Editing Just war theory (section)

===Ancient Egypt===
A 2017 study found that the just war tradition can be traced as far back as to [[Ancient Egypt]].<ref name="cox">{{Cite journal|last=Cox|first=Rory|title=Expanding the History of the Just War: The Ethics of War in Ancient Egypt|journal=International Studies Quarterly|volume=61|issue=2|page=371|doi=10.1093/isq/sqx009|year=2017|hdl=10023/17848|hdl-access=free}}</ref> Egyptian ethics of war usually centered on three main ideas, these including the cosmological role of Egypt, the pharaoh as a divine office and executor of the will of the gods, and the superiority of the Egyptian state and population over all other states and peoples. Egyptian political theology held that the pharaoh had the exclusive legitimacy in justly initiating a war, usually claimed to carry out the will of the gods. [[Senusret I]], in the [[Twelfth Dynasty]], claimed, "I was nursed to be a conqueror...his [Atum's] son and his protector, he gave me to conquer what he conquered." Later pharaohs also considered their sonship of the god Amun-Re as granting them absolute ability to declare war on the deity's behalf. Pharaohs often visited temples prior to initiating campaigns, where the pharaoh was believed to receive their commands of war from the deities. For example, [[Kamose]] claimed that "I went north because I was strong (enough) to attack the Asiatics through the command of Amon, the just of counsels." A [[stele]] erected by [[Thutmose III]] at the Temple of Amun at [[Karnak]] "provides an unequivocal statement of the pharaoh's divine mandate to wage war on his enemies." As the period of the [[New Kingdom of Egypt|New Kingdom]] progressed and Egypt heightened its territorial ambition, so did the invocation of just war aid the justification of these efforts. The universal principle of [[Maat]], signifying order and justice, was central to the Egyptian notion of just war and its ability to guarantee Egypt virtually no limits on what it could take, do, or use to guarantee the ambitions of the state.<ref name="cox" />