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In May 2009, American B-1B bombers dropped 2000-pound and 500-pound bombs in the village of Garani, Afghanistan following a Taliban attack. The dead included anywhere from 25 to over 100 civilians. The US military went into damage control mode, making numerous apologies to the Afghan government and the townspeople. Afterward, the military announced that it would modify its aerial support tactics. This episode was hardly an anomaly. As anyone who has followed the Afghanistan war knows, these types of incidents occur with depressing regularity. Indeed, as Neta Crawford shows in this book, they are intrinsic to the American way of warfare today.

In White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations, Robert Vitalis presents a critical disciplinary history of the field of international relations, and the discipline of political science more broadly. Vitalis argues that the interconnections between imperialism and racism were "constitutive" of international relations scholarship in the U.S. since the turn of the 20th century, and that the perspectives of a generation of African-American scholars that included W. E. B. Dubois, Alain Locke, and Ralph Bunche were equally constitutive of this scholarship—by virtue of the way the emerging discipline sought to marginalize these scholars. In developing this argument, Vitalis raises questions about the construction of knowledge and the racial foundations of American political development. These issues lie at the heart of U.S. political science, and so we have invited a range of political scientists to comment on the book and its implications for our discipline.

Des militaires américains ont été accusés d'« atrocités » en Irak. Le point de vue dominant est qu'il s'agissait d'incidents isolés. Il est aussi généralement admis que, si ces actes sont bien des atrocités voire des crimes de guerre, les individus qui les ont perpétrés et, dans certains cas, leurs supérieurs doivent être tenus pour responsables sur le plan moral et pénal. Mais le paradigme de la responsabilité individuelle ne permet pas de saisir toute la signification morale de ces événements. Quand la politique suivie par un État cause régulièrement et de manière prévisible des atrocités, même involontairement, celles-ci peuvent devenir « systémiques ». Le concept de responsabilité morale collective – aux trois niveaux de l'organisation militaire, de l'État et des citoyens – permet de mieux comprendre comment ces faits ont pu se produire et ce qu'ils signifient. Atrocité systémique et responsabilité morale collective sont deux concepts utiles dans la recherche des moyens de prévention des atrocités et des façons adéquates d'y réagir.

Several US military personnel have been accused of committing "atrocities" in Iraq. The dominant assumption is that these were isolated incidents. Further, it is commonly assumed that if these incidents were atrocities, or war crimes, the individuals who perpetrated them, & in some cases their commanders, should be held both legally & morally responsible. Yet the paradigm of individual responsibility does not capture all that is morally meaningful about these incidents. When policies regularly & predictably cause them, even though unintended, atrocity can become systemic. The concept of collective moral responsibility -- at the organization, state, & public levels -- helps us understand how these acts could occur & what they mean. Systemic atrocity & collective moral responsibility are two useful concepts to look for means to prevent atrocities & to respond to them. Adapted from the source document.

In 1862 Bismark said, "The great questions of the age are not settled by speeches and majority votes . . . but by iron and blood. (Quoted in Shulze, 1998: 140)" While beautifully evocative, Bismark's reasoning raises more questions than his for-mulation answers. What are the great questions of an age? How do those preoccupations arise? If political argument is meaningless, or nearly so, why do actors engage in it? And if some issue is settled by force, what led individuals and nations to sacrifice their blood and treasure, their sons and daughters? Realists generally say that one of two factors typically explains the preoccupations of an age and the resort to force; humans are motivated by either material interests or the drive for the power necessary to secure their interests. We need look no deeper.

AbstractIn Ethics, Security, and the War-Machine, Ned Dobos highlights several negative consequences the preparation for war has for individuals and states. But he misses what I consider perhaps the most significant consequence of military mobilization for states, especially democracies: how war and the preparation for it affect deliberative politics. While many argue that all states, including democracies, require strong militaries—and there is some evidence that long wars can build democracies and states—I focus on the other effects of militarization and war on democratic states. War and militarism are antipodal to democracy and undermine it. Their normative bases are conflicting—democracy takes force off the table, whereas force is legitimate in war. Thus, while militarism and militarization can sometimes yield liberalization and the expansion of civil rights, they are arguably more likely to undermine democratic norms and practices.

The moral duties of the United States in Iraq cannot be separated from the larger question of the security requirements of the United States and its larger moral duties as the world's preeminent military and economic power. Moreover, even after the United States leaves Iraq these questions will not disap- pear, not least because it may find itself occupying more states in its war on ter- ror and against rogue states.

Explores the concept of 'background' taken-for-granted ideas in politics, linking this notion to Habermas' 'lifeworld' and Focault's 'episteme' Explicates decision-makers' background ideas about the utility and effectiveness of war Suggests that offensive war is not as effective as decision-makers tend to assume and that decision-makers tend to discount the costs of war Shows that beliefs about the effectiveness of war—specifically the articulation of military necessity and proportionality—tend to weaken the just war and international law limitations on war 'Background ideas' are the essential foundation for decision-making, action, and institutionalized practices. These ideas are sometimes explicitly articulated—when defended or asserted in new contexts—but more often simply assumed and unstated. Decision-makers often believe that war works—that it is effective—and moreover that war can achieve objectives at comparatively low cost. Jus ad bellum and jus in bello considerations in the just war tradition—including last resort, necessity, probability of success, and proportionality, and the idea of double effect—are also explicitly concerned with utility—whether and when war works. Utility is also an essential element in the discourse about military necessity. Does war work? What is it good for? Why does it tend to extremes of violence? What are its costs? How do decision-makers hold onto beliefs about the utility of war in the face of disconfirming evidence?