In a famous polemical essay (1986) in NYRB, my (recall) teacher, Myles Burnyeat, distinguished between two ways of entering Strauss’ thought: either through his “writings” or “one may sign up for initiation with a Straussian teacher.” That is, as Burnyeat notes, Strauss founded a school – he quotes Lewis Coser’s claim that it is “an academic cult” -- with an oral tradition. In the 1986 essay, Burnyeat spends some time on the details of Strauss’ teaching strategy and style that he draws from autobiographical writings by Bloom and Dannhauser
I hope this will not be a nitpick, but I want to push back on this passage specifically: "that international justice, between states, is impossible is not a strange reading of the Republic (or the other ancients). Plato and Aristotle are not Kant, after all."
I think it is a very strange reading of "the ancients" and not an obvious reading of the Republic. Leaving aside the fairly obvious reasons for rejecting categories like "the ancients", a number of the more important ancients seem to have embraced the polar opposite position. The Epicureans clearly thought that justly governed societies could live on stably just terms with one another, and that humans could live in justly governed societies (all good things being easy to attain for the enlightened, after all, and enlightenment being very possible for ordinary people). The Stoics, too, rejected any notion that there could be an adequate justice which was purely national. Cicero goes to great lengths to defend the justice of Roman conduct in acquiring the empire. If the impossibility claim is about the idea that there is no such thing as international justice, even Aristotle clearly rejects it in Politics I.6, and it is hard to see why Plato would say such a thing given his hostility to Periclean imperialism in the Gorgias.
If the impossibility claim is the idea that there is such a thing as just conduct between peoples, but it is unstable, or not reliably realizable, then it is hard to see why the Republic would be the standard bearer for such a claim (and I am not sure any ancient clearly endorsed the thesis, although the Epicureans definitely rejected it). In the Republic, where just conduct is understood as conduct that retains the proper structure of the soul/city, justice with neighbors needs to be possible over extended periods, both for the Kallipolis to make sense, and for the analogy of city/soul to avoid breakdown. If the Straussian reading is to reject the Kallipolis to this extent, I still don't see where in the text we see Plato doubt that cities can live on stably just terms with one another, and I think Burnyeat's point about the Gorgias still needs to be addressed.
Sure once we have Stoics the story changes. (Strauss does not ignore them.) But i don't think this will work for Republic, Book 5 470-1, which you ignore. And cicero does not expect peace with non-romans.
I mean even that passage does not deny that there is such a thing as injustice to non-Greeks. At most it claims that there is a difference in the Jus in Bello between Greeks and non-Greeks (an ethnic, not political grouping in any case). It does claim that war with non-Greeks is war with enemies, but the book begins by denying that there is no such thing as justice to enemies, or that justice to enemies merely consists in harming them. Again, I think it is hard to fit the reading of that passage with the idea of there being no justice between states/political units with the Gorgias, or even the Laws.
I hope this will not be a nitpick, but I want to push back on this passage specifically: "that international justice, between states, is impossible is not a strange reading of the Republic (or the other ancients). Plato and Aristotle are not Kant, after all."
I think it is a very strange reading of "the ancients" and not an obvious reading of the Republic. Leaving aside the fairly obvious reasons for rejecting categories like "the ancients", a number of the more important ancients seem to have embraced the polar opposite position. The Epicureans clearly thought that justly governed societies could live on stably just terms with one another, and that humans could live in justly governed societies (all good things being easy to attain for the enlightened, after all, and enlightenment being very possible for ordinary people). The Stoics, too, rejected any notion that there could be an adequate justice which was purely national. Cicero goes to great lengths to defend the justice of Roman conduct in acquiring the empire. If the impossibility claim is about the idea that there is no such thing as international justice, even Aristotle clearly rejects it in Politics I.6, and it is hard to see why Plato would say such a thing given his hostility to Periclean imperialism in the Gorgias.
If the impossibility claim is the idea that there is such a thing as just conduct between peoples, but it is unstable, or not reliably realizable, then it is hard to see why the Republic would be the standard bearer for such a claim (and I am not sure any ancient clearly endorsed the thesis, although the Epicureans definitely rejected it). In the Republic, where just conduct is understood as conduct that retains the proper structure of the soul/city, justice with neighbors needs to be possible over extended periods, both for the Kallipolis to make sense, and for the analogy of city/soul to avoid breakdown. If the Straussian reading is to reject the Kallipolis to this extent, I still don't see where in the text we see Plato doubt that cities can live on stably just terms with one another, and I think Burnyeat's point about the Gorgias still needs to be addressed.
Sure once we have Stoics the story changes. (Strauss does not ignore them.) But i don't think this will work for Republic, Book 5 470-1, which you ignore. And cicero does not expect peace with non-romans.
I mean even that passage does not deny that there is such a thing as injustice to non-Greeks. At most it claims that there is a difference in the Jus in Bello between Greeks and non-Greeks (an ethnic, not political grouping in any case). It does claim that war with non-Greeks is war with enemies, but the book begins by denying that there is no such thing as justice to enemies, or that justice to enemies merely consists in harming them. Again, I think it is hard to fit the reading of that passage with the idea of there being no justice between states/political units with the Gorgias, or even the Laws.
I agree with you and Burnyeat that the Gorgias raises important challenges to Strauss' reading.