AIR UNIVERSITY

AIR WAR COLLEGE

The Decline of the Military Ethos and

Profession of Arms

An Argument against Autonomous Lethal Engagements

MICHAEL R. CONTRATTO

Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Air War College

Maxwell Paper No. 62

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama

October 2012
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Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are 

solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Air 

University, the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any other 

US government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

The Maxwell Papers are available electronically at the Air 

University Press website at http://aupress.au.af.mil.
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The Decline of the Military Ethos and Profession of Arms:

An Argument against Autonomous Lethal Engagements

Lt Col Michael R. Contratto, USAF

Throughout history many new weapon technologies have been 

introduced into combat prior to a full evaluation or understanding of the 

doctrinal, legal, and ethical implications of their use.1 Similarly, today’s 

battlespace is witnessing the introduction of numerous robotic systems 

to conduct many military missions. Thus far these robots still operate 

with humans directly “in the loop” of the decision process—especially 

when that loop is part of an offensive kill chain.2 The future battlespace, 

if we allow it, will be quite different. While the exact year is still in doubt, 

the capability for robotic autonomous lethal engagements will eventually 

exist and possibly much sooner than many may think.3 Placing worries 

of “Skynet” achieving consciousness and bands of “Terminators” running 

amok aside, as military science and sociology fuse, we truly find 

ourselves on the cusp of a “brave new world” in warfare.4

The research question this paper addresses is what are the key 

military ethical issues of totally removing, other than the initial 

programming of the autonomous agent, the human in the loop of 

offensive kill chains? The specifics of how the technology is developed or 

what form it takes are not germane to this paper.5 Definitions are 

important; within this paper, ALE is the application of lethal force by a 

robotic or computer system which solely relies upon its own internal 
4

programming and capabilities to conduct and execute all elements of the 

kill chain.6

For the purposes of framing the discussion and analysis later in 

the paper, a very futuristic autonomous lethal engagement (ALE)

scenario is introduced here. The year is 20XX and as tensions between 

BadGuyLand and the United States are on the rise, a US remotely piloted 

aircraft (RPA) conducts a covert operation over a military installation that 

is home to 10,000 ground combat troops of the potential enemy. Over the 

base the RPA releases 2,000 lethal nanorobots which bury themselves 

into the dirt and go into a dormant mode. US intelligence services have 

gained access to the genetic database of the enemy’s Army soldiers and 

the nanorobots are programmed with this information which allows them 

to take a quick DNA sample and validate its discrimination algorithm 

before taking lethal action. Six months later and for just reasons, the 

United States formally declares war on BadGuyLand and, as the enemy 

ground troops mobilize for immediate deployment, activates 1,000 of the 

nanorobots which complete their mission and kill 1,000 soldiers. The 

Programmed with rules of engagement (ROE), laws of armed 

conflict (LOAC), conventions, and heuristics, an ethical black box within 

the ALE system independently evaluates each step of the kill chain and 

decides when and whether to engage an intended target with lethal force.

Simply stated, there is no “human in the loop” other than the original 

manufacturing, programming, and introduction of the system into the 

combat zone.
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United States promises more of the same within the next hour which 

causes BadGuyLand to sue for peace.

My thesis is that while the outcome of offensive ALE may largely be 

considered amoral (death of a combatant resulting from a cruise missile 

strike or a robot is really no different), the act itself is contrary to military 

ethics and detrimental to the military profession and thus should be 

prohibited. Another key definition to frame the ensuing deconstruction is 

that of ethics—which can be broadly stated to be “the study of good and 

evil, of right and wrong, of duty and obligation in human conduct, and 

the reasoning and choice about them.”7

ALE and Just War Theory

To develop my thesis, three 

primary analytical filters are used: (1) the traditional concepts of Just 

War Theory, (2) assignment of moral agency, and (3) the professions of 

arms and the military ethos. My framework will highlight some of the 

major debates and issues using the first two filters, assume that legal 

guidance and sound doctrine can overcome these issues, and then focus 

on the third filter as the primary argument against ALE. As the analytical 

foundation is laid throughout the essay, key implications will be raised 

along with several recommendations.

Most ethical analyses of ALE begin with an evaluation against the 

precepts of Just War Theory. Elements of contemporary just war thought 

trace their roots to Saint Augustine some 1,600 years ago. Although the 

addition of increasingly complex technology to the battlespace has at 
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times challenged the interpretation and application of just war precepts, 

for the most part the just war body of knowledge has remained relatively 

consistent. The theory’s main components generally include seven jus ad 

bellum considerations (acceptable justifications to use armed force and 

declare war) and two principle jus in bello considerations (acceptable 

conduct in war).8

Jus ad bellum

A literature search of the ethical considerations of ALE 

in the context of Just War Theory actually reveals much debate, deep 

thought, and extensive analysis of the issue on the part of science fiction 

writers, roboticists, philosophers, and the occasional professional 

military education student.

The seven generally accepted tenants of jus ad bellum include the 

requirement for a just cause, proportionality (good of war aims overrides 

the general evil the war will cause), a legitimate authority to declare war, 

a reasonable chance of success in war, right intention, war declared as a 

last resort, and the goal of a just peace.9 At first glance, since jus ad 

bellum is mainly concerned with the decision to go to war, the use of ALE 

in war would seem to present little direct conflict with any of these 

requirements. Upon deeper reflection however, several vexing issues 

quickly surface. With our military establishment increasingly relying 

upon systems of systems to manage and prosecute warfare, ALE has the 

potential to leapfrog the entire requirement for a state’s legitimate 

authority to choose when and where the use of military force is 
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warranted.10 One does not have to rely on extreme scenarios or rogue 

computers to envision a chain of events in which an ALE weapon system 

may conduct an action that could lead to war.11

In addition to legitimate authority concerns, Peter Asaro represents 

a group of ALE opponents whose position can be summarized as 

presenting a jus ad bellum argument against ALE because it limits the 

risk to nations and their soldiers to such an extent that it significantly 

removes political barriers and lowers the bar for proper authorities to 

declare and enter war.

Even if the ALE followed 

established ROE and LOAC, the ALE may occur without the legitimate 

authority’s knowledge or approval. And if so, the weapon system would 

usurp the legitimate authority’s other jus ad bellum responsibilities and 

place a nation squarely on the brink of, if not in, war.

12 This nuanced argument maintains that ALE 

would skew the arithmetic of proportionality such that force may not be 

used as a last resort.13 In other words, the use of ALE has the potential 

to dramatically reduce risk to combatants and make war less costly in 

terms of human capital and thus may increases the tendency to enter 

wars too willingly. In times of conflict, a natural tendency exists to put a 

greater value on the lives of our soldiers and citizens than the enemy’s. If 

our expected costs of waging war are so low, statesmen may not 

adequately account for the costs of our adversary and society as a whole 

in the decision to declare war or use force. An important extension of this 

logic trail is that risk free war can eliminate the horrors of war and in so 
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doing become a strong disincentive to seek a lasting jus in pace (just 

peace) in pursuit of tranquillitas ordinis (just societies).14

Such misgivings do have overall merit in an ethical discussion of 

ALE. However, these discussions do not deductively determine whether 

the reasons for war or the use of ALE in war may be just or not and as 

such are somewhat misplaced. While these concerns are important and 

must be understood by the legitimate authority, the tenets of jus ad 

bellum should stand on their own merit. In fact, arguing that less risk to 

combatants leads to a greater likelihood of the use of force could be used 

as a tactic to oppose many improved weapon technologies.15 The 

opposing perspective is that from the tip of the phalanx, to a sniper at 

several hundred meters, to an unmanned aerial system operator sipping 

coffee at Creech AFB, Nevada—isn’t ALE simply the next evolutionary 

step in the pursuit of risk free war?16

Regardless, the overarching concern still remains valid; thus two 

formally stated jus ad bellum implications of developing and employing 

ALE are that its introduction may lead to a greater willingness to declare 

war or use lethal force to satisfy political objects and its advent has the 

potential to change the nature and character of war unlike any other 

technology to date. To address these implications, legal and doctrinal 

For the military, the full impact of 

this question is better evaluated in terms of the overall context of the 

profession of arms and military ethos rather than jus ad bellum.
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guidance is needed—guidance that unfortunately does not currently 

exist.

How we fight our nation’s battles is “built upon social, cultural, 

and ethical norms that are very specific to a time and culture,” so ALE 

represents the deliberate pursuit of a revolutionary jump in warfare.17

The negative effects of employing ALE on our long term strategic position 

in the current world environment are difficult to predict. But given recent 

experience, continuing our conventional dominance on the battlefield 

through ALE will likely increase the stability/instability paradox we now 

experience and force our adversaries to fight even more asymmetric and 

hybrid forms of war with perhaps a greater willingness to acquire and 

use nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Thus if ALE is pursued, its 

use should be very limited to support near-term, clear-cut, small-scale 

tactical objectives avoiding mass applications which could compromise 

long term strategic goals such as establishing a just peace and building 

the capacity for effective governance in regions where anarchy reigns. Or 

stated another way, robots can’t win hearts and minds nor should we 

expect our enemies to simply give up.18

Returning directly to the issue of doctrine, even though several US 

military-sponsored research projects for developing ALE capabilities 

exist, doctrinal and legal thought lags far behind.19 The 2007 DOD 

Unmanned System Safety Guide included no discussion of the use of 

autonomous lethal force by robotic systems.20 When questioned if a 
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newer version was in draft that would address the prospect of ALE, the 

office of primary responsibility replied “No,” citing a lack of funding, and 

compelling need and interest expressed by the services or agencies.21

Somewhat better, the Air Force’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 

2009–2047 admonishes, “Ethical discussions and policy decisions must 

take place in the near term in order to guide the development of future 

UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] capabilities, rather than allowing the 

development to take its own path apart from this critical guidance.”22 It 

then states that in the meantime “. . . we must continue to dovetail 

unmanned and manned capability so that lacking datalink assuredness 

or the political will to use autonomous strikes, the USAF will still have 

the ability to hold strategic targets at risk.”23

If ALE capabilities are pursued, senior military advisors and 

civilian statesmen will require deeper critical analysis and litmus tests to 

evaluate the use of robotic lethal force. To this end the United States

should spearhead a very broad legal review of ALE technology while 

simultaneously developing doctrinal guidance that establishes, defines, 

and limits the acceptable scope of its application. A critical issue to 

resolve will be determining exactly where to draw the autonomous line.

For example, while it would seem clear that we would not “hand over” 

nuclear missions and responsibilities to an ALE capable system, what 

other morally high stakes scenarios would fall into the same prohibited 

category? Putting sound doctrine in place before the advent of ALE 
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capabilities would be necessary to provide clarity on its proper 

employment to avoid jus ad bellum violations.

Jus in Bello

Jus in bello is primarily concerned with two key criteria—

proportionality and discrimination. Proportionality prohibits unnecessary 

violence and dictates a level of force in war that is proportional to the 

goals sought.24 Proportionality requires the use of violence calibrated to 

justice or, more colloquially, you can’t use a nuke to eliminate a sniper.25

Additionally, discrimination mandates that noncombatants must not be 

intentionally killed. Subtler jus in bello concepts regarding the principles 

of double effect and double intent factor into the calculus of the use of 

force as well.26

The professional community is divided on the question of whether 

an ALE system could ever satisfy a strict interpretation of proportionality 

and discrimination criteria. Many argue that it is simply impossible to 

ethically code a robot’s black box with enough moral values and 

situational awareness to make ethically sound discrimination and 

proportionality decisions.27 Yet others, championed by Ronald C. Arkin, 

an ALE proponent conducting DOD sponsored research, claim otherwise.

Arkin believes that “ethical governors” can eventually be programmed 

with the complete LOAC, the Geneva Conventions, and theater specific 

ROE that would give robots the capability to perform ethically better than 

humans.28 He confidently states “it is not my belief that unmanned 
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systems will be able to be perfectly ethical in the battlefield, but I am 

convinced that they can perform more ethically than human soldiers are 

capable of.”29 He then uses a 2007 Office of the Surgeon General, US 

Army Medical Command report citing numerous ethical violations on the 

Iraqi battlefield to bolster his assertion.30

Imagine then an ALE robotic system that does not get tired, afraid, 

hungry, or homesick; and does not express feelings of adrenaline fed 

rage, guilt, hatred, and revenge for killed buddies. The system is 

programmed without the need or concern for self-defense and selfpreservation. These robots don’t draw salary, benefits, or pensions nor 

incur physical and psychological damage in war. They are more effective, 

efficient, and less costly to the environment. The logical question 

becomes if ALE technology could spare our military members from the 

ravages of war and reduce war crimes, are we not morally obligated to 

pursue such capability?31

While this utopian vision may appeal to many, such grandiose 

hyperbole, especially in the early development of any new technology, 

should surely be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism—Murphy will 

be alive and well. In fact, the disparity of considered opinion on the issue 

should serve as a forewarning that if ALE technology is employed in 

combat, its early introduction will come with high risk for failures in 

discrimination and proportionality calculations. Thus ALE capability 

development must follow a very slow and incremental crawl, walk, run, 
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maturation process. Furthermore, the keystone of any ALE system’s test 

and evaluation program would be exhaustive and complicated scenariobased operational evaluations to extensively validate discrimination and 

proportionality algorithms.32

Moral Agency

For the sake of continued argument,

assume that an ALE system can satisfy jus in bello proportionality and 

discrimination criteria. What then is the next major ethical hurdle to the 

employment of ALE?

The ability to assign moral agency represents the next hurdle.

Though not specifically called out in any of the ad bellum or in bello

criteria, society has traditionally assumed that a moral agent exists (or 

that at least an adequate level of moral agency can be assigned) in the 

application of lethal force.33

Using a moral agent, act, and outcome framework highlights the 

ALE dilemma of assigning moral agency. Ethically is there any difference 

Although societal and international norms 

today do accept a great degree of indirectness in the assignment of moral 

agency while applying lethal force, this acceptance is not without limits.

In fact, a lack of direct moral agency can contribute to putting weapon 

technologies, such as landmines, off limits. Therefore it becomes 

important to be able to assign moral agency with an acceptable level of 

directness in two broad ALE situations: (1) the textbook, error free use of 

ALE; and more importantly, (2) in the event that the robot “misbehaves” 

and violates some ROE, LOAC, or jus in bello principle.
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in the outcome of a successful lethal cruise missile strike launched from 

several hundred kilometers away or by a robot employing ALE? The 

enemy is dead in both scenarios (outcome) and with varying degrees of 

directness, a human was involved in the killing by creating the weapon 

system and “employing” its capability. Ethically, is there any difference in 

a slight modification to the scenario where an unintentional cruise 

missile component failure or the ALE robot’s misapplication of 

discrimination directly leads to noncombatant deaths? Again the 

outcome is the same. The two scenarios and examples within each subtly 

differ and highlight the different aspects of an implicit requirement that a 

responsible moral agent exists for the actions taken in the conduct of 

war, especially when something goes wrong or atrocities occur.

Textbook Application

In the first scenario, since a person tasked with adhering to LOAC 

and ROE remains in the cruise missile kill chain, direct moral agency for 

the application of lethal force can be assigned (the person who launched 

the missile). Who then is the moral agent for the ALE robot that correctly 

applies lethal force—the robot, the commander who employed the 

system, or the engineer or programmer? Again experts widely disagree.

Some claim no one can “justly be held responsible,” thus the general use 

of ALE is automatically unjust and unethical.34 Others have no qualm 

assigning responsibility to the robot itself.35 Even if ethically 

programmed, I agree that the robot is “off the hook” regarding ethical 
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responsibility. Furthermore, although a high degree of direct moral

agency does not exist, it does lie somewhere between the two extremes 

(no one or the robot) at an Aristotelian golden mean. So, assigning moral 

agency to the soldier or commander who employed the system (similar to 

the cruise missile example) would not make ALE unethical in a strict 

legal sense. The strength of this argument predominantly rests upon the 

assumption that the ALE robot is capable of applying discrimination and 

proportionality criteria as well as, if not better than, humans.

War Crime

In the second scenario, if an ALE robot committed what would be 

considered a war crime, the tougher question becomes who can be held 

responsible for the resultant atrocities? Combining the legal principles of 

diminished responsibility and product liability, along with the long held 

principle of a commander’s accountability, I believe wronged parties 

could achieve due recourse in the event an ALE robot mistakenly killed 

noncombatants or committed war crimes.36 Outside of the additional 

consideration of including a degree of contractual liability on the 

manufacturer, this approach is consistent with how we treat other forms 

of technology and the principle of the nontransferable nature of 

accountability on the part of the commander.37 To formally satisfy moral 

agency questions if ALE algorithms fail, future employment of ALE will 

also require a thorough legal review to determine the appropriate 

combination of product liability and diminished responsibility on part of 
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concerned parties (manufacturer, engineer, programmer, and 

commander) that supports assigning a legally sufficient level of moral 

agency.

Let us optimistically assume that future ALE robots possess 

thoroughly tested and robust jus in bello proportionality and 

discrimination abilities and an international legal review and subsequent 

codification accepts that sufficient direct moral agency can be assigned 

to the textbook application of ALE. Let us further assume that legal 

reviews and international norms accept that a worst case failure of an 

ALE system leading to innocent deaths is a relatively amoral outcome. An 

outcome chalked up to the extreme fog and friction of war or to 

unforeseen and unintended failures such as when a cruise missile 

component breaks. Should we then vigorously pursue the use of ALE? A 

slight change in perspective of the assignment of moral agency serves as 

the key ethical filter to address ALE’s fitness for use in an offensive 

capacity.

The Profession of Arms and Military Ethics

Although international legal review might accept a sufficient level 

of moral agency to support ALE’s general use as well as adequate 

accountability and recourse for restitution involving war crimes, from the 

military perspective this should not be the final or even the most 

important critical evaluation. The key issue remains that other than 

introducing the ALE system to the battlespace, at no point in the kill 
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chain does an individual soldier hold the responsibility for the act that 

requires moral agency. A more appropriate analytical filter for this 

absolute lack of direct moral agency in committing the act of offensive 

lethal force resides within the larger context of military ethics and the 

profession of arms.

Profession of Arms

It is not trite to pose the following foundational questions—would it 

be considered honorable for the profession of arms to resort to the use of 

ALE? Does such technology cross the line into unprofessional behavior?

If so, what are the implications? Martin Cook asserts that the profession 

of arms’ foundation does not simply rest upon flashy rhetoric but rather 

upon a strong moral basis rooted deep within our society. He writes, 

“Strong aspirations are the foundation of military virtues that preserve 

and sustain some of the noblest human values: to serve others even at 

the cost of personal sacrifice, and to discipline one’s mind and body so 

that it serves a purpose larger than self and the pursuit of pleasure.”38

Similarly others emphasize that the essence of the military 

profession includes “the capacity to reason to efficacious decisions” of 

great moral import.39 Our current obligation as a profession is to prepare 

for and wage the nation’s wars and thus, by extension, our soldiers must 

be prepared to suffer, fight, kill, and die for their country.40 Resorting to 

the use of ALE begins to chip away at the profession of arms’ moral 

foundation by freely relinquishing our direct moral agency for war’s most 
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profound activities. If professions are “quintessentially” human 

institutions operating in areas “where humanity’s most profound 

concerns arise” and we willingly relinquish the responsibility for the 

toughest decisions in our sphere of expertise, what do we say if someone 

asks, “How can I be a professional when there is no profession?”41

The answer to and implications of this question are not trivial. Our 

military is a specialized culture separate from civil society with laws and 

traditions of our own.42 As such our nation and civilian leaders trust us 

to act as the “moral agent of the American people” and grant us 

significant independence to do so.43

At its core ALE may threaten this separateness and independence, 

sense of worth and self-esteem, and ultimately our status as a 

profession. Additionally, the military also requires a degree of moral 

independence and autonomy to be an effective servant of government.

James Burk describes this requirement when he states that “military 

professions require autonomy, to include moral autonomy, to be 

competent actors held responsible for what they do.”

We are self-forming and organizing 

with laws derived from and dictated by our nation’s leaders and the US 

Constitution.

44 He lists this 

autonomy as “a precondition for responsible obedience” and “on which 

the moral responsibility of the military profession depends.”45 Likewise, 

Anthony Hartle claims that the most significant aspect of being a 
19

professional is the “existence of a particular moral relationship between 

the professional and the society within which he or she functions.”46

Applying these philosophic strains to ALE, if we freely give away 

our moral autonomy to robots or computers, we are in danger of giving 

up a huge chunk of the moral responsibility that secures our existence 

as a profession and subordinates us to the nation we are sworn to defend 

and serve. If robots accomplish our most dangerous and near impossible 

missions what then becomes the role and purpose of the soldier?47 In a 

period when the model of military officership is already undergoing 

profound change, the use of ALE portends a further outsourcing of 

traditional warrior roles and responsibilities and will hasten a decline of 

the military profession.48

Military Ethics

Having analyzed ALE in the context of the profession of arms, what 

does a military ethical filter portend? If we build upon our previous 

definition of ethics, military ethics becomes “the study of honorable and 

shameful conduct in the armed service; about decency, discretion, 

wisdom, and virtue; about reasoned choice and obligation” to self and the 

profession of arms.49 While these obligations apply at all times they are 

most vital during times of war when we must guard against the desire for 

just ends overcoming the prohibitions against using unjust means. In 

other words, “something must exist beyond [success] because successful 

preparation for or execution of combat can never be the ultimate 
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consideration in military ethics.”50 Acknowledging that there are some 

things we cannot definitively know the justness of, would the use of ALE 

be “consistent with our deepest moral sense?”51

In Dr. Martin Luther King’s letter from a Birmingham jail regarding 

the unjustness of segregation laws he stated, “To put it in terms of 

Thomas Aquinas: an unjust law is a human law not rooted in eternal and 

natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that 

degrades human personality is unjust.”

Is the use of ALE, in 

fact, militarily unethical?

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Soldiers are moral agents of the state and throughout history have 

been the exemplars of numerous prized virtues such as patriotism, valor, 

and honor. Our most exalted Soldiers have exemplified the cardinal 

virtue of moral and physical courage. Without exposure to physical risk 

and making profound decisions in war, the opportunities to exercise 

moral and physical courage are greatly decreased. Pulling on this moral 

thread is not the same as saying that the fight against our enemy must 

always be fair as Gen George Patton succinctly reminded us: “No bastard 

ever won a war by dying for his country—he won it by making the other 

poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

Now replace “law” with “act” in 

the last two sentences. Would the act of ALE, without any direct human 

moral agency, distort the soul of the military ethic and damage the 

profession of arms in the process? I contend yes.

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Nor is it a simple romanticization of war. For over two centuries 

honorable and brave Soldiers, forged in the crucible of fighting our 

nation’s wars, have returned home and served as a key ingredient in our 

nation’s moral stock—a stock that infuses our society and is passed 

down through generations. Today we are better service members, 

patriots, and Americans because Airman believed in a cause greater than 

self and freely took to the skies over Nazi Germany decades ago. While 

atrocities and war crimes unfortunately still occur, we nevertheless 

remain a more ethically attuned military because service members today, 

like generations before us, exercise ethical fitness while facing moral 

dilemmas at the strategic, operational, and very personal level of war.

Resorting to the use of ALE foreshadows a future decline in 

military ethics and climate of ethical laziness. At the extremes of ethical 

laziness lurks a fear that risk free war will create huge physical and 

psychological disconnects between the exercise of lethal force and those 

who prosecute it and a lack of empathy for those who it is waged upon.54

Finally, Hartle writes that one purpose of professional ethics is to 

“delineate the moral authority for actions necessary to the professional 

function but generally impermissible in moral terms” and as such the 

ethical code “may thus both prohibit and permit various morally 

significant actions.”55 It is partially within this authority that doctors are 

allowed to prescribe dangerous and addictive drugs, lawyers can conceal 

facts of crime committed by a client, policeman and fireman make life 
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and death decisions in the conduct of their duties, and the military fights 

and kills in the conduct of war. We should be no more eager to give up 

this weighty responsibility to an autonomous agent than doctors would 

forgo their responsibility to operate, lawyers to defend, or judges to 

adjudicate.

The rise of killer robots will inevitably lead to a decrease in the 

need for traditional military skills and virtues. Soldiers will become too 

distanced and desensitized both emotionally and physically from war, 

with a subsequent decline of military ethos, increasing ethical laziness, 

and lack of self-determined action.56 Indeed ALE technologies represent 

the precipice of desensitization to violence since in a robot war few 

remain to be desensitized. In this new warfare reality anyone could 

command killer robots, and the military professional in full regalia might 

as well be a white-coated, robotics engineer.57

Writing on the quest for bloodless war, Robert Mandel states, “from 

the military’s own standpoint, perhaps the most disturbing prospect 

emerging from the quest for bloodless war is the potential erosion of the 

military ethos: the military ethic is built on the principles of self-sacrifice 

and mission accomplishment; troops are supposed to be willing to die so

that civilians do not have to. This warrior code clearly encompasses why 

soldiers fight, how they fight, what brings them honor, and what brings 

them shame.”58 In summary, it is my position that the use of ALE will 

result in an abandonment of this long held warrior code. Therefore, the 
23

offensive use of ALE should always keep a human in the loop of the kill 

chain.

Conclusion

Robotic autonomy is coming to many walks of life sooner than 

most think. Some of the ethical implications raised bear relevancy for 

other robotic applications such as autonomous planes, trains, and 

automobiles. Similarly, doctors and lawyers will soon face equally 

challenging ethical dilemmas as technology forces their professions to 

decide if they are willing to relinquish their moral agency to autonomous 

agents programmed with the knowledge to practice medicine and law. I 

maintain that relinquishing the moral responsibility for the endeavors 

that make us most human does not speak well for humanity and thus for 

the military profession; I believe that offensive ALE is fundamentally 

detrimental to the ethical conscious and moral basis of the profession of 

arms and should not be adopted as an accepted use of force. Rather, we 

should always keep a human in the loop of the offensive kill chain.

Sir John Winthrop Hackett once spoke, “The major service of the 

military institution to the community of men it serves may well lie 

neither in the political sphere nor the functional. It could easily lie within 

the moral. The military institution is a mirror of its parent society, 

reflecting strengths and weaknesses. It can also be a well from which to 

draw refreshment for a body politic in need of it.”59 In the end, our moral 
24

worth is the strongest argument for keeping humans in the loop of the 

kill chain.

Notes

 

1. Peter M. Asaro, How Just Could a Robot War Be?, 2008, 

http://www.peterasaro.org/writing/Asaro%20Just%20Robot%20War.pdf

(accessed 12 October 2009). For example, in World War I advances in 

submarine warfare witnessed the abandonment of the long-held 

convention of rescuing the surviving crewmembers of sinking enemy 

ships. The act of a submarine aiding the remaining survivors became 

viewed as being “so risky that it would render submarine warfare 

impractical” and thus fell to the wayside of accepted ethical norms 

during war. Asaro wrote that German Admiral Karl Doenitz eventually 

issued the infamous Laconia order in 1942 which strictly forbade 

German submarines to provide succor to survivors of sinking ships 

during World War II. After the war’s conclusion, Doenitz was acquitted of 

war crimes charges on this matter at the Nuremberg trials.

2. Many current defensive systems such as the Patriot missile and 

other ballistic missile defense systems, the Navy’s Phalanx close-in 

weapon system for ship protection, or the Army’s counter rocket artillery 

mortar technology operate in a fully autonomous mode with humans 

monitoring the loop as a safety trump or only in a fail-safe role. Such 

systems, whose past failures have presented ethical dilemmas of their 

own, primarily draw on the inherent right of self-defense. As such, I 
25

 

consider these systems ethically justified. Their discussion is generally 

outside the scope of this paper. 

3. P. W. Singer, Wired for War (London: Penguin Books, 2009), 96–

105. Singer describes the impact of Moore’s law which asserts that the 

number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles approximately 

every two years. This trend has continued for more than half a century 

and if it continues, by 2029 a $1,000 computer would have the capability 

to do 20 million billion calculations a second (equivalent to 1,000 brains). 

Eventually technological progress becomes so extremely rapid that a 

computational singularity is achieved. The future after singularity

becomes qualitatively different and harder to predict. The ideas of 

artificial intelligence and self awareness for robots are no longer relegated 

to science fiction. Conservative estimates for achieving singularity range 

from the year 2030 to 2040. 

4. Like the best science fiction novels, philosophers and roboticists 

are in fact vigorously debating, contemplating, and including Terminator 

2: Judgment Day scenarios in their ethical evaluations of ALE. Such 

scenarios are interesting reading and even raise important issues, but 

are outside the scope of this paper. 

5. Those interested in a full review of the current state of robotic 

warfare technology may wish to review Robert Arkin, Governing Lethal 

Behavior in Autonomous Robots (Boca Raton, FL: Chapman and 
26

 

Hall/CRC, 2009); Singer, Wired for War ; or Armin Krishnan, Killer 

Robots (Burlington, VA: Ashgate Publishing, 2009).

6. Typical elements of the kill chain include target reconnaissance, 

detection, identification, tracking, decision, and order to attack the 

target, destruction of the target, assessment, and reporting. 

7. Bernard T. Adney quoted in James H. Toner, True Faith and 

Allegiance: The Burden of Military Ethics (Lexington: The University Press 

of Kentucky, 1995), 9. 

8. Paul Christopher, Ethics of War & Peace, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle 

River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004), 81–98.

9. Ibid. The aim of a just peace is sometimes omitted from just war 

theorists listing of jus ad bellum criteria. 

10. On 3 July 1988, the USS Vincennes was patrolling the Persian 

Gulf and operating with its Aegis radar and self-defense system in a 

semiautonomous mode. When the system mistakenly identified an 

Iranian Airbus passenger jet as a hostile F-14, fog and friction prevailed 

and the crew authorized the system to fire. The result was the death of 

all 290 passengers on board the Airbus and edged the United States 

precipitously closer to open conflict with Iran. In this historical incident, 

the ship’s weapon system was still not operating in a fully-autonomous 

mode; however, it does serve as a good example of the dangers of 

removing human in the loop of the kill chain and ceding more authority 

to autonomously operating computer systems. Today, an increasingly 
27

 

wider array of weapon systems has the capacity to operate in completely 

autonomous modes––without a human directly in the loop but rather 

functioning in a failsafe role. While these systems are predominantly 

defensive in nature, such as ballistic missile defense and close-in 

protection systems, future applications have the potential for purely 

offensive autonomous action as well. 

11. The 1983 movie WarGames depicted a young computer whiz 

who hacked into the government computer that controlled the US

nuclear arsenal and ends up playing a game that nearly starts World 

War III. 

12. Asaro, How Just Could a Robot War Be?, 4–9. Throughout the 

essay I use the term Soldier in a generic form. The term equally implies 

to Sailors, Airman, Marines, and Coastguardsmen as well.

13. Nick Fotion, “Proportionality,” in Moral Constraints on War, ed. 

Bruno Coppieters and Nick Fotion (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 

2008), 126–27. The principle of proportionality requires some measure of 

cost/benefit calculation to determine if the use of force is justified. 

Traditionally, this cost/benefit analysis includes the considerations and 

viewpoints of both warring factions. Emphasizing this perspective of 

proportionality, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops preached in 

a pastoral letter, “The damage to be inflicted and the costs incurred by 

war must be proportionate to the good expected by taking up arms . . . .” 
28

 

Represented in equation form this definition becomes: Damage inflicted + 

cost incurred = good expected.

This understanding of the proportionality principle poses some 

difficult issues for the use of ALE. If the employment of ALE by one 

warring faction dramatically reduces the cost incurred (or even drives the 

term to zero) on the left side of the equation, the arithmetic of 

proportionality at a minimum becomes skewed if not totally invalid. In 

order to balance out the equation to a zero sum, few would probably 

argue that the principle of proportionality would permit a warring state 

to inflict additional damage to “make up” for its own reduction of cost in 

human capital realized through the use of ALE technology. The logic is 

extreme but it serves to highlight that proportionality, which already 

suffers from a lack of clarity in defining what exactly proportional means, 

is further muddied by the introduction of ALE.

Tangentially to the ALE scenario, in their general discussion of the 

principle of last resort, Bruno Coppierters, Ruben Apressyan, and Carl 

Ceulemans write, “Applying the Principle of Last Resort may confront 

political actors with the difficult choice between the evil of war and the 

burden of injustice. In some cases, the burden of an unjust peace has to 

be preferred to the horrors of war.” Coppieters, Apressyan, and 

Ceulemans, “Last Resort,” in Moral Constraints on War, 140. Building on 

this tough choice dilemma, opponents of ALE would argue that with 
29

 

robots fighting in place of humans, the evil and horrors of war would 

diminish (at least for the side with the robots) to such an extent that 

leaders would be more willing to use force in the pursuit of justice and 

peace. Pursuing these noble aims prior to fully considering and actively 

attempting reasonable peaceful alternatives that the principle of last 

resort requires.

14. Maj Michael A. Guetlein, “Lethal Autonomous Weapons—

Ethical and Doctrinal Implications,” Naval War College Research Paper

(Newport, RI: Naval War College, February 2005), 14–15. Guetlein quotes 

Capt James T. Kirk of Star Trek fame. In the 1967 Star Trek episode, A 

Taste of Armageddon, “The crew of the Enterprise visits a planet whose 

people fight computer simulated wars with a neighboring enemy planet. 

The crew finds that although the war is fought via computer simulation, 

the citizens of each planet have to submit to real executions inside 

'disintegration booths' based on the results of simulated attacks. The 

crew of the Enterprise is caught in the middle and is told to submit 

themselves voluntarily for execution after being 'killed' in an 'enemy 

attack'.” Capt Kirk bemoans that “they have made this war too easy and 

until they experience the horrors of war, there will never be any incentive 

to make peace.” Quoted material from Wikipedia, s.v. “A Taste of 

Armageddon,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon.

15. During the 1990s the threat of and actual use of Navy 

Tomahawk cruise missiles and conventional air launched cruise missiles 
30

 

from B-52s became a common course of action against al-Qaeda and 

Iraq. Navy and Air Force crews were at little risk during the employment 

of these weapons which may have increased the willingness to use such 

force. In the Transformation of American Airpower, Benjamin Lambeth 

echoed this assertion by describing that “cruise-missile diplomacy had 

instead become the prevailing US pattern, owing to the ability of cruise 

missiles to deliver punitive messages without risking the lives of any US 

aircrew.” Benjamin Lambeth, Transformation of American Airpower

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 216.

16. The move to over-the–horizon “riskless” war waged by remotely 

operated air, ground, and sea vehicles carries with it many of the same 

jus ad bellum concerns regarding proportionality and last resort. 

Therefore, even without the development and employment of true ALE 

technologies, the discussions concerning their use is applicable for 

remotely operated vehicles. 

17. Peter Asaro, online interview by the German Institute for 

Religion and Peace, 2009, 

http://www.irf.ac.at/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=295

&Itemid=22. In a humanistic appeal, Asaro poses many questions. What 

else could or should we be doing instead with such technology? What 

values are being promoted and projected by these technologies? Are 

these the values we want our society to pursue as a whole? Why not use 
31

 

such technological prowess and pragmatic ingenuity to tackle the 

underlying social, political, and resource problems? 

18. Singer, Wired for War, 308–13. Singer interviews several Middle 

Eastern experts who provide insight into our enemy’s perspective on the 

current use of unmanned technology. The belief is that defiance in the 

face of the coldhearted United States and their machines shows one’s 

heroism in the ongoing struggle, and weakness and cowardice on our 

part. It can give rise to “great anger” in the region because we conduct 

war “without dignity” which continues to cause a rift between the US and 

Islamic world. Mubashar Jawed Akbar, the editor of India’s Asian Age, 

anticipates that a greater use of unmanned systems will motivate attacks 

on the US homeland when he states, “It will be seen as a sign of 

American unwillingness to face death. Therefore new ways to hit America 

will have to be devised. . . .The rest of the world is learning that the only 

way to defeat America is to bleed her on both ends.” Similarly the 

director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International 

Affairs at the American University of Beirut predicts terrorists “will find 

more devious ways to cause panic and harm. They’ll say, ‘If they are 

going to use these machines, we should get some chemicals and use 

them.’ Put them in air-conditioning ducts in shopping centers or 

university dorms. . . . They might go after soft targets, shopping centers, 

sports stadiums, and so forth.” If we accept these concerns, this raises 
32

 

the issue that relying on ALE might make it more difficult to satisfy the 

jus ad bellum criterion of a reasonable chance of success in war.

19. Ibid., 191, 386. Given that there traditionally has been little 

discussion of military ethics in the context of the increasing computing 

powers and destructive capabilities of future technologies this is not 

terribly surprising. Singer relays he was somewhat dumbstruck by an 

absolute lack (not one instance) of discussion on unmanned or robotic 

systems at a 2006 “Rethinking the US Military Revolution” conference or 

a 2007 conference of over 100 international law experts in Washington 

DC discussing “New Battlefields, Old Laws.” 

20. Department of Defense, Unmanned System Safety Guide for 

DoD Acquisition, ODUSD (A&T) Systems and Software Engineering 

Directorate, 27 June 2007.

21. ODUSD office of primary responsibility, e-mail to the author. 

Similarly, the Department of the Air Force general counsel as well as the 

Air Force Doctrine Center responded that no one on their staff was 

actively engaged in critically evaluating the implications of ALE.

22. US Air Force, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009–

2047, 18 May 2009, 41.

23. Ibid., 42.

24. Anthony E. Hartle, Moral Issues in Military Decision Making,

(Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2004), 96–97.

25. Asaro, on-line interview.
33

 

26. The principle of double effect generally holds that it is morally 

permissible to embark on a course of action that may result in evil effects 

as long as these effects are unintended and not anticipated to be 

disproportionate to the good effects that are actually intended. Paul 

Christopher, Ethics of War & Peace, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: 

Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004), 90–91. Michael Walzer argues that the 

traditional principle of double effect requires additional criteria to be just. 

The addition of the principle of double intent involves a mandate for 

combatants to aggressively and actively pursue precautions to reduce 

risk to civilians even at the expense of increasing risks to themselves. 

Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, (New York, Basic Books, 1977), 

155–56. Also see Patrick Lin, George Bekey, and Keith Abney, 

Autonomous Military Robotics: Risk, Ethics, and Design, California 

Polytechnic State University, http://ethics.calpoly.edu/ONR_report.pdf.

27. Asaro, How Just Could a Robot War Be?; Robert Sparrow, 

“Killer Robots,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 24, no. 1 (February 2007): 

62–77; and Noel Sharkey, “Weapons of Indiscriminate Lethality,” 

Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, March 2009, http://www.dwgmf.de/1982.php (accessed 11 October 2010). Their writings emphasize 

this theme.

28. Ronald C. Arkin, Governing Lethal Behavior: Embedding Ethics 

in a Hybrid Deliberative/Reactive Robot Architecture (Atlanta: Georgia 

Institute of Technology, 2007), 7. Arkin’s research is so in depth that he 
34

 

even addresses the ability to choose a variety of overall ethical theories to 

code into your battlefield robot—deontological, utilitarian, or virtue 

ethics.

29. Ibid. 

30. The Surgeon General, US Army Medical Command, Mental 

Health Advisory Team IV Operation Iraqi Freedom 05–07, 17 November 

2006 Final Report listed the following findings:

• Approximately 10 percent of Soldiers and Marines report 

mistreating noncombatants (damaged/destroyed Iraqi 

property when not necessary or hit/kicked a noncombatant 

when not necessary). Soldiers that have high levels of anger, 

experience high levels of combat, or those who screened 

positive for a mental health problem were nearly twice as 

likely to mistreat noncombatants as those who had low levels 

of anger or combat or screened negative for a mental health 

problem. 

• Only 47 percent of Soldiers and 38 percent of Marines agreed 

that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and 

respect. 

• Well over a third of Soldiers and Marines reported torture 

should be allowed, whether to save the life of a fellow Soldier 

or Marine or to obtain important information about 

insurgents. 

• 17 percent of Soldiers and Marines agreed or strongly agreed 

that all noncombatants should be treated as insurgents. 

• Fewer than 10 percent of Soldiers and Marines reported that 

their unit modifies the ROE to accomplish the mission. 

• 45 percent of Soldiers and 60 percent of Marines did not 

agree that they would report a fellow Soldier/Marine if he 

had injured or killed an innocent noncombatant. 

• Only 43 percent of Soldiers and 30 percent of Marines agreed 

they would report a unit member for unnecessarily damaging 

or destroying private property. 
35

 

• Less than half of Soldiers and Marines would report a team 

member for an unethical behavior. 

• A third of Marines and over a quarter of Soldiers did not 

agree that their NCOs and Officers made it clear not to 

mistreat noncombatants. 

• Although they reported receiving ethical training, 28 percent 

of Soldiers and 31 percent of Marines reported facing ethical 

situations in which they did not know how to respond. 

• Soldiers and Marines are more likely to report engaging in 

the mistreatment of Iraqi noncombatants when they are 

angry, and are twice as likely to engage in unethical behavior 

in the battlefield as when they have low levels of anger. 

• Combat experience, particularly losing a team member, was 

related to an increase in ethical violations. Recent allegations 

of servicemen from the 5th Stryker Brigade charged with 

unprovoked killings of Afghan civilians indicate the overall 

ethical climate has not improved. Drew Griffin, “Tapes 

Describe U.S. Servicemen Killing For Sport in Afghanistan,”

CNN, 27 September 2010, http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-

27/world/afghanistan.sport.murders_1_afghan-civiliansafghan-man-soldiers?_s=PM:WORLD.

31. US Code, Title 10–Armed Forces, secs. 3583, 8583, and 5947.

Requirements of Exemplary Conduct establish as a matter of law the 

commander’s responsibility for the moral and ethical stewardship of his

or her unit. The fourth of four requirements for commanders states “(4) 

to take all proper and necessary measures, under laws, regulations, and 

customs of the Army, to promote and safeguard the morale, the physical 

well being, and the general welfare of the officers and the enlisted 

persons under their command or charge.

32. Arkin, Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots, 155–

176. Arkin, among others, proposed an excellent set of scenarios to 

accomplish this objective. They include Taliban Muster in Cemetery, 
36

 

Apache Rules the Night, Korean Demilitarized Zone, and Urban Sniper. 

In the ultimate discrimination test for a human, the movie Men in Black

(MIB) highlights Agent J’s incredible discrimination ability. During his 

entrance simulation exam to MIB, he correctly shoots a little girl target 

among three “scary” aliens and then provides his airtight and correct 

logic as to why he shot the girl. Could a robot perform as well? 

33. Sparrow, Killer Robots, 67. Sparrow claims that a Kantian and 

deontological basis which emphasizes the basic respect for human 

dignity requires that in war we must be able to identify those responsible 

for deaths.

34. Ibid., 74. Sparrow asserts it is unethical to use ALE because 

you cannot definitively hold anyone accountable for a robot’s actions in 

the event something goes wrong and war atrocities or crimes occur. In 

the end a true definition of autonomous implies the only party that can 

be responsible for the action is the actor them, or itself. He refuses to 

place this responsibility upon the robot and argues it is too far a stretch 

to hold a commander responsible. He states that no one can “justly be 

held responsible” and therefore robots with autonomous lethal capability 

are unethical to use. 

35. John P. Sullins, “When is a Robot a Moral Agent,” International 

Review of Information Ethics 6, no. 6 (December 2006), 28. Sullins writes 

that a robot can be a moral agent if it is significantly autonomous, its 

behavior is intentional, and it is in a position of responsibility. He 
37

 

concludes, “If the robot can be seen as autonomous from many points of 

view, then the machine is a robust moral agent, possibly approaching or 

exceeding the moral status of human beings.” (emphasis added)

36. Lin, Bekey, and Abney, Autonomous Military Robotics, 55–59.

37. Nautical Quotations, “On the Collision of Wasp and Hobson,” 

http://www.bluewatersailing.com/documents/NauticalQuotations.pdf. 

On 26 April 1952 the aircraft carrier USS Wasp and minesweeper USS 

Hobson collided during night maneuvers. The USS Hobson was cut in 

two and sank, killing 176 sailors and injuring 61 more in the process. An 

editorial in the Wall St. Journal perhaps gave the best explanation for the 

nontransferable nature of accountability. “It is the tradition that with 

responsibility goes authority and with them accountability. This 

accountability is not for the intentions but for the dead. The Captain of a 

ship, like the captain of a state, is given honor and privileges and trust 

beyond other men. But let him see the wrong course, let him touch 

ground, let him bring disaster to his ship or to his men, and he must 

answer for what he has done. It is cruel, this accountability of good and 

well intentioned men. But the choice is that or an end to responsibility 

and finally, as the cruel sea has taught, an end to the confidence and 

trust in the men who lead, for men will not long trust leaders who feel 

themselves beyond accountability for what they do.”

38. Martin L. Cook, The Moral Warrior (Albany, NY: State University 

of New York Press, 2004), 41. 
38

 

39. Don M. Snider, “Dissent and Strategic Leadership of The 

Military Professions,” Strategic Studies Institute, February 2008, 

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub849.pdf.

40. Toner, True Faith and Allegiance, 49–50. 

41. Snider, “Dissent and Strategic Leadership,” 12–14.

42. Toner, True Faith and Allegiance, 36–37.

43. Don M. Snider quoted in Richard Swain, “Reflection on an 

Ethic of Officership,” Parameters 38, no 1 (Spring 2007): 14.

44. James Burk quoted in Snider, “Dissent and Strategic 

Leadership,” 25–26. 

45. Ibid. Snider writes that Burk’s ideas on moral autonomy are 

used to contend Samuel Huntington’s “functional assertion that loyalty 

and obedience are the cardinal military virtues.”

46. Hartle, Moral Issues in Military Decision Making, 28.

47. Swain, “Reflection on an Ethic of Officership,” 15.

48. Cook, The Moral Warrior, 47. Cook claims that the Westphalian 

state system and model of military officership are already undergoing a 

transformation resulting from the changing character of state 

sovereignty, national interests, and a notion of a global common life. The 

introduction of ALE would be yet another major component of overall 

change of the concept of officership.

49. Toner, True Faith and Allegiance, 146. Our previous general 

definition of ethics was “the study of good and evil, of right and wrong, of 
39

 

duty and obligation in human conduct, and the reasoning and choice 

about them.” 

50. James H. Toner, “Educating for Exemplary Conduct,” Air and 

Space Power Journal, Spring 2006, 

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj06/spr06/ton

er.html.

51. Ibid., 6. 

52. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” 

African Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 

http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html.

53. Brainy Quotes, “George S. Patton Quotes,” 

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_s_patton_2.html

.

54. Krishnan, Killer Robots, 138.

55. Hartle, Moral Issues in Military Decision Making, 31. Hartle’s 

two other purposes for professional ethics codes include, “protect[ing] 

other members of society against abuse of the professional monopoly of 

expertise” and “defin[ing] the professional as a responsible and 

trustworthy expert in the service of his client.” 

56. Krishnan, Killer Robots, 137–38.

57. Ibid., 136.

58. Robert Mandel, Security, Strategy, and the Quest for Bloodless 

War (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc., 2004), 164.
40

 

59. Sir John Winthrop Hackett, “The Military in the Service of the 

State,” in Concepts For Air Force Leadership, ed. Dr. Richard I. Lester 

(Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2008), 91. (emphasis added)