Thomas Hobbes is typically associated in international relations theory with the realist tradition. Conversely, he is often depicted as hostile to the idea of morality in international affairs and to the just war tradition in particular. It is curious then that Hobbes associated his own project quite closely with that of Hugo Grotius, the so-called father of International Law, and that later just war thinkers such as Pufendorf and Vattel engaged rather vigorously with Hobbes? work. Indeed, even in the 20th century, Michael Walzer treats Hobbes? thoughts pertaining to anticipatory war alongside these more standard just war thinkers, as does Richard Tuck. Perhaps this is not surprising when once considers that Hobbes was concerned with the question of when the use of force is appropriate in international relations, and that he invoked the idea of natural law in his writings. Hobbes? enquiries, then, were constituted to some degree by just war-oriented questions. Yet there is also good reason for deeming Hobbes an alien to the just war tradition. For a start, the response which he offered to these just war questions suggest a negation of the very idea of just war. His conviction that international affairs reflects a war of all against all precludes even the possibility of a tranquillitas ordinas, a touchstone commitment within the just war tradition. This paper will examine how we may relate Thomas Hobbes to the just war tradition. It will pay particular attention to how we construct the parameters of the just war tradition as to include or exclude a thinker such as Thomas Hobbes. According to J.G.A. Gunnell, traditions, such as that of the just war, comprise nothing more than retrospective analytical constructions which produce a rationalized version of the past. He argues that they represent mythologies composed by those who invoke them. Moreover, each and every such mythology is designed to serve particular ends, to privilege some reading of history or other, and to provide us with a crib-sheet for dealing with the problems facing us today. Inevitably, each such reading serves to circumscribe the potential development of the tradition in question in different ways. For instance, they may posit the recognition of some timeless truths or normative commitments as constitutive of the tradition, or they may associate the tradition with the heritage of a cluster of carefully selected classical thinkers. Accordingly, where new thinking strays from these templates it may be disregarded as falling beyond the bounds of the tradition. This has been the fate of Thomas Hobbes. This paper looks to examine why this has been the case. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]