In Response

First of all, let me record my gratitude to colleagues for their having taken the time and trouble to read and comment on my book. Their attention honors it, and their comments serve to test and develop it—sometimes confirming, sometimes correcting, and sometimes identifying further work that remains to be done.

Have I Ever Met a War I Did Not Like?

Charles Mathewes observes that all three wars that I analyze in detail— Britain’s against Germany in 1914–18, NATO’s against Serbia in Kosovo in 1999, and the U.S.-led coalition’s against Iraq in 2003—I reckon justified. This might well fuel skeptics’ suspicion that just war reasoning is little more than the elaborate ethical rationalization of Realpolitik. In case that is so, let me point out that I do mention in passing two instances of belligerency that fall foul of “just war” criteria—the Spanish conquistadors’ invasion of the Americas and the British bombardment of Canton in 1841 (2013, 161). I also imply a lack of justification for war-waging by the opponents of each of my justified belligerencies—Germany’s against Britain, Serbia’s against NATO, and Iraq’s against the coalition. I would happily swell the ranks of unjust warriors with the Irish nationalists who staged the Easter Rising against the British in 1916. And, lest it seem that the Anglo-Saxons are always righteous in my eyes, let me add to the bombardment of Canton the British invasion of Cetshwayo’s Zulu kingdom in 1879. That my list of unjustified wars is not longer yet is attributable simply to the limits of my historical knowledge.

Where Is the Tragedy and Ambiguity?

Both Mathewes and Cian O’Driscoll find In Defence of War weak in its admission of the tragedy and moral ambiguity of war. Mathewes suggests that its account of just war is unbalanced in the predominance of its “legal-ethical algorithmic” dimension over its appreciation of war’s tragic and downright sinful aspects. Lisa Cahill leans in the same direction. I am sure that readers can find passages where I admit, even lament, the often tragic and sometimes sinful character of war. But if I have not made it clear enough, let me do so now: often the just warrior bears a measure of responsibility for the unjust warrior’s wrongdoing, and sometimes military killing is so driven by hatred that it shakes off all restraint and becomes simply murderous. I do not doubt this for a moment. Nevertheless, it is true that that is not where the center of gravity of my thinking lies. Rather, it lies in how, despite tragedy and sin, the waging of war can nevertheless be justified—how it can be right for fellow sinners to wage it, how it can be motivated by love, how it can avoid intending the deaths of the enemy. So I acknowledge the imbalance. There is a reason for it, however, and I believe it to be a good one. When thinking and writing about war, I usually imagine myself in the shoes of those who bear the responsibility of making political and military decisions, and of doing so under the unrelenting pressure of time. These are they who cannot allow themselves to wallow in the mess and drift in the fog. These are they who have to cut through the complexity and the ambiguity with a decisive (and fateful) yes or no. These are they who have to pull the trigger, or not. I think it salutary for academic ethicists to stand in those shoes, and I think that Christian ethicists have a pastoral responsibility to do so. So I am not inclined to apologize for my book’s bias toward ethical analysis and the crafting of decisive judgments, although I do accept that more overt lamentation of the tragedy and sin that attend war might have been rhetorically prudent.

Both O’Driscoll and Mathewes would have had me ponder more than I did the moral and spiritual decay that the experience of combat causes and the correlative need for confession and penance, whether religious or secular...