Arguing About War

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful
Review: This is a collection of essays and articles focused on the theme of when war is acceptable. In several ways, this book is a followup to Walzer's well known book, Just and Unjust Wars, which explored the same theme. As a collection of previously published pieces, this collection lacks the integrity of a monograph but it is better than most such collections because of the strong theme. It also has the advantage of being quite topical with some essays related to the ongoing war in Iraq. Walzer is critical and consistent thinker. He is opposed to pacifism but has clear and well considered standards for when war making is acceptable. He is generally in favor of well considered interventions to prevent genocide and to abolish odious regimes. He also treats some interesting topics and related topics such as the limits of the standards he develops and the concrete responsibilities of military personnel.
Much of this book is reprinted articles on events like the Bosnian war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the war in Iraq. Walzer does a good job of applying his theoretical constructs in a rigorous and fair way. He is critical, for example, of the Bush administration's preventive war in Iraq but has no patience with any efforts to justify terrorist activities. He is quite critical as well of European and Russian, as well as the Clinton administration's, policies towards Iraq.
Comparing Walzer's analysis of moral choices in policies towards Iraq with the statements of Bush administration spokesmen and apologists is interesting. Many of the same arguments appear, only Walzer applies them in a rigorous and consistent manner, often leading to very different conclusions. Walzer exhibits the moral clarity that the Bush administration would like to believe it possesses.
Walzer also makes the very good point that in a truly just war, moral intentions and behavior in the aftermath of a war are just as important as the decision to enter war and the conduct of war. Neglect of the aftermath is a weakness of traditional just war theory derived from the Catholic tradition. If you don't do a competent and principled job of occupation and reconstruction, your war is not moral. In contemporary Iraq, we're witnessing a counter-example of competent and principled occupation that serves as a vivid demonstration of Walzer's argument.