A Philosophy of War

According to one wag, war ‘died in Hiroshima’ more than half a century ago. And yet it has never gone away.

Terrorist acts, Israeli-Palestinian and Middle Eastern conflicts, the implosion of Yugoslavia, countries torn apart by factions, not to mention other wars: economic, psychological, computer, gender or generational… Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reshuffled the cards. This time, they say, it’s the return of real war, with its atrocities, its horrors, its violence. But what is a real war?

By calling on the great political philosophers, from Plato to Marx, via Machiavelli and Hobbes, this book attempts to answer this question, along with a series of others: what is a just war? What moral forces are involved in a conflict? Does the state make war, or does war make the state? Finally, after exploring the meanings and stakes of the spectre of ‘total’ war, he tackles the ultimate question: why war?