Book Review: Just war reconsidered: Strategy, ethics, and theory

• Author: Cian O’Driscoll
• Published date: 01 October 2018
• Date: 01 October 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0095327X17729169
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

in fact decided many truly important things” (pp. 1, 2). In judging war impacts, this

work correctly points out that “victory” and “defeat” are “emotive terms, subject to

passions that distort memory and understanding” (p. 2). Yet, what is most disap-

pointing is that this volume never references the vast conceptual literature emerging

not only in international relations but also in several related fields. These innovations

focus on attempting to clarify the meaning of military victory in war, separating

short-term tangible battlefield success from long-term intangible strategic success in

achieving desired political, economic, and social changes. Instead, in lieu of probing

deeply into such issues, Nolan prefers to rely on simple generalizations that decisive

battles translating into lasting political outcomes are “actually quite rare” (p. 4).

Given the comprehensive and detailed treatment of battles here, one would have

hoped instead for more refined ins ights about under what condition s battlefield

successes are most and least likely to lead to lasting postwar payoffs.

In the end, while potentially thoroughly fascinating to lovers of military history,

this book is a largely descriptive presentation of idiosyncratic details about major

past war battles, rather than an analytically penetrating and provocative tome eval-

uating patterns of victory and defeat and isolating precursors of decisive and inde-

cisive—or desired and undesired—war outcomes. Becoming aware of the dangers

associated with “the vanity of nations and the hubris of leaders” (p. 579), “short-war

plans and promises of easy victory” (p. 579), an d the persistent allure of battle

(p. 581) is helpful, but not nearly sufficient from a volume of this magnitude and

scope. Indeed, many of this work’s general insights simply reinforce or underscore

those of previous works on war outcomes, and there is little presented that convin-

cingly modifies widespread conventional understanding of this crucial issue. At the

beginning of the concluding chapter, Nolan asserts that “how too [sic] win decisively

in war is the aspiration of all professional military, and a main subject of concern to

those who study war,” and “yet it is the single hardest thing to do, to translate combat

into achievement of an important strategic and political goal that the other side is

forced to recognize and accept when the war is over” (p. 572). In response to this

critical challenge, it appears that we will have to wait a bit longer to receive theore-

tical and practical insights about how exactly to overcome this most important

strategic reality.

Dubik, J. M. (2016). Just war reconsidered: Strategy, ethics, and theory. Lexington: University Press

of Kentucky. 236 pp. $47.50 (hardcover), ISBN 9780813168296.

Reviewed by: Cian O’Driscoll, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17729169

It has become fashionable to complain that military voices are not adequately

accounted for in contemporary just war theory. Scholars, the argument goes, write

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