Full Description
Shortlisted for The Society for Army Historical Research's 2024 Templer Medal and Chapple Prize for best first book.
After twenty years of almost unbroken wars of choice, the ethical deficiencies in the operational conduct of war by Western armed forces have largely been ignored by scholarly critique. This volume addresses these deficiencies, featuring analysis by some of the UK's leading academics and military veterans working in the fields of military ethics and contemporary conflict.
Compiled in honour of Colonel David Benest OBE, a soldier-scholar who believed that ethics should be central to an effective military education, the book focuses on problems ranging from the practicalities of how to conduct a counterinsurgency campaign in one of the most challenging combat zones in the world to the failure to account properly for defeat during military conflicts. This important volume explores critical questions perennially raised about the role of the military in a democratic society and the extent to which its ideals are compromised in fighting wars of choice.
Contents
Foreword - Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman
Introduction - Frank Ledwidge
Part One: David Benest's legacy
Chapter 1: 'Not the British way of doing business': Atrocities in military operations and how to avoid them - Aaron Edwards
Chapter 2: The military virtues: David Benest and David Fisher on when soldiers turn bad - Simon Anglim
Chapter 3: Legal accountability at the tactical level and the Overseas Operations Act - Nicholas Mercer
Part Two: Legal and moral accountability
Chapter 4: The Iraq war crimes allegations and the investigative conundrum - Andrew Williams
Chapter 5: From forgetting to institutional failure: The army as a non-learning organization - Matthew Ford
Chapter 6: Accountability, responsibility and culpability: Are British senior officers truly 'professional'? - Frank Ledwidge
Part Three: Combat realities
Chapter 7: The operational design for Nad-e-Ali South, Afghanistan, 2011 - Oliver Lee
Chapter 8: Killing over winning: How fluid ethics turned success into failure for Britain's special forces - Chris Green
Chapter 9: Must liberal democracies compromise their values in order to defeat insurgencies? - Louise Jones
Part Four: Myths, stories and memory
Chapter 10: The lonely death of Highlander Scott McLaren - Edward Burke
Chapter 11: Military myths - John Wilson
Chapter 12: Remembering the British soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan - Helen Parr
Bibliography
Authors' biographies
Index
