This Companion provides scholars and graduates, serving and retired military professionals, members of the diplomatic and policy communities concerned with security affairs and legal professionals who deal with military law and with international law on armed conflicts, with a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research in the area of military ethics. Topics in this volume reflect both perennial and pressing contemporary issues in the ethics of the use of military force and are written by established professionals and respected commentators. Subjects are organized by three major perspectives on the use of military force: the decision whether to use military force in a given context, the matter of right conduct in the use of such force, and ethical responsibilities beyond the end of an armed conflict. Treatment of issues in each of these sections takes account of both present-day moral challenges and new approaches to these and the historical tradition of just war. Military ethics, as it has developed, has been a particularly Western concern and this volume reflects that reality. However, in a globalized world, awareness of similarities and differences between Western approaches and those of other major cultures is essential. For this reason the volume concludes with chapters on ethics and war in the Islamic, Chinese, and Indian traditions, with the aim of integrating reflection on these approaches into the broad consideration of military ethics provided by this volume.

Highlighting the just war tradition in historical perspective, this valuable study looks at contemporary implications drawn out in the context of several important contemporary debates: within the field of religion, including both Christian and Islamic thought; within the field of debate related to the international law of armed conflicts; within the field of policy relating to the use of armed force where the issue is just war thinking vs. realism; and debates over pressing contemporary issues in the ethics of war which cross disciplinary lines. James Turner Johnson has been writing on just war tradition since 1975, developing the historical understanding of just war and seeking to draw out its implications for contemporary armed conflict. He is frequently asked to lecture on topics drawn from his work. This current book brings together a number of essays which reflect his recent thinking on understanding how and why just war tradition coalesced in the first place, how and why it has developed as it has, and relating contemporary just war reasoning to the historical tradition of just war.

With a bold vision and a distinctive message, Reddy stipulates that international peacekeeping can be designed and implemented using the principles of restorative justice. To prove this, Reddy discusses the congruence of crime, armed conflict and violent disorder, critiquing restorative justice and its nuanced character as a suitable application to complex civil wars. This book provides a comprehensive survey of peace operations and then focuses on the cases of Somalia and Bougainville. The comparison between their societal contexts, their conflicts, peace operations and final outcomes are crucial to this argument. Furthermore, this shows how the constraining, maximising and emergent values of restorative justice can be applied in a peacekeeping setting, from the overall command level through to the behaviours of deployed peacekeepers - with direct contemporary application. This sharp study makes for evocative reading as it introduces the new concept of regeneration as key to any restoratively arranged peace operation. Military, police, NGO and civilian peacekeeper practitioners, as well as academic theorists, can use this unique work to produce better and more lasting results for conflict ridden communities.


The Prism of Just War

Published 1 January 2010

Through a careful examination of religious and philosophical literature, the contributors to the volume analyze, compare and assess diverse Western, Islamic, Hindu and East Asian perspectives concerning the appropriate criteria that should govern the decision to resort to the use of armed force and, once that decision is made, what constraints should govern the actual conduct of military operations. In doing so, the volume promotes a better understanding of the various ways in which diverse peoples and societies within the global community approach the question of what constitutes the legitimate use of military force as an instrument of policy in the resolution of conflicts.


Why Not Preempt?

by Rachel Bzostek

Published 1 April 2008

Anticipatory military activities, which include both preemptive and preventive military actions, are at the centre of American strategic doctrine - however, states rarely use these activities. Rachel Bzostek puts forward an integrated analysis to help understand why states have or have not undertaken such activities in the past. By exploring what kinds of strategic or structural elements compel states or leaders to take anticipatory military action, as well as how these concepts are viewed in both international law and the just war tradition, this book uses case studies to examine those elements that have played an influential role in the decision-making process.

Ideal as a course reader for upper division undergraduate and graduates in security studies, international law, US foreign policy and those involved in the teaching and training of the military.