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This article argues that the Just War tradition would do well to consider the importance of competence – and that doing so would invigorate debates about the use of organized violence. The article defends this argument through several moves. First, inspired by Aristotle’s thoughts on phronesis and chance, we view competence as a practice among those who, as a matter of course, engage in practical reasoning that takes into account the contingency of political action. Second, following from Arendt, competence can be considered that which foregrounds means over ends. Third, because competence is a continuous and more vigilant consideration of justice within war, it extends through both jus ad bellum and jus in bello principles, including the ‘proper authority’ and ‘reasonable chance for success’ conditions of the former, and the ‘double effect’ doctrine discussed in the latter. The article concludes by acknowledging the challenges presented by an overemphasis on competence, before ultimately restating its purchase for Just War debates in the twenty-first century.

Considering the recent ‘temporal turn’ in International Relations scholarship, this article proposes that space and time are concepts that ‘thicken’ one another in several ways, with significant implications for understanding foreign policy and world politics. In the discourse of security and governance, space–time frames work together to facilitate and legitimize certain policies, actions, and reactions, and imply distinct perspectives on ethics. Drawing on the examples of United States (US) drone use, reactions to the event that has become known as ‘Benghazi’, and fears of the global spread of disease, this study investigates how temporal and spatial framings conceptualize effective and ethical security and governance. Arguing that space–time frames take shape from the resonance of political, theoretical, and cultural texts, four frames are elaborated including ‘space–time liberations’, ‘space–time oppressions’, ‘space–time strategics’, and ‘space–time reflexivities’. The article concludes by suggesting that contradictions and tensions between the frames along with postcolonial and decolonial perspectives can be leveraged to interrogate and displace dominant notions of pace and space in the practice and study of world politics, and that this is a form of scholarly and political reflexivity.

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