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The Just War Revisited (Current Issues in Theology)

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The book is a compilation of lecture essays that were delivered in Scotland (I think). He takes contemporary issues in war and peace and holds them up to the just war tradition and carves a path between liberal and conservative assumptions on issues such as nuclear warfare, urban guerilla warfare, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and their relation to a Christian political theology.

Although I am extremely uncomfortable with the ease with which O'Donovan speaks about justifiable wars; I was impressed with his articulation of discrimination in warfare. I am quite happy that the just war conversation has such well-articulate 'fans'; yet his connection of this tradition to the Christian Church and faith is disturbing.

His most problematic theological assumption is that the current 'dispensation' (a term he doesn't use, but assumes) is such that warfare is a proper expression of the judgment of the state. In his brief mention of eschatology, he suggests that since the kingdom of God is off in some distant future; the state and its warfare are necessary, and God gifted, provisional instruments used in God's justice-purposes. In other words, Christ's focal message of 'God's kingdom come' is completely left aside in favor of a quasi-realist, quasi-pragmatic practice of violent judgment.

I just wanted to ask O'Donovan if all this nitpicking about just causes, just weapons, and appropriate discrimination of attacks would have made any difference to Jesus who could be found, in all likelihood, among the ashes and the dying of any given war. Is any war 'just' that leaves children ripped to shreds? Challenging, good, and frustrating read...

The just-war position has often been misunderstood and wrongly applied to try justify conflict that has already begun. This book does a good job of returning to a classic understanding of the theory of a just war. However, the author makes some large assumptions about the state of humanity and forgets that we are incapable of perceiving justice in a manner that is in a state of grace without the flaws of sin and subjective judgment.

If you were to put Oliver O'Donovan into a school of international relations theory it would probably align with a Christian liberal internationalism. In the introductory pages O'Donovan sets up his argument that just war theory allows more than self-defense. It must also allow for justice. At the same time 'heroes' must act with courage and restraint. This is balanced with the notion that governments too easily justify their actions by way of legalism, the letter of the law. The just war tradition must certainly be kept from such corruption, as O'Donovan recognizes.

O'Donovan walks through 'just war' theory with sections on authority, discrimination, proportion and their sub-categories. The nature of the international system and warfare technology has changed much since the beginning of the 20th century and the application of just war theory is in constant debate following the collapse of the Soviet Union. O'Donovan ponders these developments using many classical theorists like Augustine, Aquinas and Suarez (an apparent favorite of his). One noteworthy omission is any contribution from Michael Walzer.

Authority is no longer only the authority of a nation-state. International organizations like the UN must also be included in this category with supranational authority to exercise justice, not merely allowing self-defense. O'Donovan came back to the first Gulf War in 1991 as the example to this authority and its functioning collective security. There are also quite a few fascinating angles on proportionality. Securing self-defenses without a proper threat could violate proportionality. Adhering to this principle could mitigate the security dilemma. War is not only kinetic. There is 'war by other means' which has devastating effects and thus must fall under the principles of justice.

On top of discussing weapons development and weapons use, what makes just war theory different in O'Donovan's writing is the focus on the church's responsibility. O'Donovan chastises the Anglican church (which in itself is an interesting comparison to church/state function in places like the Unites States) for not using sufficient moral language in its recommendations to the House of Commons. If anything, the religious leaders must explain the moral arguments. There is a hint of Stanley Hauerwas' political theology in claiming that too often the church falls back on enlightenment era logic, attempting to justify its reasoning according to the mode of intellectualism. Instead, the church needs to be the first to remind government of moral responsibility.

Yes, O'Donovan is not a pacifist like Stanley Hauerwas. He's not a full Christian realist like Niebuhr either. The 'Christian' prefix applied to realism could also apply to liberalism, constructivism and idealism. O'Donovan leans more to the first.