| Power, while often ignored, permeates the Christian, Islamic and Hindu just war traditions. First, because all three rely on a stable order in which to pursue their visions of the good life, the just war traditions seek to preserve order and stability both vertically among actors within each polity and horizontally between polities. Thus, to fulfill their religious ideals, just war traditions have an inherent theoretical tendency towards supporting powerful, stable states and state systems.;Second, just war traditions pragmatically reflect historically contingent realities of warfare, and the relative power capacities of their patron states. This suggests that just war traditions care about power not only for theoretical reasons, but for pragmatic ones as well. As political contingencies change, so too do theories of just war. This correlation suggests the development of just war theories that favored the dominant powers of the time. This is partially due to unconscious reflection by theorists of the norms and realities of warfare of their time, and partially the result of an effort to make just war thinking relevant and applicable.;Finally, power informs the conversations among these three just war traditions, and their relationships with international law. Modern international law regarding war reinforces the Western-dominated state system, as a result of its theoretical underpinnings. Christian just war theory became secularized into "Western" international law starting in the seventeenth century, which raises questions about the assumption of the latter's universality.;Ultimately, I argue that the just war traditions cannot serve to prevent political violence, because they represent a compromise between theological ethics and the demands of statecraft. However, just war traditions do serve to channel political violence in certain directions. In particular, these traditions rationalize war as a moral necessity (in contrast to pacifists) and preclude violence as a means for spreading religious belief (in contrast to crusaders). Ultimately, I present a critique from the pacifist perspective, arguing that because just war theories are so closely tied to power politics, they have failed to be ambitious enough to actually prevent war. |
