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Just War Against Terror: The Burden Of American Power In A Violent World
Jean Bethke Elshtain has been hailed as one of this country's most influential public intellectuals. Michael Walzer called her award-winning Democracy on Trial "the work of a truly independent, deeply serious, politically engaged, and wonderfully provocative political theorist." These rare qualities are once again vividly in force in Just War Against Terrorism. In this hard-hitting book, Elshtain advocates "just war" in times of crisis and mounts a reasoned attack against the defenses of terrorism that have abounded since September 11. Arguing that those who defend terrorist acts on the basis of their "root causes"-poverty, political conflict, infringement of Western values on Islamic culture-minimize the responsibility of terrorists, Elshtain interrogates the sources of root-cause reasoning and traces them to a fundamental misunderstanding of the Judeo-Christian ethic of war and peace, compounded by "faux-pacifist" positions and retro-sixties cultural romance. Why, she asks, are pacifist alternatives so palpably inadequate? So implausible? Often so irresponsible? How indeed does one respond to acts of terror that constitute an act of war perpetrated against one's own citizenry? Advocating an ethic of responsibility, Elshtain forces us to ask tough questions not only about the nature of Islam but also about ourselves. Elegantly written and forcefully argued, Just War Against Terror offers a badly needed and refreshingly clear look at responses to terror in the modern world.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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About the author
Jean Bethke Elshtain
89 books15 followersJean Bethke Elshtain is an American political philosopher. She is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and is a contributing editor for The New Republic. She is, in addition, newly the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Chair in the Foundations of American Freedom at Georgetown University. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and she has served on the Boards of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the National Humanities Center. She is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and has received nine honorary degrees. In 2002, Elshtain received the Frank J. Goodnow award, the highest award for distinguished service to the profession given by the American Political Science Association.
The focus of Elshtain's work is an exploration of the relationship between politics and ethics. Much of her work is concerned with the parallel development of male and female gender roles as they pertain to public and private social participation. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks she has been one of the more visible academic supporters of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Jean Bethke Elshtain, scholar of religion and political philosophy, 1941-2013 http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013...
The focus of Elshtain's work is an exploration of the relationship between politics and ethics. Much of her work is concerned with the parallel development of male and female gender roles as they pertain to public and private social participation. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks she has been one of the more visible academic supporters of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Jean Bethke Elshtain, scholar of religion and political philosophy, 1941-2013 http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2013...
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
April 7, 2016
Elshtain uses Christian theories of just war to defend the U.S. war in Afghanistan: St. Augustine, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Pope John Paul II. Given that this topic is her wheelhouse, I'm going to guess that this book was dashed off in a few months, cobbling together bits from other of her books. And the problem with books written right after some event like 9/11, or right after the start of a war, is that they have no perspective at all. Of course it's easy to judge all these years later. We now know the Iraq War (which hadn't started when this book was published) began under false pretenses. We know policy makers failed to plan in multiple areas and were unprepared for the counterinsurgency; in hindsight we see the abuses of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the black sites, the torture. None of these things fit with a defense of "just war." Was the Iraq War a just war for Elshtain? (I don't know.) Elshtain is one of society's experts. She sat in an endowed chair at the divinity school of one of America's best universities. If these people lead us astray, who can we count on? With the hindsight of looking back through all the disasters, some of her arguments seem hopelessly naive and almost willfully blind. The book is as much written in anger at the "blame America first"-ers as in thoughtful reflection. I understand this emotion: I sometimes have it myself. But I'm not sitting in an endowed chair, putting out dozens of books.
Minor kvetch, Anthony/Tony Campolo is referred to everywhere in the book as Compolo. There is a reference to a journalist named "Jack Tapper" who wrote in Salon; I think she must mean Jake Tapper.
April 6, 2017
Probably the most evil book I've ever read in my life. In the first chapter, the author contrasts justice and revenge - a worthwhile endeavor. She says the contrast of justice is injustice - so far, so good. She subsequently cannot think of a contrasting term for revenge - mercy, forgiveness, patience, all of these seem to slip through her fingers. This limited, hyper-nationalist, anti-philosophical thinking posing as rational liberal intellectualism is indicative of the work as a whole.
May 11, 2020
One thing that really bothers me here is that in all of the talk surrounding "just" war she never makes any mention of war-fighting capabilities, and the massive gap that now exists between a few nations and the rest of the world in those capabilities. Terrorism is obviously not "just", but is fighting with a vast, overwhelmingly technological military force against people who can NEVER meet you openly on the battlefield due to their inability to wield that technology "just"? Does it follow that because most of the world can not even close to matching U.S. military technology on a conventional battlefield that if they are invaded they should just have to take it? Certainly when we talk about just war theory in this day and age this should be considered, right? By condemning any tactics that do not fit into a "conventional war" mold, and excusing those that do, she is condemning the majority of the world's population to have no "just" option for their own defense against superpower states.
August 12, 2007
Just finished reading this last night, for some odd reason I couldn't put it down primarily of the fact that I highly disagreed with the author on some major points, one being her understanding of 2 'worlds' in Islam..her comparison of a Just war in Christianity vs Islam is to say the least..thought provoking. Anyhow I think she tried her hardest to show a difference between Islam and Radical Islam sadly it didn't come off as being too different. Also did not like the fact that she downplayed the Iraqi sanctions that the source of 500,000 was an inflated number which is a load of crock since that's UNICEF's number. She could have done her research on that one, it's a no brainer.
November 11, 2025
Hindsight is a beautiful thing and this has aged awfully
January 17, 2015
I would like to know what the author thinks of her work seen from a distance. Not awful, but awfully wrong about Iraq. Also could have been better argued
June 3, 2022
Reviews on treatments of questions like "should the US stop this terrible group of humans from committing mass murder" are harder than they look. This isn't because it's difficult to decide whether mass murder should be stopped, and it isn't because I think terrorists are good people or should be treated with kiddie gloves or because their mission is just. They're difficult because the world is complicated. They're difficult because the United States is objectively a force that opposes progressivism and justice all over the world. How can we claim such an actor as a force for good or the force responsible for right action? And yet, that is exactly what Elshtain calls for in her "what must be done" address at the end of this book.
A cursory understanding of global struggles for justice and freedom for the world's peoples informs us that not only is the US not the solution to our problems, but that it is often either the direct or indirect cause of those problems. The coups we support, the international institutions we control and the damage they inflict on the Global South, the international War on Drugs and its collateral damage, the hundreds of thousands or millions of dead civilians we leave in the wake of our wars around the world... the list goes on. Pick your analogue: we are Star Wars' Empire; we are the Hunger Games' Capitol; we are the front of the train in Snowpiercer. Opposing the United States' ambitions is good. Spreading awareness of our pitfalls is good. We reserve the concept of "critical support" for those who oppose the United States because - barring a regime like Hiter's Germany or Tojo's Japan - we are almost definitely the bad guys in whatever conflict is happening.
So that's enough waxing eloquent about how evil our government is.
Elshtain doesn't understand any of that ^^ which is why her book sucks and her position is bad. I took notes on each section of the book and I've included them below. I hope this helps y'all:
Introduction: Off to a rocky start. I'm willing to consider Just War theory in general, but in the case of 9/11 and the Iraq War, we've got a lot of information now that shows that we overreached and ultimately decimated a region - to no effect, as the Taliban recaptured Kabul a few months ago (as of my review).
Elshtain dismisses criticisms of her work as essentialism and then commits herself to essentialist perspectives. So far we've seen reference to Bin Laden's language in his (propagandistic) fatwa and directives for militant action against US citizens and soldiers. Elshtain has been silent on Bin Laden's material concerns: she pretends that his only demand was that Americans not step foot in the Arabian peninsula, and ignores the laundry list of crimes he unveiled that the US has committed.
If she doesn't abandon her spiel of "this isn't who we are" in reference to the crimes against humanity that we commit then this whole book will ultimately be nothing more than a neatly packaged bunch of toilet paper.
We are the baddies. Sorry, US-apologists.
Chapter 1: What Happened on 9/11?
I personally try to avoid postmodernist or moral relativism because it is largely a bad way to look at these questions, but Elshtain commits two fallacies in the opening of her book (that I fear will continue throughout), which have forced me to clarify her misrepresentation of those concepts:
(1) She essentializes the Islamist critique of America as a religious one. This is surely true for many of the faithful, and drives much terrorism against the West, but it is overwhelmingly not the case for most Afghans. A large portion of her 1st chapter is devoted to the idea that "they hate us not for what we do, but for who we are." This is so unobligingly tone-deaf to the reality of the intermingling of "what we do" and what that means for "who we are" that it renders her central critique useless. What we *do* defines who we *are*. And if you are to take Elshtain at her word that we are a representative democracy - and not a dictatorship (of capital, for instance) - then we as citizens are all responsible for the actions of our elected government and the military that acts at its behest. By an extension of her own logic, Afghanistan - as an undemocratic authoritarian state - cannot be invaded, its citizens punished and attacked for the actions of two dozen hijackers - even acting at the behest of the state. The material realities of what US action has historically meant in the world - what we have actually *done* show us to rival the worst states in history.
(2) The second fallacious argument Elshtain insists upon may be a personal philosophical difference between us, but I think it extends beyond personal opinion: she is irretrievably committed to an idealist perspective where we have to take everyone at their word of their beliefs; where identities are cemented into place through a Western lens (America stands for *freedom* while all terrorists simply stand for *oppression*), and only those words that explicitly support those identities matter. When Bin Laden says "death to the infidels their religion is wrong" he's telling the truth, but when he says "when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we were tasting and to stop killing our children and women" he's simply lying to save face? Likewise, when Elshtain glorifies Bush for making an effort to distinguish - to a notoriously racist society filled with hamfisted conglomerations of 'brown people' as 'the enemy' - between "Muslims" and "Radical Islam" this proves we are the good guys. When he, his vice president, his party, media conglomerates (especially the most-watched outlet in the country - Fox News), and the general public stoke the fire of a racialized and religiously-based "culture war" which results in hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, tens of thousands of Afghanis dead, hundreds or thousands of civilians - including American citizens - rounded up and put in CIA black sites, etc etc. then we ignore that.
Come on. I am no supporter of Islamist attempts at killing civilians, but the analysis Elshtain sets out to perform in this book is flawed from the start.
Chapter 2: Woof. Well that didn't take long. Elshtain picks this chapter up right where the last left off with a gross focus on idealistic "principles" while whitewashing or throwing out the reality of "practices".
She starts by saying that we were the opposite of the Nazis in WWII - fighting for equality, against the abhorrence of Aryan supremacy en vogue throughout Germany. Obviously the Nazis were the worst, but she ignores that we did this by putting 126,000 Japanese citizens in concentration camps; she ignores that Nazis were inspired by US policies; she ignores that we employed terror bombing throughout The War. Just a gross rewriting of history.
Then she moves on to the separation of Church and State. Double woof. She takes us at our word that we're founded on a separation of the two, ignoring or dismissing the centuries of Christian supremacy (and not just demographically - but the violent imposition thereof) that have made their way into American legislation and jurisprudence. How is this woman an "expert" on American politics? She doesn't seem to know some of their most basic realities. Beyond the US, she talks about the supposed inherent separation between Christianity and the secular State. She does this by cherry-picking her theologians, appealing to the book of Romans out of context, and by completely ignoring the history of the Crusades and the Catholic Church. Again, we see Elshtain taking everyone at their word when they say "Christianity is for your good" and ignoring their actions to the contrary. Islam doesn't get this same treatment, however. Besides a pithy one-liner at the end of the chapter that basically amounts to "not all Muslims, just the ones we kill", Islam is painted as being uniquely involved in human affairs and irreconcilable with progressive values. No such analysis is applied to Christian terrorists here or abroad (and domestically there are and have been many - see those who attack abortion providers or check out the #is100enough hashtag).
When speaking about the concept of Americans as "godless" (a common charge levied against us by Al Qaeda), Elshtain so clearly defines the problem with her argument: "90% of Americans believe in a God. This means we are not godless" meanwhile white supremacy has always had a home in the Christian church in America, we used our religion to effect the forced cultural death of Native spiritualism, prosperity gospel exists, and our politicians - wrapped in a flag and holding a bible - continue to enact or allow genocide against brown and black people. You wanna get biblical, Elshtain? How's this: "When The Devil lies, he speaks his native language, for he is “a liar” and “the father of lies.”" (John 8:44). Judging us by our actions, that would make us a shoe-in for a nation of Devils as we carve a swath of destruction around the globe. Weirdly, by analyzing material reality, we've come full circle: America, "The Great Satan" in Bin Laden's parlance, seems to fit the bill.
Chapter 3: A solid explanation of what Just War is. No notes.
Chapter 4: Opens with the incorrect assumption that 9/11 was an initiation, and not a response to US action overseas. Once we get past the idea that we were "defending ourselves" there is an interesting passage explaining "life in Afghanistan is really hard. Vaccination rates are low, education is insufficient, food supplies can be low etc." The humanitarian aspect of a US invasion could surely be a good thing, as Elshtain points out, but it seems pretty immaterial to the question at hand. It also seems to avoid that old joke, "If only the US military would invade the United States and build bridges, roads, schools, and win the hearts and minds of Americans." Our politico-economic structure and worldview produce profound inequalities of opportunity and wealth. They are tinged with the realities of racial capitalism. If we simply wanted to help the Afghan people then there are better ways to do that than at the barrel of a gun (indeed, the Soviets were well on their way to solving the problems Elshtain identifies until we funded the Mujahedeen opposition to the Soviet-aligned government).
"What *is* one to do with the likes of Bin Laden and al Qaeda?" Elshtain asks. Well... We've heard experts in counterterrorism for decades now saying that all-out military actions against terrorists using guerrilla tactics are a terrible idea. Terrorism is essentially a crime, and should be investigated, pursued, stopped, and treated as such. It is not a war.
BUT Elshtain does do a good job of further explaining the requirements of jus in bello.
Chapter 5: Should be called "why I'm not like the other intellectuals."
Didn't have high hopes when Elshtain declared that communism killed millions and their leaders were super spooky evil bad guys worse than Hitler. Like this woman is a joke.
To hear Elshtain, material reality means less than some immaterial intention. Since we didn't *mean* to kill thousands and thousands of Afghan civilians, it's not as bad as the 3000 civilians killed by al Qaeda. Like... that doesn't fucking matter to the people dying or their families. It doesn't matter to the civilians afraid that a bomb is going to drop on their house or that they're going to be pulled out of their home in the middle of the night and have a bag thrown over their head. It's an absolutely mental take.
Also, "false consciousness" takes a beating from Elshtain. She derisively scoffs at the entire concept of Gramscian power as simply "condescending" without actually engaging with it. One of the hallmarks of modern sociology. Okay, boomer.
Claims up and down that the US had never heard of Bin Laden and never worked with them. Were Elshtain alive today, perhaps it would be worth her while to look at more modern scholarship. This is still a contested issue, but surely Bin Laden was an ally if not a direct recipient of funds and not only was he granted visas to enter the US by the CIA numerous times, but he also seems to have received funds from the Pakistani ISI.... who received funds from the CIA. Like this ain't it, chief. Blowback is real in this case. We funded Islamist fighters and then they attacked us. It's that simple. She's in here quoting historians who don't believe we were aiding the Afghan rebels when we have this quote: "In an interview with French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur in January 1998, former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski recounted that “according to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, kept secret until now, is quite different: Indeed, it was on July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.”"
Elshtain finally remembers the crusades and - while not at all linking them to her earlier claims that Christianity is inherently secular (an obvious falsehood) - lays the ENTIRETY of the blame for the crusades on Muslims. Honestly you can't make this shit up.
She ends this chapter by basically ridiculing the viewpoint I've taken throughout this review which is frustrating, but at least I'm vindicated in that history has proven me right, Elshtain abandoned support for our wars in the Middle East as "Just Wars" and she fails entirely to address the viewpoint I've adopted: "Whenever writers on the left say that the 'root cause' of terror is global inequality or human poverty, the assertion is in fact a denial that religious motives really count."
^^ Like... no? It is a *material analysis* of history. I have repeatedly said that religion does, in fact, play a role in this war, but that it is ultimately not a holy war for the vast majority of its participants. To claim otherwise in the face of an immense amount of data and *the express statement to that effect by many fighters worldwide* is unbridled islamophobia. Like... Elshtain, you're showing your colors as a bigot.
Elshtain spends a chapter criticizing Edward Said's analysis, as well as providing what would be a laughable critique of the Left if all of the things she said were untrue didn't turn out to have horrifying impact on civilians here and abroad (later clarification of anti-imperialist terrorist motives; extrajudicial killing campaigns; torture in US facilities; improved opinions of Americans about Muslims; a lack of politicians playing an islamophobia card - a trend that probably hit its peak with the Tea Party but which was still alive and well under Trump; she claims civilian death tolls are all inflated in the Middle East - despite later scholarship that bolster her opponents).
I choose to chalk this up to: Elshtain spoke before she had all the data, and now would have her foot in her mouth if she were still alive.
This chapter is garbage. I can see no difference between this and having to listen to a College Republican defend America in a class where he's about to be thoroughly rebutted.
Chapter 8: Where is Niebuhr and Tillich?
A solid chapter. Elshtain is showing me - despite holding a ton of high positions in politics programs - that she doesn't know much of anything about the topic of terrorism and that she lives and dies on the hill of cherry-picked data and arguments.
What she DOES do well, though, is cover theological concepts. She unpacks Niebuhr and Tillich to show, "Hey! Look! Christians! You do actually have to fight sometimes to be a good Christian!" Niebuhr lived through Nazi Germany's time in the sun and had some excellent words on the topic. Unfortunately, the problem of international terrorism is ***NOTHING LIKE WWII***
Chapter 9: The Problem With Peace
So I see the setup here. Elshtain butters us up with the last two chapters doing two things: first, she ruthlessly denigrates the majority of social scientists who generally look at the issue of terrorism through a materialist lens which necessarily cannot give predominance to beliefs (see: religions) that inhibit their adherents' problem-solving abilities.
She also describes different ideas of peace: the utopian (Imagine fans are morons), the conquest (Rome brought peace to a desert), and the just (Christians). If she had a little less of a chip on her shoulder, and spent time not caping for Christianity but actually unpacking these ideas, this would have been a really good section.
Weber and Marx, and all their adherents, are useless, according to Elshtain and her ham-fisted book on why Christians wage the best wars.
In the section titled "Justification of War and Warfighting in Islam", though, Elshtain introduced a lot of information that I found very interesting! Her recounting - leaning heavily on two authors who I assume agree with her on most things - has a few basic thrusts:
(1) Islam has no "Just War" tradition, unlike Christianity
(2) Islam is inherently political, and thus also has no tradition surrounding "separation of Church and State"
(3) All war is "Just War" in Islam so long as it's against non-believers
Leaving us to reach the conclusion that Elshtain dare not say explicitly: ALL ISLAM IS IRREDEEMABLE AND MUST BE COMBATTED WHEREVER IT HOLDS POWER
I have a feeling that if I read other texts I will find her perspective on Islamic warfighting to be entirely lacking, but it was interesting to read something historical about Islam that may be able to hold more water than the collective colander-esque argument Elshtain has presented thus far.
Chapter 10
Yikes. Cites popular islamophobe Hitchens, then turns around and quotes an author *ridiculously* claiming that Islam was not as dangerous as Naziism, BUT IS IN FACT *MORE* OF A THREAT THAN THE NAZIS IN THEIR NEAR-SUCCESSFUL CONQUEST OF EUROPE, NORTH AFRICA, AND THE WESTERN STEPPE.
This woman is psychotic.
A cursory understanding of global struggles for justice and freedom for the world's peoples informs us that not only is the US not the solution to our problems, but that it is often either the direct or indirect cause of those problems. The coups we support, the international institutions we control and the damage they inflict on the Global South, the international War on Drugs and its collateral damage, the hundreds of thousands or millions of dead civilians we leave in the wake of our wars around the world... the list goes on. Pick your analogue: we are Star Wars' Empire; we are the Hunger Games' Capitol; we are the front of the train in Snowpiercer. Opposing the United States' ambitions is good. Spreading awareness of our pitfalls is good. We reserve the concept of "critical support" for those who oppose the United States because - barring a regime like Hiter's Germany or Tojo's Japan - we are almost definitely the bad guys in whatever conflict is happening.
So that's enough waxing eloquent about how evil our government is.
Elshtain doesn't understand any of that ^^ which is why her book sucks and her position is bad. I took notes on each section of the book and I've included them below. I hope this helps y'all:
Introduction: Off to a rocky start. I'm willing to consider Just War theory in general, but in the case of 9/11 and the Iraq War, we've got a lot of information now that shows that we overreached and ultimately decimated a region - to no effect, as the Taliban recaptured Kabul a few months ago (as of my review).
Elshtain dismisses criticisms of her work as essentialism and then commits herself to essentialist perspectives. So far we've seen reference to Bin Laden's language in his (propagandistic) fatwa and directives for militant action against US citizens and soldiers. Elshtain has been silent on Bin Laden's material concerns: she pretends that his only demand was that Americans not step foot in the Arabian peninsula, and ignores the laundry list of crimes he unveiled that the US has committed.
If she doesn't abandon her spiel of "this isn't who we are" in reference to the crimes against humanity that we commit then this whole book will ultimately be nothing more than a neatly packaged bunch of toilet paper.
We are the baddies. Sorry, US-apologists.
Chapter 1: What Happened on 9/11?
I personally try to avoid postmodernist or moral relativism because it is largely a bad way to look at these questions, but Elshtain commits two fallacies in the opening of her book (that I fear will continue throughout), which have forced me to clarify her misrepresentation of those concepts:
(1) She essentializes the Islamist critique of America as a religious one. This is surely true for many of the faithful, and drives much terrorism against the West, but it is overwhelmingly not the case for most Afghans. A large portion of her 1st chapter is devoted to the idea that "they hate us not for what we do, but for who we are." This is so unobligingly tone-deaf to the reality of the intermingling of "what we do" and what that means for "who we are" that it renders her central critique useless. What we *do* defines who we *are*. And if you are to take Elshtain at her word that we are a representative democracy - and not a dictatorship (of capital, for instance) - then we as citizens are all responsible for the actions of our elected government and the military that acts at its behest. By an extension of her own logic, Afghanistan - as an undemocratic authoritarian state - cannot be invaded, its citizens punished and attacked for the actions of two dozen hijackers - even acting at the behest of the state. The material realities of what US action has historically meant in the world - what we have actually *done* show us to rival the worst states in history.
(2) The second fallacious argument Elshtain insists upon may be a personal philosophical difference between us, but I think it extends beyond personal opinion: she is irretrievably committed to an idealist perspective where we have to take everyone at their word of their beliefs; where identities are cemented into place through a Western lens (America stands for *freedom* while all terrorists simply stand for *oppression*), and only those words that explicitly support those identities matter. When Bin Laden says "death to the infidels their religion is wrong" he's telling the truth, but when he says "when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we were tasting and to stop killing our children and women" he's simply lying to save face? Likewise, when Elshtain glorifies Bush for making an effort to distinguish - to a notoriously racist society filled with hamfisted conglomerations of 'brown people' as 'the enemy' - between "Muslims" and "Radical Islam" this proves we are the good guys. When he, his vice president, his party, media conglomerates (especially the most-watched outlet in the country - Fox News), and the general public stoke the fire of a racialized and religiously-based "culture war" which results in hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, tens of thousands of Afghanis dead, hundreds or thousands of civilians - including American citizens - rounded up and put in CIA black sites, etc etc. then we ignore that.
Come on. I am no supporter of Islamist attempts at killing civilians, but the analysis Elshtain sets out to perform in this book is flawed from the start.
Chapter 2: Woof. Well that didn't take long. Elshtain picks this chapter up right where the last left off with a gross focus on idealistic "principles" while whitewashing or throwing out the reality of "practices".
She starts by saying that we were the opposite of the Nazis in WWII - fighting for equality, against the abhorrence of Aryan supremacy en vogue throughout Germany. Obviously the Nazis were the worst, but she ignores that we did this by putting 126,000 Japanese citizens in concentration camps; she ignores that Nazis were inspired by US policies; she ignores that we employed terror bombing throughout The War. Just a gross rewriting of history.
Then she moves on to the separation of Church and State. Double woof. She takes us at our word that we're founded on a separation of the two, ignoring or dismissing the centuries of Christian supremacy (and not just demographically - but the violent imposition thereof) that have made their way into American legislation and jurisprudence. How is this woman an "expert" on American politics? She doesn't seem to know some of their most basic realities. Beyond the US, she talks about the supposed inherent separation between Christianity and the secular State. She does this by cherry-picking her theologians, appealing to the book of Romans out of context, and by completely ignoring the history of the Crusades and the Catholic Church. Again, we see Elshtain taking everyone at their word when they say "Christianity is for your good" and ignoring their actions to the contrary. Islam doesn't get this same treatment, however. Besides a pithy one-liner at the end of the chapter that basically amounts to "not all Muslims, just the ones we kill", Islam is painted as being uniquely involved in human affairs and irreconcilable with progressive values. No such analysis is applied to Christian terrorists here or abroad (and domestically there are and have been many - see those who attack abortion providers or check out the #is100enough hashtag).
When speaking about the concept of Americans as "godless" (a common charge levied against us by Al Qaeda), Elshtain so clearly defines the problem with her argument: "90% of Americans believe in a God. This means we are not godless" meanwhile white supremacy has always had a home in the Christian church in America, we used our religion to effect the forced cultural death of Native spiritualism, prosperity gospel exists, and our politicians - wrapped in a flag and holding a bible - continue to enact or allow genocide against brown and black people. You wanna get biblical, Elshtain? How's this: "When The Devil lies, he speaks his native language, for he is “a liar” and “the father of lies.”" (John 8:44). Judging us by our actions, that would make us a shoe-in for a nation of Devils as we carve a swath of destruction around the globe. Weirdly, by analyzing material reality, we've come full circle: America, "The Great Satan" in Bin Laden's parlance, seems to fit the bill.
Chapter 3: A solid explanation of what Just War is. No notes.
Chapter 4: Opens with the incorrect assumption that 9/11 was an initiation, and not a response to US action overseas. Once we get past the idea that we were "defending ourselves" there is an interesting passage explaining "life in Afghanistan is really hard. Vaccination rates are low, education is insufficient, food supplies can be low etc." The humanitarian aspect of a US invasion could surely be a good thing, as Elshtain points out, but it seems pretty immaterial to the question at hand. It also seems to avoid that old joke, "If only the US military would invade the United States and build bridges, roads, schools, and win the hearts and minds of Americans." Our politico-economic structure and worldview produce profound inequalities of opportunity and wealth. They are tinged with the realities of racial capitalism. If we simply wanted to help the Afghan people then there are better ways to do that than at the barrel of a gun (indeed, the Soviets were well on their way to solving the problems Elshtain identifies until we funded the Mujahedeen opposition to the Soviet-aligned government).
"What *is* one to do with the likes of Bin Laden and al Qaeda?" Elshtain asks. Well... We've heard experts in counterterrorism for decades now saying that all-out military actions against terrorists using guerrilla tactics are a terrible idea. Terrorism is essentially a crime, and should be investigated, pursued, stopped, and treated as such. It is not a war.
BUT Elshtain does do a good job of further explaining the requirements of jus in bello.
Chapter 5: Should be called "why I'm not like the other intellectuals."
Didn't have high hopes when Elshtain declared that communism killed millions and their leaders were super spooky evil bad guys worse than Hitler. Like this woman is a joke.
To hear Elshtain, material reality means less than some immaterial intention. Since we didn't *mean* to kill thousands and thousands of Afghan civilians, it's not as bad as the 3000 civilians killed by al Qaeda. Like... that doesn't fucking matter to the people dying or their families. It doesn't matter to the civilians afraid that a bomb is going to drop on their house or that they're going to be pulled out of their home in the middle of the night and have a bag thrown over their head. It's an absolutely mental take.
Also, "false consciousness" takes a beating from Elshtain. She derisively scoffs at the entire concept of Gramscian power as simply "condescending" without actually engaging with it. One of the hallmarks of modern sociology. Okay, boomer.
Claims up and down that the US had never heard of Bin Laden and never worked with them. Were Elshtain alive today, perhaps it would be worth her while to look at more modern scholarship. This is still a contested issue, but surely Bin Laden was an ally if not a direct recipient of funds and not only was he granted visas to enter the US by the CIA numerous times, but he also seems to have received funds from the Pakistani ISI.... who received funds from the CIA. Like this ain't it, chief. Blowback is real in this case. We funded Islamist fighters and then they attacked us. It's that simple. She's in here quoting historians who don't believe we were aiding the Afghan rebels when we have this quote: "In an interview with French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur in January 1998, former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski recounted that “according to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, kept secret until now, is quite different: Indeed, it was on July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.”"
Elshtain finally remembers the crusades and - while not at all linking them to her earlier claims that Christianity is inherently secular (an obvious falsehood) - lays the ENTIRETY of the blame for the crusades on Muslims. Honestly you can't make this shit up.
She ends this chapter by basically ridiculing the viewpoint I've taken throughout this review which is frustrating, but at least I'm vindicated in that history has proven me right, Elshtain abandoned support for our wars in the Middle East as "Just Wars" and she fails entirely to address the viewpoint I've adopted: "Whenever writers on the left say that the 'root cause' of terror is global inequality or human poverty, the assertion is in fact a denial that religious motives really count."
^^ Like... no? It is a *material analysis* of history. I have repeatedly said that religion does, in fact, play a role in this war, but that it is ultimately not a holy war for the vast majority of its participants. To claim otherwise in the face of an immense amount of data and *the express statement to that effect by many fighters worldwide* is unbridled islamophobia. Like... Elshtain, you're showing your colors as a bigot.
Elshtain spends a chapter criticizing Edward Said's analysis, as well as providing what would be a laughable critique of the Left if all of the things she said were untrue didn't turn out to have horrifying impact on civilians here and abroad (later clarification of anti-imperialist terrorist motives; extrajudicial killing campaigns; torture in US facilities; improved opinions of Americans about Muslims; a lack of politicians playing an islamophobia card - a trend that probably hit its peak with the Tea Party but which was still alive and well under Trump; she claims civilian death tolls are all inflated in the Middle East - despite later scholarship that bolster her opponents).
I choose to chalk this up to: Elshtain spoke before she had all the data, and now would have her foot in her mouth if she were still alive.
This chapter is garbage. I can see no difference between this and having to listen to a College Republican defend America in a class where he's about to be thoroughly rebutted.
Chapter 8: Where is Niebuhr and Tillich?
A solid chapter. Elshtain is showing me - despite holding a ton of high positions in politics programs - that she doesn't know much of anything about the topic of terrorism and that she lives and dies on the hill of cherry-picked data and arguments.
What she DOES do well, though, is cover theological concepts. She unpacks Niebuhr and Tillich to show, "Hey! Look! Christians! You do actually have to fight sometimes to be a good Christian!" Niebuhr lived through Nazi Germany's time in the sun and had some excellent words on the topic. Unfortunately, the problem of international terrorism is ***NOTHING LIKE WWII***
Chapter 9: The Problem With Peace
So I see the setup here. Elshtain butters us up with the last two chapters doing two things: first, she ruthlessly denigrates the majority of social scientists who generally look at the issue of terrorism through a materialist lens which necessarily cannot give predominance to beliefs (see: religions) that inhibit their adherents' problem-solving abilities.
She also describes different ideas of peace: the utopian (Imagine fans are morons), the conquest (Rome brought peace to a desert), and the just (Christians). If she had a little less of a chip on her shoulder, and spent time not caping for Christianity but actually unpacking these ideas, this would have been a really good section.
Weber and Marx, and all their adherents, are useless, according to Elshtain and her ham-fisted book on why Christians wage the best wars.
In the section titled "Justification of War and Warfighting in Islam", though, Elshtain introduced a lot of information that I found very interesting! Her recounting - leaning heavily on two authors who I assume agree with her on most things - has a few basic thrusts:
(1) Islam has no "Just War" tradition, unlike Christianity
(2) Islam is inherently political, and thus also has no tradition surrounding "separation of Church and State"
(3) All war is "Just War" in Islam so long as it's against non-believers
Leaving us to reach the conclusion that Elshtain dare not say explicitly: ALL ISLAM IS IRREDEEMABLE AND MUST BE COMBATTED WHEREVER IT HOLDS POWER
I have a feeling that if I read other texts I will find her perspective on Islamic warfighting to be entirely lacking, but it was interesting to read something historical about Islam that may be able to hold more water than the collective colander-esque argument Elshtain has presented thus far.
Chapter 10
Yikes. Cites popular islamophobe Hitchens, then turns around and quotes an author *ridiculously* claiming that Islam was not as dangerous as Naziism, BUT IS IN FACT *MORE* OF A THREAT THAN THE NAZIS IN THEIR NEAR-SUCCESSFUL CONQUEST OF EUROPE, NORTH AFRICA, AND THE WESTERN STEPPE.
This woman is psychotic.
February 13, 2024
Read this for research purposes. JBE is a conservative leaning political scientist and Catholic theologian who became a major booster of the War on Terror. In this book she seeks to explain the nature of the War on Terror and why a forcible response to 911 is both just and necessary. She argues that this is a war with a radical segment of Islam, not Islam itself. Like many commentators at the time, she argues that nothing in U.S. policy can possibly justify AQ's hatred and atrocities. I agree with this for the most part; it is true that changing aspects of USFP that the radicals don't like wouldn't alleviate most of their hatred for the US, which is rooted not just in policy but in cultural/religious factors as well. However, it is fair to say that AQ and other radicals are especially hateful of the US because of certain aspects of our foreign policy, such as support for autocracies in the Middle East.
JBE doesn't really try to hash all of this out; she's more interested in conceptualizing the problem in a way that can be squeezed into the JWT framework. That being said, JBE walks the reader through the development of Just War Theory in a helpful way, starting with Augustine. She also criticizes Islam itself for lacking a separation of Church and state tradition, which she believes has made it harder for this faith to reform and modernize. This is a little essentialist on one hand, but part of me thinks there is also something to this, although I need to read a lot more to come to a more definitive judgment.
Yet the book has a couple of key failings that caused me to downgrade it somewhat. The postscript justifying the Iraq War is just plain bad. She acknowledges that Saddam poses no real threat to the US but argues for a de facto preventive war with blithe assumptions about all the good this would do the Iraqi people. She argues that the war could be defended as punishment for Saddam's crimes over a decade before 2003, even though the US was actually wooing Saddam when most of these crimes occurred. Finally, she engaged in some borderline conspiracy-thinking regarding the idea that Iraq did have WMD but that they moved them at the last second to Syria (a claim for which there has been little evidence).
JBE is also pretty bad as a strategist. She's contemptuous of international institutions that can provide US actions with some level of legitimacy. She doesn't differentiate between the large, inchoate thing called radical Islam and the groups that actually wanted to launch transnational attacks on the West, causing her to dramatically inflate the nature of the War on Terror. Finally, she dramatically underestimates the difficulties of doing nation-building in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and never even tries to differentiate between peripheral and essential U.S. interests. Following her approach, the U.S. would be at war even more often and in more places than we have been.
There are much more thoughtful analyses out there about just war and the War on Terror, esp those by Michael Walzer. Unless you have a very specific research-related reason to read this, it's not really worthwhile.
JBE doesn't really try to hash all of this out; she's more interested in conceptualizing the problem in a way that can be squeezed into the JWT framework. That being said, JBE walks the reader through the development of Just War Theory in a helpful way, starting with Augustine. She also criticizes Islam itself for lacking a separation of Church and state tradition, which she believes has made it harder for this faith to reform and modernize. This is a little essentialist on one hand, but part of me thinks there is also something to this, although I need to read a lot more to come to a more definitive judgment.
Yet the book has a couple of key failings that caused me to downgrade it somewhat. The postscript justifying the Iraq War is just plain bad. She acknowledges that Saddam poses no real threat to the US but argues for a de facto preventive war with blithe assumptions about all the good this would do the Iraqi people. She argues that the war could be defended as punishment for Saddam's crimes over a decade before 2003, even though the US was actually wooing Saddam when most of these crimes occurred. Finally, she engaged in some borderline conspiracy-thinking regarding the idea that Iraq did have WMD but that they moved them at the last second to Syria (a claim for which there has been little evidence).
JBE is also pretty bad as a strategist. She's contemptuous of international institutions that can provide US actions with some level of legitimacy. She doesn't differentiate between the large, inchoate thing called radical Islam and the groups that actually wanted to launch transnational attacks on the West, causing her to dramatically inflate the nature of the War on Terror. Finally, she dramatically underestimates the difficulties of doing nation-building in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and never even tries to differentiate between peripheral and essential U.S. interests. Following her approach, the U.S. would be at war even more often and in more places than we have been.
There are much more thoughtful analyses out there about just war and the War on Terror, esp those by Michael Walzer. Unless you have a very specific research-related reason to read this, it's not really worthwhile.
February 10, 2020
Jane Addams, who faced brutal consequences for opposing war, would be appalled that you are writing books about her. But you play a traditional and long-serving role as the liberal snake oil salesperson of war to the poor and dwindling working class for which you are rewarded in silver by the prestigious institutions listed in your resume that profit from our endless wars.
June 12, 2025
Three stars for the application of the theory of Just War to the modern state's fight against islamic terrorism. Minus a star for trying to use that theory to create a defense for the GWOT.
June 17, 2016
This is a marvelous book full of interesting and challenging insights..But (you knew that was coming right?) Let me cover the positive aspects first. This is a critical examination of the Just War Theory, by the respected professor and author Jean Bethke Elshtain, Professor of Social and Political Ethics in the University of Chicago, who unfortunately passed away in 2013, as it pertains to modern US engagement against terrorism and radical Islamic fundamentalism. Se clearly lays out ans exposes the central tenets of the theory and how it applies to US policy today. Although the book was originally destined to cover the immediate post- 9/11 events and the US invasion of Afghanistan, there is also an (unfortunate and misguided) epilogue covering the US fiasco in Iraq as well. Lucid succinct and easy enough to follow, even for a novice lay-reader new to the concepts of JWT. Elshtain covers the different aspects of the development and application of JWT, with an aggressive and gusto, no-bars-hold approach and tackles her vociferous militant pacifist opponent with great bravado and flair. She clearly dismembers their futile arguments and show the liberal fallacies for all their worthless academic rhetoric which they purport. This was, in fact, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the title and anyone who is fed up with the so-called progressive academic anti-everythingestablishmentism, will feel a breath of fresh air and and sigh a sigh of cognitive relief.
Where she unfortunately goes off -kilter is in her blind and unbridled support of the invasion of Iraq. She falls into the exact same trap that she rightfully accuses her detractors of,-- that if a failure to abide by clear empirical evidence to support her positions. She argues that the JWT requires empirical facts, however, she never substantiates her claims , which is understandable since, this was certainly NOT the case in the Iraqi intervention. Most of these so-called facts, were assumptions based upon past historical events and declarations, falsified and exaggerated claims, hearsay and flawed intelligence.
On page 189, for instance, she states, "But the interesting, and reasonable, question at this point is: what happened to the weapons and what did Secretary of State Madeleine Albright mean when she said, as ambassador to the UN, that Iraq’s weapons program could “destroy all humanity”? Was she “lying” too? If, as I’ve read and heard, the Bush administration made it all up because they wanted a war, it means the UN and the Clinton administration made it all up too. Such arguments are beneath contempt, no matter who is making them."
Much like her empty arguments, concerning the reasons for invading Iraq, based on nothing more than flawed intelligence, imperial hubris, naked vested national interests and blind speculation, this again, is nothing more than a teleological argument which is speculative and without any empirical foundation.
Finally, there is a very strong feminist undertone, which is related to, but not directly essential, to the topic at hand but which she obviously felt strongly enough and committed enough about to weave into her narrative.
Conclusion,
A great book, which offers clear and profound insights into JWT and its relevance to modern armed conflict. The epilogues are rather accessory and tend to detract from this otherwise excellent title.
Where she unfortunately goes off -kilter is in her blind and unbridled support of the invasion of Iraq. She falls into the exact same trap that she rightfully accuses her detractors of,-- that if a failure to abide by clear empirical evidence to support her positions. She argues that the JWT requires empirical facts, however, she never substantiates her claims , which is understandable since, this was certainly NOT the case in the Iraqi intervention. Most of these so-called facts, were assumptions based upon past historical events and declarations, falsified and exaggerated claims, hearsay and flawed intelligence.
On page 189, for instance, she states, "But the interesting, and reasonable, question at this point is: what happened to the weapons and what did Secretary of State Madeleine Albright mean when she said, as ambassador to the UN, that Iraq’s weapons program could “destroy all humanity”? Was she “lying” too? If, as I’ve read and heard, the Bush administration made it all up because they wanted a war, it means the UN and the Clinton administration made it all up too. Such arguments are beneath contempt, no matter who is making them."
Much like her empty arguments, concerning the reasons for invading Iraq, based on nothing more than flawed intelligence, imperial hubris, naked vested national interests and blind speculation, this again, is nothing more than a teleological argument which is speculative and without any empirical foundation.
Finally, there is a very strong feminist undertone, which is related to, but not directly essential, to the topic at hand but which she obviously felt strongly enough and committed enough about to weave into her narrative.
Conclusion,
A great book, which offers clear and profound insights into JWT and its relevance to modern armed conflict. The epilogues are rather accessory and tend to detract from this otherwise excellent title.
Read
August 9, 2011An interesting 'Just War' analysis of the challenges facing America and the international community, written in the aftermath of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. While I imagine the majority of people would disagree with Elshtain's point of view, I would still recommend it to anyone seeking to gain a greater understanding of the issues at stake in the War on Terror. Even if you maintain a contrary viewpoint, 'Just War Against Terror' contains a number of challenging arguments that haven't lost their impact since it was written.
Whilst Elshtain's book is obviously to some extent dated - being written before many of the major foreign policy events of the Bush Administration (although in this edition there is a brief epilogue that addresses the 'Just War' rationale for the Iraq War) - it is nonetheless a worthwhile read. I would like to see Elshtain re-write this book to deal with the succeeding events following the publication of 'Just War Against Terror', but even without it, this book provides a conscise moral argument justifying the reaction of the US government in dealing with Al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism.
Whilst Elshtain's book is obviously to some extent dated - being written before many of the major foreign policy events of the Bush Administration (although in this edition there is a brief epilogue that addresses the 'Just War' rationale for the Iraq War) - it is nonetheless a worthwhile read. I would like to see Elshtain re-write this book to deal with the succeeding events following the publication of 'Just War Against Terror', but even without it, this book provides a conscise moral argument justifying the reaction of the US government in dealing with Al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism.
June 13, 2012
How much do you know about just war theory? This was the question that led me on a search. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I presumed that our flagship university in Provo (BYU) would have a specialist in philosophy, politics, or even liberal arts. Undaunted, I did find the well-regarded "centrist" political philosopher Jean Bethke-Elshtain, whose short tome is the best case for just war that I have found.
Clearly Michael Sanvel's latest book-cum-Harvard Lectures on "justice" cover a few related areas, and if you want to go deep on the history/policy you would do well to see Phillip Bobbit's Terror and Consent which is overwhelming in its erudition and breadth. Elshtain is content to walk you through the theory and application--which is something we need to do again as we debate cyberwar, drone kill lists, and outer space.
Clearly Michael Sanvel's latest book-cum-Harvard Lectures on "justice" cover a few related areas, and if you want to go deep on the history/policy you would do well to see Phillip Bobbit's Terror and Consent which is overwhelming in its erudition and breadth. Elshtain is content to walk you through the theory and application--which is something we need to do again as we debate cyberwar, drone kill lists, and outer space.
December 30, 2013
This is a through analysis regarding the ethical foundations of just war in the context of terrorism. Initially, it seemed as though too much time had passed since the original publication in 2002, and subsequent addition regarding Iraq in 2004. A lot has happened regarding our response to the "war on terror" in the past decade. This leaves the reader with a desire for a more recent analysis. However, this desire is not overshadowed by the fact that this book is about timeless principles found in the Judeo-Christian heritage and applicable to the western world.
January 17, 2008
This is by no means a stereotypical, right-wing, "chicken hawk" book, and the author makes a solid case for many facets of the war on terror. Her thesis goes off the rails a bit, though, when it comes to Iraq. It would interesting to see what she thinks in 2008, since this was written in 2003, shortly after the invasion.
January 26, 2015
Reliable and Mature look into Just War Theory & the positive responsibility of America.
A theological, as much as political, treatise on Just War theory and practice. This is Elshtain at her best. Unpacking relevant information and engaging in the conversation for-our-time, that The West must have, and continue to debate.
A theological, as much as political, treatise on Just War theory and practice. This is Elshtain at her best. Unpacking relevant information and engaging in the conversation for-our-time, that The West must have, and continue to debate.
September 28, 2008
It was probably one of the few academic books that supports the war on terror, but in a well though out way. He does condemn many methods used, but explains how people only are trying to do their best with what they have etc.
March 25, 2015
I appreciated this book. I don't think I agree with her conclusions, but I feel like I agreed with her enough to be able to seriously consider them. I'm looking forward to doing some more thinking and reading on this.
September 15, 2013
The author provides a concise summary of the "just war doctrine" and its applicability to the US response to terror attacks.
February 25, 2015
The moral issue was well spelled out. As the only super power our present government doesn't understand this concept.
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