Marc LiVecche

Marc LiVecche is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life at Providence. He is also a non-resident research fellow at the US Naval War College, in the College of Leadership and Ethics.

Marc completed doctoral studies, earning distinction, at the University of Chicago, where he worked under the supervision of the political theorist and public intellectual Jean Bethke Elshtain, until her death in August, 2013. His first book, The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury, was published in 2021 by Oxford University Press. Another project, Responsibility and Restraint: James Turner Johnson and the Just War Tradition, co-edited with Eric Patterson, was published by Stone Tower Press in the fall of 2020. Currently, he is finalizing Moral Horror: A Just War Defense of Hiroshima. Before all this academic stuff, Marc spent twelve years doing a variety of things in Central Europe—ranging from helping build sport and recreational leagues in post-communist communities, to working at a Christian study and research center, to leading seminars on history and ethics onsite at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in Poland. This latter experience allowed him to continue his undergraduate study of the Shoah; a process which rendered him entirely ill-suited for pacifism.

Marc lives in Annapolis, Maryland with his wife and children–and a marmota monax whistlepigging under the shed. He can be followed, or stalked, on twitter @mlivecche. Additional publications can be found at his Amazon author page.

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On Christian Vengeance
On Christian Vengeance

There may be no prudent responses against North Korea’s regime for Otto Warmbier’s murder. But such a concession to realism over justice does not invalidate the morality of the retributive instinct. It remains. And it remains deeply Christian.

Lafayette Valley Forge Revolution
A Hero of Two Worlds

Two hundred and forty years ago this week, a Frenchman landed on American soil to join the American fight. He became one of our greatest patriots.

6 Day War Kotel
Jerusalem United (Forever?): The Hopeful, Unsure, Legacy of the Six Day War

50 years ago, Israel reunited Jerusalem and laid the groundwork for the possibility of peace

fighting terrorism theresa may
The Key to Fighting Terrorism: Come Together and Take Apart

Prime Minister Theresa May insists, “United we will take on and defeat our enemies.”

Adolf Eichmann AND capital punishment AND Israel AND justice
Executing Eichmann: Just Retribution & the Case for Capital Punishment

55 years ago, the chief architect of the holocaust was executed in Israel.

DAGGER 22
Always Faithful: Marine Special Operations in Bala Murghab

A review of Michael Golembesky’s Dagger 22

Japanese internment 9066
Reinhold Niebuhr & Executive Order 9066

75 years ago, Executive Order 9066, forcibly relocating Japanese Americans, went into full effect. Reinhold Niebuhr didn’t think it should have.

just war tradition jus ad bellum
On the Proper jus of the Just War Tradition

Why is the just war tradition seemingly so easily abused?

Good Friday self-sacrifice
On Golgotha: Self-Donation & American Power

Good Friday has something to say about individual and national service

syria airstrike Assad chemical
The Syrian Airstrike & Sovereign Responsibility

Sovereignty is about more than simply running a country