Just and Unjust Warriors: Marking the 35th Anniversary of Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars

• Howse, Robert

Abstract

Thucydides is usually considered a realist thinker who denies a meaningful place to right or justice in international relations. In Just and Unjust Wars, however, Michael Walzer develops a powerful critique of realism through an engagement with Thucydides. This article compares Walzer’s treatment with Leo Strauss’s anti-realist interpretation of Thucydides, suggesting many similarities between Walzer’s approach and Strauss’s. Both Walzer and Strauss hold that, even in war, necessity does not eliminate meaningful margins of moral choice. Strauss’s much more expansive treatment of Thucydides helps us appreciate the subtleties of Walzer’s terse argument against realists.