Just War on Terror. By Jean Bethke Elshtain. Basic Books, 2004. 251 pages. $14.00.

Abstract

In this book, Jean Bethke Elshtain applies revised Augustinian criteria for just war to the US war on terror. This is therefore a book that pursues the difficult task of moving beyond the relatively clean world of theory to more complicated questions concerning decision making and consequences in the actual world. Elshtain’s thesis is that the US war on terror, exemplified by the invasion of Afghanistan, is just. The 2004 edition adds an epilogue assessing the invasion of Iraq and argues that the Iraq invasion, like that of Afghanistan, meets the criteria for a just war. The strongest part of the book is the idea that with power come ethical obligations. Elshtain is certainly right that the Taliban and Saddam Hussein governments were brutal, and critics of the war should recognize squarely that to defend the innocent from terrorism is a state’s moral duty. Moreover, as Elshtain says, there is such a thing as a “false peace”: a nation that is not at war may exist nevertheless in a situation of cruelty and injustice. There is thus an inevitable moral burden that follows from the fact that the United States is the world’s only superpower.