“The man who many considered the peace candidate in the last election was transformed into a war president,” writes bestselling author and Yale Professor of Law Stephen Carter. The Violence of Peace is a snapshot of the early unfolding moral dilemmas of a President who, through his use of drones and other controversial tools of warfare, is leaving America with a blood stained legacy which will impact on the security of the nation for decades to come. The world is now a far less safe place in 2016 than it was in 2008. First released in 2011, The Violence of Peace is a book about “just war” theory, a concept first advanced in the earliest years of Christianity and now playing out as a 21st Century nightmare.
Far from combatting terrorism, critics argue that America and Obama’s actions directly contributed to making Islamic State the biggest and most frightening story on Earth. As America continued a global war on terrorism, Carter delved into the implications of the military philosophy Obama adopted in his first years in office. Responding to the invitation that Obama himself issued in his Nobel address, Carter uses the tools of the Western tradition of just and unjust war to evaluate Obama’s actions and words about military conflict, offering insight into how his judgment will shape America’s fate. Some of the tactics Obama has used or authorized are more extreme than those of his predecessor, George W. Bush. For historians of war, this book reflects an early sympathy amongst academics for Obama’s approach to conflict, a sympathy which was to rapidly dissolve as the situation in Iraq, Syria, and across the Middle East devolved into unprecedented chaos.