ABOUT THIS BOOK

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have focused new attention on a perennial problem: how to end wars well. What ethical considerations should guide war’s settlement and its aftermath? In cases of protracted conflicts, recurring war, failed or failing states, or genocide and war crimes, is there a framework for establishing an enduring peace that is pragmatic and moral?

Ethics Beyond War’s End provides answers to these questions from the just war tradition. Just war thinking engages the difficult decisions of going to war and how war is fought. But from this point forward just war theory must also take into account what happens after war ends, and the critical issues that follow: establishing an enduring order, employing political forms of justice, and cultivating collective forms of conciliation. Top thinkers in the field—including Michael Walzer, Jean Bethke Elshtain, James Turner Johnson, and Brian Orend—offer powerful contributions to our understanding of the vital issues associated with late- and post conflict in tough, real-world scenarios that range from the US Civil War to contemporary quagmires in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and the Congo.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Eric Patterson is Dean of the School of Government at Regent Univeristy. He is the author of Ending Wars Well: Order, Justice and Conciliation in Contemporary Post-Conflict and Politics in a Religious World.

REVIEWS

This book is essential reading for scholars and decision makers concerned with contemporary warfare and recommended for general readers interested in the ethics of contemporary international relations.

-- Choice

This volume fosters understanding of the political dimension of war and the associated requirement to ensure that political, military, diplomatic, economic and informational efforts aim to achieve an enduring and moral political settlement consistent with vital interests.

-- Survival

"This book is essential reading for scholars and decision makers concerned with contemporary warfare and recommended for general readers interested in the ethics of contemporary international relations."

-- Choice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction: Eric Patterson

1. Moral Responsibility after Conflict: The Idea of Jus Post Bellum for the Twenty-First CenturyJames Turner Johnson

2. The Aftermath of War: Reflections on Jus Post BellumMichael Walzer

3. Jus Ante and Post Bellum: Completing the Circle, Breaking the CycleGeorge R. Lucas Jr.

4. In My Beginning Is My EndRobert Royal

5. A More Perfect Peace: Jus Post Bellum and the Quest for Stable PeaceRobert E. Williams Jr.

6. Ethics in the Times of WarPauletta Otis

7. Just War and an Ethics of ResponsibilityJean Bethke Elshtain

8. Ending the US Civil War Well: Reconciliation and Transitional JusticeDavid A. Crocker

9. Justice After War: Towards a New Geneva ConventionBrian Orend

10. “Just Peace:” An Elusive IdealMark Evans

Conclusion: Toward a Twenty-First Century Jus Post BellumEric Patterson

Contributors

Index