Hayward has a great piece on "The Two Towers", on Tolkien, and whether the race of men have the strength and courage to survive and the moral clarity to do what’s right. Here is his last paragraph, but read the whole:
"Tolkien was not a political philosopher, and as his frequent protestations against interpreting Lord of the Rings as any kind of allegory remind us, it was no part of his purpose to reflect directly on the character of men in different kinds of regimes, or to suggest that it is the virtue peculiar to democracies that is central to saving Middle Earth. Yet as the differences in human excellence and sources of corruption are sewn into the nature of different types of regimes, it is impossible to tell a large tale of war and virtue, corruption and ruin, without opening a window onto these matters."
Incidently, Hollywood loves these films. Nowhere do we hear Hollywood types saying "One man’s Orc is another man’s freedom fighter". No real calls for the Council of Wizards to declare whether or not war is "justified". No one is offended that the free peoples of Middle Earth would dare go to war without actually "knowing" if Sauron has "weapons of mass destruction"...