Issues in Military Ethics ─ To Support and Defend the Constitution

Reflections on, and analysis of, ethical issues facing military service in the United States.

Reflecting on a seventeen-year career teaching at military educational institutions of the Air Force, the Army, and the Navy, Martin L. Cook finds a powerful but underappreciated basis for military ethics in the oath to the Constitution members of the armed services pledge. In Issues in Military Ethics, Cook considers the role of airpower in counterinsurgency war and the place of robotic weapons systems on the battlefield, but he also looks beyond ethics in the conduct of war to issues arising in military life generally. He addresses a range of other issues with pressing contemporary relevance, including civil-military relations, ethics education, religion, and in particular the ascendency of evangelical Christianity in military culture. This volume serves as an important resource for scholars, members of the armed services, and educators alike.

Martin L. Cook is Admiral James Bond Stockdale Chair of Professional Military Ethics at the United States Naval War College. He is the author of several books, including The Moral Warrior: Ethics and Service in the U.S. Military, also published by SUNY Press.