Closing the R2P Chapter
Sagar Sanyal implores us to look beyond the analytical just war tradition in our thinking about humanitarian intervention. The standards and assumptions built into this approach are its trappings: they necessarily limit our appreciation of what is at stake, morally and politically. What is more, if we persist in this approach Sanyal fears that philosophers of war and military ethicists will become ‘decreasingly relevant to political reality’. To avoid this fate, Sanyal argues, Marxist concepts and precepts must be taken more seriously in our appraisal of war and conflict. If we start with a Marxist understanding of states and the wars they wage—as rooted in economic competition and driven by imperialist ambitions—we will be in a better position to confront the problems of the real world.