I argue that military commanders have professional responsibilities for the environment in both peace and war. Peacetime responsibilities arise out of the commander’s general responsibilities as an agent of the state. Wartime responsibilities are part of the commander’s responsibility to protect noncombatants and to protect an environment that is the inherently valuable heritage of mankind. Commanders must assurne some risk to protect the environment. I conclude that we must stop not only the environmental damage caused by war, but also (...) war itself if we are to remain a viable species. (shrink)

Xenophon's concern with morality in his more philosophical writings is evident. But that concern embraces also his approach to history. In the Hellenica this interest in morality is not to be written off as a matter of marginal comment, but, it may be claimed, is integral to the historian's purpose. He is one for whom the determinants of history are the personalities and actions of great men, and it is natural for him to observe the interaction between personal morality and (...) political and military actions. It is from this standpoint that the present article seeks to illustrate from Xenophon's writings one aspect of his outlook on these matters, – the role of self-control over homoerotic desire in the context of military history. How far we can go behind his text to determine ‘what actually happened’ or use his testimony in developing a wider understanding of erōs in classical Greece at large are matters for further enquiry. (shrink)

Cet article s’intéresse à la question de la politique sportive en faveur des femmes sous le régime de Vichy et aux obstacles qui ont empêché sa mise en œuvre. Si la plupart des études sur le sport féminin au cours de cette période sont consacrés à l’action de Marie-Thérèse Eyquem, alors directrice du sport féminin au sein du Commissariat général à l’Éducation générale et aux Sports, cette étude adopte une démarche qui veut éclairer, à partir de deux indicateurs (équipement sportif, (...) formation des cadres) et à l’échelle des départements du Nord et du Pas-de-Calais, les réactions des acteurs et leurs degrés d’adhésion par rapport à la politique sportive de Vichy. (shrink)

In this chapter, I explore the importance of ethics education for senior military officers with responsibilities at the strategic level of government. One problem, as I see it, is that senior commanders might demand “ethics” from their soldiers but then they are themselves primarily informed by a “morally skeptical viewpoint” (in the form of political realism). I argue that ethics are more than a matter of personal behavior alone: the ethical position of an armed service is a matter of (...) the collective responsibility of the people who constitute it, and senior military officers, having authority to give the orders, have a particularly important role. First, I discuss the continued prominence of a neorealist mindset in strategic thinking. Neorealist theory assumes that ethics is a largely irrelevant concern for strategic decision-makers. In contrast, I argue that consideration of moral values should be at the center of strategic theory and practice. Then, in the second section, I explore the “professional ethics” of senior military officers in order to develop an appreciation of the shared values and expectations regarding required conduct within any professional military service. I argue that senior military leaders should be concerned with what it means to be “good” and that this concept of the good can, and should, be applied across cultures and national boundaries. In the final section, I examine armed conflict and briefly discuss the moral reasoning involved to justify deliberate killing and destruction. I conclude that senior military officers require an understanding of sound moral reasoning to implement effective strategy. (shrink)

We investigated the ethical decision-making processes and intentions of 151 military personnel responding to 1 of 2 ethical scenarios drawn from the deployment experiences of military commanders. For each scenario, option choice and perspective affected decision-making processes. Differences were also found between the 2 scenarios. Results add to the emerging literature concerning operational ethical conflicts and highlight the complexity and challenge that often accompanies operational ethics.

Virtually all historical treatments of just war recognize the importance of the account given by Thomas Aquinas in Summa theologiae II-II, q. 40, ?De bello?, where he outlines three conditions ? legitimate authority, just cause, and right intention ? for a justifiable use of armed force. It is, however, less well known that within the same section of the work (q. 50, a. 4) Aquinas extended his reflection on just war into a theory of military prudence. By placing generalship (...) under the category of ?prudence?, rather than ?art? or ?science?, he held that military command involves more than a morally neutral skill with victory as its sole aim. Building on the premise that service to the common good constitutes the overarching purpose of the military profession, Aquinas showed how the virtue of prudence provides an inner compass for decision-making amid the uncertainty and confusion of the battlefield. (shrink)

Although most unmanned systems that militaries use today are still unarmed and predominantly used for surveillance, it is especially the proliferation of armed military robots that raises some serious ethical questions. One of the most pressing concerns the moral responsibility in case a military robot uses violence in a way that would normally qualify as a war crime. In this chapter, the authors critically assess the chain of responsibility with respect to the deployment of both semi-autonomous and (learning) (...) autonomous lethal military robots. They start by looking at military commanders because they are the ones with whom responsibility normally lies. The authors argue that this is typically still the case when lethal robots kill wrongly – even if these robots act autonomously. Nonetheless, they next look into the possible moral responsibility of the actors at the beginning and the end of the causal chain: those who design and manufacture armed military robots, and those who, far from the battlefield, remotely control them. (shrink)

Military doctors and nurses, working neither as pure soldiers nor as merely doctors or nurses, may face a ‘role conflict between the clinical professional duties to a patient and obligations, express or implied, real or perceived, to the interests of a third party such as an employer, an insurer, the state, or in this context, military command’. This conflict is commonly called dual loyalty. This chapter gives an overview of the military and the medical ethic and (...) of the resulting dual loyalty problem for medical personnel working in the military. It considers how dual loyalties relate to being a professional, something medical personnel are the paradigmatic examples of, but also something military personnel claim to be. Against that background, the chapter elaborates on the medical rules of eligibility used in Afghanistan, and on the policies concerning military involvement in local healthcare, to see what the existing rules and policies are, and whose interests they serve. (shrink)

Mehlman and Li offer a framework for approaching the bioethical issues raised by the military use of genomics that is compellingly grounded in both the contemporary civilian and military ethics of medical research, arguing that military commanders must be bound by the two principles of paternal- ism and proportionality. I agree fully. But I argue here that this is a much higher bar than we may fully realize. Just as the principle of proportionality relies upon a thorough (...) assessment of harms caused and military advantage gained, the use of genomic research, on Mehlman and Li’s view, will require an accurate understanding of the connection between genotypes and phenotypes – accurate enough to ameliorate the risk undertaken by our armed forces in being subject to such research. Recent conceptual work in evolutionary theory and the philosophy of biology, however, renders it doubtful that such knowledge is forthcoming. The complexity of the relationship between genotypic factors and realized traits (the so-called ‘G→P map’) makes the estimation of potential military advantage, as well as potential harm to our troops, incredibly challenging. Such fundamental conceptual challenges call into question our ability to ever satisfactorily satisfy the demands of a sufficiently rigorous ethical standard. (shrink)

Offering a Canadian perspective on the emotional health of servicemen and women, Military Operations and the Mind brings together researchers and practitioners from across the country to consider the impact that ethical issues have on the well-being of those who serve. Stemming from an initiative to enhance the lives of serving members by providing them with the best education and training in military ethics before and after deployments, this volume will better inform politics and public policies and enhance (...) the welfare of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women who serve in singular, often harsh, and sometimes dangerous conditions. By integrating into the analysis the critical issue of well-being, this emerging field demonstrates a more holistic approach and is distinct from other fields in military, historical, philosophical, and behavioural studies. The first study of its kind, Military Operations and the Mind presents a new and helpful way to focus on the life of soldiers not only in operations overseas, but also once they return home. (shrink)

Most unmanned systems used in operations today are unarmed and mainly used for reconnaissance and mine clearing, yet the increase of the number of armed military robots is undeniable. The use of these robots raises some serious ethical questions. For instance: who can be held morally responsible in reason when a military robot is involved in an act of violence that would normally be described as a war crime? In this article, we critically assess the attribution of responsibility (...) with respect to the deployment of both non-autonomous and non-learning autonomous lethal military robots. We will start by looking at the role of those with whom responsibility normally lies, the commanders. We argue that this is no different in the case of the above mentioned robots. After that, we will turn to those at the beginning and the end of the causal chain, respectively the manufacturers and designers, and the human operators who remotely control armed military robots from behind a computer screen. (shrink)

The current armed conflict in Afghanistan (briefly, the Afghan conflict) is viewed through the lens of a just war theory. In particular, the question stated by the title is explored by means of a generalized just cause principle. For brevity, empirical, practical, and legal issues about the Afghan conflict are mostly set aside. Hence a definite answer to the question is not proposed. Instead, the main aim is to clarify the question. Specifically, the question is amplified, by distinguishing putative just (...) causes of countering terrorism, countering an insurgency, and countering extreme violations of basic human rights. Apparently, however, U.S. government officials (e.g., President Barack Obama) and U.S. military commanders (e.g., General Stanley McChrystal) have mixed goals or motives concerning current U.S.military operations in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, from the standpoint of a just war theory, it is instructive to analytically distinguish these putative just causes, and to consider them separately. Additionally, it is instructive to consider how they might be combined. Consequently, a fourth putative just cause is considered: countering violent spoilers of peacebuilding. (This paper was completed on March 31, 2010.). (shrink)

Intelligent defence support systems are confronted with the need to manage ever-increasing floods of data in a way that raises significant challenges because the data are described and presented using different terminologies and formats. How, on this basis, is it possible to reach a common understanding of the information content of these data among people and software agents? How is it possible to ensure that domain knowledge is reused in consistent fashion in a way that makes this information available for (...) integration and analysis? How can we support the identification, selection, composition, and orchestration of services based on such diverse data providing homogeneous support by a service-oriented architecture? This collection is devoted to the use of ontologies to answer questions such as these. (shrink)

This article examines and contextualizes a health wish formula found at the opening of eight Roman official letters inscribed in Greek, one of Caesar and seven of Octavian. In each letter the sender mentions that he is well ‘with the army’ (μετὰ τοῦ στρατεύματος), hence the term ‘military’ health wish. The health wish was borrowed from Latin letters into Roman letters written in Greek by means of phraseological imitation. The formulation employs appropriate Koine Greek. It was optional during the (...) Republic for the wish to be used in letters either from or to a Roman holding imperium and commanding an army. Because Caesar and Octavian were in such positions, their use of the wish is conventional. The use of this health wish demonstrates that epistolographers working for Caesar and Octavian not only drafted letters that met the conventions of Hellenistic chanceries but also were proficient enough in the medium to incorporate Roman elements with effectiveness. Attestations of the military health wish declined during the Imperial period. The requirement that the sender or the recipient hold imperium would have restricted usage during the Republic but even more so under the Empire through administrative changes to the command of armies and the increasing centrality of the princeps. (shrink)

This book provides an introduction to the real-life ethical issues faced by those serving in modern military forces. With its focus on the practical problems facing those in positions of command, it is of particular relevance to prospective military officers at military academies. The book is also appropriate for Ethics of War and Military Ethics courses at non-military undergraduate programs in philosophy and ethics. The book includes more than fifty specially selected case studies, many (...) previously unpublished. These cases enable students to examine, in real and understandable situations, the ethical problems which military personnel face in modern operations. (shrink)

The goal of the Department of Defense Net-Centric Data Strategy is to improve data sharing throughout the DoD. Data sharing is a critical element of interoperability in the emerging system-of-systems. Achieving interoperability requires the elimination of two types of data heterogeneity: differences of syntax and differences of semantics. This paper builds a path toward semantic uniformity through application of a disciplined approach to ontology. An ontology is a consensus framework representing the types of entities within a given domain and the (...) relations between them. The construction of an ontology begins when a Community of Interest (COI) identifies its authoritative data sources (ADS), which are usually manifest in relevant doctrinal publications, glossaries, data dictionaries, and logical data models. The identified terms are then defined in relation to a common logical framework that has been designed to ensure interoperability with other ontologies created on the basis of the same strategy. As will be described, the Command and Control (C2) Ontology will include representations of a substantial number of entities within the Command and Control (C2) domain. If domain ontologies (e.g. Strike and Counterinsurgency) semantically align with the C2 Ontology, then a substantial barrier to systems interoperability is thereby crossed. (shrink)

The Joint Battle Management Language (JBML) is an XML-based language designed to allow Command and Control (C2) systems to interface easily with Modeling and Simulation (M&S) systems. While some of the XML-tags defined in this language correspond to types of entities that exist in reality, others are mere syntactic artifacts used to structure the messages themselves. Because these two kinds of tags are not formally distinguishable, JBML messages in effect confuse data with what the data represent. In this paper (...) we show how a realism-based ontology combined with a rule language can be used to make these distinctions explicit. The approach allows storage of the contents of JBML messages in a Referent Tracking System in a format that mimics the structure of reality thereby providing an aid to message validation. (shrink)

We conclude this special issue with the Executive Summary and Command Brief from the McCain Conference, ?New Warriors/New Weapons: The Ethical Ramifications of Emerging Military Technologies?, as formulated by the conference convener, the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the US Naval Academy, and as prepared for the: Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant, US Marine Corps (Ed).

This book debates competing approaches to ethical decision-making for members of the armed forces of liberal-democratic states. In this volume, four prominent thinkers propose and debate competing approaches to ethical decision-making for military personnel. Deane-Peter Baker presents and expounds the 'Ethical Triangulation' model, an ethical decision-making method he has employed through much of his career as an applied military ethicist. Rufus Black advocates for a natural law-based approach, one which has heavily influenced the framework formally adopted by the (...) Australian Defence Force. Roger Herbert outlines the 'Moral Deliberation Roadmap', the moral reasoning framework recently adopted by the US Naval Academy. Iain King then sets out a model of quasi-utilitarian decision-making developed in several post-conflict settings and refined at the UK's Royal College of Defence Studies. After the opening chapters in which each author outlines their favoured decision-making approach, the four contributors then evaluate each other's proposals, often critically. Philosopher David Whetham offers some concluding thoughts in which he summarises areas of agreement between the authors, identifies key areas of difference, and suggests directions for future research. This book will be of great interest to students of military ethics, the ethics of war, moral philosophy, and International Relations, as well as military professionals. (shrink)

This article argues in favor of holding leaders responsible for international crimes but also worries quite a bit about what would be a fair standard of mens rea for these leaders. Section 1 sets out the key facts of the case and the basis of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia Trial Chamber's conviction of General Tihomir Blaskic. Section 2 presents the basis of the ICTY Appeals Court's overruling of the Trial Chamber's decision. Section 3 focuses on the issue of (...) mens rea concerning those who command others to commit such crimes as the taking of hostages and the use of human shields. Section 4 sets out a limited argument in favor of negligence as a type of mens rea in international criminal law. Finally, section 5 discusses the relevance of the idea of the theory of joint criminal liability in such cases. (shrink)

In their political treatises, the scholastic writers Ptolemy of Lucca and Giles of Rome discussed the question of whether women should serve in the military. The dispute came in response to Aristotle, who reported in his Politics that Plato and Socrates taught that women should receive the same military training as men and take an equal part in fighting. Such a treatment was made possible by a medieval context in which women under certain circumstances could be feudal lords (...) responsible for maintaining a contingent of knights and sometimes commanding them, and in which a large number of medieval stories of women fighters or leaders of knights circulated, some of them mythical but others based on real women. Both Giles and Ptolemy ultimately rejected female participation but, in keeping with the dialectical method, proposed arguments on both sides. These involve historical precedent, the biological and medical differences between men and women, analogies between female animals and women, divinely ordained gender roles, and the benefits of exercise. (shrink)

During the 1944 Warsaw Uprising Witold Kieżun served in the Home Army’s “Harnaś” [Highlander] Special Unit. During an assault on the Polish Post he personally took 14 Germans prisoner, seizing large quantities of arms. He also singlehandedly damaged a German tank in the district Wola. A unit under his command captured the parish office of the Holy Cross Church and a heavy machinegun, and was the first to enter the city’s police headquarters, where it seized another heavy gun.During the (...) Uprising Witold Kieżun was decorated with the Cross of Valor, he also received the Virtuti Militari from the hands of the Home Army Supreme Commander. (shrink)

Military activities with the framework of the IDF [Israel Defense Force] is carried out by citizens in a variety of positions. In addition to the ordinary positions of career officers and NCOs, the IDF consists of conscripted men and women as well as reservists. Some of the latter serve under an ordinary command to serve for a certain relatively short period. Other reservists, including pilots and special forces officers have served since they volunteered to serve. Facing the political (...) clash between the government, who have been viewed as trying to change the democratic nature of the state, and the popular opposition, who have tried to protect the judiciary and other elements of democracy, many officers who belong to the latter reservist group have suspended their voluntary service or even retired. Their decision has raised the obvious issue of whether such decisions can be justified, morally, ethically, and democratically. This is the topic of the present paper. (shrink)

United States service members’ personal mental health information lacks the protection afforded by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), diverging from the legal safeguards granted to other citizens. The Public Welfare Law and the Department of Defense (DoD) reduces these protections through clauses, outlining nine conditions where service members’ information can be disclosed to their commanders, who may lack formal HIPAA or medical confidentiality training. Once a commander is notified, the information may be shared with others without the Service (...) Members consent, creating an unregulated spread of private health information. Additionally, the military environment, marked by a stigma surrounding mental health issues, compounds this vulnerability. Therefore, Service Members seeking mental health support may encounter adverse consequences upon returning to their command through the propagation of stigma, which may further foster a culture of reluctance to seek help. A fictional character within the military serves as a conduit for nonmilitary providers to understand the contextual intricacies while highlighting the ethical dilemma faced by providers adhering to Congressional law, American Psychological Association (APA) Ethics Code, and DoD standards while also serving their clients. Key ethical considerations include informed consent, disclosures, maintaining confidentiality, discussing the limits of confidentiality, avoiding harm, and conflicts between ethics and organizational demands. (shrink)

Military reproductive health policies affect large numbers of women. In 2006 servicewomen numbered nearly 350,000 and comprised 14.5% of active-duty forces and 17.4% of the reserve force. In addition, approximately 165,000 female dependents of active duty military personnel and 157,000 female dependents of reserve duty personnel are between the ages of 12 and 22 and are eligible for military health care services. Dependents of military personnel are eligible for military health care coverage until age 21, (...) or up to the age of 23 if considered a full-time student.About 10% of active duty female servicemembers become pregnant each year. Pregnant servicewomen are considered non-deployable and are usually not assigned to overseas commands. Pregnant women in the Army, the service branch with the greatest number of women on active duty, can choose to remain on active duty, request temporary leave from service, or request separation from service. Separation options include either discharge, honorable or uncharacterized depending on rank, or transfer to individual ready reserve. (shrink)

Master Sun's _The Art of War_ is by no means the only ancient Chinese treatise on military affairs. One chapter in the _Huainanzi_, an important compendium of philosophy and political theory written in the second century B.C.E., synthesizes the entire corpus of military literature inherited from the Chinese classical era. Drawing on all major, existing military writings, as well as other lost sources, it assesses tactics and strategy, logistics, organization, and political economy, as well as cosmology and (...) the fundamental morality of warfare. This powerful work set out to become the last word on military matters, subsuming and replacing all preceding literature. Written under the sponsorship of Liu An, king of Huainan, the _Huainanzi_'s "military methods" emphasize the preservation of peace as the ultimate value to be served by the military, insisting that the army can be effectively and rightly used only when defending the sacred hereditary position of the emperor and his vassals. This position stands in stark contrast to that of _The Art of War_, which prioritizes the enrichment and empowerment of the state. Liu An's philosophy also argues that military success depends on the personal cultivation of the commander and that deception is not enough to secure victory. Only a commander with the exceptional qualities of insight and cognition, developed through a program of meditative practice and yogic refinement, can effectively control and interpret the strategic situation. Andrew Seth Meyer offers both a full translation of this text and an extensive analysis of its historical context. His thorough treatment relates Liu An's teachings to issues in Chinese philosophy, culture, religion, and history, helping to interpret their uncommon message. (shrink)

Russia took the advantage of the contribution of the Armenian armed organizations in order to possess Istanbul, straits around it, Eastern Anatolia, to weaken Turkey, to be strengthen in the Southern Caucasus, organized the rebellion of the Armenians living in Turkey against the government. Russian ruling circles put forward the Armenian matter in order to take advantage of them. Armenians involved in the war to create their own government by obtaining the territory including Van, Bitlis, Tigranakert, Erzurum, Kharberd and Sebastya, (...) as well as Cilicia from Turkey, to solve their Armenian problem. But in fact, Russia, France and England tried to blow to Turkey pretending to try for building an independent Armenian government. The grade of contribution of Armenian military units in the First World War can be characterized as following: 1. Creating the Armenian volunteer units. 2. Establishing the regular battalions and infantry regiments and forming the national corpuses. The organizations of Hnchak and Dashnaksutyun actively participated in creating the Armenian volunteer units. Dashnaks mobilized 40 000 people to destroy the Turkish people. They established tens of khumbas. The Armenian volunteer units were commanded by Andranic Ozanyan, Dro, Amazasp, Keri, Checho, Vardan and others terrorists. Armenian volunteer units which were supposed to move in 4 directions, should act in the directions where the Armenian people were densely populated. These 4 Armenian volunteer units fight against Turks in all important combat operations from Sarigamish to Erzurum. The same time Russian army and Armenians triggered the rebellion of the local population against the Turkish government. 50000 of Armenians were fighting in French, England and USA armies. The Eastern legion of Armenians was established in French army on November 1916. On November 15, 1918, the Eastern Legion was named Armenian legion. The number of the Armenians in the legion riched to 4000. In the beginning of 1916, there was an announcement about subordination of the military detachments to army and establishment of infantry regiments based on that. Establishment of the separate Armenian corpus started at the end of December 1917. In 1917, 8 Armenian shooter regiments were established. From the mentioned 8 regiments two Armenian shooter divisions, the special Armenian division of Andranic, 3 infantry brigades of western Armenians in the Southern Caucasus region, some guerrilla troops in Erevan, Igdir guerrilla infantry and rider regiments, Zeytun regiment in Tbilisi were established. At present, Armenia often raises false claims such as the "Armenian genocide" in the parliaments of the world, trying to confirm this lie. This research proves that Armenians betrayed the Ottoman state during the First World War and also committed Turkish genocides. (shrink)

: The written renderings of Turkish names, so frequently encountered in the history of the pre-modern ruling dynasties of the Central and Eastern Islamic lands, suffered badly in the past from the deformations of authors and copyists, mainly Arabs and Persians, who did not themselves know Turkish. Moreover, these renderings have often been perpetuated by modern historians of Islam, few of whom have bothered to elucidate these names and to set forth their correct forms and meanings. The present study discusses (...) some of the very diverse principles behind medieval Turkish onomastic and uses these specifically for a consideration of the names of some prominent military commanders of the Great Seljuq sultans, ruling essentially in Persia and Iraq during the 11th and 12th centuries. (shrink)

This paper examines the social contract theories of Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Locke, highlighting the failure of their contractarian defenses of the military and military service. In order to ground the duties of military service, each theorist presumes a chivalric gender order wherein men as men are expected to be willing to sacrifice themselves as violent instruments for the sake of their families and communities. While Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf use the contract method to defend absolute, or (...) near absolute, political authority wherein subject's primary political obligation is to serve the sovereign in war upon command, Locke uses the contract method to create a liberal political order that preserves the natural rights of subjects. Nevertheless, Locke maintains the commitment to self-sacrificial military service. In Locke, then, the military is peeled away from liberal civil society and we see the first statement of the civil-military distinction that persists today. (shrink)

Can AI solve the ethical, moral, and political dilemmas of warfare? How is artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled warfare changing the way we think about the ethical-political dilemmas and practice of war? This article explores the key elements of the ethical, moral, and political dilemmas of human-machine interactions in modern digitized warfare. It provides a counterpoint to the argument that AI “rational” efficiency can simultaneously offer a viable solution to human psychological and biological fallibility in combat while retaining “meaningful” human control over (...) the war machine. This Panglossian assumption neglects the psychological features of human-machine interactions, the pace at which future AI-enabled conflict will be fought, and the complex and chaotic nature of modern war. The article expounds key psychological insights of human-machine interactions to elucidate how AI shapes our capacity to think about future warfare's political and ethical dilemmas. It argues that through the psychological process of human-machine integration, AI will not merely force-multiply existing advanced weaponry but will become de facto strategic actors in warfare – the “AI commander problem.”. (shrink)

BackgroundFrench military doctors are currently deployed in the Sahel to support the armed forces of Operation Barkhane, in medical or surgical units. As well as supporting French soldiers, their other missions are diverse and complex: medical assistance to civilians and persons under control (PUC), advice to commanding officers. These tasks can create ethical dilemmas when decisions are forced upon doctors that may be in conflict with medical values or fundamental principles. Little is known about the specific dilemmas experienced by (...) French military doctors in overseas operations. We therefore conducted a qualitative study among doctors and surgeons recently deployed to the Sahel to explore and better understand this question.MethodSemi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 20 French military doctors or surgeons deployed since January 2016 in medical or surgical facilities in Mali and Chad.ResultsAll interviewed doctors reported having faced several ethical dilemmas during missions. All reported dilemmas involved the treatment of civilians (while delivering community medical assistance) or of PUC. The dilemmas involved choices as to which patients to treat, the use of care as a means to an end by military authorities, and the level of care attainable in the absence of any possible hospital follow-up. Questions of delivering care at the risk of their own safety or the mission’s and of treating openly hostile patients were also brought up. Several dilemmas stemmed from the dual loyalty problem, namely the conflict between military doctors’ duty of care to patients and to the military institution, but this was not the only factor involved. Contextual factors (restricted resources and security constraints) and psychological factors (especially hostility towards the enemy) were also associated with many of the reported dilemmas.ConclusionThis is the first reported study focusing on the ethical dilemmas encountered by French military doctors in overseas operations. It provides unique insights into their ethical experiences and should prove useful in improving operational training for healthcare personnel deployed on overseas missions. (shrink)

The goals of public education, as well as conceptions of human intelligence and learning, are undergoing a transformation through the application of military-sponsored information technologies and information processing models of human thought. Recent emphases in education on thinking skills, learning strategies, and computer-based technologies are the latest episodes in the postwar military agenda to engineer intelligent components, human and artificial, for the optimal performance of complex technological systems. Public education serves increasingly as a “human factors” laboratory and production (...) site for this military enterprise, whose high performance technologies and command and control paradigms have also played central roles in the emergence of the information economy. (shrink)

This article discusses the theoretical implications of Emmanuel Levinas‟s philosophy upon traditional military ethics of service. Throughout the discussion Japanese Bushido is used as an example to provide a specific, practical characterization of such an ethic upon which to apply a Levinasian analysis. Levinas‟s phenomenology and his idea of “ethics as first philosophy” are briefly outlined, and then a comparison is made between these ideas and more traditional ethics relating to the military such as Bushido and the Just (...) War tradition. The conclusion is reached that a traditional ethic of service that requires a soldier to perpetrate acts of violence against others on command is profoundly unethical in Levinasian terms, but that Levinasian ethics leaves open the possibility of a soldier as one who defends others rather than operates as a living weapon on the orders of a state. (shrink)

Introduction. Taking the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army of 1941—1945 as an example the authors identify features of the personnel selection in the army during military operations, conditions, requirements, criteria, qualities necessary for promotion to higher command positions. The aim of the study is to identify the mechanism of personnel selection in the armed forces during military operations. Methods. The authors use the following general scientific methods: modeling, structural and functional, systemic and comparative analysis; movement from the (...) abstract to the concrete and from the concrete to the abstract. The authors make use of P.A. Sorokin’s theory of vertical mobility. For further research of the problem, the methodology of synergetics and counterfactual modeling of the past can be involved. Scientific novelty of the research. The following existing concepts of the Red Army officers’ dynamics in 1941—1945 are generalized: positive, negative, moral and psychological selection. Their basic concepts and shortcomings are revealed. An initiativeintellectual concept of the officers’ selection in war is formulated on the basis of P. Sorokin’s theory of vertical mobility. The author identify specific conditions, requirements, and criteria influencing the selection of commanders during the war. Results. A clear opposition to the conditions, requirements and selection criteria in peacetime and wartime is given. The following specific criteria for selecting officers of the Red Army during the war are highlighted: the presence of combat experience; non-conformism; the ability to take personal responsibility; analyze and correct errors; nonstandard thinking. Military action creates specific conditions that give rise to the selection criteria for commanders. Conclusions. The selection criteria for personnel in peacetime and wartime armies differ sharply. At the beginning of battle actions, stereotyped commanders prevailed. Such people are replaced by commanders who are able to go beyond the established canons, orders of the chiefs. The work presents a diagram showing the stages of selecting officers in a war: military actions — conditions — selection criteria - requirements — new qualities of a person adapted to combat operations. This leads to the success of military operations, and, consequently, to the promotion of officers in rank and position. (shrink)

The cognitive purpose of the research presented in the article is to identify the propensity for pro-social and altruistic behavior among first-year military students in three simulated situations of need for help to other people. It raised the question contained in the main research problem: to what extent do military students at universities tend to behave in a pro-social and altruistic way in situations that pose a threat to the other people’s life and health, and what is the (...) relationship between these behaviors and socialization in the civil environment? At the outset, the hypothesis was adopted that the candidates for professional soldiers show a higher propensity for this type of behavior. For its verification, the population of the first-year military students during their basic training was assumed as a research area. The study covered 246 people selected randomly from among military students in the first year of studies of the command profile of all military specialties and the medical profile. The selection of the research sample based on first-year students during the basic training aimed to identify the impact of environmental factors on the tendency to altruistic and pro-social behavior in two different groups of candidates for professional soldiers. (shrink)

This article takes a step toward filling the gap in the scholarly literature by examining the impact of religious intervention in the military on civil-military relations. Using the case of Israel, I argue that although the subordination of the Israeli military to elected civilians has remained intact, and the supreme command has been mostly secular, external religious authorities operate within the formal chain of command and in tandem with the formal authorities, managing the military (...) affairs. This religious influence is apparent in three major domains: the theological influence on military deployment, the exclusion of women from equal participation in military service, and the role expansion of the Military Rabbinate as a quasi-state agency and its reflection in the socialization of secular soldiers and the development of alternative military ethics. Consequently, extra-institutional control of the military is at work. (shrink)

According to Livy (26.18.3–26.19.2), in late 211 Publius Cornelius Scipio was electedpriuatus cum imperio pro consuleby thecomitia centuriataand sent to Spain in charge of the legions formerly led by his father Publius and his uncle Gnaeus. This was the beginning of a new phase in the Hannibalic War, which would ultimately lead Rome to victory against its most dangerous enemy. As has long been recognized, Livy assigns Scipio a central role in the narrative development of the Third Decade. For most (...) critics, this centrality coincides with (and is the result of) Livy's admiration: in his view, Scipio is thefatalis dux, the commander sent by Providence to lead Rome to victory; he is Hannibal's rival par excellence, the only leader capable of matching the enemy's military genius and blocking his relentless advance against the Republic; he is, above all, the most shining example of the Roman virtues. (shrink)

The article analyzes the issues of training military aeronauts in the late 19th – early 20th century in Russia. It is shown that the emergence of new technical means providing ascent into the airspace has opened up new possibilities for conducting military operations, as evidenced by the experience of using aeronautics abroad. The Russian command did not immediately realize the possibilities of conducting reconnaissance and conducting artillery fire on the enemy, which led to a lag in the (...) development of aeronautics and aeronautics, as well as in training personnel for flight support. The article shows that for the training of officers and lower ranks in the Russian army, special units were created in which the lower ranks were taught special subjects that guarantee the production of safe flights due to their technical support. (shrink)

For many years I sat on the Norwegian Press Complaints Commission. There, I learned to appreciate the importance of the editor: the person in charge who could answer responsibly, coordinate a diver...

Air Force General Curtis LeMay: the name alone instills fear in many. The key architect behind the firebombing of Tokyo, and later the ardent supporter of a U.S. military airstrike during the Cuban...

Antonio Ruiz is an officer who took part in the Argentine 1976–1983 military rule and disappeared the body of a tortured woman. My aim is to offer an ethnographic account of the embodiment of the knowledge of bodies—the local moral worlds in which the officer Antonio and his wife lived and legitimated state violence by imagining themselves as victims, and Antonio subsequently followed his commander’s order and buried the body of a tortured woman. The armed forces provided soldiers of (...) the armed formal manuals in which political violence was described as an ever-present threat. At home Antonio and his wife exchanged accounts detailing the risk of armed struggle to their fledgling family, with Antonio carrying out commissions of repression as father and husband and not only soldier. The narratives officers constructed and acted upon about themselves as imagined victims linger to this day in contemporary Argentina in the form of the disappeared—the missing thousands who remain unaccounted for, buried in unknown, clandestine graves or drowned alive at sea, with thousands of family members suspended in doubt, unsure where the disappeared might truly be, and whether they live or died. (shrink)

Introduction. War as a social phenomenon has always been an object of philosophical reflection, since its results largely determine the further de- velopment of society and have a profound impact on all spheres of social life. In connection with the ongoing so-called special military operation which Russia is conducting in Ukraine and which is at the same time a proxy war of the collective West against our country, the modern philosophical discourse of war is clarified. One of the important (...) aspects of the ontology of war is considering its chronotopos. The space-time factor has a signifi- cant impact on the course and outcome of hostili- ties in modern warfare, which makes its study very relevant. The purpose of the study is to describe the chrono- topos of modern warfare, to show the influence of the space-time factor on the course and result of hostilities. Methods. Being supporters of the relational concept of space and time, the authors consider the chronotopos of war as its internal attributive property. In addition, they rely on the methodology of synergetics, which makes it possible, in addition to the external universal space-time, to single out the internal space-time of open complex non-equi- librium systems. The authors apply structural-func- tional analysis to study material and ideal objects that influence the characteristics of space and time in modern warfare. They also use general scientific methods: abstraction, comparison, description and explanation. Scientific novelty of the research. The authors give characteristics of the war chronotopos at the beginning of the 21st century, and consider the tendencies of its changes. The necessity of taking into account spatio-temporal changes in planning and conducting hostilities in modern warfare is substantiated. Results. New means of warfare, as well as the cor- responding changes in tactics, operational art and strategy, will significantly reformat the chronoto- pos of war. The space of modern warfare is being radically transformed due to the fact that the confrontation simultaneously takes place not only on the plane, but also in the air, in space, under water, and even in social networks. New capabili- ties of strike systems are changing the perception of such characteristics of the war space as the front and rear. What was previously considered a deep safe rear, in the era of using missiles and combat drones, is no longer such. The time of war is also changing. An increase in the flight speed of ammu- nition, aircraft, and missiles increases the dynamics of battles and intensifies all processes on the bat- tlefield. Hypersonic systems are changing the pace of war, space satellites, reconnaissance drones and new technologies make it possible for the com- mander officer of the battle to see everything that happens on the battlefield in real time, regard- less of the distance from objects. Each new war is fought in its own space-time continuum. To win the war, all this must be taken into account. Conclusions. The chronotopos of war within the framework of the relational concept of space and time prevailing in modern philosophy is changing due to the emergence of fundamentally new means of warfare with new capabilities, which requires a significant adjustment in combat management, ensuring the adequacy of human behavior in war, training troops, taking into account the character- istics of the space-time continuum of a particular war, understanding on the part of the command staff of the essence of changes in the space and time of modern war. Old stereotyped ideas about the chronotopos of war can cause disorientation of a person on the battlefield, which requires not only a philosophical reflection of the ongoing spatio- temporal changes, but also the practical consid- eration of new knowledge in training troops, in planning and conducting combat operations. (shrink)

Background As part of its response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in west Africa, the United Kingdom government established an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone, staffed by military personnel. Little is known about the ethical challenges experienced by military medical staff on humanitarian deployment. We designed a qualitative study to explore this further with those who worked in the treatment unit. Method Semi-structured, face-to-face and telephone interviews were conducted with 20 UK military personnel deployed between October (...) 2014 and April 2015 in one of three roles in the Ebola treatment unit: clinician; nursing and nursing assistant; and other medical support work, including infection control and laboratory and mortuary services. Results Many participants reported feeling ethically motivated to volunteer for deployment, but for some personal interests were also a consideration. A small minority had negative feelings towards the deployment, others felt that this deployment like any other was part of military service. Almost all had initial concerns about personal safety but were reassured by their pre-deployment 'drills and skills', and personal protective equipment. Risk perceptions were related to perceptions about military service. Efforts to minimise infection risk were perceived to have made good patient care more difficult. Significantly, some thought the humanitarian nature of the mission justified tolerating greater risks to staff. Trust in the military institution and colleagues was expressed; many participants referred to the ethical obligation within the chain of command to protect those under their command. Participants expected resources to be overwhelmed and ‘empty beds’ presented a significant and pervasive ethical challenge. Most thought more patients could and should have been treated. Points of reference for participants’ ethical values were: previous deployment experience; previous UK/National Health Service experience; professional ethics; and, distinctly military values. Conclusion We report the first systematic exploration of the ethical challenges face by a Western medical military in the international response to the first major Ebola outbreak. We offer unique insights into the military healthcare workers’ experiences of humanitarian deployment. Many participants expressed motivations that gave them common purpose with civilian volunteers. (shrink)