In an era marked by a worldwide war against terrorism and the recapturing of the language of good and evil in descriptions of one's own war aims and the actions of one's enemy, The Ethics of Destruction arrives at an appropriate time. The intentionally provocative title captures its apparently paradoxical aim of combining the effort to act justly and the effort to destroy. In the course of this exercise in amalgamation, it also illustrates the mixture of self-interest, technological capability, normative expectations, and political shrewdness that takes center stage when international conflict looms.