Just war reasoning attempts to discriminate between defensible and indefensible uses of force. It does not accept “state interest” as an unbeatable trump; it requires that moral distinctions be drawn. Here, in twenty highly readable essays, scholars and expert practitioners draw such distinctions as they ponder some of the hardest questions facing policymakers today. Commentators on the just war tradition itself and on various forms of intervention in other countries provide a wealth of insights into when the use of force is justifiable. Others look at how democracies can fight terrorism and at the obligation of self-defense in the context of missile defense. Contributors include R. James Woolsey, James Turner Johnson, Margaret Thatcher, Robert Kagan, Eugene V. Rostow, Oliver Revell, and Eric Breindel.
Among the topics: just war in an era of new military technology; the moral case for preemption in the case of “rogue” states armed with biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons; the U.S. intervention in Somalia, from the differing perspectives of the State Department and the Defense Department; both an Israeli and an American view of counterterrorism and democratic values; and why the opposition to defending the United States against missiles continues.
