A Philosophy of War: Why We Fight

According to one wag, war ´died in Hiroshima´ more than half a century ago. And yet it has never gone away. Terrorist acts, Israeli-Palestinian and Middle Eastern conflicts, the implosion of Yugoslavia, countries torn apart by factions, not to mention other wars: economic, psychological, computer, gender or generational... Russia´s invasion of Ukraine has reshuffled the cards. This time, they say, it´s the return of real war, with its atrocities, its horrors, its violence. But what is a real war? By calling on the great political philosophers, from Plato to Marx, via Machiavelli and Hobbes, this book attempts to answer this question, along with a series of others: what is a just war? What moral forces are involved in a conflict? Does the state make war, or does war make the state? Finally, after exploring the meanings and stakes of the spectre of ´total´ war, he tackles the ultimate question: why war?