If order is the attainable and justice the possible, then (re)conciliation is the desirable. Conciliation is future-focused in that it sees former enemies as partners in a shared future.

Jus post bellum justice provides us with two criteria: holding aggressors responsible (punishment) and providing some form of restoration to victims (restitution). The reality of our time suggests a very limited justice.

Before taking a look at justice, let’s take a step back and consider the explicitly Christian foundations for thinking about political order.

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.

In her 2003 book Just War Against Terror, Jean Bethke Elshtain argued for a new paradigm for a just war: the fight against global terrorism, particularly terrorism perpetrated by followers of militant Islam. Twenty years after 9/11, this claim is due for revisiting.

Robert Draper’s book To Start a War details why the Bush administration made a gravely mistaken decision, despite having clearly met the jus ad bellum criteria of “right intention.”

Whether one is a historian who hopes to learn more about America’s conflicts, a philosopher who works in ethics or political philosophy, or a soldier or veteran who enjoys military history, America and the Just War Tradition addresses each of these topics and audiences from a variety of authors in a range of disciplines.

Eric Patterson contends in Just American Wars that the US is unique because of how it considers ethical and moral dilemmas when it fights. Particularly, the country’s democratic institutions force any politician who wishes to engage in a war to explain to voters, civil society, and other parts of the government why the war must be fought.

St. Thomas Aquinas knew more than his modern emendators do about grounding his just war deliberations—and much else—in the cardinal moral virtue of prudence.