ebook img

Arguing About War PDF

225 Pages·2009·0.74 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Arguing About War

ARGUING ABOUT WAR Michael Walzer ARGUING about WAR ≤ Yale University Press New Haven & London Published with assistance from the Kingsley Trust Association Publication Fund established by the Scroll and Key Society of Yale College. Copyright ∫ 2004 by Michael Walzer. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Designed by Nancy Ovedovitz and set in Janson Oldstyle type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Printed in the United States of America by R. R. Donnelley, Harrisonburg, Virginia Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Walzer, Michael. Arguing about war / Michael Walzer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-300-10365-4 1. War. 2. Just war doctrine. 3. Intervention (International law). 4. World politics—1989–. I. Title. U21.2.W34497 2004 172%.42—dc22 2003067409 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 For JBW, always CONTENTS Introduction ix PA R T O N E ¥ T H E O R Y 1 The Triumph of Just War Theory (and the Dangers of Success) 3 2 Two Kinds of Military Responsibility 23 3 Emergency Ethics 33 4 Terrorism: A Critique of Excuses 51 5 The Politics of Rescue 67 PA R T T W O ¥ C A S E S 6 Justice and Injustice in the Gulf War 85 7 Kosovo 99 8 The Intifada and the Green Line 104 9 The Four Wars of Israel/Palestine 113 10 After 9/11: Five Questions About Terrorism 130 11 Five on Iraq 143 Inspectors Yes, War No The Right Way What a Little War Could Do So, Is This a Just War? Just and Unjust Occupations CONTENTS PA R T T H R E E ¥ F U T U R E S 12 Governing the Globe 171 Acknowledgments 193 Notes 197 Credits 201 Index 203 viii INTRODUCTION Clausewitz’s famous line, that war is the continuation of politics by other means, was probably meant to be provocative, but it seems to me obviously true. And the claim is equally obvious the other way around: politics is the continuation of war by other means. It is very important, however, that the means are dif- ferent. Politics is a form of peaceful contention, and war is orga- nized violence. All the participants, all the activists and militants, survive a political defeat (unless the victor is a tyrant, at war with his own people), whereas many participants, soldiers and civilians alike, do not survive a military defeat—or a victory either. War kills, and that is why the argument about war is so intense. The theory of just war, which I defended in Just and Unjust Wars (1977) and which is further developed and applied in the essays collected here, is, first of all, an argument about the moral standing of warfare as a human activity. The argument is twofold: that war is sometimes justifiable and that the conduct of war is always subject to moral criticism. The first of these propositions is denied by pacifists, who believe that war is a criminal act; and the second is denied by realists, for whom ‘‘all’s fair in love and war’’: inter arma silent leges (in time of war, the laws are silent). So just war theorists set themselves in opposition to pacifists and realists, of whom there are a great number, although some of the pacifists are selective in their opposition to war and some of the realists have been heard, in the heat of battle, to express moral sentiments. But just war theory is not only an argument about war in ix

Description:
In my opinion; It is unfortunate that Mr Walzer is at an advanced age as he is unlikely to actually learn about war so as to enable him to argue about it with credibility and understanding. Credit goes to the other (2) reviewers of this book as they did a very good job of writing to describe nearly
See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.