CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

paradigm in which war was only legitimate as an act of self-defence or collective
security, and moral discussion was largely confined to the legitimacy of nuclear
deterrence. The conduct of soldiers with regard to the wounded, to prisoners and to
civilians was no longer a matter of honour but of law; the moral had been abrogated to
the legal. The Vietnam War, and in particular the massacre at My Lai, reawakened
concerns about soldiers’ conduct but even these were overshadowed by jus ad bellum
debates about the war’s legitimacy per se.
However, the shifts in the character of war in the last decade of the 20 th Century and
into the 21 st , have caused Western armies to re-evaluate their moral understanding,
moral education and codes of ethical behaviour. The postural change from deterrence
against major inter-bloc conflict to expeditionary and elective engagement in complex
peacekeeping was a major driver for a re-examination of military forces’ internal codes
of ethics. (Other catalysts, not relevant here and so not considered further, were high
profile incidents of improper behaviour of servicemen/women among themselves –
especially in the training regime – and the pressures of societal changes in regard to
issues of race, gender and sexual orientation). In societies that increasingly privileged
the rights of the individual, a profession that traditionally required the subordination of
individual rights to collective performance, found its values, once held self-evident,
increasingly challenged and in need of careful re-articulation. A re-examination and re-
assertion of professional military values was called for.
Given broadly similar experiences, challenges and cultural outlook, together with well-
founded traditions of close military liaison and exchange of views, it should be no great
surprise that Canada, the US, and the UK developed and codified broadly similar codes
of military conduct. For Canada these are articulated in Duty with Honour; The
Profession of Arms in Canada 97 as ‘Canadian Military Values’: duty, loyalty, integrity,
and courage. These are in addition to and an expansion of the Statement of Defence
Ethics, reiterated in the same publication: respect for the dignity of all people; service to
Canada before self; and obedience and support to lawful authority. The US Army lays
out its core values in FM 1 as: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honour, integrity,
and personal courage. 98 The British version, in Values and Standards of the British
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