Foreword by James Turner Johnson The Just War Tradition and America’s Wars by J. Daryl Charles and Mark David Hall“Fear, Honor, and Interest”: The Unjust Motivations and Outcomes of the American Revolutionary War by John D. RocheThe War of 1812 by Jonathan Den HartogJames K. Polk and the War with Mexico by Daniel Walker HoweThe Fractured Union and the Justification for War by Gregory JonesJust War and the Spanish-American War by Timothy J. DemyThe Great War, the United States, and Just War Thought by Jonathan H. EbelThe United States and Japan in the Second World War: A Just War Perspective by Kerry E. IrishAmerica’s Ambiguous “Police Action”: The Korean Conflict by Laura Jane GiffordVietnam and the Just War Tradition by Mackubin Thomas OwensThe First and Second Gulf Wars by Darrell ColeThe War on Terror and Afghanistan by Rouven SteevesAcknowledgements About the Contributors

How Americans think about war cannot be properly understood apart from reflecting on the American experience in our relatively brief history. That experience, it goes without saying, has evolved in ways that previous generations would have thought unfathomable. Any attempt to reflect on war, of course, is biased by numerous factors, not least of which is historical vantage-point. One of the great obstacles confronting anyone who approaches the study of war, as one historian of just war has well noted, is that contemporary expectations, values, and social context color one’s understanding of the nature of war and its purposes. To consider the relative justness or unjustness of, say, the Spanish-American War or World War II is one thing. To measure the justness of American involvement in Afghanistan or of fighting global or regional terrorism is quite another. And yet the matter of war – past or present, conventional or non-conventional – does not occupy some nebulous realm that is detached from the human experience and transcending moral norms and human obligations. Much to the contrary. Armed conflict may be properly conceived as “an extraordinary extension of ordinary acts of judgment.” Indeed, much can be learned by studying these “acts of judgment.” Which is why the present volume has come into being. Historians and students of international affairs, of course, have spilled a great deal of ink describing and analyzing America’s wars. Political philosophers and ethicists have written boundlessly on the ethics of war and peace, and more recently, on just war theory; significantly, in the last fifteen years the literature on just war ethics has proliferated. Intriguingly, however, there has been relatively little serious analysis of the extent to which America’s wars have been justified. Two general tendencies characterize the literature, both past and present. The first is to offer a moral judgment with respect to a particular war without engaging in careful theoretical analysis, and the second is to offer a moral judgment about a war without carefully studying the historical context. This collection of essays seeks to provide a careful analysis of America’s wars, from the nation’s inception to the present ongoing “war on terror,” and it does so from the perspective of just war doctrine that has been nurtured and refined in the West chiefly, when not solely, within the Christian moral tradition. In other words, this volume subjects American involvement in war to rigorous moral scrutiny while being attentive to historical context. Of the writing of books on war and peace there is no end, or so it would seem. And even of the writing of books on individual American wars, one might argue, there is almost no end. Of the writing of books on American wars cumulatively, however, there is no evidence of anyone having undertaken the task. To our knowledge, no one has assessed from an ethical standpoint in a coherent work American military conflicts from the nation’s founding to the present day. And who would be sufficient to the task? Such an endeavor exceeds the expertise and purview of any one scholar or analyst. To this end, then, the editors of this volume have enlisted the wisdom and insights of historians, ethicists, political philosophers, and military strategists whose expertise extends to those particular wars – and periods of American history – contained in this volume. We reiterate the aim of this work: to subject the relative justness of major American military campaigns to moral scrutiny and to do so being attentive to historical context. Clearly, there has been a great deal written about the justness of particular wars immediately before, during, and after the conflict. Not all of this commentary demonstrates a moral seriousness, even when offered by professional scholars. Of course, it is difficult to do serious historical analysis in the heat of the moment. To “subject the relative justness of American military involvement to moral scrutiny” assumes and requires that a non-fluid moral standard avails itself to ultra-modernism the 21st century, permitting us to do moral evaluation and make moral judgments. Those who have contributed to this volume represent a considerable range of vocational callings. Some are historians, others are political philosophers, others teach ethics or religion, and yet others wrestle with military strategy. All, however, share in common several qualities that are necessary for a work such as this to take shape – in particular: (1) a commitment to the just war tradition as articulated in this introduction, (2) a willingness and capacity to do the hard-historical analysis necessary for evaluating particular conflicts, and (3) the ability to offer a fair and balanced appraisal of America’s wars. In the essays that follow, each author discusses the causes of a particular war, the degree to which the justice of the conflict was a subject of debate at the time, and the extent to which that particular conflict measured up to traditional ad bellum and in bello criteria. As well, where appropriate, they offer post bellum considerations, insofar as justice is concerned with helping to foster a better peace and end result than what had existed in the prior state of affairs. And where appropriate, contributors reflect on lessons that may be learned from the wars they cover that are relevant to present and future debates. Our modest proposal, then, is to join a centuries-long conversation in which enduring resources – resources that imbue our own cultural tradition – are reaffirmed. (excerpted from chapter 1)