In 1950, when he commissioned the first edition of The Armed Forces Officer, Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall told its author, S.L.A. Marshall, that "American military officers, of whatever service, should share common ground ethically and morally." In this new edition, the authors methodically explore that common ground, reflecting on the basics of the Profession of Arms, and the officer's special place and distinctive obligations within that profession and especially to the Constitution.
This monograph surveys the history of the Army's professional ethic, focusing primarily on the Army officer corps. It assesses today's strategic, professional, and ethical environment. Then it argues that a clear statement of the Army officers' professional ethic is especially necessary in a time when the Army is stretched and stressed as an institution. The Army officer corps has both a need and an opportunity to better define itself as a profession, forthrightly to articulate its professional ethic, and clearly to codify what it means to be a military professional.
Wolfendale argues that the prevalence of military torture is linked to military training methods that cultivate the psychological dispositions connected to crimes of obedience. While these methods are used, the military has no credible claim to professional status.
General George W. Casey, Jr., Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, once observed: "If you walked around the Army and asked people what the professional military ethic is, you would get a lot of different answers."1 That is because Army's professional military ethic is not codified, although its spirit is resident in a number of documents. Other American professions have clearly promulgated statements of ethics. Within the Army, there are several extant statements of ethical responsibility-for Soldiers, noncommissioned officers (NCOs), and civilians-but not for officers. This monograph briefly surveys the history of the Army's professional ethic, focusing primarily on the Army officer corps. It assesses today's strategic, professional, and ethical environment. Then it argues that a clear statement of the Army officers' professional ethic is especially necessary in a time when the Army is stretched and stressed as an institution. The Army officer corps has both a need and an opportunity to better define itself as a profession, forthrightly to articulate its professional ethic, and clearly to codify what it means to be a military professional. Finally, this monograph articulates such an ethic. For more than 2 centuries, the U.S. Army has developed a mature professionalism, but one that waxed and waned over time. The historical record shows that wartime crises tended to produce, or perhaps to expose, the profession's shortcomings, which peacetime reformers then sought to correct. The Army's professional ethic embraced national service, obedience to civilian authority, mastery of a complex body of doctrinal and technical expertise, positive leadership, and ethical behavior. But at the beginning of the 21st century, it was less healthy in terms of its junior professionals' acceptance of a lifelong call to service. Time would show that it was doctrinally unprepared for the trials that lay ahead. Eight years of repetitive deployments have left the Army, in the words of General Casey, "stressed and stretched." Some observers think the Army is near the breaking point. Several factors contribute to that stress. One concern is the type of warfare that the Army is being asked to conduct, counterinsurgency, which is one of the most ethically complex forms of war. Further, during these years of war, some policy decisions have tended to blur moral, ethical, and legal lines that Soldiers have long been trained to observe and uphold. Officers, above all, must fight to maintain and safeguard the laws of war as a professional responsibility. Third, since the post-Cold War drawdown, the armed forces have chosen to rely more and more heavily on commercial contractors, sometimes for inherently governmental functions. Today, the Army is "selling" large tracts of its professional jurisdiction. Finally, professionally improper dissent on the part of retired generals and the widespread perception that they speak for their former colleagues still on active duty threaten the public trust in the military's apolitical and nonpartisan ethic of service as well as the principle of civilian control.
The U.S. military invests heavily in time and resources to train its officers to be leaders in the broadest sense – forming them not only in military art and science (strategy, tactics, command, etc.), but also in humanistic knowledge, character, and values, as well as how to apply this education on a lightning-fast battlefield or within an inertially slow bureaucracy. The military develops its leaders, at the service academies and in ROTC programs, through very specific but also broad and deep education – a way of thinking that also has wide application in the civilian world, not only in various professional fields that need leaders and thinkers, but also among military history enthusiasts who want to understand how officers have thought across time and among American citizens who want – and, really, need – to understand how our military leaders think, how they advise presidents, how they lead on the battlefield. In a genre-busting book that spans Stackpole’s two longstanding military programs – reference and history – Reed Bonadonna describes how officers think, how they ought to think, how they develop their skills, and how they can improve these skills, as well as how average civilians and citizens can learn from the example of military officers and their program of education. Bonadonna draws from military history, from military arts and science, from literature and science and more, to show how officers develop their critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. A military officer is often called upon to be not only fighter and leader, but also negotiator, organizer, planner and preparer, teacher, writer, scientist, and advisor, and needs broad learning. This is a deeply learned and insightful book, one that cites Lincoln, Grant, Patton, Eisenhower, Marshall, and Churchill as easily as Sun Tzu and Clausewitz, not to mention Homer, Plato, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, George Orwell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Joseph Heller, Phil Klay, and even Jane Austen. The book is descriptive as well as prescriptive and should find eager readers inside the military (where officers take seriously their professional education and their professional reading lists) as well as outside, where many look to the military, to military reading lists, and to military history, to glean lessons for life and work.
Who are the future members of the Army profession and how is their competence to be certified to their client, the American people? This is a contemporary analysis of the Army profession, its knowledge and expertise, with conclusions and policy recommendations.
With formal ethics education programmes being a rarity in most countries' armed forces, there is a growing importance for servicemen to undergo additional military ethics training. But how do we ensure that soldiers learn the right lessons from it? Furthermore, how can we achieve a uniformity of approach? The current lack of uniformity about what constitutes ethical behaviour and how troops should be educated in it is potentially a cause for serious alarm. This book advances knowledge and understanding of the issues associated with this subject by bringing together experts from around the world to analyze the content, mode of instruction, theoretical underpinnings, and the effect of cultural and national differences within current ethics programmes. It also explores whether such programmes are best run by military officers, chaplains or academic philosophers, and reflects whether it is feasible to develop common principles and approaches for the armed forces of all Western countries. This is an invaluable volume for military academies and staff colleges to enhance understanding of a matter which requires much further thought and which is becoming a vital force in influencing outcomes on the battlefields of the twenty-first century. The book will primarily be of interest to military officers and others directly involved in ethics education in the military, as well as to philosophers and students of military affairs.
One of the hallmarks of a true profession is its ability to assess and regulate itself, especially with respect to adherence to its foundational ethos. Such self-examination is difficult and often causes discomfort within the profession. Nonetheless, it is absolutely necessary to enable members of the profession to render the service for which the profession exists. U.S. military professionals have never shied away from this responsibility, and they do not today, as evidenced by this riveting monograph. Discussing dishonesty in the Army profession is a topic that will undoubtedly make many readers uneasy. It is, however, a concern that must be addressed to better the Army profession. Through extensive discussions with officers and thorough and sound analysis, Drs. Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras make a compelling argument for the Army to introspectively examine how it might be inadvertently encouraging the very behavior it deems unacceptable.
