Is war ever morally justified?

A new book revives the debate over just war theory

U.S. troops Iraq
(Image credit: (Warrick Page/Getty Images))

Anyone who cares about questions of war and peace — and who wishes to think deeply about how to assess those questions morally — should buy and promptly read Nigel Biggar's In Defense of War. Over the past few decades, many authors have written articles and books attempting to construct an apparatus for judging the morality of war. I know of none that approaches Biggar's book in lucidity and thoroughness. Readers who absorb and apply Biggar's criteria for assessing wars will have a clear and cogent way of judging whether past or future wars deserve to be considered just or unjust — by which Biggar means morally justified or unjustified. That's one reason why Biggar's book deserves a wide and responsive readership.

Here is another: Precisely by doing his job so thoroughly and elegantly, Biggar inadvertently demonstrates more fully than any previous author that just war thinking, even at its very best, is an intellectual, moral, and theological fraud.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.