Journal of Global Security Studies, 3(2), 2018, 234–247 doi: 10.1093/jogss/ogy003 Research Article Keeping Tradition Alive: Just War and Historical Imagination Cian O’Driscoll University of Glasgow Abstract The just war tradition is one of the key constituencies of international political theory, and its vocab- ulary plays a prominent role in how political and military leaders frame contemporary conflicts. Yet, it stands in danger of turning in on itself and becoming irrelevant. This article argues that scholars who wish to preserve the vitality of this tradition must think in a more open-textured fashion about its historiography. One way to achieve this is to problematize the boundaries of the tradition. This article pursues this objective by treating one figure that stands in a liminal relation to the just war tradition. Despite having a lot to say about the ethics of war, Xenophon is seldom acknowledged as a bona fide just war thinker. The analysis presented here suggests, however, that his writings have much to tell us, not only about how he and his contemporaries thought about the ethics of war, but about how just war thinking is understood (and delimited) today and how it might be revived as a pluralistic critical enterprise. Keywords: just war, ancient Greece, Xenophon, historiography, changing character of war “The past is a different country, they do things differ- its totality, as a rolling story, rather than as an index of ently there.” discrete individuated contributions (Johnson 2009, 252). L. P. Hartley Proponents of this approach argue that not only does it afford us a deeper and more historically contextualized understanding of the various moral categories and prin- Introduction ciples that just war thinking both relies upon and trades What is at stake when one refers to just war tradition in (e.g., just cause, proper authority), it also furnishes us rather than just war theory? To insist on thinking about with a more variegated and potentially critical perspec- just war as a tradition entails rejecting the idea that it re- tive upon how those same categories and principles are 2 duces to a single, coherent, axiomatic theory. Approach- employed today. ing just war in this way involves conceiving of it as a his- It is disappointing, then, to note that scholars who torically continuous collection of closely related but often approach just war as a tradition tend to sell themselves competing voices that, when viewed in concert, form a short by focusing on the same selection of authorita- sustained body of thought and practice.1 As such, think- tive figures (e.g., Augustine, Aquinas, Vitoria, Grotius) ing about just war as a tradition means engaging it in 2 The key proponents of this approach are Johnson (2006) 1 Nardin (1992, 3) defines traditions as “resilient but not and Kelsay (2013). Their approach shares certain simi- immutable practices that are constantly modified in larities with aspects of Skinner’s approach to the history use.” of political thought (2002). O’Driscoll, Cian (2018) Keeping Tradition Alive: Just War and Historical Imagination. Journal of Global Security Studies, doi: 10.1093/jogss/ogy003 © The Author(s) (2018). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jogss/article-abstract/3/2/234/4964797 by University of Glasgow user on 07 June 2018 CIAN O’DRISCOLL 235 at the expense of a wider range of thinkers.3 Presum- Popovski, Reichberg, and Turner 2009; Hensel 2010; ably scholars have trained their exegeses on these figures Reichberg, Syse, and Hartwell 2014). because they made seminal contributions to the devel- As developed here, however, the recovery of historical opment of the tradition. This is fine insofar as it goes. imagination assumes a related but subtly different form. But the possibility must also be entertained that the fail- It too is comparative, but it pursues a diachronic rather ure to look beyond the usual suspects reflects a failure synchronic approach. Instead of peering over the bound- of historical imagination. On this account the focus on a aries of the just war tradition to evaluate its counterparts restricted range of thinkers represents a slide into “tra- in other cultures and parts of the world, the idea pro- ditionalism,” that is, a preference for deferring to and posed here is to delve both further and more extensively working within the established canon (Pelikan 1984, 64). into the past than has hitherto been the case to examine The result is problematic: a discourse that is unduly nar- how just war has been understood in earlier historical row and which reproduces itself at the expense of fresh societies.4 thinking (O’Driscoll 2013, 53–56). Scholars who pursue To showcase this approach, this article examines a this approach jeopardize the vitality of the tradition—its set of texts from one remote historical society, namely protean character,its adaptability, its relevance—by turn- classical Greece. Within this frame, its principal focus ing it into a dusty indulgence for antiquarians. is upon the writings of Xenophon of Athens (431–356 The purpose of this article is to argue that this situ- BCE), a figure of some historical significance who is sel- ation can be remedied and to propose a model for how dom considered in relation to the tradition of just war this might be achieved. The idea is simple. It is to extend reasoning, but whose writings have the potential to illu- the historiography of the just war tradition to include a minate some of its core aspects. The discussion will pro- wider range of figures, with a special emphasis on those ceed by examining how Xenophon posits warfare in his who are liminal to the tradition. The intention is not to collected works, and in particular how he examines it in press a case for including this or that figure among the terms of right and wrong. While the primary purpose is list of the great and the good of the just war tradition. not to argue for Xenophon’s inclusion in the tradition, Rather, it is simply to expand the discourse as a means it will be shown that he treats the ethics of war in terms of encouraging more reflexive and open-textured think- that evoke the jus ad bellum and jus in bello categories ing about the boundaries of the tradition and how they and principles that form the conceptual vocabulary of have come to be understood. If scholars are convinced contemporary just war thinking.5 Perhaps more impor- of the utility of thinking about just war as a tradition, tantly, this article will also show that the manner in which but also wish to avoid the flaccid conservatism that is a by-product of recycling the same old canonical texts, this 4 This argument draws upon Schorske’s idea of “thinking represents a viable way forward. In essence, what we are with history” (1998, 3), as well as the work Lowenthal talking about is a recovery of historical imagination. (1985) and others. For a recent example of what this This could take a number of forms. It could, for in- might look like, see Cox (2017). stance, involve an opening up of the discourse to en- 5 There is a temptation here to cavil that this termi- gage non-Western approaches to thinking ethically about nology has no place in any discussion of Xenophon’s war. The comparative ethics of war is a fertile area writings—that this would be anachronistic. This com- for research. Work in this field exhibits a commitment plaint has merit. There are, however, two responses to viewing just war thinking alongside and in dialogue to it. First, it overlooks the degree to which any ex- with other cultural approaches to thinking about and tension of this terminology, coined only in the twenti- regulating warfare (e.g., as found in Islamic political eth century (Kolb 1997), to classical just war thought is thought or Hinduism). This approach already has pro- anachronistic. Second, while scholars must be mind- duced an impressive body of scholarship (Johnson and ful to treat historical categories of thought sensitively Kelsay 1991; Nardin 1996; Sorabji and Rodin 2006; and with due appreciation for their contextual charac- ter, some element of translation may be necessary to render those ideas intelligible to a contemporary audi- 3 There is no need to name names here; most of us who ence (Rorty, Schneewind, and Skinner 1984, 6–7). To this write about the history of the just war tradition are end, it can be useful to treat certain “low-level plati- culpable on this count. Honorable exceptions include tudes” as “bridgehead” concepts that make conversa- Cox (2014); Bachofen (2015); Pugliatti (2010); Brunstetter tions possible across different societies and eras (Rorty, (2010); Orend (2000); Syse (2010); and Reichberg, Syse, Scheewind, and Skinner 1984,2;alsoLloyd 2004, 8). This and Begby (2006). article uses just war categories in this way. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jogss/article-abstract/3/2/234/4964797 by University of Glasgow user on 07 June 2018 236 Just War and Historical Imagination Xenophon conceives of and deploys these terms casts a of Socrates, with whom he was personally acquainted revealing light upon how they are understood and em- (Anderson 2001, 28). The latter’s execution in 399 BCE ployed today.6 was a formative moment in Xenophon’s life, souring his In this regard, four points of interest come to the relationship with Athenian democracy.