Citizens from New Zealand, the US, the UK and Canada will all be allowed to serve in the Australian Defence Force. Some of the early concerns are unfounded.
A U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone flies in the skies above Nevada.
U.S. Air Force photo/Haley Stevens
The use of drone strikes raises a host of ethical issues. US military chaplains − the armed forces’ moral conscience − have questions.
Graduating cadets at West Point take their oaths to the Constitution and are commissioned as officers in the U.S. Army.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Joseph G. Amoroso, United States Military Academy West Point et Lee Robinson, United States Military Academy West Point
Members of the military take an oath before service, but it’s to the Constitution, not a specific person. West Point professors explain how young officers learn the importance of their allegiance.
Palestinians tend to the wounded after an Israeli strike hit a building next to Al-Aqsa Hospital in the Gaza Strip on Jan. 10, 2024.
AP Photo/Adel Hana
Proportionality requires that lives of civilians on both sides of a conflict must be treated with the same degree of respect.
Two men speak in the backyard of a house damaged by a Russian airstrike, according to locals, in Gorenka, Ukraine, March 2, 2022.
AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda
Over centuries, theory on just war has developed six main criteria for assessing conflicts.
Vice-Admiral Haydn Edmundson manages military personnel command, which gives him authority over career consequences for military members found to have engaged in sexual misconduct, he is on indefinite leave with pay after being accused of sexually assaulting a subordinate.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
The US military can exempt from service those who are religiously or morally opposed to violence. But conscientious objector status won’t help soldiers who disagree with specific lawful orders.
Members of the military wearing U.S. Army Special Forces insignia block protesters near Lafayette Park and the White House on June 3, 2020.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
There is a long line of military heroes who had the moral courage not to follow immoral orders. In the days ahead, some may have to consider what exactly their oath to the Constitution requires.
NYPD officers turning their backs on New York mayor Bill de Blasio after he remarked on police violence, Jan. 4, 2015.
AP Photo/John Minchillo,
Maybe you think neuroscience has a peaceable history of benign efforts to improve lives and enhance human capacities. But its origins and development tell a different story – with ethical implications.
Outer space should be used for peace not war.
Shutterstock/Rustam Zagidullin
The rules on armed conflict on Earth are a major source of restraint on military operations. But the rules on the use of weapons in outer space are far from clear. We need to change that.
Can a Czech soldier justify assassinating a Nazi leader when he knows that it could lead to thousands of innocent citizens being murdered in revenge? If so, how?
Tough decisions are made from distant control rooms.
Bleecker Street Media
The moral and ethical dilemmas of future warfare are depicted in this tight British thriller. But what will happen when humans become more removed from the weapons of war?
Psychologists aren’t supposed to be involved in torture. In this 2009 file photo a sign marks a closed-off area at Camp Justice, the location of the US Military Commissions court for war crimes, at the US Naval Base, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Witness-Guantanamo/Reuters/Brennan Linsley/Pool/Files
Why hasn’t the American Psychological Association prohibited members from participating in interrogations? And what are future psychologists learning about military medical ethics?