Reciprocity and Just Conduct in War

This chapter locates the role of reciprocal risk within the Just War Tradition. This begins with the ‘conventionalist’ account of the moral right to kill. The chapter then considers the most recent challenge to this position in the form of Just War ‘revisionism’. Following this, it will examine the more consequentialist approach of ‘contractarianism’. The chapter will demonstrate that within all three of these approaches, an assumption of war as a site of reciprocal structural risk plays an essential role in the permissiveness of inter-combatant violence. The chapter then explores the tension between the coherence of these justifications and conditions of radical asymmetry.

Military Sniping

This chapter explores the asymmetry-challenge of military sniping. It first provides a historical overview of the practice, beginning with early forms of ranged killing and concluding with the sharpshooting of the First World War. The asymmetric potential of this technology will be detailed, as well as the criticism this advantage attracted. The chapter will then clarify that in contrast to its tension with the warrior ethos, the asymmetry-challenge of sniping did not impact the Just War Tradition to a meaningful degree. The chapter concludes by examining the gradual resolution of the asymmetry-challenge of sniping, focusing on the increasingly significant role of combat responsibility in determinations of ethically legitimate violence.

Reciprocity and the Warrior Ethos

This chapter locates the role of reciprocal risk within the warrior ethos. It first outlines that exposure to personal, physical risk has long been regarded as a key element in the ethos-based conception of legitimate violence. It demonstrates this through analysis of ancient warfare, both Greek and Roman, as well as the medieval code of chivalry. As will be further shown, however, the warrior ethos is an evolving framework; one that gives increasing consideration to factors such as restraint and professionalism in determinations of ethical status. This will be confirmed through analysis of premodern, modern, and ‘post-heroic’ warfare. As this chapter will illustrate, the adaptive quality of the warrior ethos is a key explanatory factor in the historical resolution of asymmetry-challenges.

The Moral Challenge of Radical Asymmetry

This chapter summarizes the main contentions of the book. This begins with an examination of the enduring role of reciprocal risk in the nature of war, followed by its more specific role in the moral justifications for battlefield violence. The historical challenge of asymmetry will also be examined. The chapter will then outline the theoretical and empirical challenge of radically asymmetric violence. It argues that in both significance and implications, the moral tension generated by the UAV-exclusive violence of the United States is qualitatively distinct from previous episodes of asymmetry. The chapter concludes by exploring the potential of radical asymmetry to undermine essential restraints between warring parties.

Manned Aerial Bombing

This chapter explores the asymmetry-challenge of manned aerial bombing. It first provides a historical overview of the practice, beginning in the nineteenth century and concluding with the 1999 high-altitude bombing of Operation Allied Force (OAF). The chapter will then examine, and distinguish between, the ethical and moral opposition that emerged in response to civilian bombing. This opposition will then be reconsidered in the context of the First Gulf War and OAF. It is within these conflicts that we witness a shift in the locus of the asymmetric-challenge of aerial bombing, from civilian to combatant targeting. The chapter concludes by exploring the gradual resolution of the asymmetry-challenge of manned aerial bombing.

Asymmetric Violence and the State of the Field

This chapter reviews the literature addressing the challenge of radical asymmetry, with a particular focus on gaps in the research. The most significant of these is the consistent failure of existing sources to engage the principle of reciprocal risk in a theoretically and historically rigorous way. This chapter then outlines the methodological response of this book. It will first determine the extent to which—amidst the change and variance of the history of war—a thread of reciprocal risk has endured as an underpinning assumption in both the warrior ethos and Just War Tradition. Alongside this, the book will undertake a more specified analysis of the asymmetry-challenges of military sniping, manned aerial bombing, and UAV-exclusive violence.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter revisits the main contentions of the book. This will commence with an overview of the significance and implications of the moral challenge of radical asymmetry. The broader relevance of these findings for ongoing debates within the Just War Tradition and laws of war will then be detailed. This will include analysis of the likely impact of the widening gap between what is morally justifiable on the battlefield and what is the legally permissible. The chapter will conclude by assessing how the challenge of radically asymmetric violence is most likely to develop from this point onwards, as the technology that enables it proliferates globally.

UAV-Exclusive Violence

This chapter outlines the extent to which UAV-exclusive violence both aligns with and diverges from the more resolvable asymmetry-challenges of the past. The chapter first acknowledges the considerable overlap between historical and current asymmetry in terms of their tension with the warrior ethos. As it then details, this analogy to the past breaks down in regard to the moral justifications for killing in war. This chapter argues that the unprecedented capacity of UAV-exclusive military force to erode the structural reciprocity of war has undermined the ability of the United States to interpret and apply morally acceptable limits on its violence. The chapter concludes by exploring the implications of UAV-exclusive violence for the regulation of lethal force.

Introduction: The Moral Limits of Asymmetric Killing

This introductory chapter sets out the scope of the analysis to be covered in the book. It introduces the subject of radical asymmetry, clarifies the theoretical and empirical dimensions of the topic, and provides an overview of historical iterations of this challenge. Following a brief review of the existing debate, the chapter outlines the methodological framework of the book, highlighting the distinction between its ethical and moral focus. Following this, the chapter offers a summary of the central argument. A brief breakdown of the overall structure of the book is then provided. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the significance of this subject.