http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1209553939

Killing without heart : limits on robotic warfare in an age of persistent conflict

Today's persistent conflict, conducted among civilian populations and fought by small bands of combatants, will be remembered for this alteration in the tapestry of war and for the first large-scale use of unmanned vehicles. According to the author, this "war among the people" and the trend toward robotic warfare has outpaced deliberate thought and debate about the deep moral issues affecting justice and the warrior spirit. The pace of change, he explains, is revolutionizing warfare in vitally important ways. A key development is risk inversion, a shifting of risk away from technologically superior combatants and onto all noncombatants. For the first time in history, warriors are not the ones primarily shouldering the dangers and horrors of battle. This inversion and the search for impunity undermine the idea that how we win actually matters as much as winning itself. Though warfare involves human fallibility, there are ethics in striving that give meaning to war on a personal level. In just war theory, this sense of purpose imposes a practical limit on what belligerents can and should do to their opponents. Contemporary robotic warfare, however, may remove combatants' moral equivalence and it adversely affects our strategic objectives and the mutual respect upon which to build a lasting peace.

Open All Close All