War and the Law of Nations: A General History (review)

Stephen C. Neff's account of war from ancient times to the present emphasizes the interplay of legal ideas and the state practice of organized conflict. His two basic arguments are as follows. First, modern observers base much of their legal understanding of war on the outdated nineteenth-century model, which assumed wars between competing nation-states. Legal conceptions of war have changed and adapted to the historical circumstances in which they arose—they are not fundamentally universal. Second, the relationship between the law and the practice of war is a complex one. War has molded law as law has indubitably molded war. Neff examines four distinct eras to make his case.

The first era, antiquity to 1600, envisaged war as a means of law enforcement. Inspired by both Roman and Christian concepts of just war, jurists developed a body of law that understood war as the means to rectify the upending of the natural order of peace. Yet, restrictions on the violence and the targets of war were at best poorly defined. Between 1600 and 1815, Neff sees a "transition" where the underpinnings of "just war" came under assault largely due to the development of the "modern" state. For Thomas Hobbes and others who amended or discarded natural law theory, states had every right to seek their interest even if it clashed with the interests of others. By 1815 war was increasingly viewed as the natural state of international affairs. Peace was voluntary.

Such a view proved disastrous between 1815 and 1919; an era which understood war as state policy. With the rise of positivism, the morality of war faded into obscurity. The right of a state to wage war against any other state that challenged its interest became absolute. The infrequency of general conflict in much of this era might make this worldview appear valid and altogether tempting. But that worldview was sacrificed on the battlefields of the Somme and Verdun. Conversely, this period witnessed the emergence of the Red Cross, the Geneva Convention, and the Hague Protocols. War could not be questioned, but the methods of war increasingly came under international (if voluntary) scrutiny. The final era, 1918 to the present, witnessed the slow reemergence of just war theory in modern form. After 1945, under the auspices of the United Nations, war again was restricted to limit its frequency. Unfortunately wars continued under different guises. Civil and ethnic struggles and wars of national liberation replaced traditional modes of conflict. The difficulty in defining war blurred the distinctions between just and unjust contests. Moral confusion and the Cold War would later spew forth challenges to this fledgling synthesis: namely in the form of international terrorism.

Neff presents a persuasive argument. His mastery of the literature is noteworthy as is his penetrating analysis, especially of Roman and Christian doctrines. His analysis lightly touches on the practice of war where applicable. The problem of connecting legal paradigms to practice, as the author readily concedes, falls outside the scope of this work. Overall, this is a readable and fascinating account of legal concepts of war and should be on the reading list of any serious military historian.