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This chapter locates the role of reciprocal risk within the warrior ethos. It first outlines that exposure to personal, physical risk has long been regarded as a key element in the ethos-based conception of legitimate violence. It demonstrates this through analysis of ancient warfare, both Greek and Roman, as well as the medieval code of chivalry. As will be further shown, however, the warrior ethos is an evolving framework; one that gives increasing consideration to factors such as restraint and professionalism in determinations of ethical status. This will be confirmed through analysis of premodern, modern, and ‘post-heroic’ warfare. As this chapter will illustrate, the adaptive quality of the warrior ethos is a key explanatory factor in the historical resolution of asymmetry-challenges.

This chapter focuses on how militaries seek to train soldiers to be good in line with the vision for ethical war. Western militaries have presented themselves as ‘forces for good’, including an explicit commitment to clearly articulated values. In this context, the chapter returns to the problem of killing and highlights the challenge it poses in military training and practice. It shows how military ethics education has drawn on virtue ethics, not least for the production of a warrior ethos, endorsing the assumption that good soldiers make good war. The chapter examines how soldiers who have been trained in this way have fared in recent wars. Finally, it highlights the problem that it is actually impossible to be a good soldier in the way envisaged and that this poses problems for those asked to live up to the vision.

This chapter explores the asymmetry-challenge of military sniping. It first provides a historical overview of the practice, beginning with early forms of ranged killing and concluding with the sharpshooting of the First World War. The asymmetric potential of this technology will be detailed, as well as the criticism this advantage attracted. The chapter will then clarify that in contrast to its tension with the warrior ethos, the asymmetry-challenge of sniping did not impact the Just War Tradition to a meaningful degree. The chapter concludes by examining the gradual resolution of the asymmetry-challenge of sniping, focusing on the increasingly significant role of combat responsibility in determinations of ethically legitimate violence.

This chapter explores the asymmetry-challenge of manned aerial bombing. It first provides a historical overview of the practice, beginning in the nineteenth century and concluding with the 1999 high-altitude bombing of Operation Allied Force (OAF). The chapter will then examine, and distinguish between, the ethical and moral opposition that emerged in response to civilian bombing. This opposition will then be reconsidered in the context of the First Gulf War and OAF. It is within these conflicts that we witness a shift in the locus of the asymmetric-challenge of aerial bombing, from civilian to combatant targeting. The chapter concludes by exploring the gradual resolution of the asymmetry-challenge of manned aerial bombing.

Roman senatorial aristocracy was trained in war from adolescence. Romans presumed to have to wage war against various perceived enemies every year. The basic foreign-relations task of the Senate was the mission of army commands every spring wherein the Roman populace expected to have a significant portion of its male population to be enrolled in the fighting forces every year. Rome was a highly militarized, militaristic, and assertive state, led by an aristocracy imbued with a strong warrior ethos, which in turn was backed by a populace that acquired war as a fact of life. The approving attitude at Rome toward personal military achievement is absolutely true. But the problem is that this cultural attitude was not uniquely Roman. Their road to personal authority within the polity and to glory in the future was an idea shared deeply by Persians, the Greeks of both the Classical and the Hellenistic period, and the Carthaginians.

This introductory chapter sets out the scope of the analysis to be covered in the book. It introduces the subject of radical asymmetry, clarifies the theoretical and empirical dimensions of the topic, and provides an overview of historical iterations of this challenge. Following a brief review of the existing debate, the chapter outlines the methodological framework of the book, highlighting the distinction between its ethical and moral focus. Following this, the chapter offers a summary of the central argument. A brief breakdown of the overall structure of the book is then provided. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the significance of this subject.

This chapter explores the use of drone technology from the perspective of professional military ethics, asking when and how drone use is consistent with achieving legitimate and ethically permissible military purposes. It traces how technological advances and the changing nature of conflict have combined to influence security policy and military culture. Acknowledging the tactical and short-term operational advantages of drones, the chapter notes that the use of drone weapons may have a negative strategic impact, such as increasing recruitment rates among militant groups. The chapter also discusses the impact of drone weapons on those who operate them and addresses the potential erosion of the ‘warrior ethos.’ Robotic warfare alters the moral meaning of war as patriotic duty and risks making targeting killing appear normal and antiseptic.

This chapter outlines the extent to which UAV-exclusive violence both aligns with and diverges from the more resolvable asymmetry-challenges of the past. The chapter first acknowledges the considerable overlap between historical and current asymmetry in terms of their tension with the warrior ethos. As it then details, this analogy to the past breaks down in regard to the moral justifications for killing in war. This chapter argues that the unprecedented capacity of UAV-exclusive military force to erode the structural reciprocity of war has undermined the ability of the United States to interpret and apply morally acceptable limits on its violence. The chapter concludes by exploring the implications of UAV-exclusive violence for the regulation of lethal force.

This concluding chapter revisits the main contentions of the book. This will commence with an overview of the significance and implications of the moral challenge of radical asymmetry. The broader relevance of these findings for ongoing debates within the Just War Tradition and laws of war will then be detailed. This will include analysis of the likely impact of the widening gap between what is morally justifiable on the battlefield and what is the legally permissible. The chapter will conclude by assessing how the challenge of radically asymmetric violence is most likely to develop from this point onwards, as the technology that enables it proliferates globally.