Marc LiVecche

Marc LiVecche (PhD, University of Chicago) 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 and adjunct professor of ethics at the US Naval Academy.

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. He has co-edited, both with Eric Patterson, Responsibility and Restraint: James Turner Johnson and the Just War Tradition, published by Stone Tower Press and Military Necessity and Just War Statecraft, published by Routledge. Currently, he is finalizing Moral Horror: A Just War Defense of the Bombing 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 lecturing on culture, moral philosophy, history, and theology at a 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 transient 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. He can be contacted at: mlivecche@providencemag.com

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Peace Through Strength

In the early 1800s, Thomas Jefferson led a young America to war against Barbary state thugs whose Islamist political ideology led them to believe they had a divine right to dominate the West. The conditions that led America to victory then remain relevant today.

Women at War & the GOP

At the GOP debate on Saturday night, several of the GOP candidates endorsed the integration of women into direct combat units. They should not have.

The Just War as Christian Tradition

A Primer on Foundations: Justice, War, & the Protection of the Innocent

Islamism & Free Speech

The Islamist political agenda cannot be accommodated. They do not want it to be.

Veterans
PTSD & Personal Responsibility

“War subjects some of its participants to more than any person can bear, and it destroys them. War makes others stronger. For most of us, it leaves a complex legacy.”

Adoration of the Child

Gerrit Van Honthorst (c. 1620)

Great Again is Not Enough

Nations must seek to be just even as they seek to be strong – goodness and greatness must characterize them

Not Set Off But “Sent Off”

We have to grasp the nature of the threat and its blind, indifferent willingness to strike out at everyone, everywhere, and anytime.

War & Fine Distinctions

Seventy-four years ago today the United States entered WW II. Knowing what is worth fighting for is just as important today as it was then.