Martin L. Cook

US Civil Military Relations since 9/11: Issues in Ethics and Policy Development

Abstract A perennial ethical issue for senior US military officers lies in the tension between their responsibility to cultivate and offer professional military advice, on the one hand, and their Constitutional subordination to civilian leaders who may or may not heed military advice. In some periods (e.g., the end of the Clinton Administration), the militarys dissatisfaction with their civilian masters is great. In those moments, concerns are raised that the military may subvert the will of civilian leaders (probably in subtle ways). At other historical moments (some would argue the current war in Iraq is one such moment), the concern is the opposite: that the militarys subordination to civilian leaders may lead them to acquiesce in policies that their professional military judgment causes them to think unwise or misguided. This paper articulates some constant standards to guide that debate. The authors argue that it is important to remind military leaders that their loyalties and subordination under the US Constitution is not only to the President, Secretary of Defense, and other members of the Executive Branch of government. In addition, the Constitution clearly requires and expects that senior military leaders will give unvarnished and honest professional opinions to the Congress—even if that irritates the Administration. But further difficulties remain because the Administration itself appoints senior military leaders. This paper attempts to distinguish the in principle question of the ethical requirement that senior leaders give honest and direct professional advice from the real-world reality that officers may require moral courage and a willingness to experience displeasure and even dismissal from their positions if they do so.

100 years hence

As this issue of the Journal of Military Ethics appears, it is exactly 100 years since the First World War broke out. That makes for sober reflections on the ethics of warfare. In hindsight, and using the language of military ethics, the First World War represents a tragic failure measured up against all three categories of just-war reasoning: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. Its outbreak was arguably a result of suspicions, misunderstandings, lack of diplomacy, and unrealistic ambitions of power. On the battlefield, it was protracted, painful, and costly in terms of human lives and suffering. And its ending turned out both vindictive and harsh, contributing, most historians agree, to laying the groundwork for a new world war. Yet, at the time, the ‘Great War’ was often seen as glorious: The timing was right, the fighting was brave, and the end result punished the main aggressor in a decisive way. Admittedly, there were numerous poets, philosophers, humanitarians, and not least endless suffering individuals who saw the war for what it was, most deeply: a more or less futile exercise in destruction and political maneuvering. Yet we are struck by how it was bolstered by a deep-seated patriotic spirit among so many, and by how long its destructiveness could last. An important part of the picture is also, of course, the actual and very real bravery shown by so many soldiers, many of whom paid the ultimate price for their efforts. Is there anything to learn from this page of history today? Are not world wars a thing of the past? While the First World War remains interesting historically, are not our present concerns terrorism, humanitarian catastrophes, and civil wars, rather than global cataclysms? While that is true in terms of the make-up of current armed conflict, the geopolitical landscape is changing fast, and suspicions and conflicting agendas are clouding the relations between Russia, China, and the United States. The rifts are not primarily ideological, which was true in 1914, too. The problems are financial, cultural, territorial – and ‘human’, displaying lack of trust and cooperation. Our world is significantly more interconnected, institutionally and electronically, than the world of 1914. That, we would hope, makes the world significantly safer, as well. But with the new spectacle of unmanned weapons and cyber weaponry with global reach, as well as the persistent presence of nuclear arms, we should heed the lessons of 1914–1918, and redouble our efforts to avoid another world war. Let us remember also that in 1914, as today, there was much talk of the world being so interconnected, especially in terms of economics, that large-scale, international war was so to speak unthinkable. It was wrong then. It may be wrong now. In this endeavor to avoid world war the conversation about and practice of sound military ethics – ad bellum, in bello, and post bellum – must play a crucial role. That is yet another reason why the conversations taking place within the pages of this journal are so important. We thank warmly all those who contribute to it: our authors, referees, editorial members, and of course our readers.

Editors’ Introduction: Are We All the Same?

The inclusion of such variegated studies from highly different contexts reminds us of one of the oldest questions in ethics overall: how well does ethics travel? Are different cultures able to communicate effectively with each other about ethical issues? Can we learn from experiences made within another tradition, in another language, and by people with different expectations and possibly even different values? The ambition of the present journal is to make such dialogue fruitful and possible within military ethics. This ambition is explicitly based on the idea of a profession. Military ethics must, in our view, primarily remain a species of professional ethics (even if we gladly admit that one may discuss such issues as just war also within a purely philosophical framework, the latter, however, being different from what dominates this journal). While a profession might be executed and understood differently within different cultural settings, it must at its core include an idea of the profession as such: what it is for, what its main norms and limits are, and what it means to be a legitimate and sound executor of that profession. Facilitating a global dialogue about that idea is indeed a core ambition of this journal. As part of the development and maintenance of such “professional ethics,” listening to and learning from the experiences of others are key requirements. Hence, we hope that the international flavor of the present double issue will be appreciated by the reader. We even dare to accompany that hope with a wish for more submissions from a wide variety of traditions, regions, and viewpoints.

Intentions and Mindsets

Does it really matter what we think or believe about things, as long as we act rightly? In this issue of Journal of Military Ethics, two separate articles take aim at one of the staples of the just war tradition: the criterion of right intention. Armed with a series of serious and thoughtful arguments, the authors question and largely shoot down key arguments for including the idea of intention as a separate demand for the rightful use of force. The articles also provide important considerations about the littlediscussed distinction between motives and intentions: between what makes someone do something, and what the end purpose might be. We will not quarrel with these important analyses, but express the hope that the enlightened readership of Journal of Military Ethics will take up the challenge, since these articles do ask crucial questions about central tenets of the just war tradition. What we would like to do, though, is to remind ourselves of the arguable importance of intention when it comes to jus in bello: the question of how we act in war, or how we use armed force. Of course we might ponder how clear the concept of a nation or a group having an intention really is. And in war, the main actor is indeed most often a nation or a similar collective. Further, vast amounts of social science literature raise strong reasons for suspicions about the accuracy of even our own individual beliefs about what our intentions and motives are for what we do, making the idea of clarity of intentions of collectives even more dubious. Also, we must remember that inner states of minds or the most laudable ends in the world can never in themselves justify acts that are inherently wrong. We know all too well how extremist mindsets – intentions – can drive human beings to performing actions that tragically destroy peace and shatter countless lives. Terrorist acts directed against civilians are wrong no matter what, and vilifying ideologies and states of mind does nothing to strengthen that condemnation. Yet, the driving desire to spread fear, spur enmity, and shock societies by killing those most vulnerable – and doing all of that with the stated intention of bringing about a radically different society under new laws – is reflective of an intention (and indeed of motives or motivations) that must be condemned. Even if it is not acted upon directly, such a desire in itself represents a way of understanding society, humankind, and the dignity of the individual that is fundamentally at odds with the way in which armed force should be wielded. In that respect, a continued insistence on the relevance of intentions and mindsets is arguably not at all irrelevant. While the articles in this issue that question the salience of the right intention criterion do help us see how that criterion can be dispensed with, or at least should be understood differently as a part of the jus ad bellum, they do not

‘The Just Soldier’ – Who Is It?

What is courage? Who is actually a good and just soldier? And who is not? This issue of the Journal of Military Ethics asks these questions from several different angles. Traditionally, warrior virtue was seemingly easy to define, since the tasks of the warrior were quite clearly delineated. There were of course different cultures, varying contexts, and conflicting codes of honor. Yet, what most deeply constituted the tasks and work of a soldier was something broadly understood and agreed on. Today, we face different challenges. Can machines be soldiers? Or do those who operate them exhibit the virtues we associate with the soldier? The exchange between Jesse Kirkpatrick and Robert Sparrow pointedly debates this problem, as they discuss what the virtue of courage means for a soldier who operates weapons from afar, without any danger of himor herself being shot down, yet with a significant danger of carrying mental images and scars out of battle fully comparable with those of other warriors. We also ask whether guerrillas and other insurgents can be warriors, in the full ethical sense. The just war tradition and international law have labored to define who actually has the right to fight, and who does not. Can that right belong to those who fight irregularly, whether ad bellum or in bello? And what does it mean to fight irregularly? Can, for instance, the employment of human shields, to avoid attack from a conscientious enemy, ever be a just tactic of war? We are proud to present a thoughtful and engaging debate on these issues, based on a recent, important book by Michael Gross. We hope these and our other articles in this fall and winter issue of the journal help us all, practitioners and academics, and those who fall into both categories, reflect on the question of the ethical and just soldier – who he or she is and is not. This issue is our combined fall and winter issue. We thank warmly our authors, editorial staff and associates, referees, and readers for all their support in 2015. We are now looking forward to a new year of trenchant and important debates about military ethics.

Editors' Introduction: New times, or the same old?

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” rings Charles Dickens’ famous beginning of A Tale of Two Cities. The bewildering times it describes, around the French revolution, can find a counterpart in almost any age. Contradictory trends and conflicting emotions are as much part of the human condition as they are of any particular historic time. Yet, in terms of military force and its right use, ours are quite conflicted times: in some ways the best, and in others ways, if not quite the worst, at least bewildering and dangerous. On the one hand, our age is a relatively peaceful one. Several remarkably stable trends indicate that international war is becoming rarer, some would say on its way to becoming obsolete. Localized and regional civil wars still inflict great suffering and tragedy. But, so goes the argument, along with the increased hopes for economic success through international cooperation and trade also come the hopes for fewer wars, simply because there will be fewer reasons to fight them. Some, such as Stephen Pinker and Azar Gat, also hold that we human beings are becoming gradually more civilized. On the other hand, even if the economic argument holds (which many fear it does not), the optimism about human civilization can be questioned, or at least be nuanced. After all, human beings are driven by more than economic incentives, and spurred to action by more than trade and prosperity. Pride, protest, and patriotism are forces stirring deep in the human soul in any age, for good and ill. Exploiting genuine grievances and political chaos for the sake of gaining ideological victory or personal power is also widespread, sometimes leading to untold devastation, as in Syria. And when the drive for prosperity turns to personal greed, without the check of a stable rule of law, corruption is the typical result rather than stable peace. In that sense, we are witnessing events right now that lead us to anything but optimism. The question about the general direction – if any – of the world is closely related to the question of the relative newness of the phenomena of our age. Are we at the dawn of a new era, with brand new challenges never seen before, or are we simply repeating the same mistakes and successes that have always haunted and graced humankind? Or are both true? From the point of view of military ethics, we could ask whether the unrest we are seeing of various kinds in the Crimea, Syria, Afghanistan, and the Central African Republic is just a repeat of well-known power struggles and state failures. Or are we seeing something genuinely new, or at least fragments of it? To take but one example: What role does social media play, considering the fact that messages of protest and violence can now be spread and read at a rate that leaves the Gutenbergian revolution in the dust? This journal – between the lines, and sometimes clearly in them – keeps exploring these underlying topics in manifold ways. In this issue, as in most of our current issues, the quandaries raised by new fighting machines, unmanned, autonomous, and in cyber space, are raised in challenging ways. To what extent are the problems we face – and the solutions we can find – really ages-old, and to what extent is this something brand new?

EXPANDING THE GLOBAL CONVERSATION ABOUT WAR: THREE CHINESE PERSPECTIVES – EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

Since the inception of the Journal of Military Ethics, the editors and editorial board have struggled with the realization that, to a very large degree, the discourse regarding military ethics and just war was a somewhat parochial conversation among Europeans, North Americans, Israelis, Australians, and a few others i.e., a largely ‘Western’ conversation. A conference on Chinese ideas about war, held at the Baptist University of Hong Kong last summer under the guidance of Professor P.C. Lo, provided us an excellent opportunity to expand the conversation. This issue presents three of the papers originally given at that conference. Each addresses a significant tradition or thinker from the Chinese tradition and therefore marks the beginning of a real broadening of the global dialogue regarding ethical issues in war. Professors Twiss and Chan explore the Confucian idea of a ‘punitive expedition,’ and helpfully compare and contrast a range of issues regarding humanitarian intervention and responsibility to protect in Western and international legal frameworks. Professor Aaron Stalnaker provides a rich and subtle analysis of Xunzi’s Confucian vision of social order and the role of the use of force within it. He helpfully extends his analysis to provide a Confucian contribution to contemporary thought about international order, and compares some of his constructive suggestions to Immanuel Kant’s famous prescription for world peace in Perpetual Peace. Professor Lo argues against the widely held view that Sunzi’s (Sun-Tzu’s) great work lacks a moral framework for thinking about war. Indeed, by contrast with other Chinese thinkers and the actual military practice of Sunzi’s time, Professor Lo argues that there are strong normative views in Sunzi about the appropriateness and restraint of violence in war. Professor Lo’s paper in particular extends this primarily historical analysis with some thoughts about how the People’s Liberation Army is likely to appropriate these traditional Chinese concepts in its own normative thought and military practice a point of special importance and relevance to a journal such as ours that strives to bring practical guidance and insight to bear on contemporary issues. For many of our readers, Chinese sources and history may be largely unexplored territory. Further, as one might expect, Chinese categories and concepts do not necessarily track in complete parallel with Western concepts of, for example, jus ad bellum and jus in bello. These superb papers clearly illustrate how much we have to learn from traditions beyond the bounds of the Western military ethics and just war conversation. We hope, therefore, that these papers open a door to further expansion of the global discussion. Indeed, we are especially happy that a further contribution from Asia, Shunzo Majima’s challenging article on torture, is also being printed in this issue. We

A Force for (Relative) Good: An Augustinian Persepective

United Kingdom (UK) to know much about the particular history of the decision to adopt “force for good” as a slogan with which to characterize her military forces. I suspect it was, as it would be in the US, a complex political question with many dimensions. Like the UK, the US needs to continually make efforts to manage the perception of its military in the minds of its citizens. Marketing one’s military force as a “force for good” promises to be a potent means of garnering support for the military, for military procurement and budgets and (perhaps) for recruiting individuals to serve in the force. In my lifetime, I have witnessed the nadir of that perception at the depths of the Vietnam era and the heights when, in recent years, the American public has consistently rated its military as the most trusted institution in its society. At present, despite the obvious horrible strains on our forces and a number of humiliating cases of gross misconduct by individual soldiers and units, the publics’ support for their armed forces is still high – at least as manifested in “support the troops”magnets attached to the rear of nearly every SUV in Colorado Springs. However, I do not wish to reflect on the complex topic of public perception of the military or the conditions for its continuing support of military activities. Rather, I propose to take up the assertion that military forces are a “force for good” at its word. At first blush, the claim that forces whose core competency is necessarily “killing people and breaking things” (as the US military often likes to put it) is such a “force for good” must strike one as implausible. If one is to make this claim, as Ricky Ricardo used to say to Lucy in the US TV sitcom I Love Lucy, “you got some ’splaining to do!” The idea that, properly used, military force is a “force for good” is one with a long history and lineage. It is a history of philosophical depth and sophistication and, I will argue, one that we must consciously and explicitly keep in mind if we are to be able to use a phrase such as this to characterize what modern military forces can and should be about. Indeed, I will argue that if we fail to keep in mind that historical contribution, the very phrase “force for good” runs the risk of encouraging self-delusion and moral Defense & Security Analysis Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 349–361, December 2008

Thucydides as a Resource for Teaching Ethics and Leadership in Military Education Environments

Abstract The author describes a method for teaching Thucydides to military officers in the context of professional military education which integrates military ethics. Using the ‘Great Books’ method of classroom discussion, the authors experience of teaching Thucydides for five years at the United States Army War College suggests that this is a highly effective method of exploring a wide range of topics in military ethics.

Introduction to the Special Issue: The Moral Status of 'the International Community'

This issue of Journal of Military Ethics introduces a new occasional feature: a special issue with a number of papers focusing on a single topic. We have chosen to focus on the moral status of ‘the international community’. This topic is especially relevant as we review military actions (and non-actions) of recent decades. The phrase has been widely invoked to justify or criticize an enormously wide range of actions and omissions in the military sphere. ‘The international community’ is roundly criticized for failing to intervene in Rwanda and invoked as the moral agent required to intervene in Kosovo. Often ‘the international community’ is invoked as holding agreed upon moral standards, and spoken of as if it were itself an agent in international affairs. The international community now possesses an ostensibly uniform standard for international criminal activity in the International Criminal Court, and is claimed by at least the American and British governments to agree on unacceptable terrorist conduct worldwide. For all the frequency of the invocation of the phrase, however, its actual meaning and moral force are hard to pin down. The September /October 2002 issue of Foreign Policy featured as its central topic the question ‘What is the International Community?’ and found writers as diverse but important as Kofi Annan, Noam Chomsky, Jeane Kirkpatrick (former US delegate to the United Nations), and others articulate enormously diverse views in their attempts to state its meaning and importance. Some writers and nations often seem to identify ‘the international community’ with the United Nations and other institutionalized forms of international cooperation. On the other hand, the intervention in Kosovo*/conducted in the absence of Security Council authorization and in the face of certain veto were the question posed*/was justified in the name of some other construal of the locus and legitimacy of that community. The papers in this special section explore the range of questions raised by the phrase ‘international community’ and its many applications in contemporary international discourse. Journal of Military Ethics (2003) 2(2): 97 /98