused to teach the new course, selecting the members of the self-government committee: this is prescribing for the people of the Wheat Plain District what their schools teach and who speaks for them. The second criterion is crossed. The part that crosses it is not within the cannot-not, and it is not excused because the other side did the same thing in Reedtown. Why it has the shape of colonization, §5 says.
The three proposals were all still proposals, not carried out. What is checked is whether, if carried out, they would cross the boundary. In the Wheat Plain Reconstruction Plan, paying to rebuild the junction and the schools is repair, and is not judged on that ground; the administration office staying until "elected bodies that meet UCSE standards" are established crosses two criteria: the standards are set by the UCSE, which is prescribing a direction for the other side (the second criterion); the term hangs on a condition the UCSE determines, and the road of withdrawal is in the UCSE's hands (the third criterion). "Trusteeship" has no time limit and is management besides; it crosses both. Withdrawal within ninety days has a time limit and no further management; it crosses none of the three. This paper does not choose a proposal for the Assembly on that basis; it only states which part the other two would cross if carried out.
Determination in two grades. Acts that expand the war, advancing across the boundary, setting up a zone of control, prolonging a presence, are each a new decision, and are determined separately beforehand, as in §1. Single acts in combat are different: a strike, an inspection, cannot wait for confirmation one by one beforehand. They are carried out under rules made public beforehand, of which verifying the target is one; afterward they are checked against the three criteria above by a position independent of the commanding side; when the check takes place is stated, and its form is not fixed. This division into two grades is undertaken by this series (own undertaking). The strike on Junction Town was a single act, approved by the Council of Three; "Passenger train times not verified" is a rule not followed. The case file records that the complaints were passed back inside the Office of Defense, and that thirty files were reviewed; these facts do not yet prove that the check was independent, nor can belonging to the same office alone prove that it was not. Whether this strike on Junction Town had an independent check afterward, the case file does not record (UCSE Case 25). How the strike on Junction Town is checked afterward, Paper 7, §§1 and 3, writes.
With Walzer. Whether the ends of war have a limit, Walzer answered in chapter 7, "War's Ends, and the Importance of Winning." As Gary Bass reports and cites him: the theory of ends in war is shaped by the same rights that justified fighting in the first place; just wars are limited wars, and, except against Nazi-like states, they are conservative in character; only in cases like Nazi Germany do the victors have the right to reshape a state (per Bass 2004, pp. 387, 393–394, 397, citing pp. 113, 121–123 of the 1992 edition of the original; tier C; the original not in hand, paraphrased only). This runs in the same direction as Theorem Two: the direction of expansion must serve the original defensive objective, and the ends do not go beyond the reasons for starting the war. They part at the exceptions: in cases like Nazi Germany he leaves a door open to reshaping; and, as Lazar summarizes it, in supreme emergency he also leaves a door open to the intentional violation of civilians' lives (Lazar, §4.1). The door of reshaping a state this paper does not leave open: the War Treatise's firewall does not allow the direction of reorganization to be prescribed for the other side; if the other side expands anew, intervening again must pass Theorem One again, as "an independent application of Theorem One" (War Treatise §18), not as a permission to transform the other side. At supreme emergency, the account of the line-crossing against the victims is still booked, and on this point it runs in the same direction as the summary cited in §3; whether the act could permissibly be done in the first place is still the other account (§3, the two accounts). This paper does not, on the strength of "the line is not discounted by war" alone, claim to have refuted his exceptions under which such acts may be done.
N33 The part that crosses the boundary is not within the cannot-not (own undertaking). Once this state's war acts cross the boundary of "dissolving the threat" and turn into expansion or oppression, the part that crosses is no longer sheltered by the cannot-not; it is not exempt from the check because this state ordinarily leans more toward the 15DD direction. Where the criteria come from: expansion by the defending side follows Theorem Two (§14) and Theorem Three (§15) of the War Treatise (carried over): an expansion must pass on its own "without expanding, the position defended under Theorem One will fail to hold" (War Treatise §14; rendered from the Chinese page); sliding from dissolving the threat to transforming the other side, or to settling it once and for all, is objective-drift, and is crossing the boundary. The "14DD against 14DD" that the War Treatise places outside its range, that is, the stretch after both sides' acts have crossed the boundary, the War Treatise does not judge; in this stretch this series sets up criteria of its own by analogy with Theorems Two and Three and with §18 (extension; own undertaking), which is not an extended use of the War Treatise's criteria. The three criteria: whether the threat is being dissolved; whether management of the other side's internal affairs has begun, that is, a control that goes beyond dissolving the threat to prescribe for the other side the direction of its reorganization (entering the other side's territory only for aid or repair is not, on that ground alone, judged); whether a control is set up with no time limit and no path of exit. If any one of the three is crossed, the part that crosses is not within the cannot-not. Removing one side's shelter does not give the other side an unlimited qualification to act. Determination in two grades (own undertaking): acts that expand the war (advancing across the boundary, setting up a zone of control, prolonging a presence) are each a new decision, determined separately as in N30; single acts in combat are carried out under rules made public beforehand, and are checked afterward against the three criteria by a position independent of the commanding side; when the check takes place is stated, and its form is not fixed. Acts already carried out and proposals not yet carried out are checked separately: for a proposal, what is checked is whether, if carried out, it would cross the boundary.
§5 Occupation May Not Become Colonization
In the summer of Year 10, there were two assemblies in the Wheat Plain District against the administration office; some members of the self-government committee, and some residents, asked the UCSE to stay. The DRP declared the committee members "collaborators."
In the spring of Year 11, the two states signed the Withdrawal Agreement at Three Borders, in the NUT: the UCSE would withdraw from the buffer zone within one hundred twenty days; on two hilltops three kilometers west of the Boundary River, one observation post each would remain, thirty people each, for three years, with observers sent by the NUT stationed alongside; the administration office and the self-government committee would be dissolved; compensation would be negotiated separately. The agreement does not change the border; it was approved by a majority in a joint session of the Assembly, and the DRP's People's Assembly approved it too.
After the withdrawal, the DRP restored the "national purposes course," and twenty-nine of the thirty-seven dismissed teachers were reinstated. Of the eleven committee members, nine left with the UCSE forces, applied for asylum and were granted it; the two who stayed were prosecuted by the DRP for "collaboration with the enemy." The Programme of National Purposes still keeps "the return of the West Flats" (UCSE Case 26; three things in §4).
This section asks: while holding a piece of someone else's land, what may not be done; and after leaving, what "maintained observation" is.
Not deciding the other side's direction. In its section on victory, the War Treatise sets up a firewall: "The core of the surrogate-liberation firewall is — the victorious party shall not decide on the defeated party's direction of subjectivity-development on their behalf." (War Treatise §18) It lists two items for the victorious party, and the second is: "Second, exit the reorganization space of the defeated party's subjectivity." (War Treatise §18; rendered from the Chinese page) Reconstruction too must be handed back: "Post-threat-dissolution reconstruction must be handed back quickly to the defeated party's internal genuine subjects." (War Treatise §18) The upstream does not name anyone to whom this item is handed; this paper takes it up, quoting it as it stands and without changing its meaning.
§18 speaks of the victorious party after the war. To read Wheat Plain by it, one must first settle where "after the war" is counted from. The War Treatise sets the ending at: "The moment the 'cannot-not' that existed at the opening of war is dissolved is the moment the war ends — that is, the moment cultivation regains the conditions to continue." (War Treatise §15) The defending side's cannot-not for starting the war is an attack under way: "If the other side's attack is really under way, it is no longer preemption; it is resistance." (War Treatise §13; rendered from the Chinese page) Once hostilities have ceased and the attacking side has withdrawn, this cannot-not is dissolved; what remains is that the other side might come again in future, and the War Treatise sets this outside the reasons for starting a war: "a future threat has not made one's own cultivation fail to hold now, and so does not satisfy the second condition" (War Treatise §13; rendered from the Chinese page). The DRP army had already fallen back west of the Boundary River in the autumn of Year 9, and at the ceasefire both were the case; on the facts of the UCSE cases, the ceasefire reaches the threshold (Paper 4, §5). Remaining stationed on the other side's land after that is an expansion on this state's side that must be determined on its own, belonging to the "prolongation of time" that Theorem Two lists (War Treatise, the opening of the Middle Volume, and §14; §1, N30; §4, N33); it is not the continuation of a defensive war. So the reading falls into two stretches. Before the ceasefire, things like changing the curriculum fall within the objective-drift of Theorem Two, "sliding from dissolving the threat to transforming the other side" (War Treatise §14; rendered from the Chinese page), and there is no need to wait for after the war. After the ceasefire, §18 speaks directly: "Every post-war action is a new action, requiring a new cannot-not to be legitimate." (War Treatise §18) The administration office going on as before, the "reconstruction plan" being proposed: each needs a new cannot-not, determined by positions that do not monopolize it; whether there was such a determination, the case file does not record. §18's reason is: "Victory does not amount to acquiring the right to transform the defeated party." (War Treatise §18; rendered from the Chinese page) Whether the UCSE counts as the victorious party §18 speaks of depends also on the third condition there: "and the victorious party itself has not slid toward new 14DD systemic purpose in the process" (War Treatise §18); the part that goes beyond defense (§4) runs right into this condition. If it counts, it has no right to transform the other side; if it does not, all the less. To read §18's two items onto an occupier that has not won in that sense is to argue a fortiori, and is undertaken by this series (extension; own undertaking).
The middle clause of the main line takes exactly this firewall:
Toward its internal subjects, a state holds to anti-colonization and strives for cultivation; outwardly, it does not colonize, and does not decide on behalf of the people of other states; each of its "lasts" remains open to questioning.
Paper 5 extended it to ordinary times (N25). At Wheat Plain, it returns to where it came from.
§4 has checked it: changing the curriculum, dismissing teachers and selecting committee members crossed the second criterion. This section says why it has the shape of colonization. Colonization is taken in the narrow sense: a boundary-crossing disguised as cultivation. The name of the "civics course" is teaching, the name of "reconstruction" is helping, the name of "elected bodies that meet UCSE standards" is election; brought down, it is Rivermouth City setting the textbooks for the children of the Wheat Plain District, the administration office selecting those who speak for the District, and UCSE standards deciding when the District counts as rebuilt. In its section on failure, the War Treatise said what may not be ceded: "Cannot be ceded: the cultivation carrier itself (culture, language, spiritual tradition, educational system, the operation of subjectivity in daily life)." (War Treatise §19) That was said to the side under pressure; seen from the occupying side, these are exactly the things that may not be decided for others.
Those who asked the UCSE to stay. Some residents asked the UCSE to stay, and some residents assembled against the administration office. Whom does the UCSE listen to? Both are people of the Wheat Plain District, and both are ends. This paper does not choose between them on the UCSE's behalf; it says only two things. First, requests and objections alike are questions, and this state must take them up; the fifth ought does not diminish (§3). Second, a request does not turn deciding a direction for others into not deciding it: the part of the occupation that decided the direction for the other side is not made good by later results or by later approval. In the threshold for starting a war, the War Treatise wrote a sentence in the same direction: "A genuine rising goes from the inside out; the outside can recognize it and can support it, but cannot manufacture it." (War Treatise §13; rendered from the Chinese page) The self-government committee was selected by the administration office.
After leaving. The DRP restored the "national purposes course." This is no reason why the UCSE should have stayed. To exit the space of reorganization is to exit also from how the other side will reorganize: whether the other side's supreme rule thereafter is legitimate is checked by the present, by the three layers of Paper 1, N1, and is decided neither by its origin nor by the side that once occupied it. This paper writes no ought for the DRP's interior.
The two committee members who stayed were prosecuted; the nine who left are in the UCSE. Their situation began with the administration office's selection. This state has exited the reorganization space of Wheat Plain; it has not exited this account: the selection was this state's act, and the two who were prosecuted are, as regards this act, still in this state's interior, following the unified sentence, and the fifth ought does not diminish; the asylum of the nine is registered in Paper 3, §7, as one more cut of division. Where the account falls, Paper 7 writes.
What "maintained observation" is. The firewall does not mean absolute non-intervention. §18 says that if new expansion and oppression arise inside the other side after the withdrawal, "This situation is not a continuation of the previous war; it is an independent application of Theorem One." (War Treatise §18) Taken together: "These two together, in seven characters: not colonizing, but maintained observation." (ibid.) What observation is, it also writes: "Maintained observation holds open Theorem One's re-evaluation channel" (ibid.). What is held open is a channel: recognizing a new threat, and judging again by Theorem One whether to intervene once more. It is a capacity for attention and judgment, not a facility on the other side's land. The form of stationing troops it does not judge; it leaves it to be "judged by military and political leaders according to specific situations" (ibid.).
The posts on the two hilltops are another matter. Setting up observation points on the other side's land is itself an act. First four things are stated, then the check. The source of authority: the Withdrawal Agreement, approved separately by the joint session of the Assembly and by the DRP's People's Assembly, its binding force landing through each side's own law (Paper 5, N24). The manner of entry: by agreement, not by seizure; NUT observers are stationed alongside. What they may do: the case file does not record; all there is, is the name "observation post" and the numbers; this must be explained. The arrangement for withdrawal: three years, withdrawn when the term expires; whether they can be withdrawn before then, the case file does not record. Then the check, by Paper 5, N25, and the three criteria of §4: the case file does not record that they manage the internal affairs of the Wheat Plain District; they have a time limit, and a road of exit when it runs out; on the facts at hand, no trace of crossing the boundary can be found under any of the three. This paper neither presumes that they must be legitimate nor presumes that they must be colonization; until "what they may do" is explained, the judgment stops here. They do not rest on wartime grounds; Paper 4, §5, did not list them among the wartime structures that expire on reaching the threshold, and handed them here to be checked.
With Kant. Whether an outside state may take a hand in changing another state's constitution, Kant answered in the Preliminary Articles of Perpetual Peace (Zum ewigen Frieden). The fifth: "No state shall forcibly interfere in the constitution and government of another state." (my translation; Kein Staat soll sich in die Verfassung und Regierung eines andern Staats gewaltthätig einmischen. Zum ewigen Frieden, First Section, Preliminary Article 5; Königsberg: Nicolovius, 1795; per Project Gutenberg EBook #46873; tier A; compared with the English translation of M. Campbell Smith, EBook #50922) His reasons: the bad example one state gives the subjects of another harms no one; interference by outside force violates the rights of "a people struggling only with its own inner illness and dependent on no other," and would "render the autonomy of all states insecure" (my translation; eines nur mit seiner innern Krankheit ringenden, von keinem andern abhängigen Volks; die Autonomie aller Staaten unsicher machen; ibid.). The common question is: can an outside force change a people's order on its behalf? The agreement goes this far: it cannot. They part at two points. At one, he leaves an exception: when a state splits through internal discord into two parts, each of which sets itself up as a separate state while laying claim to the whole, helping one of them need not count as interference (for then there is anarchy); internal strife that has not reached such a state of division still does not admit outside force on that account. The case in which a state splits in two and one side is helped this paper does not judge; what a third state does inside another state is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation. At the other, what he protects is the autonomy of states; in this paper the state is a construct, not a subject (the Prequel, §1), and what the firewall protects is the space in which the other side's people reorganize themselves, not the standing of any government. In the sixth article he also says that no state at war shall permit itself such hostilities as would make mutual trust in a future peace impossible (ibid., Preliminary Article 6); this accords with Theorem Three's direction toward ending, and is noted only as concurring.
N34 Occupation may not become colonization (carried over from the War Treatise; SF6 taken up). The victorious party shall not decide on the defeated party's direction of subjectivity-development on their behalf; not colonizing, but maintained observation (War Treatise §18). The second item §18 lists for the victorious party, "exit the reorganization space of the defeated party's subjectivity," is taken up by this series; §18 originally speaks of the victorious party, and reading it onto an occupier that has not won is to argue a fortiori (extension; own undertaking). The form of stationing troops is not judged. "Maintained observation" originally means holding open Theorem One's re-evaluation channel; it does not mean setting up posts on the other side's land to manage it. Setting up observation points on the other side's land is itself an act: first the source of authority for setting them up, the manner of entry, what they may do and the arrangement for withdrawal are explained, and then they are checked by N25 and N33; they are neither presumed to be legitimate nor presumed to be colonization. The part of the occupation that decided the direction for the other side is not made good by later results or approval; whether the other side's supreme rule thereafter is legitimate is checked by the present, by the three layers of N1, and is not decided by its origin.
§6 Two Floors in War
On the second day of the shelling of Reedtown, the Executive Council's Executive Defense Group (the First Executive, the Executive for Defense and the Executive for External Affairs) issued Directive No. 3 by 2 to 1: no organized evacuation of Reedtown. The written reason was that an organized evacuation "would signal to the DRP that the UCSE is abandoning the West Flats." The First Executive said: "We stand with Reedtown, to the last person." The passes were issued three days late. Civilians of Reedtown who died during the fighting and the DRP's control: one hundred forty (UCSE Case 18; three things in Paper 4, §6).
The same summer, the Council of Three ordered "flow limits" at the West Pass border crossing: at most eight hundred people a day let through, the rest waiting in line at the western end of the West Pass Bridge, on the DRP side; DRP men aged nineteen to fifty were sent separately to a "screening area," for up to twenty-one days. The written reason: "To guard against infiltration." That winter the line west of the bridge was at its longest about eleven thousand people, waiting in the open for six to nine days; a woman gave birth on the bridge, and two elderly people died in the cold night (UCSE Case 12; three things in Paper 3, §5).
Two matters: one falls on this state's own people, the other on people outside its door. Seen together in wartime, they have one and the same shape: putting persons behind the construct's purposes. In the first, for the sake of a statement outward and a piece of land, this state's own people were left under fire. Paper 4 says that a state may not require the community as a whole to go to its death, nor put the safety of its internal subjects behind holding a carrier or a statement outward (N23); the War Treatise puts it more firmly, of yu-sui, honorable annihilation: "Yu-sui is structurally unqualified under SAE." (War Treatise §19) In the second, for this state's safety, people outside its door were made to wait through cold nights. Paper 5 says that it does not trade the people of other states for this state's safety (N25), on the ground of Institution Theory's sentence: "When protection reaches the scale of a group, it does not trade others for this group's safety" (Institution Theory Z19).
In war, these two sentences join in one place: it does not trade outsiders for survival, nor does it require its own people to die. Each sentence has its own source; this section sets up no new proposition, and says only that in war they are one and the same: war defends persons; it does not use persons to defend the construct. The War Treatise defines failure as: "Failure: the concrete carrier of cultivation fails to hold, but cultivation itself does not terminate." (War Treatise §19) A piece of land may be lost; a construct may fall back; to use this state's own people, or people outside its door, as padding so as not to lose it, is to slide from the defending side toward the side it resists: "if resisters are not vigilant, they may become another 14DD in the process of resisting 14DD." (War Treatise §5)
Where This Paper Stops
This paper has proved only these things: starting a war follows Theorem One of the War Treatise, and expanding it follows Theorem Two, cited as they stand, and their range is not altered; the determination of the cannot-not of every war act is not monopolized by a single position, is time-limited, and is open to questioning, and starting, expanding and crossing the boundary are each determined on their own, the state of war not standing in for the determination; of the ought of the "war-party," this paper takes on only the construct's slot, the position taking accountability and the person his own law, and the group layer still has no address yet; in war, civilians of the other side whom this state's acts reach and who have no way to exit are, as regards those acts, in this state's interior, following the unified sentence; the other side's combatants who have laid down their arms, been captured, or are wounded or sick also come under the unified sentence, and the limit on using force against combatants in action follows War Treatise §15, with this series setting up no other; the line is not discounted by war, and an act that crosses the line is booked as crossing the line and its account is booked, neither renamed on account of war or of the cannot-not nor thereby shown to have been impermissible in the first place; the part that crosses the boundary of "dissolving the threat" is not within the cannot-not, with three criteria and two grades of determination, and the other side's crossings are only identified, with no ought written for that side; on the facts of the UCSE cases, the ceasefire reaches the threshold, and remaining stationed on the other side's land after that is an expansion that must be determined on its own; occupation may not become colonization, this state exits the other side's space of reorganization, and "maintained observation" holds open Theorem One's re-evaluation channel; to set up posts on the other side's land, the source of authority, the manner of entry, what they may do and the arrangement for withdrawal are stated first, and then checked.
What it has not proved: concrete strategy and tactics, whether crossing the river was itself a cannot-not, and whether Junction Town should have been struck that time belong to the political and military leaders in their positions (following the Prequel, §8; War Treatise §3; the Chinese page); the history of war; how the War Treatise's methods-constraint comes down, in particular cases, onto each use of force against combatants in action, which this paper quotes as it stands, sets up nothing further for, and does not judge on behalf of those who carry it out; the group layer's "should," which is handed to the Critiques; what a third state does inside another state, which is handed to the Theory of Inter-State Cooperation; how the positions for determination and for the check afterward are set up, of which only the function is established; the DRP's interior, for which this paper writes no ought.
The waiting hall, those twenty kilometers, and the posts on the two hilltops will be used again in Paper 7.
The Five Propositions of This Paper
N30 Starting a war follows Theorem One of the War Treatise (carried over); the determination is not monopolized (extension; own undertaking). The opening of war must satisfy a cannot-not: fa-mou and fa-jiao are exhausted, subjectivity is pushed to the critical threshold, and not fighting would cause cultivation to be completely interrupted in this field (War Treatise §13). Every expansion must pass a cannot-not of its own, and "since we've already started fighting" may not be used to smuggle in objective-drift (Theorem Two of the War Treatise, the opening of the Middle Volume and §14; carried over). What this series adds is the determination: who determines this cannot-not. The determination is not monopolized by a single position, is time-limited, and is open to questioning (Theory of Government G32 extended to war acts; extension; own undertaking). How the state of war is entered and left is carried over from Paper 4, N19, and not rewritten; starting a war, expanding it, and crossing the boundary are each a new decision, each determined on its own, and "already covered by the declaration of the state of war" does not stand in for the determination.
N31 The ought of the "war-party" falls on the state as a construct (own undertaking). The Second Critique registers the "should" that the War Treatise addresses to the "war-party" as group layer, with no address yet, and in the same section reassigns institutions to Institution Theory and the Theory of Government; by way of this reassignment, this series gives the construct's slot within it an address: the war-party is a construct, and the construct takes the ought; those who declare war and those who command are in positions, and take accountability; soldiers and civilians each have their own law, and no ought is written for them. The group layer itself still has no address yet, and is handed to the Critiques. Theorem Four of the War Treatise: the war-party has no privilege of not being questioned (War Treatise §16).
N32 In war, the other side's people are in this state's interior (extension; own undertaking). Civilians of the other side whom this state's war acts reach and who have no way to exit are, as regards those acts, in this state's interior, following the unified sentence; the line is not discounted by war (Institution Theory Z9); holding to stops neither in emergency nor in war (Theory of Government G30). Where this state, in an official capacity, publicly calls on the other side's people to take life-endangering action in the service of its war aims, those who answer are, as regards this call, in this state's interior. For the other side's combatants in action, the limit on using force against them follows the methods-constraint of War Treatise §15, and this series sets up no other; those who have laid down their arms, been captured, or are wounded or sick come under the unified sentence.
N33 The part that crosses the boundary is not within the cannot-not (own undertaking). Once this state's war acts cross the boundary of "dissolving the threat" and turn into expansion or oppression, the part that crosses is no longer sheltered by the cannot-not; it is not exempt from the check because this state ordinarily leans more toward the 15DD direction. Where the criteria come from: expansion by the defending side follows Theorem Two (§14) and Theorem Three (§15) of the War Treatise (carried over): an expansion must pass on its own "without expanding, the position defended under Theorem One will fail to hold" (War Treatise §14; rendered from the Chinese page); sliding from dissolving the threat to transforming the other side, or to settling it once and for all, is objective-drift, and is crossing the boundary. The "14DD against 14DD" that the War Treatise places outside its range, that is, the stretch after both sides' acts have crossed the boundary, the War Treatise does not judge; in this stretch this series sets up criteria of its own by analogy with Theorems Two and Three and with §18 (extension; own undertaking), which is not an extended use of the War Treatise's criteria. The three criteria: whether the threat is being dissolved; whether management of the other side's internal affairs has begun, that is, a control that goes beyond dissolving the threat to prescribe for the other side the direction of its reorganization (entering the other side's territory only for aid or repair is not, on that ground alone, judged); whether a control is set up with no time limit and no path of exit. If any one of the three is crossed, the part that crosses is not within the cannot-not. Removing one side's shelter does not give the other side an unlimited qualification to act. Determination in two grades (own undertaking): acts that expand the war (advancing across the boundary, setting up a zone of control, prolonging a presence) are each a new decision, determined separately as in N30; single acts in combat are carried out under rules made public beforehand, and are checked afterward against the three criteria by a position independent of the commanding side; when the check takes place is stated, and its form is not fixed. Acts already carried out and proposals not yet carried out are checked separately: for a proposal, what is checked is whether, if carried out, it would cross the boundary.
N34 Occupation may not become colonization (carried over from the War Treatise; SF6 taken up). The victorious party shall not decide on the defeated party's direction of subjectivity-development on their behalf; not colonizing, but maintained observation (War Treatise §18). The second item §18 lists for the victorious party, "exit the reorganization space of the defeated party's subjectivity," is taken up by this series; §18 originally speaks of the victorious party, and reading it onto an occupier that has not won is to argue a fortiori (extension; own undertaking). The form of stationing troops is not judged. "Maintained observation" originally means holding open Theorem One's re-evaluation channel; it does not mean setting up posts on the other side's land to manage it. Setting up observation points on the other side's land is itself an act: first the source of authority for setting them up, the manner of entry, what they may do and the arrangement for withdrawal are explained, and then they are checked by N25 and N33; they are neither presumed to be legitimate nor presumed to be colonization. The part of the occupation that decided the direction for the other side is not made good by later results or approval; whether the other side's supreme rule thereafter is legitimate is checked by the present, by the three layers of N1, and is not decided by its origin.
References
All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version. The version records used for sentence-by-sentence verification are given in the accompanying audit table.
I · This system
Qin, H. (2026). SAE War Treatise: How Cultivation Is Not Swallowed by War Itself [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19656617
Qin, H. (2026). SAE: The Second Critique [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23250387
Qin, H. (2026). What an Institution Is Not (SAE Institution Theory, Prequel) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23269330
Qin, H. (2026). To Whom the Ought Is Addressed (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23269635
Qin, H. (2026). Not Crossing the Line (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 2) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23270384
Qin, H. (2026). Guarding the Line (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23270766
Qin, H. (2026). Between One Another (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23271072
Qin, H. (2026). Open to Questioning (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23271324
Qin, H. (2026). Judgment (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23412130
Qin, H. (2026). Levels (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 4) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413192
Qin, H. (2026). Emergency (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413413
Qin, H. (2026). Questioning and Bearing (SAE Theory of Government, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413511
II · External works (public-domain originals, tier A)
Kant, I. (1795). Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf. Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius. Project Gutenberg, EBook #46873. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46873
Kant, I. (1917). Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay. Trans. M. Campbell Smith (1st ed. 1903; 3rd impression). London: George Allen & Unwin. Project Gutenberg, EBook #50922. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50922
III · External works (secondary sources underlying tier C)
Lazar, S. War. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/
Orend, B. War. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition; substantive revision 2005). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/war/
McIntyre, A. Doctrine of Double Effect. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (substantive revision 2023). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/
Bass, G. J. (2004). Jus Post Bellum. Philosophy & Public Affairs 32(4), 384–412.
IV · External works (cited at second hand)
Walzer, M. (1977). Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. New York: Basic Books. (original not in hand; paraphrased from the secondary literature listed above; tier C; chapter titles per the library catalogue record of the fifth edition, Basic Books, 2015; page numbers for ch. 7 per the 1992 edition as cited in Bass 2004)
Interfaces
- Main upstream: War Treatise §§1, 3, 5, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, and the opening of the Middle Volume (the English page where it has the sentence; otherwise rendered from the Chinese page, as marked in place); The Second Critique, Ch. 6 §§4, 5 and 7, and Appendix I, §7; Institution Theory Z4, Z6, Z9, Z10, Z12, Z19, Z31, Z34, Z37, and the Institution Theory Prequel, §7, the entry "Relational thickness"; Theory of Government G2, G25, G30, G32, G34, G35, G36, and Theory of Government Paper 6, Interfaces.
- Also used: War Treatise §6 (one layer of "last," Introduction); Institution Theory Paper 1, Abstract (saying ought to a construct replaces no one's law).
- Interfacing: Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, chs. 2 and 4 (§1), chs. 8 and 9 (§3, with the objection drafted by this paper), ch. 7 (§4), in place, all tier C, with no closing section; Kant, Perpetual Peace, Preliminary Article 5 (§5, tier A), with Article 6 cited only as concurring.
- This series: the Prequel, §1 (a state is a construct, not a subject), §3 ("last" is not an endpoint), §7 (judgment falls on acts), §8 (conventions, the unified sentence, measure); Paper 1, N1; Paper 3, §5 (the three things of UCSE Case 12), §7 (N17, the asylum of the nine); Paper 4, §2 (N19, the three things of UCSE Case 24), N20, §5 (N22; the observation posts are not among the wartime structures that expire on reaching the threshold, and are handed to §5 of this paper), §6 (N23, the three things of UCSE Case 18), §7 (N23a, the three things of UCSE Case 27); Paper 5, N24, N25, N26, §3 (the three things of UCSE Case 23); Paper 7, §§1 and 3 (Junction Town questioned afterward), §4 (N39).
- Handed to Paper 7: after the war, the question that remains is whether anyone still questions the last layer.