The Moral Warrior: Ethics and Service in the U.S. Military

The Moral Warrior: Ethics and Service in the U.S. Military. By Martin L. Cook. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 174 pages. $54.50 ($17.95 paper).

Martin L. Cook's deceptively slim volume, The Moral Warrior: Ethics and Service in the U.S. Military, is so densely packed with issues and analysis that it could easily sustain a semester or two of intense study in military ethics by itself. It is certainly a must-read for anyone struggling to disentangle the many troubling, interconnected questions that worry all those who hope to see the United States retain its global supremacy without undermining its moral foundations. Cook, a gifted teacher who has recently moved from the faculty of the US Army War College to that of the US Air Force Academy, is a master of the rare art of clarifying complex problems without minimizing their depth and significance or losing sight of their vital real-life implications.

The nine-chapter book is divided into two parts: Part One, "Moral Facets of Military Service," and Part Two, "Moral Soldiers and Moral Causes: Serving the Needs of Justice in the New World Order." The chapters in Part One primarily address the moral responsibilities of individuals--particularly officers--who choose to serve in the military. Cook is able to bring a unique combination of "insider" knowledge (from his years of teaching to and learning from all ranks of military officers) and objective "outsider" insight (from his perspective as a civilian scholar) to his critique of recent debates about how to define the military profession in the 21st century and what should be expected of the modern military professional.

One of the most vital issues Cook raises in this section is the responsibility of military professionals to offer nonpartisan advice to political leaders and policymakers regarding decisions on the use of military force. Cook notes that, on the one hand, "As the direct custodians of the health of their services' cultures and the lives of their soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen, military professionals are rightly reluctant to send them on what they deem to be ill-considered missions." Yet, on the other hand, it is not appropriate for military leaders to outright refuse or intentionally undermine missions chosen and properly authorized by their civilian political leaders. Senior officers may have the option of resigning in protest, but they never have the right to subvert the constitutional requirement of civilian control of the military. Cook offers valuable suggestions, supported by historical examples, of how military officers can fulfill their moral obligation to make their voices heard in order to prevent blunders or even tragedies without overstepping their roles within the democratic state. With characteristic realism, he observes that this balancing act "requires the maturity of judgment to grasp that while [the military leaders'] world would be neater if political leaders would just define the mission and then get out of the way, that will almost never be the world within which they live and work out their professional obligations."

Part Two of the book is focused mainly on ethical issues that arise while conducting missions, such as the challenge of weighing force protection concerns against the need to preserve noncombatant immunity. Here again, Cook displays a sharp understanding of the stakes involved. Military leaders have both the inclination and the obligation to try to preserve their troops from harm. However, if this drives officers to employ tactics that increase the likelihood of severe collateral damage and high death tolls among civilians, they may be guilty not only of violating jus in bello rules of discrimination and proportionality, but also of surrendering the politically essential moral high ground and of damaging the prospects for peace.

Also in Part Two, Cook examines the struggle to overcome outdated notions of inviolable state sovereignty in order to perform humanitarian interventions and to effectively and ethically prosecute the Global War on Terror. State sovereignty and territorial integrity are cherished concepts that have been used as the basis for international order and stability since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Yet it is that very order and stability that is now threatened by members of non-state global terror organizations who seek to escape justice by crossing borders and claiming sanctuary.

One of the appealing qualities of Cook's writing is the skill with which he relates present-day problems to those that have been encountered in other eras. In Part One he compares the United States to ancient Athens, and in Part Two he compares the Pax Americana to the Pax Romana to make an urgent appeal for us to learn from the past and not repeat its mistakes. The striking--or perhaps chilling--parallels he draws between the policy decisions of Athens before and during the disastrous Peloponnesian Wars and those of America today are truly eye-opening. So are the comparisons Cook makes between barbarian assaults on the Western Roman Empire and modern terrorist attacks against the West. Rome, of course, fell to the barbarian hordes, and the West of that era was plunged into the Dark Ages. To prevent a repeat of that devastating historical cycle, Cook warns that we in the modern West must not spend all our energy merely criticizing ourselves and the world order that we dominate. The question is not whether we are perfect. As Cook sternly enjoins, "Moral seriousness requires, instead, asking, 'If this civilization falls, what come next?'"

The Moral Warrior includes one of the most neatly laid-out summaries of the development of the Just War tradition from ancient times to the present that can be found in any single text. Cook has provided a fresh and accessible examination of issues in military ethics that should demand the attention not only of those in the military and those who play a direct role in affecting policy decisions, but also of general citizens. Terrorism is a global phenomenon that can reach into our homes, our schools, our places of work and of worship. We want our professional warriors to protect us, but it is our moral responsibility to try to understand exactly what that does--and does not--entail, what we are willing for them to do on our behalf and in our name, and what costs we have a right to ask them to bear.

Reviewed by Shannon E. French, Ph.D. (Brown University), a Professor of Ethics in the Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law at the US Naval Academy and author of The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Warrior Values, Past and Present.

COPYRIGHT 2005 U.S. Army War College
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