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It's not ever justified.
Which is kind of the point. If it's a last resort of self-preservation or to prevent an unacceptable alternative outcome, inherent to the choice to engage or endorse large scale violence is the underlying reality of choosing between two evils.
It's not noble or good. It's never justified.
Yet in certain situations it may be regarded as necessary.
But a necessary evil is not made good by virtue of its necessity.
And attempts to undermine the absolutism by which large scale violence is inherently unjustifiable, to turn atrocity into Micky Mouse heroism or patriotism, ultimately creates a moral tapestry wherein all atrocities can thus be justified by the relative perspectives of what is good.
So no, there is no measure by which large scale violence transforms into justifiable behavior, under any circumstances.
And a wise society would always regard its adoption as a stain upon its history, irrespective of what other horrors it was brought in to clear out.
You seem to think necessary !-> justified.
However, if something is necessary, it is justified.
While you may quibble, "it's necessary to defend myself in life or death situations, but it isn't justified", this part "it's necessary to defend myself in life or death situations" IS the justification of the action. It's justified definitionally.
As such, your argument crumbles.
If you want a diamond necklace that you can't afford, it is necessary to steal it in order to have it.
It is not justified to steal it simply because it was necessary to meet your goals.
You are implicitly assuming that the necessity of self-preservation equates justification on the premise that self-preservation is a just result.
I don't agree.
If two soldiers are fighting for their lives against each other, it may be necessary for each to survive to kill the other.
But the family of the one that dies may not see their loved one's death as justified even if the family of the one that survived sees it that way.
Your self-preservation is worthless to me, and thus justifies nothing. My own self-preservation is literally worth everything to me - and yet if still does not justify my taking everything from you, even if I deem it necessary to achieve my own desires and goals, any more than my desire for a necklace I cannot afford justifies its theft.
There is a distinction between things like stealing bread to save a life where a necessary action is justified by the good that comes out of it and stealing bread to throw away in order to achieve a thrill. Both are necessary to their goals, but one has a goal that justifies the necessary action while the other does not.
I'm saying that there is no goal or good in existence that justifies the inherit evil of mass violence, even if there are a myriad of ways in which mass violence might be necessary to one's goals, with those ranging from ethnic cleansing to fighting tyranny.