John Galt, Anyone Interested,
I think you are talking about War Protection. As I understand it, the bonus to turning it off, is to country score, not Welfare Index. War Protection protects a single country, not the whole Empire, from attack by anyone. It has no effect on War Level restrictions.
Also, I looked up the documentation on war levels, to clarify my own question about War's Between Players...
"Countries in war levels 3, 4, and 5 can declare war on any country with a president, which is at the same war level. Starting with war level 6, it is also possible to declare war against countries with a president, that have a war level one or two levels higher than that of the attacking country."
"Declaring war against countries in higher level than your own is as described above possible if you are in war level 6 or higher but it has a price. Once you declare war against a higher level country, you become