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Life, Death, and the Western Way of War traces when and how western soldiers—once regarded as simple fighting tools—became the far less expendable beings that we know today. In Kant's terms, the study traces the process through which soldiers have been turned from mere military means into ends in themselves. The book argues that such a major transformation is largely the result of a shift in the social meaning ascribed to soldiers' death. It suggests that looking at death can somehow provide a privileged angle to understanding the value that societies attach to life. The narrative emerging from the empirical evidence will show that the story of attitudes towards soldiers' death is the story of a gradual, increasing process of individualization in the social meaning attached to human loss in war. Such a development, which took centuries to emerge in full, was neither simple nor linear. It was a process that the state was temporarily able to frame in the collective narrative of the nation, but which ultimately has seen the increasing importance of the life of the individual soldier. In tracing the process through which soldiers have been turned from an amorphous collective into distinct individuals, this book shows how the emphasis on the primacy of the individual has further eroded the effectiveness of western warfare as an instrument of foreign policy. In particular, the modern, liberal conception of the soldier has had the unintended consequence of jeopardizing the Clausewitzian relationship between military means and political ends.

Hans J. Morgenthau's contribution to international relations and political theory appears to have been fully recognized to date. However, his ideas have undergone surprisingly little comprehensive investigation: an attitude that made it possible to grasp only a few aspects of his reflections. The main argument of this article is that the main area of inquiry in Morgenthau's scholarship – international politics and foreign policy – is based on general considerations regarding the role of reason in politics and the limits of knowledge of the social universe. Not only does the question of the possibility of such knowledge lie at the root of his considerations on political action, but it also forms the mainspring of his reflection on ethics. Through an inquiry into the red thread that tightly links his diverse body of thought on social sciences, ethics, and foreign policy, the article aims to show that Morgenthau was a systematic political thinker who set out from theoretical observations on the limits of knowledge to develop particular insights into ethics and, from there, a particular notion of how foreign policy should be conducted. In other words, Morgenthau established links of essential continuity between knowledge, ethics, and action.

Hans J. Morgenthau's contribution to international relations and political theory appears to have been fully recognized to date. However, his ideas have undergone surprisingly little comprehensive investigation: an attitude that made it possible to grasp only a few aspects of his reflections. The main argument of this article is that the main area of inquiry in Morgenthau's scholarship – international politics and foreign policy – is based on general considerations regarding the role of reason in politics and the limits of knowledge of the social universe. Not only does the question of the possibility of such knowledge lie at the root of his considerations on political action, but it also forms the mainspring of his reflection on ethics. Through an inquiry into the red thread that tightly links his diverse body of thought on social sciences, ethics, and foreign policy, the article aims to show that Morgenthau was a systematic political thinker who set out from theoretical observations on the limits of knowledge to develop particular insights into ethics and, from there, a particular notion of how foreign policy should be conducted. In other words, Morgenthau established links of essential continuity between knowledge, ethics, and action.

Albeit fashionable in some academic circles, the idea that International Relations theory should influence practice is based on the problematic view that scholars allegedly have a privileged epistemological standpoint making them more qualified than laymen and decision-makers alike to understand how international politics works. The present article tries to show why this assumption is mistaken and suggests that the so-called theory–practice gap should not be bridged. The fact that International Relations theory should not directly influence policy does not mean, however, that students of international politics are of no political use. Their work can be justified not in terms of the direct application of their findings, but rather by virtue of its indirect and unintended consequences on policymaking. Relying on a liberal view of political knowledge, the article claims that the role of International Relations scholars is not to suggest to policymakers what action to take, but rather to prevent foreign policy being formulated in the absence of rival theoretical conclusions.

AbstractWhile a superb scholarship on Morgenthau as a political theorist has literally exploded over the past ten years, his analysis of foreign policy has been generally neglected, overlooking the intimate relationship between theory and policy in his practical philosophy. This article presents Morgenthau's public opposition to the Vietnam War by placing it in the broader framework of his theoretical work. In doing so, I illustrate and clarify the meaning of three theses that are at the very centre of his political reflection: the critique to any type of universalistic understanding of world politics; his claim about the intangible roots and social bases of political order; and, finally, the dangers of the 'military displacement of politics'. Writing about Morgenthau's critique of American intervention in Vietnam today is neither a purely academic exercise, nor a mere historical reconstruction of a great scholar's position on one of the most important military conflicts of the twentieth century. In fact, this article aims to shed light on some intellectual categories which seem to be useful in order to understand current political phenomena, and to criticise philosophies and faulty modes of thought that still enjoy a predominant but unjustified political status.