In the seminal Just and Unjust Wars, Michael Walzer famously considered the ethics of modern warfare, examining the moral issues that arise before, during, and after conflict. However, Walzer and subsequent scholars have often limited their analyses of the ethics of combat to soldiers on the ground and failed to recognize the moral responsibilities of senior political and military leaders. In Just War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Theory, James M. Dubik draws on years of research as well as his own experiences as a soldier and teacher to fill the gaps left by other theorists. He applies moral philosophy, political philosophy, and strategic studies to historical and contemporary case studies to reveal the inaccuracies and moral bankruptcy that inform some of the literature on military ethics. Conventional just war theory adopts a binary approach, wherein political leaders have moral accountability for the decision to go to war and soldiers have accountability for fighting the war ethically. Dubik argues, however, that political and military leadership should be held accountable for the planning and execution of war in addition to the decision to initiate conflict. Dubik bases his sober reassessment on the fundamental truth that war risks the lives of soldiers and innocents as well as the political and social health of communities. He offers new standards to evaluate the ethics of warfare in the hope of increasing the probability that the lives of soldiers will not be used in vain and the innocent not put at risk unnecessarily.
The book re-examines questions of contemporary urgency, including the use of biological and nuclear weapons, military intervention, economic sanctions, and the role of the UN. It opens with a challenging dedication to the new Archbishop of ...
Success in war ultimately depends on the consolidation of political order. Nadia Schadlow argues that the steps needed to consolidate a new political order are not separate from war.
These essays share a commitment to the idea that the tradition is more about a rigorous application of Just War principles than the satisfaction of a checklist of criteria to be met before waging “just” war in the service of national ...
The twelve original essays span both foundational and topical issues in the ethics of war, including an investigation of: whether there is a "greater-good" obligation that parallels the canonical lesser-evil justification in war; the ...
By intersecting philosophy, theology, and foreign policy, this book greatly contributes to the global discussion of the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it provides the foundation for analyzing the present war in Libya as well as ...
In other cases, we can and often do act out of genuine motives of love. Niebuhr thus collapses categories together. He allows a blurring among kinds of impossibility to foster defeatism generally about the ethic ...
America and the Just War Tradition examines and evaluates each of America’s major wars from a just war perspective.
Battle of Cedar Bluff, May 3, 1863 Disgusted with being the victim of Forrest's raids, Grant retaliated by sending a brigade of 1,500 Union cavalry under Colonel Abel Streight to counterraid Confederate positions in north Alabama and ...
In War as Paradox, Youri Cormier lifts the fog on this iconic work by explaining its philosophical underpinnings.
In this enlarged second edition, a new introduction addresses the common criticism that traditional just war theory is incoherent, outmoded, and in need of radical revision.