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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Hiroshima World War 2 nuclear Nagasaki
People Were Not Directly In the Atomic Crosshairs

We can rightly regret the necessity of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But their primary purpose was never the killing of large numbers of civilians.

Russia and China at Once — Part II: We Must Increase Defense Spending

In order to meet the requirements of the two-front fight we are in, the morally responsible thing is to commit to properly funding our military

Russia and China at Once: Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Challenge of a Two Front War

U.S. support for Ukraine in its war against Russia is not a distraction from defending Taiwan. It is a component of it. We are in a two-front fight.

Just War 101 — E8: Right Intent

The last essential requirement for a just war is to have a properly oriented set of intentions. These include rescue, justice, punishment, peace, and victory

French destroyer leader Mogador burning after shellfire at Mers-El-Kebir on 3 July 1940.
Just War 101 — E7: Retributive and Distributive Justice

Just War encompasses two overlapping but distinct forms of justice. Complex questions of desert accompany both, sometimes tragically.

holocaust just cause
Just War 101 — E6: Just Cause

The presence of certain kinds of evil in the world–including aggression against the innocent–signal the possibility that war must be.

porter halyburton
Reflections On Captivity (And Freedom): A Review

Porter Halyburton’s extraordinary memoir of his POW experience is a testament to the power of choice and human liberty

Poland and the Changing Geopolitics of Eastern Europe

Providence editor Marc LiVecche, McDonald Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life, spoke with the Consul General of the Republic of…

Chinese balloon, espionage
Float and Dagger: Espionage as Probing Maneuver

There is no peacetime in the Maoist worldview. The Chinese spy balloon was one more means for Beijing to turn the strategic environment to its advantage.

Just War 101 — E5: Proper Authority

The just war tradition offers a view of politics conceiving of sovereignty as a moral responsibility through the just causes of war can be met and overcome.

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