Responsibility and Restraint

Ideas, like people, have genealogies. And so it is with the just war tradition - a moral and ethical framework that seeks to inform political, military, and other leaders and individuals who are responsible for maintaining a just and peaceful social and political order in a turbulent and tumultuous world. The history of moral discussions of war, peace, and proper use of military force is long and complex. For centuries, philosophers, theologians, political theorists, jurists, and others in the West have upheld the viability and vitality of the just war tradition. In so doing, they have argued that war in the pursuit of justice may at times be necessary, but must be conducted with responsibility and restraint. The essays in this volume analyze and honor the thought of James Turner Johnson, the preeminent historian of the just war tradition in the twenty-first century. Whether on considers the theological, cross-cultural, or secular stands of the centuries-old tradition, the scholarship and ideas of Johnson, spanning more than half a century, are prominent in academic literature, the academy, and the profession of arms. The ethics of war, justice, law of armed conflict, human rights, terrorism and the international order, international humanitarian law, and issues of faith and force are among the many topics addressed by Johnson that contributors discuss in these pages.