Biden fears escalation; this plays into the hands of Putin, the former KGB operative, who exploits the West’s moral weakness with both cunning and barbarism.

Force-short-of-war raises many moral questions, and jus ad vim has been an attempt to provide answers.

Pure partisanship—or political sectarianism—consists of commitment to an uncontested view of reality and fidelity to one’s ideological compatriots over the whole of one’s polity. Christian realists should not be such partisans.

In “The Education of an Idealist,” Samantha Power comes across as a compassionate person with generous impulses. These attributes cannot by themselves determine policy on the question of humanitarian interventions.

What will be lost to many—including too many Christians—is the fact that this pledge of “never again” is, if it is to mean anything at all, a promise to fight if, in the last resort and with the aim of peace, nothing else will protect the innocent, requite an injustice, or punish evil.

What is the role of moral values in the conduct of foreign relations? Although many answers have been given, three major traditions predominate: realism, idealism, and principled realism.

Even though people may not rely on universal human rights rhetoric to guide their specific decisions, Ignatieff argues that the structure of global human rights has contributed indirectly to global solidarity by providing a foundation for people’s ordinary virtues.

Two Christian schools of thought might support covert operations and espionage: the just war tradition and a kind of “dirty hands” moralism. The dirty hands view says all those in political power must unavoidably resort to evil for the common good. The just war tradition has a different approach.

Just war theorizing has typically left the issue of national honor untouched, although warriors and statesmen routinely emphasize the importance of vindicating the sacrifice of the fallen. Does prolonging a war in order to assuage or vindicate national honor comport with the just war tradition?