Riots are indiscriminate almost by definition. Has there ever been a riot whose targeted damage outpaced its collateral damage? We can imagine such a thing, but if it's not practically likely to ever occur I don't know what the point would be of developing theories about it.

On the other hand it's very straightforward to locate some justified wars in history. In fact I would say that most wars have a side that has a just cause, which is typically the defender.

You used two different standards for riots and wars. For riots you judged damage. For war you judged motivation.

Most wars fail your targeted vs collateral damage test. Maybe the US drone war from 2001 to present as an exception. Although we don’t really have the full picture to say.

Hrm, neither of motivation nor damage are sufficient alone. It's something like the product of the two. For an action to be justified it must both have a just motivation and a reasonably predicted just outcome proportional to the motivation. If either of those two requirements are not met, then the action is not just. Happy to go into examples if it would help clarify what I'm thinking. Feel free to ask if you want me to, but I think you might already understand my pov from what I've said above.

To be clear, I am not arguing that my point of view is or should be universal. I'm only sharing my own thoughts on the issue.

> I don't know what the point would be of developing theories about it.

Easy, the same reason most contrarian theories are developed: grant money and academic prestige. Most theories like this are woefully at odds with what the majority of society believes. If you asked most Americans whether or not they wanted a riot, just or not, in their neighborhood, you know what they would answer.

Riots are sort of like protests that have lost control. We have just protests.

If we compare it to war, would a riot be like a certain subset of war that's lost control, like a slaughter, though that name doesn't perfectly fit and my vocabulary may be lacking a term for what I'm thinking of? Are there any theories to call such a war that's lost control just, or would the loss of control preclude it from the theories you mentioned?

We call those "war crimes".

I'm not convinced there is no theory of a just riot, at least inasmuch as the majority of riots in history seem to have non-participating academic types willing to explain explaining why the anger was in this case justified. (Some of it's pretty ad hoc rationalisation, but lots of "just war" claims are too). Plenty of theory about how much rioting is too much rioting too.

It's just that most people who believe a cause justifies a riot (whether that's police killings, blasphemy, a candidate not winning an election or high taxes) want the riot to go beyond a riot and into some sort of actual change. A war is justified as a means to an end; a riot is usually only a small part of that means.

Also, a lot of just war theory boils down to asking religious figures or bodies like the UN for permission, which isn't really practical for your average riot.