Table Of ContentContemporary Technologies and the
Morality of Warfare
Supported by genuine historical cases, this book argues that certain new
technologies in warfare can not only be justified within the current framework
of the just war theory, but that their use is mandatory from a moral perspective.
Technological developments raise questions about the manner in which wars
ought to be fought. The growing use of drones, capacity-increasing technologies,
and cyberattacks are perceived by many as posing great challenges to Just War
Theory. Instead of seeing these technologies as inherently unethical, this book
adopts a different perspective by arguing that they are morally necessary since
they can limit the potential violations of the moral rules of war and ensure
that militaries better respect their obligation to protect their members. Caron’s
research offers insights into how and under what conditions autonomous or
semi-autonomous robots, artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, and capacity-
increasing technologies can be considered as legitimate weapons.
This book will be of interest to students, members of the armed forces, and
scholars studying Politics, International Relations, Security Studies, Ethics, and
Just War Theory.
Jean-François Caron is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department
of Political Science and International Relations at Nazarbayev University,
Kazakhstan, where he teaches Political Theory. He is also a teaching and a
research fellow at the Institute of Political Science and Administration at the
University of Opole, Poland.
Emerging Technologies, Ethics and International Affairs
Series Editors: Steven Barela, Jai C. Galliott,
Avery Plaw, Katina Michael
This series examines the crucial ethical, legal and public policy questions arising
from or exacerbated by the design, development and eventual adoption of new
technologies across all related fields, from education and engineering to medicine
and military affairs. The books revolve around two key themes:
• Moral issues in research, engineering and design
• Ethical, legal and political/policy issues in the use and regulation of Technology
This series encourages submission of cutting-edge research monographs and
edited collections with a particular focus on forward-looking ideas concerning
innovative or as yet undeveloped technologies. Whilst there is an expectation
that authors will be well grounded in philosophy, law or political science, con-
sideration will be given to future-orientated works that cross these disciplinary
boundaries. The interdisciplinary nature of the series editorial team offers the best
possible examination of works that address the ‘ethical, legal and social’ implica-
tions of emerging technologies.
For more information about this series, please visit: https: //ww w.rou tledg e.
com /Emer ging- Techn ologi es-Et hics- and-I ntern ation al-Aff airs /book -seri es/AS
HSER- 1408
Emerging Technologies in Diverse Forensic Sciences
Ronn Johnson
Cyber Attacks and International Law on the Use of Force
The Turn to Information Ethics
Samuli Haataja
Global Environmental Governance in the Information Age
Civil Society Organizations and Digital Media
Jérôme Duberry
Technology and Agency in International Relations
Edited by Marijn Hoijtink and Matthias Leese
Contemporary Technologies and the Morality of Warfare
The War of the Machines
Jean-François Caron
Contemporary Technologies
and the Morality of Warfare
The War of the Machines
Jean-François Caron
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Jean-François Caron
The right of Jean-François Caron to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-38756-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-42620-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
Introduction vii
1 The nature of current military technological innovations 1
Capacity-increasing technologies 1
Semi-autonomous and autonomous technologies 3
Cyberwarfare 10
Conclusion 15
Notes 15
References 16
2 Technologies and the military’s duty of care 19
The military as a profession 20
The military profession and the duty of care 22
Military technologies and the duty of care 27
Conclusion 33
Notes 34
References 36
3 The use of military technologies as a way to increase the
morality of warfare 39
The USS Vincennes and the downing of Iran Air Flight 655 40
The 1994 Black Hawk shootdown incident in Northern Iraq 44
The My Lai and Haditha massacres 45
Military technologies and the control of human emotions 48
Conclusion 50
Notes 51
References 52
vi Contents
4 Military technologies, respect for the rules of warfare, and
legal accountability 55
The question of misused technologies 56
Technologies and individual responsibilities 60
How technologies involving human beings ought to be tested 66
Conclusion 76
Notes 76
References 77
5 The morality of killing 81
The ethics of killing in war 81
Contemporary military technologies and the ethics of killing in
war: an assessment 87
Conclusion 95
Notes 96
References 98
6 Technologies and the enhanced risk of warfare 101
The correlation between military power and the risk of war 102
Military technologies and the prospect of jus ad vim 104
Conclusion 114
Notes 114
References 116
Conclusion 119
Index 121
Introduction
Technological evolutions have always had an impact on the ways wars have been
fought. For instance, the development of gunpowder transformed the traditional
impregnable walled fortifications of Europe into vulnerable and useless protec-
tive means of defence. This was famously the case with Constantinople, which
had been able to repulse numerous assaults on the part of Muslim forces and suc-
cessfully survived 23 sieges thanks to the “great walls of Theodosius”, one of the
greatest fortifications of the time. However, the Spring of 1453 was fatal to them
after the Ottomans used a 27-foot-long cannon able to fire projectiles weighing
over half a ton. According to those who witnessed the first shot:
When it had caught fire, faster than you can say it, there was first a terrify-
ing roar and a violent shaking of the ground beneath and for a great distance
around, and a din such as has never been heard. Then, with a monstrous thun-
dering and an awful explosion and a flame that illuminated everything round
about and scorched it, the wooden wad was forced out by the hot blast of
dry air and propelled the stone ball powerfully out. Projected with incredible
force and power, the stone struck the wall, which it immediately shook and
demolished, and it was itself shattered into many fragments, and the pieces
were hurled everywhere, dealing death to those standing nearby.
(Crowley, 2007)
Machine guns also profoundly changed the nature of warfare during World War I
(WWI)1. With their development, cavalry was no longer needed, and this forced
the armies of the time to reconsider their tactics. If ordering the infantry to charge
on open fields was an option for military commanders at a time when soldiers were
only equipped with muskets that had to be recharged after every shot, this strategy
proved itself entirely insufficient when the charging soldiers had to face an enemy
armed with machine guns or long-range weapons equipped with a riffling gun
barrel. These technological innovations bogged down warfare and turned it into
a destructive and bloody slugfest until new technologies, such as tanks, allowed
warfare to once again become a war of movement.
However, technological evolutions did not only have an impact on the strategic
side of warfare, but also on the way they affected the ethics of fighting. We can
viii Introduction
think in this regard to the use of expanding bullets (commonly known as “dum-
dum bullets”) because of their propensity to aggravate the suffering of wounded
soldiers, which made them contrary to the laws of humanity, as well as chemical
and bacteriological methods of warfare. This was also famously the case follow-
ing the invention of crossbows, which were deemed by religious authorities to be
an immoral weapon that transformed warfare into an impersonal and dishonour-
able affair. As stated by Veronica Ma:
In 1139, Pope Innocent II led the Second Lateran Council in banning the use
of crossbows in war. At the time, the technology of the crossbow was unpar-
alleled. Requiring only minimal training and little strength, the weapon had a
range of up to four hundred yards and an unprecedented deadliness. A lowly
and hastily-trained peasant could penetrate the armour of a trained knight at
the squeeze of a trigger, thereby challenging the traditional power structure
in conflict. The Roman Catholic Church, the most powerful political and spir-
itual order of the time, perceived the technology as a moral abomination and a
gross transformation of the nature of warfare. Therefore, the Second Lateran
Council proclaimed in their 29th canon a “prohibit[ion] under anathema that
murderous art of crossbowmen and archers, which is hateful to God, to be
employed against Christians and Catholics from now on”. The reaction of the
Church to the development of the crossbow is an early but illustrative exam-
ple of how ethical concerns prompted society to reconsider the potentially
devastating effects of military technology.
(Ma, 2017)
Many people now believe that there are reasons to fear that the current techno-
logical evolutions will have the same effects on the strategic ways that wars are
fought as well as on some of the most important moral rules of warfare—namely,
the discrimination between combatants and non-combatants, the justification of
killing during warfare, the negative impact they may have on the transition from
war to peace, and the fear that they might lower the stakes of starting wars2. This
is thought to be the case with autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons (such
as drones), artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, and capacity-increasing technolo-
gies that are usually referred to as “super soldier” technologies (Caron, 2018).
Indeed, as argued by Grégoire Chamayou (2015), drones ought to be considered
as immoral weapons because of their indiscriminate nature and because they are
challenging the conventional moral justification of killing during warfare that is
based on the idea of the reciprocity of death. Indeed, drones are more akin to man
hunting than to what ought to be a duel—which is the usual way of justifying kill-
ing during wartime. A similar fear exists regarding the use of capacity-increasing
technologies as they would end up creating a form of asymmetry between those
who possess them and those who do not. Certain authors have argued that this
would be a sound justification to reject them. For instance, Robert Simpson goes
as far as to argue that the current trend in the development of super soldiers is
morally inadmissible based on this account, as it would question the entire logic
Introduction ix
of permitted killing during warfare (Simpson, 2015). Moreover, the prospect
of autonomous robots cannot be dissociated from the development of artificial
intelligence, which has been described by Henry Kissinger as “a new phase of
human history” where the decision-making process—such as killing during war-
fare—will be solely “powered by data and algorithms and ungoverned by ethi-
cal or philosophical norms” (Kissinger, 2018). Finally, cyberwarfare, which has
been described as the “first major new form of warfare since the development of
nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles” (Dipert, 2010, p. 385), also raises
the prospect that this technological evolution will increase the risks associated
with waging wars and will lead to violations of the rules of jus ad bellum since
cyberattacks offer the possibility of covertly attacking one’s enemies.
While these fears cannot be ignored, many are exaggerated when these technolo-
gies are being used by states that are seeking to abide by the moral rules of warfare.
It is important to emphasise this as it is useless to try to determine whether they
might be considered moral weapons when they are used by rogue states that are
not abiding by these international regulations. In fact, the reader will most likely
agree that in such a situation, these states will not hesitate to misuse any weapons at
their disposal, even the most primitive ones. It is therefore a rather futile exercise to
investigate how these states could make moral use of these weapons. On the other
hand, the discussion takes on a whole different meaning when it comes to states
that are animated by a genuine desire to uphold these rules3. This is why the various
arguments that this book will provide offer insight into how autonomous or semi-
autonomous robots, artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, and capacity-increasing
technologies can only be considered as legitimate weapons when used by states that
are sensible and willing to abide by the rules of warfare.
Moreover, instead of seeing these technologies as inherently unethical, it will
rather adopt a different perspective by arguing that they are morally necessary
since they can limit the potential violations of the moral rules of war and ensure
that militaries better respect their obligation to protect their members. Of course,
these conclusions are dependent on two important variables: first, that they solely
apply to states that are respectful of the moral rules of warfare and for the sake of
their self-defence, and second, that these technologies are developed according
to certain minimal standards and follow certain rules of engagement. Only under
these conditions, which will be discussed at length in this book, can these tech-
nologies be used legitimately.
This book will be divided into six chapters. First, in order to have a clear and
precise understanding of the technological evolutions that are thought to challenge
the moral rules of warfare, it is necessary to present them in an explicit fashion.
This first chapter will explain the current technological developments with regard
to capacity-increasing technologies, autonomous and semi-autonomous weapons,
artificial intelligence, and cyberwarfare. For their part, the two following chap-
ters will explain why these technologies are not only ethically permissible, but
also necessary. They will first focus on the fact that they constitute a key part in
the military’s obligation towards its members—namely, its duty of care. Indeed,
despite the fact that becoming a member of the armed forces may sometimes lead
