Is Jih D A Just War

Through a careful examination of religious and philosophical literature, the contributors to the volume analyze, compare and assess diverse Western, Islamic, Hindu and East Asian perspectives concerning the appropriate criteria that should govern the decision to resort to the use of armed force and, once that decision is made, what constraints should govern the actual conduct of military operations. In doing so, the volume promotes a better understanding of the various ways in which diverse peoples and societies within the global community approach the question of what constitutes the legitimate use of military force as an instrument of policy in the resolution of conflicts.

An important, timely book on the morality of armed conflicts in the twenty-first century. Every society and every period of history has had to face the reality of war. War inevitably yields situations in which the normal ethical rules of society have to be overridden. The Just War tradition has evolved over the centuries as a careful endeavour to impose moral discipline and humanity on resort to war and in its waging, and the tradition deserves our attention now as much as ever. Just War traces the origin and nature of the tradition from its roots in Christian thinking and provides a clear summary of its principles, which are accessible to all beliefs. As the circumstances and necessities of war have changed over time, so too have the practical interpretations of the tradition. Drawing examples from Kosovo, Afghanistan and the wars in Iraq, Charles Guthrie and Michael Quinlan look at the key concepts in relation to modern armed conflict. The tradition sets rational limits and respects the adversary's humanity amid the chaos of war, and provides systematic questions which governments and armed forces must ask themselves before they engage in war. This short but powerful book is a timely re-examination of its tenets and their relevance in the twenty-first century, setting out the case for a workable and credible moral framework for modern war before, while and after it is waged.

The question of the legality of humanitarian intervention is, at first blush, a simple one. The Charter of the United Nations clearly prohibits the use of force, with the only exceptions being self-defence and enforcement actions authorized by the Security Council. There are, however, long-standing arguments that a right of unilateral intervention pre-existed the Charter. This book, which won the ASIL Certificate of Merit in 2002, begins with an examination of the genealogy of that right, and arguments that it might have survived the passage of the Charter, either through a loophole in Article 2(4) or as part of customary international law. It has also been argued that certain `illegitimate' regimes lose the attributes of sovereignty and thereby the protection given by the prohibition of the use of force. None of these arguments is found to have merit, either in principle or in the practice of states. A common justification for a right of unilateral humanitarian intervention concerns the failure of the collective security mechanism created after the Second World War. Chapters 4 and 5, therefore, examine Security Council activism in the 1990s, notable for the plasticity of the circumstances in which the Council was prepared to assert its primary responsibility for international peace and security, and the contingency of its actions on the willingness of states to carry them out. This reduction of the Council's role from substantive to formal partly explains the recourse to unilateralism in that decade, most spectacularly in relation to the situation in Kosovo. Crucially, the book argues that such unilateral enforcement is not a substitute for but the opposite of collective action. Though often presented as the only alternative to inaction, incorporating a `right' of intervention would lead to more such interventions being undertaken in bad faith, it would be incoherent as a principle, and it would be inimical to the emergence of an international rule of law.

America and the Just War Tradition examines and evaluates each of America’s major wars from a just war perspective. Using moral analysis that is anchored in the just war tradition, the contributors provide careful historical analysis evaluating individual conflicts. Each chapter explores the causes of a particular war, the degree to which the justice of the conflict was a subject of debate at the time, and the extent to which the war measured up to traditional ad bellum and in bello criteria. Where appropriate, contributors offer post bellum considerations, insofar as justice is concerned with helping to offer a better peace and end result than what had existed prior to the conflict. This fascinating exploration offers policy guidance for the use of force in the world today, and will be of keen interest to historians, political scientists, philosophers, and theologians, as well as policy makers and the general reading public. Contributors: J. Daryl Charles, Darrell Cole, Timothy J. Demy, Jonathan H. Ebel, Laura Jane Gifford, Mark David Hall, Jonathan Den Hartog, Daniel Walker Howe, Kerry E. Irish, James Turner Johnson, Gregory R. Jones, Mackubin Thomas Owens, John D. Roche, and Rouven Steeves

This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of warfare ethics in early China as well as its subsequent development. Chinese attitudes toward war are rich and nuanced, ranging across amoral realism, defensive just war, humanitarian intervention, and mournful skepticism. Covering the five major intellectual traditions in the "golden age" of Chinese civilization: Confucian, Daoist, Mohist, Legalist, and Military Strategy schools, the book’s chapters immerse readers in the proper historical contexts, examine the moral concerns in the classical texts on their own terms, reframe those concerns in contemporary ethical idioms, and forge a critical dialogue between the past and the present. The volume develops fresh moral interpretations of classical texts such as The Art of War, Mencius, Xunzi, Mozi, and the Daodejing and discusses famous philosophers such as Han Fei and Wang Yang-ming, representing antithetical schools of thought about warfare. Attention is also given to the military ethics of the People’s Liberation Army, examining its thinking against the backdrop of its own civilizational context. This book will be of much interest to students of just war theory, Chinese politics, ethics, and philosophy, military studies, and International Relations in general.

Holy War, Just War explores the "dark side" in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism by examining how the concept of ultimate value contributes to religious violence. The book states that religion has within its own conceptual tools the resources to understand its own dark side and that religious people must subject their religion to a moral vision of goodness and constrain those parts that make for violence and hatred.

As the war in Iraq continues and Americans debate the consequences of the war in Afghanistan, the war on terror, and the possibility of war with North Korea and Iran, war is one of the biggest issues in public debate. Andrew Fiala in The Just War Myth challenges the apparently predominant American sentiment that war can be easily justified. Even most Democrats seem to hold that opinion, despite the horrific costs of war both on the people being attacked or caught up in the chaos and on the Americans involved in carrying out the war. The Just War Myth argues that while the just war theory is a good theory, actual wars do not live up to its standards. The book provides a genealogy of the just war idea and also turns a critical eye on current events, including the idea of preemptive war, the use of torture, and the unreality of the Bush Doctrine. Fiala warns that pacifism, too, can become mythological, advocating skepticism about attempts to justify war.

In February 2004, Denver Seminary’s annual Biblical Studies conference addressed the question of modern war and the teachings of biblical ethics regarding it. The conference was envisioned as a collaborative effort between the Association for Christian Conferences, Teaching, and Service (ACCTS), and the Biblical Studies division of Denver Seminary. A year earlier, the invasion of Iraq had taken place. The questions created by the outbreak of war prompted an urgency in the consideration of the topic. ACCTS, which sponsors international symposia in military ethics with officers from armed forces around the globe, provided ethicists and practitioners from within the military of both the U.S. and Great Britain. Hess and Martens also solicited papers from leading theologians and advocates representing pacifist and just-war views. They have succeeded in bringing together in this fine volume a group of Christians representing a wide range of perspectives to debate and discuss their heritage and biblical roots with regard to questions of war and its ethical dilemmas.