Alessandra Nisch
Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of ...

President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.

Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of Applied Friction

Ethics

#Reviewing To Boldly Go: Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond

#Reviewing To Boldly Go: Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond

Drawing on a universe of science fiction franchises including The Expanse, Star Wars, Star Trek, Ender’s Game, Starship Troopers, Dune, Earthseed, The Murderbot Diaries, and many more, a wonderful array of authors, who are strategic thinkers in their own right, offer fresh perspectives in 35 chapters that span 6 major themes: leadership and command; military strategy and decision making; ethics, culture, and diversity; cooperation, competition, and conflict; the human relationship with technology; and toxic leaders.

#Reviewing Preparing for War: Law, Strategy, and the Making of the Geneva Conventions:

#Reviewing Preparing for War: Law, Strategy, and the Making of the Geneva Conventions:

Brian Drohan joins The Strategy Bridge to review “Preparing for War” by Boyd van Dijk” “International humanitarian law has only appeared to be absent during recent wars in Yemen, Syria, and Ukraine, but Boyd van Dijk’s Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions reveals that the 1949 Geneva Conventions have an enduring influence. He shows that the Conventions have retained their legal, moral, and ethical applicability through a contextualized understanding of their history.

The Psychology of Killing with Drones: #Reviewing On Killing Remotely

The Psychology of Killing with Drones: #Reviewing On Killing Remotely

To date, moral injury remains a syndrome, that is, a group of symptoms lacking clear definition or cause. Phelps exemplifies a possible way ahead in On Killing Remotely. In terms of quantifiability, Phelps makes room for analyzing a new arena for moral injury without stretching the term past its breaking point. In terms of severity, Phelps clarifies that stakes can be high without involving immediate personal danger, thus opening up discussions of comparable scenarios with the potential to morally injure. In terms of technology, Phelps distinguishes between kinds of unmanned or remote aerial technology, sketching a taxonomy and noting the unique stressors of each tool or mission.

#Reviewing Is Remote Warfare Moral

#Reviewing Is Remote Warfare Moral

Is Remote Warfare Moral? Weighing Issues of Life and Death from 7,000 Miles by Joseph O. Chapa is a thoughtful and necessary contribution to the literature on RPA warfare. The book’s biggest contribution is that of a primary source from a seasoned veteran and RPA instructor in the United States Air Force. The book also elucidates some of the ambiguity surrounding RPA warfare.

The Ethics of Meaning Making in War: A Framework for Understanding Ukraine

The Ethics of Meaning Making in War: A Framework for Understanding Ukraine

Progress in Russia’s invasion of the sovereign territory of Ukraine is commonly measured in terms of land control. This metric does not paint the whole picture. The war has spilled over into the quasi-boundaryless digital realm where contests over the meaning and nature of the conflict rage. These conflagrations over issues of meaning are strategically significant; their outcome could mean the difference between winning in the court of public opinion, thereby obtaining much needed global support—or not.

#Reviewing On Killing Remotely

#Reviewing On Killing Remotely

While the intense psychological burden borne by the soldier engaged in battle is not in doubt, understanding what specific factors exact the greatest toll, or how the willingness to kill relates to battlefield outcomes, remains ripe for exploration…Wayne Phelps’s addition to this literature seems to be a direct continuation of Grossman’s work, and Phelps pushes the same thesis as Grossman—that warriors do not naturally want to kill—into the field of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPAs).

Playing at Ethics: #Reviewing Military Ethics Education Playing Cards

Playing at Ethics: #Reviewing Military Ethics Education Playing Cards

The KCME Military Ethics Education Playing Cards Deck is an exceptionally versatile tool that has great utility for both individual reflection and organizational-level ethics education. It should become part of professional military ethics education toolkits across the U.S. Armed Forces and its allies and partners. As more military practitioners use the Deck, they should contribute their own stories and perspectives to KCME to make the tool even better.

#Reviewing Just and Unjust Uses of Limited Force

#Reviewing Just and Unjust Uses of Limited Force

Just and Unjust Uses of Limited Force by Daniel Brunstetter offers an insightful look into the permissions and limits of international force short of war. Brunstetter proposes a theory of justice for limited force (or vim in Latin). The need for such a study is indicated by the fact that most of the terminology used to describe morality in war does not adequately capture contemporary uses of force, which warrants additional vocabulary. This is what Brunstetter provides. Full of contemporary examples and counterfactuals, Brunstetter's work offers a relevant heuristic to aid in understanding the fights of today.

Don’t Be Evil: America Needs Its Mantra Back

Don’t Be Evil: America Needs Its Mantra Back

America and its conflicts are not so different from those in the Mahabharata. America has been called a shining city upon a hill, borrowing from the Christian Bible. Like the Pāṇḍavas in their moral miscalculation, however, America has forgotten the importance of virtue. Does America rise to fight simply because challenged, with little to gain but much to lose? Does it honestly assess the continuing costs of war?

#Reviewing The Character Gap

#Reviewing The Character Gap

If you are looking for an accessible, practical introduction to moral psychology and ethics for undergraduate, Professional Military Education classes, or the general interest reader, look no further. Philosopher and psychology researcher Christian Miller’s The Character Gap distills much of his own scholarly work, as well as the thoughts and writing of others, into a readable, accessible volume with practical examples, citations from important studies, and popular culture references that bring alive questions of moral character and development. This volume asks us not just to consider others’ moral character, but also reflect upon our own, the gaps in it, and how we can improve it.

#Reviewing On Obedience: Contrasting Philosophies for the Military, Citizenry, and Community

#Reviewing On Obedience: Contrasting Philosophies for the Military, Citizenry, and Community

On Obedience is a triumph. It deserves an enduring spot on the reading lists of senior military leaders and on the syllabi of professional military education institutions around the world. Even so, it is an incomplete—and sometimes flawed—triumph, especially as the argument reaches its apex in describing the obedience as negotiation model in the book’s eighth chapter. Shanks Kaurin too easily concedes that those responsible for giving orders also possess the preponderance of power in these negotiations.

The Common Good: Ethical Strategy Between States and Partner Forces

The Common Good: Ethical Strategy Between States and Partner Forces

A realist calculus of transactional security fails to take account of the moral reality of war. It results in unjust war and moral injury to those who engage in war. It tarnishes the state’s way of war by reducing groups of persons into means rather than recognizing their proper dignity as ends in themselves. Strategists working today must formulate the common good among those political communities that agree to partnership in war. At a minimum, this must include the analogy of political communities as persons who retain inherent human dignity as ends in themselves. It must also include the deliberate effort to formulate a positive good that is not narrowly the destruction of an enemy but is a basis of trust leading to a mutual, better peace.

Getting Past the Civil War: The Morality of Renaming U.S. Army Bases Named After Confederate Generals

Getting Past the Civil War: The Morality of Renaming U.S. Army Bases Named After Confederate Generals

One hundred-and-fifty-five years after the end of the Civil War, as the growing movement to remove memorials and monuments to Confederacy suggest, it appears Lee was right in his opposition. Moreover, whatever one believes about Lee’s decision to fight for the Confederacy, it is well past time to take his advice.

Guiding the Unknown: Ethical Oversight of Artificial Intelligence for Autonomous Weapon Capabilities

Guiding the Unknown: Ethical Oversight of Artificial Intelligence for Autonomous Weapon Capabilities

It is not news that autonomous weapons capabilities powered by artificial intelligence are evolving fast. Many scholars and strategists foresee this new technology changing the character of war and challenging existing frameworks for thinking about just or ethical war in ways the U.S. national security community is not yet prepared to handle. Until U.S. policy makers know enough to draw realistic ethical boundaries, prudent U.S. policy makers are likely to focus on measures that balance competing obligations and pressures during this ambiguous development phase.

Moral Philosophy as a Force Protection Measure

Moral Philosophy as a Force Protection Measure

Membership in the profession of arms is a tightrope walk. Just warriors manage a delicate balance between respecting human life and taking it. This is no new phenomenon, but instead has been a fact about war from the beginning. We judge Achilles, but not for killing Hector; that was his soldierly duty. There was a hope, though, that even in death, Achilles might honor Hector’s life. This was not to be. In defiling Hector’s body, Achilles dehumanized his enemy and fell to one side of the tightrope.

Economics Sure, but Don’t Forget Ethics with Artificial Intelligence

Economics Sure, but Don’t Forget Ethics with Artificial Intelligence

The widening rift between the Pentagon and Silicon Valley endangers national security in an era when global powers are embracing strategic military-technical competition. As countries race to harness the next potentially offsetting technology, artificial intelligence, the implications of relinquishing their competitive edge could drastically change the landscape of the next conflict. The Pentagon has struggled—and continues to struggle—to make a solid business case for technology vendors to sell their products to the Defense Department. Making the economic case to Silicon Valley requires process improvement, but building a strong relationship will necessitate embracing the ethical questions surrounding the development and employment of artificial intelligence on the battlefield.

Respect for Persons and the Ethics of Autonomous Weapons and Decision Support Systems

Respect for Persons and the Ethics of Autonomous Weapons and Decision Support Systems

The concern here, however, is not that death by robot represents a more horrible outcome than when a human pulls the trigger. Rather it has to do with the nature of morality itself and the central role respect for persons, understood in the Kantian sense as something moral agents owe each other, plays in forming our moral judgments.

A Tradition Older

A Tradition Older

Navy culture builds on traditions of the sea and seafaring in a nearly unbroken line from the sailing fleets of the British Empire through today’s modern nuclear-powered ships of steel. One common saying is that the United States Navy is “over 240 years of tradition, unhampered by progress,” a simultaneous indictment of conservatism and a celebration of history and tradition. While the statement is not fully true, however, tradition is such a cornerstone of naval life that tradition is an unofficial fourth core value and the single most common rationale for any action. Sailors cite tradition in many ways and forms, often interchangeably with custom and routine.