Just War Tradition

Marc LiVecche and Rebeccah Heinrichs discuss the war in Ukraine, the intersection of just war reasoning and the facts on the ground, future options against Putin, how best to assist President Zelensky and his brave compatriots, and the question of regaining escalatory dominance against the Russian regime.

The jus post bellum (the ethics of ending war and building peace) categories of order, justice, and conciliation can help us think through how the war in Ukraine should end.

This week the editors discuss nuclear threats from Russia, the war in Ukraine, and Mark David Hall’s article about trying to measure Christian nationalism.

Vladimir Putin’s recent announcement to place his nation’s nuclear deterrent forces on a state of heightened alert invites those of us in the free world—and surely the United States—to revisit the just war assumptions that served as a deterrence during the Cold War.

This week the editors discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The present need is to deter China and Russia. This is why a “cold war” and a “just war” response is necessary.

Germany does not love her neighbor when she rejects Ukraine’s plea for defensive weapons.

Just war thinking is moral analysis of military action, not a framework for foreign policy. Acknowledging these limitations helps us to become better just war casuists, and it highlights the need for values-driven strategic thinking in the foreign policy sphere.

Matrix Resurrections, and much of today’s heroic fiction, speaks to us of different loves, including the love between comrades fighting for what is right.