IT'S A PURITAN NATION:

Now, it is true that, in my view, many British and American wars are indeed justified -- including the First World War, the Second World War, Kosovo, and Iraq in both 1991 and 2003.

But that doesn't mean that Anglo-Saxons always find themselves on the side of the angels. According to my reading of just war criteria, the British were quite unjustified in bombarding Canton in 1841 to avenge their humiliation by imperial officials and to hoist the benefits of free trade (in opium) on the Chinese. They were also wrong to invade Zululand in 1879, since, notwithstanding humanitarian motives and intentions, the invasion lacked last resort.

If just war analysis can say no to some British wars, there is no reason in principle why it cannot do the same for American ones. I myself have doubts about the American War of Independence. It is not obvious to me that the lack of direct representation in the imperial parliament was an injustice so grave and intractable as to warrant bloodshed.

I also have doubts about the federal prosecution of the American Civil War. Had it aimed first and foremost at the abolition of slavery, it would have been just. But it did not: Lincoln's primary concern was to preserve the integrity and power of the United States.

Beyond what he perceives as just war reasoning's general toothlessness, Linker complains that it is too morally idealistic, seducing nations like the U.S. into assuming the role of global policeman and judge to the detriment of its own national interests. "Our government's highest duty is to us," he writes. "It can have no duty to the citizens of another nation."

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