Ethics of Targeting Civilians
Literature Review
Topic: Targeting Civilians
Having the ability to synthesize a vast amount of information into a succinct and logical explanation is a skill that when mastered can help one be successful in graduate school. Within the field of intelligence the literature is vast and robust, so to aid in your understanding of this body of knowledge the assignments in this course require you to write a review of the literature. The purpose of this assignment is to help improve your depth of knowledge the different concepts covered, and to further prepare you to move forward in your scholarship.
For this literature review, you must select to focus on the literature covered during one of the following weeks.
For example you may focus on the ethics of: military decision making, collateral damage, targeting civilians, deception, lying, moral dilemmas, and etc.
Your literature review must be developed using 12-15 or more scholarly sources, which should include the assigned readings covered during that week. Within each week there are a number of recommended readings that would serve as an excellent starting point to kick start your research (you should keep in mind that not all of these are available within the online library as this recommended list is simply a list of accumulated knowledge, not knowledge housed within the online library). Regardless of your topic of choice you should conduct an article search within the online library within EBSCO and JStor database, and also conduct a book search to help you develop your literature review.
The goal of this literature review is to demonstrate the scope of knowledge that is available on these key topic areas. As such a good literature review is a thoughtful synthesis of important information that pertains to the topic at hand. Literature reviews include a summary and critical assessment of the arguments that exist (including whether or not you agree with them) and are arranged thematically. At the end of your literature review, you should discuss where research should go next. Are you persuaded by the arguments/findings of one author or another? Why? How could the research be improved upon (theoretically, methodologically, relevancy-wise, and etc)? Be sure you present any idea that you might have regarding how you would look at the topic area.
Developing a clear and concise literature review can be challenging. NOTE: Literature reviews can be a bit tricky to write. Check out this video to help you further prepare to write this assignment. This will not be the last time that you are asked to write a literature review in your academic career so its important to master this skill. Also check out the following documents: 1) literature review tip sheet and 2) synthesis matrix. Together these documents will give you everything you need to carry out a successful literature review.
How many sources should I review?
This is a common question asked by students. Essentially the key to an excellent research paper is the research that helps back up its arguments. While this might be an unsatisfactory answer for those in need of a clear "magic number" a few additional observations can be made. Students writing a course paper 15-20 pages in length should expect to cite 15-30 peer-reviewed sources within their papers, though in order to get to this point they should expect to read 25-50 peer-reviewed sources. For this assignment your literature review should reference 12-15 or more scholarly sources.
Format: This assignment should be 8-10 pages in length not including title and reference page. Your paper should have 1-inch borders on all four sides, use times new roman-12 point font, be double spaced, and not have an extra space in between paragraphs. (You may need to turn this off in MS word by going to paragraph and selecting "Don't add space between paragraphs of the same style). Since this is an INTL course you need to use the Turabian parenthetical citation style with a references page.
The literature review must be submitted as a Word Document Attachment in the Assignments section of the classroom by Sunday, 11:55pm EST.
As you proof read your assignment I encourage you to work with Belcher, Wendy Laura. 2009. "Editing Your Sentences" In Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. Sage. This resource has a nice step by step process for enhancing your writing.
Ethics of Targeting Civilians
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Ethics of Targeting Civilians
The immunity of civilians against deadly violence is a primary tenet of any ethics of war. In the laws and customs of war, protecting civilians marks the need to confine the warfare within the defensible limits. While all the inputs point to protecting civilians during the war, the outcomes are different. Major setbacks have been experienced right from World War I to today’s fights against terror. More civilians become casualties of the war. The trends have triggered questions on the morality surrounding civilian casualties in warfare. This literature anchors its inputs on the just war theory to assess the analyses by different authors on the morality of targeting civilians in wars. A deeper understanding of the tenets of war should help in exploring the ethical prospects that characterize targeting civilians under any circumstances in warfare.
Growing Concern
The issue of targeting civilians in warfare is growing into a concern considering the changing parameters of wars. Before the 20th century, wars were fought differently, with the fighters showing motivations towards different targets. During such early times, most of the people killed in the wars were professionals who were directly involved in the war fronts. That trend has changed, and between 10 and 15% of the people who died in the war at the beginning of the 20th century were civilians. The number has been increasing spontaneously, thereby triggering even bigger debates. In the Second World War, more than 50% of the casualties were civilians who did not participate in the course of the war directly. The 20th century ended with 75% of the casualties in warfare being civilians. From the numbers above, it seems like more civilians are targeted during wars.[Luke, Beck Kreider. 2019. "Christian Ethics and Ecologies of Violence." Religions 10 (9) (09).] [Hoernecke, Andrew, Thad Gillispie, Benjamin Anderson, and Thomas Daniels. 2007. The Role of Information Warfare in Information Assurance Education: A Legal and Ethical Perspective, 69.] [Tabrea, Dana. 2013. "Military Ethics: Issues of Non-Conventional Battleship." Hermeneia (13): 214.]
The Theoretical Framework
The just war theory is among the prominent theoretical frameworks that have been employed to understand warfare and its impacts on humanity. The justification of warfare is grounded on two prospects: the theoretical aspect and the historical aspect. The theoretical aspect emphasizes justification of war on ethical grounds with emphasis on the forms that wars can take or not. The historical elements of the theory focus on the just war traditional deals that have been signed to guide the scope of wars. For instance, international agreements such as Hague and Geneva conventions are historical prospects that define behaviors during wars. The two just war philosophies help in understanding how nations must limit their activities and even who to target in warfare. The fact that the historical and theoretical prospects were enacted to escalate civilian casualties and did little to stop the trends still triggers questions on what actions should be taken to revitalize the casualty trends.[Crosston, Matthew. "Pandora’s Presumption: Drones and the Problematic Ethics of Techno-War." Journal of Strategic Security 7, no. 4 (2014): 17.]
The just war theory attempts to reconcile three primary things in the confines of warfare. The first prospect that this theory posits is that taking human lives is wrong under any circumstances. This theory encourages parties indulges in wars to consider other options in finding justice other than resorting to killings. The second aspect that the theory attempts to reconcile is the duty of states during wars. The theory asserts that states must protect civilians and defend justice. Both theoretical and historical events insist on bearing no boundaries when it comes to protecting lives. Any state is obligated to ensure the safety of any civilian, including those who do not belong to particular jurisdictions. Ultimately, the theory notes that protecting human lives and defending moral values sometimes demands the use of force and violence. To that effect, nations are also mandated to kill civilians only when such actions benefit the need to protect other innocent lives. Going by the elements of the just war theory, it leaves correspondents in the dilemma of whether it supports killing civilians or not. One aspect worth remarking from the content of this theory is that it specifies the conditions for judging if it is just/ethical to go to war and the conditions that justify fighting.[Luke, Beck Kreider. 2019. "Christian Ethics and Ecologies of Violence." Religions 10 (9) (09).] [Thompson, Megan M. and Rakesh Jetly. 2014. "Battlefield Ethics Training: Integrating Ethical Scenarios in High-Intensity Military Field Exercises." European Journal of Psychotraumatology 5.] [Crosston, Matthew. "Pandora’s Presumption: Drones and the Problematic Ethics of Techno-War." Journal of Strategic Security 7, no. 4 (2014): 21.]
The purposes of the just war theory have been subject to debates. There is a faction of correspondents who understand that there are other peaceful avenues of solving conflicts, including reconciliation and arbitration. Such avenues render warfare irrelevant. On the other hand, some factions believe that wars can be fought to limit violence in other prospects. For instance, invading a terrorist organization serves a long-term impact by disabling the ability of the terrorist organizations to attack. Within the inputs of this theory, states must adhere to specific guidelines that warrant their indulgence in wars. The theory applies to states that bear the historical and theoretical obligations to protect lives regardless of the individuals whose lives are in danger. Presently, the theory is employed extensively on individual grounds to limit the spread of conflicts.[Krelina, Michal. 2021. Quantum Warfare: Definitions, Overview and Challenges. Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 89.] [Bruneau, Emile and Nour Kteily. 2017. "The Enemy as Animal: Symmetric Dehumanization during Asymmetric Warfare." PLoS One 12 (7) (07).]
Reasons and Justifications to Target Civilians
Multiple reasons have been accorded the increasing dependence on civilian targets in wars. In times of war, there are multiple concerns that democratic societies suffer, which define their behaviors in the end. The first element of the challenge is the need to adhere to the norms of human conduct. Democratic societies do not engage in wars with the primary aim of harming civilians. Such societies consider protecting the lives of individuals paramount to their courses. However, other considerations come into play during wars that can lead to distortions in considering the norms of human conduct. Primary among the factors is the cost. Wars are expensive and can lead to economic challenges for the indulged nations. Take, for instance, World War II. Even though it lasted for fewer than four years, its economic impacts were significant. The war cost the US $4 trillion if adjusted to inflation. It is also remarkable that in 1945, the last year of the war, consumed 40% of the US total GDP. With such costs in place, nations do not want to indulge in wars longer than necessary. As such, the shortest avenues of ending the wars are normally found viable.[Monroe, Edwin Price. "Information Asymmetries and their Challenge to International Broadcasting." Media and Communication 4, no. 2 (2016), 239.] [Krelina, Michal. 2021. Quantum Warfare: Definitions, Overview and Challenges. Ithaca: Cornell University Library, 73.]
Killing civilians has proven effective when the emphasis is steered towards ending wars faster. Civilians are mostly the last resort in wars. With every nation mandated to protect its civilians, those who incur the most casualties are likely to surrender from the war. A case at hand was in World War 2 when the US dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The choice to bomb the two cities was a result of the resolve that the Japanese had shown to win the war. The bombing of the two cities changed the resolution, and the Japanese felt unable to execute their primary mandate, which is to protect the civilians. The two bombings led to the deaths of civilians in the range of 129,000 to 226,000 people. The input ended the war faster for the US, thereby relieving them of the need to fight the possible economic depression that they would endure if the war had continued.[Rogers, David A., Orlando R. Baiocchi, and Paulo F. Ribeiro. 2015. Engineering Ethics in Technology and Society Courses, 201.] [Englert, Matthias, Sandra Siebert, and Martin Ziegler. 2014. Logical Limitations to Machine Ethics with Consequences to Lethal Autonomous Weapons,]
The need to end the war faster by targeting civilians can be addressed through the reconciliations of the just war theory. The theory insists that nations can only engage in wars under necessary circumstances. It further asserts that peace can only be achieved in some circumstances through wars and killings. Failure to kill the civilians would have dragged the war for longer periods. More people would have died of hunger, industries would have collapsed, and economies would have taken longer to recover from the ruins of the war....