The Just War Revisited

These brilliant reflections by Oxford's Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology began as a series of lectures delivered in Aberdeen and are supplemented by four further essays on the theme of just war. Needless to say, this matter has been much in the news in the last year, and the reader benefits from the afterword written in the spring of this year as the decision to go to war with Iraq was in the offing. In an essay on 'War by Other Means', O'Donovan quotes Clausewitz's famous dictum that 'war is nothing but the continuation of policy by other means', an observation that applies to current US foreign policy. This issue is sharpened in the last section when the author considers the Anglican Bishops' document sent to the House of Commons Select Committee. O'Donovan makes a crucial distinction between defensive and penal reasons for going to war (WMD vs. the Iraqi flouting of UN resolutions) while noting the extent to which the arguments have been conflated. He goes further by questioning whether a purely defensive reason is in fact an adequate justification for declaring war - the key issue here is one of authority - in this case that of the UN, as opposed to the US view of the UN. A highly recommended book for those who would like to get to grips with the complexities of current issues in the light of historical doctrines.