http://www.militaryethics.org Articles about the ethics of war http://www.militaryethics.org/Just-War-and-Rothbardian-Libertarianism/13/ In this article Lottieri expands on the libertarian perspective of just war theory through the writings of Murray Rothbard. A libertarian is one who believes in minimal state one that is set up only to defend its citizens against external or internal aggression Rothbard proclaims a anarchocapitalist perspective which is not only highly skeptical of any state activity but which also considers that most if not all the states services could be better provided through the market. In his defense of pure market capitalism the economist and philosopher Murray N. Rothbard 19261995 rejects every ... Fri, 08 Jul 2011 01:28:47 +0100 GMT http://www.militaryethics.org/Purity-of-Arms-Combatants-as-Voluntary-Actors-in-/12/ In this article Paul Madariaga seeks to draw military ethics into the political philosophy of contractarianism or the theory that society is founded upon an implicit social contract. In defending a contractarian thesis he claimes that war can be deemed an extension of the social contract theory and is found in the varieties of types of war from ritualized warfare to wars committed under international treatises and agreements on the laws of war he draws attention to the problem of draftees or conscripts being obliged to join an armed force as well as to military actions affecting civilians. I ... Sat, 18 Jun 2011 19:05:28 +0100 GMT http://www.militaryethics.org/Justifications-of-the-Armed-Forces/11/ A primary consideration that should be raised in military ethics once we have accepted that military acts are a viable subject for ethics is whether the armed forces possess any moral justification for existing in the first place. After all arming a group of people is an extraordinary process with multifarious repercussions concerning why who how and to what end. It should not be held as a given that states or polities do or should possess a military just as it should not be held as a given that states are the sole form of political organization such propositions should be justified rather t ... Fri, 29 Apr 2011 21:17:22 +0100 GMT http://www.militaryethics.org/British-Atrocities-in-Counter-Insurgency/10/ BRITISH ATROCITIES AND COUNTERINSURGENCY Introduction All too often over recent years allegations have come to light concerning the wrongful behaviour of British troops in Iraq. After a notable court martial involving personnel from the Queens Lancashire Regiment a corporal was found guilty of inhumane treatment of civilians and his Commanding Officer acquitted. There remains suspicion that witnesses lied and that the Royal Military Police RMP investigation was grossly flawed. A similar enquiry is under way regarding the deaths of civilians at a permanent vehicle check point on Route 6 sou ... Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:22:18 +0100 GMT http://www.militaryethics.org/No-Fly-Zone/9/ Introduction A nofly zone is an area in which aircraft are not permitted domestically this may be over areas deemed to be of national or personal security so that flying aircraft over Buckingham Palace in the UK or the Taj Mahal in India are prohibited as is flying over various nuclear research centres around the world. However in the military context a nofly zone is an airspace that is either a mutually accepted demilitarized area or the assertion of supremacy by one country over another. In effect while the former is an extension of domestic law to an internationally binding agreement on th ... Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:19:43 +0000 GMT http://www.militaryethics.org/Legal-Positivism/8/ Behind much military ethical discourse is the question whether the use or threat of force against another can be legitimized If so then the armed forces would achieve a professional justification that could in turn provide a moral umbrella for certain actions within the military realm of action and hence delegitimize others from the appropriate authority structures. On the other hand acts that are not legitimized by authority are therefore said to be beyond what is right or fair. Military ethics would thus be derived from authority and accordingly would be dependent upon political tenets conc ... Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:39:18 +0000 GMT http://www.militaryethics.org/Why-Military-Ethics/6/ A sketch Clausewitz the great war logician famously referred to the fog of war that war generates such confusion that generals soon lose contact with their forces and hence the minutiae of strategies and logistics on the ground. Ethically the military faces the same problem once men and women are armed they stand apart from the civil order of peaceful interaction and hence pose an implicit and explicit moral problem and as their actions are further removed through battle the ethical guides become increasingly shrouded in mist. What soldiers do and do not do is generally the subject mater ... Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:31:18 +0000 GMT http://www.militaryethics.org/Militarism/5/ Militarism Sketch article Militarism assumes that the martial order provides the primary explanation and directive of ethics that life in all its forms sexual commercial aesthetic religious etc. should bow to the martial order. War and the military profession provide the standard but also the guide for the civil order without the military the argument proceeds the civil order would be nothing so it is only right for the military to define the characteristic and tone of ethics military ethics is thus the pinnacle or symbolizes the pinnacle of the good and the right. There are many version ... Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:02:41 +0000 GMT http://www.militaryethics.org/Total-Warfare/4/ Total warfare describes the negation of principles of just conduct in war although the war is typically fought between combatants rather than against noncombatants see Totalitarian War. ... Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:34:12 +0000 GMT http://www.militaryethics.org/Totalitarian-Warfare/3/ Totalitarian War and Ethics Those who assert that ethics cannot exist in warfare may be alluding to what can be called totalitarian warfare a form of warfare that rejects any possibility of ethical action. On this account any action in war is permissible war is not just a breaching of the moral frontier that is said to exist between the civil and military order but an annihilation of that frontier. All is fair in war. The guiding proposition in totalitarian warfare is that there is no distinction between combatant and noncombatant either at home or abroad. As the militarycivil divide is ex ... Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:32:06 +0000 GMT http://www.militaryethics.org/Aerial-Bombing/1/ In this article Moseley reviews the emergence of aerial bombing in the early twentieth century and its relationship to legal codes and the just war conventions With the advent of planes it was not long before they were being used by pilots for military purposes initially for reconnaissance and then for shooting at each other in the sky. But as the First World War proceeded some pilots were dropping small handheld bombs from the sky on the enemy below and by the 1920s the potential of this kind of warfare was grasped by writers such as Douhet. The ethical repercussions quickly followed too ... Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:25:54 +0000 GMT