The Ethics of Remote Warfare
Author(s) Lily Hamourtziadou
Language: English
Genre(s): Politics, Philosophy
Series: Political Philosophy Now
- November 2024 · 224 pages ·216x138mm
- · Hardback - 9781837721627
- · eBook - pdf - 9781837721634
- · eBook - epub - 9781837721641
About The Book
Ethical approaches to war require that we don’t value only the lives of ‘our’ people, as Realism asserts; that we don’t enforce our sense of justice with weapons, as Militarism demands our ‘moral warriors’ do; that force is used only in self-defence, based on the principles of Just War Theory. However, can there be purely defensive or moral wars? This book offers unique insights into twenty-first century warfare through three approaches – Realism, Militarism, and Just war Theory – in the context of ‘precision’ weapons, celebrated for minimising risks to soldiers and civilians. The author questions whether the rapidly developing technology of lethal autonomous weapons is actually expanding an existing legal-ethical issue: the problem of civilian harm. Laws permits acts that cause incidental civilian harm; AI warfare puts the law’s accountability gap into sharper relief, highlighting the need for new accountability mechanisms that reflect a sense of legal and moral justice.
Endorsements
‘Hamourtziadou’s book not only casts fresh light on various aspects of ethical dilemmas in war arising from recent technological progress, but also massively extends the reach of International Relations discipline. The book explores the morality of warfare in the context of an increasingly remote way of fighting enemies in the twenty-first century. An impressive combination of critical theory and solid case studies.’
Bulent Gokay, Professor of International Relations, Keele University
‘The speed of development of new forms of remote warfare is little short of breathtaking, with consideration of the ethical implications of the transformations all too often taking a distant second place to the new technologies of killing. This alone makes Hamourtziadou’s Ethics of Remote Warfare immensely timely, especially in the manner in which it combines a thorough knowledge of the new developments with an embedded reminder of the human costs.’
Paul Rogers, Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies, University of Bradford
Contents
'Rules-based Orders' by Dr Barry J. Ryan
List of Tables
Foreword by Sorin Baiasu
Introduction: Twenty-first century wars and technology. The changing parameters of conflict within a context of changing global power relations.
1 Three Approaches to Ethics
2 Killing from Afar: The Terror of the Air
3 From the Bomber to the Drone
4 Remote Killing in the War on Terror
5 Remote Killing and the War in Ukraine
Conclusion: Remote Warfare and the (New) Ethics of War
Notes
Select bibliography
Index