Professional Military Ethics Monograph Series

THE ARMY’S PROFESSIONAL MILITARY ETHIC

IN AN ERA OF PERSISTENT CONFLICT

Don M. Snider

Paul Oh

Kevin Toner

October 2009

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ISBN 1-58487-410-4
iii

FOREWORD

I am honored to introduce the inaugural issue of 

this series on the Professional Military Ethic. Our PME 

is central to everything we do. It articulates what we 

believe and value as a profession and serves as the 

moral compass that guides us as we strive to live out 

those beliefs. Our ethic is as old as the Army itself. 

Forged throughout our history, it remains relevant 

– even indispensable – in today’s era of persistent 

conflict.

As the character of conflict in the 21st century 

evolves, the Army’s strength will continue to rest on 

our values, our ethos, and our people. Our Soldiers 

and leaders must remain true to these values as they 

operate in increasingly complex environments where 

moral-ethical failures can have strategic implications. 

Most of our Soldiers do the right thing – and do it 

well – time and again under intense pressure. But we 

must stay vigilant in upholding our high professional 

standards – ever mindful of the strains that accompany 

repeated combat deployments in the longest war our 

country has fought with an all-volunteer force. We 

must think critically about our PME and promote 

dialogue at all levels as we deepen our understanding 

of what this time-honored source of strength means to 

the profession today.

This series will be one way the Army sponsors 

such spirited, constructive discourse. Every few 

months, new monographs will be published as part of 

this series, a joint endeavor of the Army’s Center of 

Excellence for the Professional Military Ethic at West 

Point and the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army 

War College. I encourage the submission of thought-
iv

provoking monographs as we seek to capture the 

Army’s imagination on this vital subject – one at the 

very heart of our profession.
v

FOREWORD

In the opening epigraph, Dr. Don Snider and his 

colleagues Major Paul Oh and Major Kevin Toner 

immediately ground the reader in an excerpt from 

Army Field Manual (FM) 1, The Army,: “Professions create 

their own standards of performance and codes of ethics to 

maintain their effectiveness.” This statement challenges 

Army professionals to define, articulate, and take stock 

of both the profession, as well as the canon of values, 

beliefs, morals and codes that comprise the profession’s 

Ethic – the Professional Military Ethic (PME). 

In the series forward, General Casey challenges us 

to deeply study the richness of the Army professional 

Ethic formed over our 234 year history, the last 35 years 

of which comprised as an all-volunteer professional 

force. Dr. Snider and his fellow authors take on 

General Casey’s challenge and engage in vibrant and 

thoughtful dialog about our profession and our PME. 

They call us toward a deeper understanding of what it 

means to be a professional, to be part of a professional 

body, and our responsibilities to that body and to the 

nation it serves in continuing to advance our Ethic.

Further, Dr. Snider and colleagues offer language, 

definitions, and categorizations for consideration 

that if made common may help the Army pursue 

professional dialog with a greater level clarity and 

preciseness. Importantly, they offer implications for 

developing leaders, those that promulgate our Ethic, 

to become moral exemplars.

Dr. Snider is one the Army’s great soldier-scholars 

with military experience ranging from leading 

infantrymen during three combat tours in Vietnam 

to service on the Army, Joint, and National Security 
vi

Council Staff. As a scholar he served with distinction 

at West Point where he championed scholarship about 

the profession, professional identity, and the PME. 

We are pleased to offer Dr. Snider and his colleagues’ 

monograph as the first in this series focusing on the 

PME.

We hope this monograph engenders spirited dialog, 

motivating Army professionals to contribute to future 

papers in this series. We are also honored for SSI 

and the ACPME to partner in this important ongoing 

effort—this foundational dialog of our professional 

code.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director 

Strategic Studies Institute

SEAN T. HANNAH 

Director

Army Center for the Professional 

Military Ethic
vii

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE AUTHORS

DON M. SNIDER is Professor Emeritus of Political 

Science at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. 

He is a retired colonel, U.S. Army, with three combat 

tours in Vietnam, service as a strategic planner in the 

European theater, on the Army General Staff, on the 

Joint Staffs, and on the staff of the National Security 

Council, the White House. Dr. Snider’s research and 

lecture focus is on the American political system, civilmilitary relations, the role of military professions, and 

the development of commissioned officers. His most 

recent monograph is “Dissent and Strategic Leadership 

of the Military Professions,” published by the Army 

War College, Strategic Studies Institute (2008). His 

recent book publications, both co-edited with Lloyd 

J. Matthews, are The Future of the Army Profession, 2d 

Edition, (2005), and Forging the Warrior’s Character: 

Moral Precepts from the Cadet Prayer, 2d Ed. (2008). He 

is also co-editor with Suzanne C. Nielsen of American 

Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New 

Era, forthcoming 2009.

PAUL OH, a U.S. Army major, is currently an instructor 

in the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. 

Military Academy. He is a 1997 graduate of West Point 

where he was commissioned as a Military Intelligence 

Officer. Major Oh served in Tall Afar, Iraq, from 2004 

to 2005 with 1st Brigade Combat Team (STRYKER), 

25th Infantry Division. He was also stationed in Fort 

Lewis, WA, and Schofield Barracks, HI, holding 

various intelligence positions. Major Oh holds a B.S. 

in Economics from the U.S. Military Academy and a 

Master of Public Affairs degree from the Woodrow 

Wilson School at Princeton University.
viii

KEVIN TONER, a U.S. Army major, is currently an 

Instructor of American Politics, Policy, and Strategy in 

the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military 

Academy. He has served as at tank platoon leader in 

Bosnia with 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry 

Division, and a brigade planner and cavalry troop 

commander in Iraq with 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st 

Infantry Division. Major Toner holds a B.S. in Political 

Science from the U.S. Military Academy (1997) and an 

M.A. in Political Science from Columbia University. 

Following his duties at West Point, he will become a 

Public Affairs Officer.
ix

SUMMARY

The purpose of the Army’s Ethic is stated clearly 

in Field Manual (FM) 1, The Army. It is “to maintain 

[the Army’s] effectiveness.” The implication is as clear 

as it is true—without such an ethic, the Army cannot 

be effective at what it does. As is well-documented 

in the literature of professions, their ethics provide 

the primary means of social direction and control 

over their members as they perform their expert 

duties, often under chaotic conditions. For the Army 

profession, its evolving expert knowledge in the 

moral-ethical domain is what enables the profession to 

develop individual professionals—Soldiers and their 

leaders—to fight battles and campaigns “effectively 

and rightly,” as expected by the client the profession 

serves. Without such good, right, and just application 

of its expertise, the Army will lose its lifeblood—the 

trust of the American people. 

But how do the leaders within the Army profession 

think about their Ethic? With what language, 

models, and pedagogy is it discussed and taught in 

Army schoolhouses and units? And how is the ethic 

understood to relate to Army culture, both to the 

culture’s functional and dysfunctional aspects? When 

professionals dissect their ethic, for example, are they 

analyzing the ethic of the profession or that of the 

individual professional; is the ethic they are discussing 

defined in legal or moral terms, etc.? Lastly, how, 

and how well, do the individual professionals within 

the Army—officers, noncommissioned officers, and 

civilians alike—internalize the Ethic in their daily lives 

such that the Army’s leadership is seen consistently on 

duty and off duty, 24 hours a day, to “walk the talk?” 

This essay, then, is a first attempt to look into 
x

this largely unresearched field. Such research cannot 

proceed without a modicum of theorizing and 

setting forth of models for the Ethic, some common 

understandings from which to hypothesize and 

then test such propositions. Current Army doctrine, 

however, does not provide even a construct for 

examining the Ethic, nor does it analyze how the Ethic 

changes with society’s cultural shifts, evolving wars, 

or other external shocks. 

This essay offers a proposal for the missing constructs and language with which we can more precisely 

think about and examine the Army’s Professional 

Military Ethic, starting with its macro context which is 

the profession’s culture. We examine three major longterm influences on that culture and its core ethos, thus 

describing how they evolve over time. We contend that 

in the present era of persistent conflict, we are witnessing dynamic changes within these three influences. In 

order to analyze these changes, we introduce a more 

detailed framework which divides the Ethic into its 

legal and moral components, then divide each of these 

into their institutional and individual manifestations. 

Turning from description to analysis, we also 

examine to what extent, if any, recent doctrinal 

adaptations by the Army (FM 3-0, 3-24, and 6-22, etc.) 

indicate true evolution in the essential nature of the 

profession’s Ethic. Then, we present what we believe 

to be the most significant ethical challenge facing the 

Army profession—the moral development of Army 

leaders, moving them from “values to virtues” in order 

that they, as Army professionals, can consistently 

achieve the high quality of moral character necessary 

to apply effectively and, in a trustworthy manner, their 

renowned military-technical competencies. 

Surely, as FM 1 reminds us, unless the profession’s 

Ethic is manifested integrally in the personal lives and 
xi

official actions of its leaders, and through them its 

Soldiers, the Army is simply not a profession at all, and 

its effectiveness even as a bureaucracy will be greatly 

impaired.

1

THE ARMY’S PROFESSIONAL MILITARY ETHIC

IN AN ERA OF PERSISTENT CONFLICT

The purpose of any profession is to serve society by 

effectively delivering a necessary and useful specialized 

service. To fulfill those societal needs, professions—such 

as medicine, law, the clergy, and the military—develop 

and maintain distinct bodies of specialized knowledge 

and impart expertise through formal, theoretical, and 

practical education. Each profession establishes a 

unique subculture that distinguishes practitioners from 

the society they serve while supporting and enhancing 

that society. Professions create their own standards 

of performance and codes of ethics to maintain their 

effectiveness. To that end they develop particular 

vocabularies, establish journals, and sometimes adopt 

distinct forms of dress. In exchange for holding their 

members to high technical and ethical standards, society 

grants professionals a great deal of autonomy. (Emphasis 

added by authors.)

Field Manual 1, June 14, 2005,

para. 1-40

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and 

character. If you must be without one, be without the 

strategy.

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf 

U.S. Army, Ret.1

Introduction.

The epigraphs above frame very well this 

monograph on the Army’s Professional Military Ethic. 

At least four aspects of the Ethic2—each within the 

focus of this monograph—are clearly noted in them.

First, we should note from Field Manual (FM) 1, the 

Army’s capstone doctrinal manual, the purpose of the 
2

Ethic. It is “to maintain [the Army’s] effectiveness.” The 

implication is as clear as it is true—without such an 

ethic, the Army cannot be effective at what it does. As is 

well-documented in the literature of professions, their 

ethics provide the primary means of social direction 

and control over their members as they perform their 

expert duties, often under chaotic conditions.3

 For the 

Army profession, its evolving expert knowledge in the 

moral-ethical domain is what enables the profession to 

develop individual professionals—Soldiers and their 

leaders—to fight battles and campaigns “effectively 

and rightly,” as expected by the client the profession 

serves.4 Without such good, right, and just application 

of its expertise, the Army will lose its lifeblood—the 

trust of the American people! 

Second, we must note that the Ethic is uniquely 

that of a profession, the Army profession, which 

produces sustained land power for use under joint 

command and is one of three military professions 

currently serving the Republic.5

 Thus, it is not the ethic 

of a bureaucracy or of a business, though the Army has 

aspects of bureaucracy within it and employs many, 

many contractors to do its nonprofessional work. 

This distinction highlights a major challenge 

currently facing the strategic leaders of the profession, 

the colonels and general officers: how to lead the Army 

in such a manner that its culture, ethic, and behavior 

are those of a profession, even though it is organized in 

many aspects as a hierarchical bureaucracy. The most 

insightful question drawn from over 4 years of study 

of the Army as profession (2000-04) is as pregnant 

today in the latter stages of the Iraq deployments as it 

was when published initially in 2002. It is the lament 

of middle grade soldiers and their leaders when their 

strategic leaders do not conform the Army and its 
3

subcultures to the behavior of a profession: “How can 

I be a professional, if there is no profession?”6

Reflecting on this lament, we should all be reminded 

of what at least one articulation of the Ethic currently 

states: “I am an expert and I am a professional” (the 

ninth statement of The Soldier’s Creed). But how can 

that Soldier be “an expert and a professional” if there 

is no profession; but just a bureaucracy? Clearly, then, 

the maintenance of the profession’s Ethic is one of the 

most precious and vital privileges of those who are the 

stewards of the Army on behalf of the Republic.

Third, FM 1 makes clear that the Ethic is about 

culture—in fact, the Ethic is integral to culture. It is 

the core of moral principles, values, and beliefs at the 

center of the profession’s culture “that distinguishes 

practitioners from the society they serve while 

supporting and enhancing that society.” But Army 

culture is a topic little understood and even less studied 

by the Army.7 So we will treat Army culture in some 

detail, both to inform about its basic character and to 

open a professional discussion as to its dysfunction, 

as well as, in the case of the Ethic, its absolutely vital 

aspects.

And fourth, the comment by General Schwarzkopf 

is a succinct reminder that the Ethic is ultimately about 

individual character as manifested in the decisions and 

actions of all who are considered leaders within the 

profession, be they commissioned, noncommissioned, 

or civilian. Unless the profession’s ethic is manifested 

integrally in the personal lives and official actions of 

its leaders, and through them its soldiers, the Army 

is simply not a profession at all, and its effectiveness 

even as a bureaucracy will be greatly impaired.

The purpose of this monograph, then, is to provide 

a framework within which scholars and practitioners 

can discuss the various aspects of the Army’s Ethic. 
4

Such discussion is especially challenging because we 

lack common models and language for such a dialogue. 

Current Army doctrine and scholarly research do not 

provide a construct for examining the Ethic, nor do 

they analyze how the Ethic changes with society’s 

cultural shifts, evolving wars, or other external shocks. 

When professionals dissect their ethic, for example, are 

they analyzing the ethic of the profession or that of the 

individual professional; is the ethic they are discussing 

defined in legal or moral terms, etc.? To preclude such 

“talking past each other,” this monograph offers a 

proposal for the missing constructs and language with 

which we can more precisely examine the Army’s 

Professional Military Ethic. 

This monograph contains four sections. The first 

section locates the Army’s Ethic in its macro context, 

which is the profession’s culture. It examines three 

major long-term influences on that culture and its core 

ethos, thus describing how they evolve over time. We 

contend that in the present era of persistent conflict, 

we are witnessing dynamic changes within these 

three influences. In order to analyze these changes, we 

introduce in the second section a more disaggregated 

framework which divides the Ethic into its legal and 

moral components, then divides each of these into 

their institutional and individual manifestations. This 

arrangement provides four quadrants of the Ethic 

within which to discuss the shaping influences: legalinstitutional, moral-institutional, legal-individual, and 

moral-individual. In the third section, turning from 

description to analysis, we examine to what extent, 

if any, recent doctrinal adaptations by the Army (FM 

3-0, 3-24, and 6-22, etc.) indicate true evolution in the 

essential nature of the profession’s Ethic. In the fourth 

and concluding section, we present what we believe 
5

to be the most significant ethical challenge facing the 

Army profession—the moral development of Army 

leaders, moving them from “values to virtues” so that 

they, as Army professionals, can consistently achieve 

the high quality of moral character necessary to apply 

effectively and in a trustworthy manner their renowned military-technical competencies. Also in this final 

section, we set forth a specific set of issues with which 

we believe Army professionals should urgently come 

to terms.

I. The Army’s Professional Culture and Ethic: 

A Macro View.8

For purposes of this monograph, the most useful 

starting point is the classic definition offered by Edgar 

Schein for any organizational culture:

We must first specify that a given set of people has had 

enough stability and common history to have allowed 

a culture to form. This means that some organizations 

will have no overarching culture because they have no 

common history or have frequent turnover of members. 

Other organizations can be presumed to have strong 

cultures because of a long shared history or because 

they have shared important intense experiences (as in 

a combat unit). But the content and strength of a culture 

have to be empirically determined. They cannot be 

presumed from observing surface cultural phenomena. 

Culture is what a group learns over a period of time as 

that group solves its problems of survival in an external 

environment and its problems of internal integration. 

Such learning is simultaneously a behavioral, cognitive, 

and an emotional process. . . .

Culture can now be defined as (a) a pattern of basic 

assumptions, (b) invented, discovered, or developed by 

a given group, (c) as it learns to cope with its problems 
6

of external adaptation and internal integration, (d) that 

has worked well enough to be considered valid, and 

therefore, (e) is to be taught to new members as the (f) 

correct way to perceive, think, or feel in relation to these 

problems.9

Schein’s classic definition accords with the 

implications drawn from FM 1 in the introduction of 

this monograph. Military culture is the deep structure 

of organization drawn from the Army’s past successes 

and from its current interactions with the environment. 

It is rooted in the prevailing assumptions, values, and 

traditions which collectively, over time, have created 

shared individual expectations among the members of 

the Army profession. Meaning is established through 

socialization to a variety of identity groups (e.g., Army 

branches and components, etc.) that converge in the 

operations of the organization. Professional culture 

includes both attitudes and behavior about what 

is right, what is good, and what is important, often 

manifested in shared heroes, stories, and rituals that 

promote bonding among the members. It is, in short, 

the “glue” that makes the profession a distinctive 

source of identity and experience that, in turn, informs 

the character in its individual members. Thus, a 

strong culture exists when a clear set of norms and 

expectations—usually as a function of leadership—

permeates the entire organization. It is essentially 

“how we do things around here.”10

Closely associated with an organization’s culture 

is its climate. In contrast to culture, organizational 

climate refers to environmental stimuli rooted in the 

organization’s value system such as rewards and 

punishments, communications flow, and operations 

tempo, which determine individual and team 
7

perceptions about the quality of working conditions. It 

is essentially “how we feel about this organization.”11

Climate is often considered to be alterable in the 

near term and largely limited to those aspects of the 

organizational environment of which members are 

consciously aware.

Climate and culture are obviously related in complex ways, climate being one observable and 

measurable artifact of culture, and considered by 

many to be one of the major determinants of 

organizational effectiveness. For the purposes of 

this monograph, however, we will focus on culture

per se, for it is at this level that we discover the richest 

insights to the Army’s Ethic. 

Figure 1 depicts the three major categories of 

influences on the Army’s professional culture: (1) the 

functional imperatives of the profession, 2) America’s 

culture, values, beliefs, and social norms, and 3) 

international laws and treaties of which the United 

States is a party. We contend that operating in the era 

of persistent conflict has and will continue to bring 

about changes within all three of these influences on 

the Army’s culture and ethos.

Figure 1. Influences on Army Culture and Ethic.
8

In this new era, we are witnessing globalization, 

widespread environmental changes, the rise of 

nonstate actors, and the regionalization of persistent 

conflict—all trends that have already profoundly 

impacted America’s security posture and strategy 

for confronting evolving threats. The U.S. Army, 

for its part, will most likely continue to undertake 

expeditionary-type missions in extremely hostile and 

unstable environments. It will likely operate “among 

the peoples” in areas where government is either weak 

or failed and where nonstate adversaries have access 

to increasingly destructive weapons, while exploiting 

asymmetric advantages such as language and cultural 

awareness. Operating in such an environment has 

already placed new demands on the Army and its 

ethic, and we anticipate that this will continue for the 

foreseeable future.

For example, the functional imperatives that 

inform the profession’s Ethic are already changing. 

Whereas “we don’t do nation-building, we only do 

BIG wars” was commonly declared a decade ago as a 

long-standing cultural norm,12 the Army has recently 

sought aggressively to remaster the competencies 

of counterinsurgency and nation-building. Such is 

reflected in the equal footing now given to stability 

operations in the Army’s new FM 3-0. 

Second, our national culture, values, beliefs, and 

norms are evolving, partially owing to September 11, 

2001 (9/11), but also due to generational change within 

our increasingly immigrant population. For example, 

the relatively high priority for domestic security vis-àvis that of securing civil liberties is far more pronounced 

now than a decade ago. Though debate and court 

rulings continue to evolve for the classification of enemy 

combatants, increases in government surveillance, and 
9

use of military tribunals, such activities are on-going 

and tolerated. Lastly, prevailing views of international 

laws and treaties are evolving. The use of harsh 

interrogation techniques and assignment of enemy 

combatant status with respect to those we capture are 

evolutions from the norms followed throughout the 

pre-9/11 era.

Understanding how these changes in operating 

environment, type of warfare, and nature of the threats 

will affect the Army’s Ethic is a daunting undertaking, 

one well beyond the scope of this brief monograph. It 

is, however, an essential task to be tackled before the 

Army can determine how best to develop moral leaders 

capable of dealing with the ethical challenges imposed 

by this new era of persistent conflict. One question this 

macro framework does raise for Army professionals is: 

What is the boundary between the Army’s culture and 

its Ethic? In other words, just what aspects of Army 

culture are truly ethic—i.e., the distinguishing moral 

character or disposition of a calling—so revered for its 

positive influence on mission effectiveness that it must 

be documented and passed on to future generations 

of professional leaders? Clearly “taking care of your 

Soldiers and their families” is part of the Ethic; but 

what else qualifies? And how many slogans of bygone 

eras—”Bigger is Better”—still hold the position of ethic 

in the minds of the officer corps? This would appear to 

be an area for urgent research in any future effort to 

explicate the Army’s Ethic.

We believe one way to get at this question, and 

others, is a framework that examines the actual 

constituent elements within the Army’s Ethic. The 

section that follows introduces such a framework. 
10

II. A Framework for Dialogue on the Army’s Ethic.

Here we present a common framework and language for the study of the Army’s system of ethics. We 

submit that the Army’s professional military Ethic is a 

shared system of beliefs and norms, both legal (codified) and moral, which define the Army’s commitment 

to serve the nation. There are multiple sources for the 

Army’s Ethic, derived from documents as diverse as 

our founding Constitution, the Just War traditions, 

oaths of office, the Army’s Seven Values, and the NCO 

Creed. The beliefs and norms of behavior stemming 

from these documents guide the performance of our 

service as a profession as well as the performance of 

individual professionals. 

This framework first makes a delineation between 

legal and moral foundations. The legal foundation is 

codified, stemming from various legal documents 

starting with the Constitution. The moral foundation 

has no legal basis, but has been learned over time as 

providing for mission success and for fulfilling service 

within a “social trustee” profession.”13 In one sense, the 

separation of the Ethic into these components reflects 

the importance of adherence by the profession and its 

leaders to the higher Western ethic of avoiding evil (by 

not doing those things proscribed by law) and doing 

good (as defined in terms of interpersonal relations 

and behaviors by which humans can flourish—one 

definition of what is moral). In the murky environment 

of persistent conflict, what is legal may not necessarily 

be moral, and our leaders may, on occasion, have to 

rely on moral guidelines, irrespective of the law, to 

conduct good and right actions. 

Second, as shown in Figure 2, the Ethic can be 

further divided into values and norms that guide the 
11

performance of the collective Army as an institution 

versus those that are more clearly directed at the 

decisions and actions of the individual professional. 

These two divisions produce four different quadrants 

we can use to analyze the Army’s Ethic: the legalinstitutional, moral-institutional, legal-individual, and 

the moral-individual. 

Figure 2. Framework of the Army’s Professional 

Military Ethic.

Quadrant 1 is the legal–institutional, the legal 

and codified foundation of our ethic that guides the 

behavior of the Army as a profession. Without doubt, 

the primary source of this component of our Ethic is 

the U.S. Constitution, which institutionalizes the aptly 

described “invitation to struggle” among the branches 

of our government.14 The constitutional placement of 

the military under the equal purview of both Congress 

and the President is a basic feature of American 

civil-military relations and, as noted in the previous 
12

section, strongly influences the norms that the Army 

has adopted for participation in such relationships, 

particularly by senior officers. As noted in Figure 2, 

other legal codes influence the Army’s Ethic, including 

the various treaties to which the United States is a 

party, Status of Forces Agreements, and the evolving 

laws of armed conflict that apply to the Army in joint 

operations.

Those legal-institutional ethics that apply only to 

the Army also exist in this quadrant. The section of 

Title 10, U.S. Code, which applies directly to the Army, 

for example, stipulates that the Army be “organized, 

trained, and equipped primarily for prompt and 

sustained combat incident to operations on land.” The 

code states that the Army is primarily “responsible for 

the preparation of land forces necessary for the effective 

prosecution of war.” This emphasis on sustained land 

combat and prosecution of war has over the years 

influenced Army culture towards large, conventional, 

army-on-army conflicts. But is that cultural bias 

appropriate for the future of persistent conflict?

Quadrant 2 is the moral, nonlegal foundation of the 

Ethic that is applied to the Army as profession. Sources 

of the moral-institutional ethic include the spirit of 

the Declaration of Independence and the Just War 

traditions, to mention only two. One example of this 

type of component of our Ethic is the traditional Army 

cultural preference to fight the “Big War.” Another is 

the understanding that the real lifeblood of the Army 

is its relationship of trust held with the American 

people and their leaders. Still another example is the 

Army’s “can-do” attitude. While a positive cultural 

norm that has enabled the Army to prevail repeatedly 

over adversity, the “can-do” attitude, when applied 

at other times with overbearing micro-management, 
13

has had an adverse impact on the effectiveness of the 

profession. 

We also suggest that within this quadrant lie the 

subcultures and subethics of different portions of the 

Army. The Army has accepted these subcultures, both 

branches and components, as necessary for the conduct 

of the unique missions that the various subelements 

of the Army must perform for the effective combined 

arms battle. The culture of the U.S. Cavalry is a case in 

point. With its own initiation rites performed during 

the spur ride; its regalia in the form of Stetsons and 

spurs; and its unique élan built around dash, daring, 

and decisive action, the U.S. Cavalry has carved out 

a unique niche within the profession. However, how 

well such a subculture, or those of other branches and 

components, meshes with the mindset advocated for 

stability operations as described in FM 3-0 is currently 

an unresearched question. 

Quadrant 3 is the legal-individual component, 

setting forth foundations of the Ethic that apply to a 

Soldier as a professional. Legal documents that form 

the foundation within the quadrant include the officer’s 

oath of commission, the Standards of Exemplary 

Conduct, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), 

and Rules of Engagement (ROE). A more recent item 

is The Soldier’s Rules (Table 1), from AR 350-1 and 

FM 3-0, which distills the Law of Land Warfare to the 

ethical and lawful conduct required of each Soldier. 

Such guidelines have been useful to help prevent 

Soldiers from “doing evil.” Recently, however, as we 

will discuss in the next section, Soldiers have found it 

more difficult to apply such seemingly straightforward 

guidelines.15
14

Table 1. The Soldier’s Rules.

Lastly, Quadrant 4 is the moral-individual 

component, the nonlegal foundations that apply 

to a Soldier individually as a human being and 

as a professional. Such may include the universal 

understandings of human rights and widely accepted 

norms for moral behavior (the Golden Rule, for 

example). Though at times more amorphous and 

difficult to analyze, the various creeds and mottos that 

make up this component—West Point’s “Duty, Honor, 

Country,” the NCO Creed, and the Seven Army 

Values—are potentially the most inspirational and 

powerful motivators of individual action. The short 

declarations of the Warrior’s Ethos—”I will always 

place the mission first; I will never accept defeat; I 

will never quit; I will never leave a fallen comrade”—

have been courageously exemplified by countless 

heroes such as Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and 

Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart in Modagishu. 

These four quadrants are by no means mutually 

exclusive. The components of the Ethic are deeply 
15

integrated with changes in one quadrant directly 

influencing the other quadrants as well. As the operating environment continues to increase in complexity, 

however, it seems to us that the foundations within 

Quadrants 2 and Quadrant 4 call most urgently for 

analysis and renewal by the Army. Fortunately, they 

are also the foundations over which the Army, given its 

limited professional autonomy, has the most control.

Admittedly, there has been reluctance in the past 

to articulate sharply these moral foundations of the 

Army’s Ethic. One reason is the fear that precise 

articulation of such a moral ethic, particularly for 

officers, may lead to moral minimalism that seeks more 

to “avoid evil” than to “do good.” A second reason is the 

recognition that these values are not neatly separable 

and efforts to provide too precise a formulation risk 

excessive legalism and scholastic hair-splitting.16

A third reason may have to do with the continued 

disagreement in our society and armed forces on the 

use and utility of force in the contemporary operating 

environment. 

Whatever the case, the question becomes whether 

we now need a more precise rearticulation of the 

Army Ethic to better influence the moral behavior and 

development of individual professionals in the future. 

With regard to the recent moral failings of Army leaders, did those leaders violate the Army’s Ethic simply 

because they did not know what it was, or because 

they as individuals were insufficiently dedicated 

to following it? Do we need further articulation of 

individual ethics to include additional mottos and 

creeds to guide individual action—an Officer’s Creed, 

for example? Or is the more important question how 

and how well Army professionals internalize just the 

current Ethic?
16

III. Does the Recent Evolution in Army Doctrine 

Indicate an Evolving Ethic?

In this section we seek to describe the evolution, if 

any, in the Army’s Ethic. One way to do so is to look 

at how the Army speaks to itself about its Ethic. For 

example, the 2001 version of FM 3-0, Operations, contains only one instance of the word ethic or any of its 

cognates: “All Army leaders must demonstrate strong 

character and high ethical standards.”17 Contrast that 

with the 2008 version which contains six instances 

(all within two paragraphs).18 The 2008 version goes 

well beyond the simple mandate of the earlier version 

to helpfully explain why sound ethics are necessary 

to mission success. It elaborates even further by 

setting forth The Soldier’s Rules (refer again to Table 

1) describing how ethical Soldiers and their leaders 

behave.

The Army has also progressed in emphasizing the 

ethical necessity for leaders to be more culturally aware. 

The 2001 version of FM 3-0 discusses the importance 

of culture, but only in the sense that the Army must 

understand the culture of allies in unified operations. 

But, even here it is only mentioned in a few short 

paragraphs. The 2008 version addresses culture quite 

differently. In the first paragraph of the first chapter, 

the new doctrine stresses the need to understand 

the complete operational environment: “While they 

[conditions, circumstances, influences of the operational environment] include all enemy, adversary, 

friendly, and neutral systems across the spectrum 

of conflict, they also include an understanding of 

the physical environment, the state of governance, 

technology, local resources, and the culture of the local 

population.”19 The remainder of the 2008 version repeats 
17

the need to understand local culture as a variable 

significant to mission success, clearly an ethical 

implication.

A review of new counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine (FM 3-24) by Major Celestino Perez provides 

similar insights. As noted earlier, the Army’s new 

capstone doctrine (FM 3-0) describes the new era 

of “persistent conflict” during which our military 

professionals must apply their skills and talents in 

environments that are “complex, multidimensional, 

and increasingly fought “among the people.”20 But if this 

era’s complexity has multiplied the variables that our 

young leaders must consider while planning missions, 

so too has it complicated the ethical environment in 

mission execution. For example, FM 3-24 now puts 

forward two separate “ethics of force”—most force 

permissible and least force possible. While adding the 

latter distinction greatly increases the Army’s ethical 

“tool kit” and makes it a more adaptable institution, it 

demands increased discretionary judgment on the part 

of Army leaders at the point where force is applied. As 

Major Celistino Perez recently noted, as written below 

in an unpublished manuscript:21

The ethics of war and nation-building “among the 

people” is much more complex than the ethics of 

performing consolidation and reorganization on a desert 

objective after a tank battle. The majority of our fine 

young leaders have adapted well—local populations 

often bequeath the title of “mayor” onto these talented 

noncommissioned officers, lieutenants, and captains. 

Such agility today in Army leaders is, by doctrine, a 

military obligation: “Soldiers and Marines are expected 

to be nation builders as well as warriors.”22

Nonetheless, release in May 2007 of a Military Health 

Advisory Team (MHAT-IV) survey of fewer than 2,000 

soldiers and Marines who had served in units with “the 
18

highest level of combat exposure” in Iraq found that: 

“approximately 10 percent of soldiers and Marines report 

mistreating noncombatants or damaging property when 

it was not necessary. Only 47 percent of the soldiers 

and 38 percent of Marines agreed that non-combatants 

should be treated with dignity and respect. Well over 

a third of all soldiers and Marines reported that torture 

should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier or 

Marine. And less than half of soldiers or Marines would 

report a team member for unethical behavior.”23

Although Army doctrine (FM 3-24) specifies an 

embedded ethic that “preserving noncombatant lives 

and dignity is central to mission accomplishment” in 

counterinsurgency, the survey reported that between onethird and one-half of soldiers and Marines who answered the 

survey dismissed the importance or truth of non-combatants’ 

dignity and respect (italics added by Major Perez).24

There are two ways to understand the Army’s newly 

embedded ethic that “preserving noncombatant lives 

and dignity is central to mission accomplishment.” In 

one sense, this norm of counterinsurgency is utilitarian; 

i.e., a means to an end. That is, we ought to preserve lives 

and dignity because “it pays,” or “it is in our interest,” 

or “it conduces to mission success.” The other way is 

to view this moral scruple as one of ends rather than 

means. That is, it requires that Soldiers seek to preserve 

the dignity of the other during deployments as a virtue 

for its own sake. More specifically, the enemy’s dignity 

is equal to that dignity possessed individually by the 

Army warrior’s own friends and loved ones back home. 

According to Major Perez, the American warrior must 

come to accept no difference in moral worth between 

the old taxi driver who lives in the village where he 

patrols and the warrior’s own father back home. This 

putative moral equivalency raises the obvious question 

of how the Army should address the moral develop-
19

ment of warriors who must now have a sufficiently 

integrated worldview and strength of personal character 

as to be able consistently to abide by and enforce this 

newly embedded ethic. Turning to FM 6-22, Army 

Leadership, we find the challenge is accurately stated: how 

to develop leaders that “demonstrate strong character 

and high ethical standards.” The Army recognizes 

that “new challenges facing leaders, the Army, and 

the Nation mandate adjustments in how the Army 

educates, trains, and develops its military and civilian 

leadership.” However, FM 6-22 provides little guidance about how such “mandated adjustments” are to 

occur.25 Again, FM 6-22 is very clear on what leaders are, 

but it hardly discusses at all how to develop them: 

Character, a person’s moral and ethical qualities, helps 

determine what is right and gives a leader motivation to 

do what is appropriate, regardless of the circumstances 

or the consequences. An informed ethical conscience 

consistent with the Army Values strengthens leaders to 

make the right choices when faced with tough issues. 

Since Army leaders seek to do what is right and inspire others 

to do the same, they must embody these values.

26 (italics 

added by authors)

In fact, current Army doctrine leaves character 

development to the individual, specifying no role at all 

for the institution save for its leaders: 

Becoming a person of character and a leader of 

character is a career-long process involving day-to-day 

experience, education, self-development, developmental 

counseling, coaching, and mentoring. While individuals 

are responsible for their own character development, 

leaders are responsible for encouraging, supporting, 

and assessing the efforts of their people.27 (bold added 

by authors)
20

Thus, in our view, unlike the evolving training 

programs stemming from the requirements for cultural 

awareness set forth within FM 3-0, the Army takes a 

“hands-off” approach to the moral development of 

its Soldiers and their leaders. Is this good enough in 

the present era of persistent conflict, or does the Army 

have an institutional need and responsibility to take 

a more active role in the character development of its 

Soldiers and their leaders?

IV. The Army’s Challenge—Developing Leaders 

Who Are Moral Exemplars. 

This monograph has been crafted to stimulate 

thought and to facilitate discussion on the effects of the 

new era of persistent conflict on the Army’s Ethic and 

on its efforts to develop its Soldiers and their leaders. 

In essence, the Army has initiated the process of 

rethinking and redocumenting the profession’s moralethical expert knowledge, one of four such domains 

and the one that is clearly the least well-defined to 

date.28 In fact, the Army does not have a capstone 

“moral-ethical” manual, or anything close to it. 

We should also note that much research and 

published scholarship have been devoted to this new 

era and its ethical complexities,29 but most of it is highly 

theoretical and for practical purposes, inaccessible.30

The Army and, in an analogous manner all professions, 

must recreate their own expert knowledge by selecting 

from research and scholarship and then filtering those 

ideas through the sieve of battlefield experiences and 

other expert practices to arrive at understandings that 

can be considered doctrinal. Only then is new doctrine 

ready for dissemination to the troops.
21

To assist in that process, we offer the following 

five conclusions to focus the reflection and subsequent 

discussions within the officer corps and to assist the 

Army in the development of needed ethical doctrine.

1. The influences on the Army’s Ethic generated by 

the era of persistent conflict are largely unexplored and 

unanalyzed. This has been for some time essentially an 

unresearched field, yet one resting squarely within the 

moral-ethical domain of expert knowledge of the Army 

profession, an internal jurisdiction for which the Army 

alone is responsible. With the sole exception of the 

recently completed Study of the Human Dimension of Full 

Spectrum Operations (Training and Doctrine Command 

[TRADOC], 2008), this has been particularly true of 

research on the moral, versus the legal, components of 

the Ethic. Even the Army’s Federally Funded Research 

Center, RAND Arroyo, was apparently directed to omit 

any analysis of the moral aspects of Army leadership 

when studying the future leader competencies needed 

for full-spectrum operations.31 It is clear that continued 

reliance on the legal/codified portions of the Ethic can 

take the Army only so far in the development of its 

leaders, and thus in the effectiveness of its professional 

practice. More important in the new era will be the 

moral development of individual leaders to better deal 

with the increasing complexity of land combat “among 

the people,” coupled with the reduced clarity of effects 

and outcomes of leader/unit actions.

2. The legal components of the Army’s Ethic evolve 

by a process that is more pluralistic and external to the 

profession than do the moral components, which reside 

more exclusively within the Army’s jurisdictional 

control. In other words, the Army can make a lot more 

progress, and do so faster, if it focuses on the moral 

components of its Ethic and their assimilation by 
22

Army Soldiers and their leaders. Examples of the legal 

components include the recent changes in the legal 

codification of rules for incarceration and interrogation 

of enemy combatants. As to the moral components of 

the Ethic (determining, beyond what is legal, what the 

Army believes to be “right” as depicted in the right 

two quadrants of Figure 1), they can be changed by 

the strategic leaders of the Army profession without 

significant external interference, so long as the Army 

is viewed by the public and its civilian leaders as a 

profession and not just a governmental bureaucracy. 

Currently, the Army has immense latitude and 

autonomy to effect such changes.

3. Of course, as we discussed in Section I, for 

the Army’s Ethic to be viable and accepted, it must 

remain grounded on values that are fully supported 

by the American people and which, in turn, support 

an effective military profession. Thus, the Army must 

remain a values-based institution. But it is not clear 

that the Army currently espouses the right set of values 

that are sufficiently justified for deep legitimacy, 

particularly among budding junior professionals.32 For 

example, there is the prevailing absence of candor as an 

Army value, which junior professionals rightfully expect to be manifested by all ranks in the virtue of 

“speaking truth to power.” Nor, more importantly, is 

it clear that continued optimistic reliance on “values 

clarification” is the most effective method for the

profession to create an ethical culture and to 

morally develop its Soldiers and their leaders. As 

is noted in the literature of moral education in 

high schools and beyond, values clarification “has 

largely disappeared from the scene, in part due to

generally ineffective scientific evidence.”33 If this

 is true, then why is the Army still using this approach? 
23

What are the alternatives and how carefully has the 

Army recently investigated them?

Further, beyond the set of values and methodology 

the Army currently uses is the more fundamental 

question of what school(s) of philosophy underlie the 

Army’s Ethic and the pedagogy by which it will be 

taught, inculcated, and practiced. Is the Army’s Ethic 

really best thought of as “a set of deontic constraints 

applied to the fundamentally utilitarian imperative of 

“mission accomplishment?”34 Or better, what mixture 

of principle-based, utilitarian, and virtue ethics is to 

be taught to Army leaders in preparation for ethical 

decisionmaking?35 Is this foundation influenced in 

any way by the existence of the new era of persistent 

conflict? Again, much research is to be done, and 

urgently so! 

4. As has been noted many times in the past decade, 

both in internal Army studies and in external reviews, 

the Army does not have a single, internally consistent 

and holistic model of human development to use across 

its doctrines and schoolhouses.36 As depicted in Figure 

3, the “values to virtues” transition is a vast gap, for 

which there are, to be sure, isolated programs (e.g., 

leader mentorship as prescribed by FM 6-22). But there 

is no overall Army model of human development, and 

particularly of individual character or of the moral 

component. Thus, in particular, the Army simply 

cannot have internally a well-informed dialogue 

on how Soldiers and their leaders assimilate the 

profession’s Ethic and develop over time into leaders 

who are moral exemplars. This void in understanding 

the critical “values to virtues” developmental process 

must be corrected very early in any institutional 

effort to focus on the Ethic.37

In addition to lack of a model, the Army lacks an 

effectively communicable identity of an Army leader as 
24

a moral exemplar. Thus far “Warrior” has not worked 

effectively for individual moral development. This is a 

second void in the Army’s vital effort to “move” Soldiers 

from mere intellectual acceptance of a set of values to 

a personal lifestyle, a heart and soul embodiment of 

those values in everyday decisions and actions, which 

authentically “walks the talk.” Currently the Army 

relies on such statements as “living out the Army’s 

Seven Values in one’s life,” and offers in doctrinal 

manuals short vignettes of physically and morally 

courageous Soldiers, etc. While helpful to a degree, 

such an approach does not provide a specific moral 

identity according to which Soldiers and their leaders 

can develop themselves in the same sense as they do 

under the physical and military-technical identity 

of “Warrior.” Accession level leader development 

institutions (U.S. Military Academy, Reserve Officer 

Training Corps, etc.) historically have used the identity 

of a “leader of character,” which does move the 

discussion forward to what moral “character” is, then 

to its role in human decisionmaking and actions, and 

finally on to how those capacities are developed. This 

has allowed some consideration of newer paradigms of 

moral development such as self-awareness or human 

spirituality.38 But the larger Army profession has no 

such vision of the developmental end-state representing the personal identity of a morally exemplary Army 

leader. 

5. Lastly, discussion and analyses of the Army’s 

Ethic and its effective implementation are fraught with 

boundary issues of a type that often go unnoticed. The 

most basic boundary issue centers on the question of 

“ethic for whom?” If it is to be a “professional” ethic, 

then the boundary is established by who is certified 

as an “Army professional.” But the Army has not 

answered that question. Is it, then, to be one ethic for 
25

all—Soldiers, civilians, contractors, families? Or is the 

Army to have ethics by oath (those commissioned),

Figure 3. The Exemplary Leader.

by rank (e.g., the NCO Creed), by component (e.g., 

the Civilian Creed), or by branch (e.g., the “Cav” or 

Special Forces), etc. Obviously, the codified portions 

of the Ethic can be of assistance specifying as they do 

the specific applicability of each law. But the larger 

problem of boundaries for the application of the moral 

components of the Ethic remains open and must be 

addressed forthrightly in any effort to evolve a current 

and relevant Ethic, and then to instill it in the hearts, 

minds, and consciences of our Soldiers and their 

leaders.

We are confident that serious reflection and debate 

on the ideas and conclusions set forth in this monograph 

will help the Army to rethink its Ethic, its implementation as a means of social direction and control, and its 

role in maintaining the profession’s future effective-
26

ness. In the era of persistent conflict, Army leaders 

and their Soldiers will continue to conduct operations 

“among the people,” practicing the profession’s art by 

the repetitive use of their discretionary judgment. But 

is the Army preparing them as well as it can to manifest 

the Army’s Ethic while doing so? 

ENDNOTE

1. James Charlton, The Military Quotation Book, New York: St. 

Martin’s Press, 2002, p. 83.

2. To avoid confusion with the acronym PME, which in Army 

doctrine is the short form of Professional Military Education, we 

will capitalize Ethic when referring specifically to the totality of 

the Army’s professional military ethic.

3. For the role of a system of ethics in the performance of 

military professions, see Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the 

State, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap Press, 1957; and Andrew 

Abbott, “The Army and the Theory of Professions,” Chapter 24, in 

Don M. Snider and Lloyd J. Matthews, eds., The Future of the Army 

Profession, 1st Ed., New York: McGraw Hill, 2002, pp. 523-536.

4. The four domains of expert knowledge of military 

professions are: (1) the military-technical—how to conduct military operations, (2) the moral-ethical—how to conduct military 

operations rightly as the client expects, (3) the political-cultural—

how to operate in nonmilitary environments, and (4) the domain 

of human development—how to develop individual professionals 

capable to practice with the other three fields of abstract knowledge. 

See “The Army as Profession,” Chapter 1 in The Future of the Army 

Profession, 2d Ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005, pp. 3-38.

5. The other two are the maritime profession and the aerospace 

profession, entities roughly conterminous with the Departments 

of Navy and Air Force. There is also being observed now the 

emergence of a fourth military profession, the Joint Military 

Profession. See Don M. Snider and Jeffrey D. Peterson, “Defense 

Transformation and the Emergence of a New Joint Military 
27

Profession,” Chapter 10 in The Future of the Army Profession, 2d 

Ed., pp. 237-250.

6. See Gayle L. Watkins and Randi C. Cohen, “In their Own 

Words: Army Officers Discuss Their Profession,” in The Future of 

the Army Profession, 1st Ed., pp. 77-100. For an excellent discussion 

of the negative impact of that issue on the Army Officer Corps, 

see Mark Lewis, “Army Transformation and the Junior Officer 

Exodus,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 31, No. 1, Fall 2004, pp. 

63-74.

7. For a new effort, see TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-7, The U.S. 

Army Concept for the Human Dimension in Full Spectrum Operations, 

2015-2024, coordinating draft, April 18, 2008.

8. Portions of this section appeared earlier in Don M. Snider, 

“The Uninformed Debate on Military Culture,” ORBIS, Vol. 43, 

No. 1, Winter 1999, pp. 11-26.

9. Edgar H. Schein, “Organizational Culture,” American 

Psychologist, Vol. 45, No. 2, February 1990, pp. 109-119. 

10. See Walter F. Ulmer, Joseph J. Collins, and T. O. Jacobs, 

“Introduction” to American Military Culture in the 21st Century, 

Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

2000, pp. 3-4.

11. Ibid.

12. See Wiliam M. Hix and John D. Winkler, Assessment of 

OPMS XXI, a draft, annotated briefing prepared by Rand Arroyo 

for the U.S. Army, study AB-160-1-A, July 1997, copy in possession 

of Dr. Snider.

13. “Social trustee” professions are those which, on a trust 

basis, provide for the client (society) that which they cannot 

provide for themselves. The American people trust the Army to 

provide security to an otherwise defenseless nation. In fact, they 

trust it so much that they send their sons and daughters for service 

within it, with unlimited liability.

14. See Chapters 2-4 of Anthony E. Hartle, Moral Issues in 

Military Decision Making, University Press of Kansas, 1989.
28

15. See Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army Medical 

Command and Office of the Surgeon General, Multinational 

Force-Iraq, Mental Health Advisory Team (MHAT) IV Operation Iraqi 

Freedom 05-07, Final Report, November 17, 2006, accessed online 

September 5, 2008, at www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/

attack/consequences/2006/1117mhatreport.pdf.

16. This is also an argument for an ethos that emphasizes the 

role of individual character—good people instantiating the right 

traits to deal with the ambiguities and uncertainties of applying 

rules.

17. FM 3-0, Operations, Department of the Army, June 14, 2001, 

para. 4-18.

18. Ibid., February 27, 2008, para. 1-86 and 1-87.

19. Ibid., para 1-1. 

20. Ibid., Foreword.

21. Major Celistino Perez, Ph.D., former Assistant Professor, 

Department of Social Sciences, USMA, currently serving in Iraq, 

unpublished manuscript, “The Warrior Morality Embedded in 

FM 3-24: Counterinsurgency, undated.

22. FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, Headquarters, Department of 

the Army, December 2006, Foreword.

23. Gale Pollock, DoD News Briefing with Assistant Secretary 

Casscells from the Pentagon, Office of the Assistant Secretary for 

Defense (Public Affairs), News Transcript, May 4, 2007, accessed 

online on July 8, 2008, at www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.

aspx?transcriptid=3958. 

24. FM 3-24, para. 7-25.

25. FM 6-22, para. 1-6.

26. Ibid., para. 4-1.

27. Ibid., para. 4-55.
29

28. Each of the other three domains of the Army profession’s 

expert knowledge has recently received newly published doctrine: 

the “military-technical” domain has a new FM 3-0, Operations; the 

“political cultural” domain as the new FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency;

and the domain of “human development” has a new FM 6-22, 

Leadership. 

29. See, for just one example, Tony Pfaff, “Military Ethics in 

Complex Contingencies,” in Snider and Matthews, eds., The Future 

of the Army Profession, 2d Ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005, pp. 

409-429.

30. See Christopher R. Paparone and George Reed, “The 

Reflective Military Practitioner and How Military Professionals 

Think in Action,” Military Review, Vol. 88, No. 2, March/April 

2008, pp. 66-77.

31. See Henry A. Leonard et al., Something Old, Something New, 

Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2006.

32. For a critique of the core values approach, see Charles 

A. Pfaff, “Core Values: The Problems of Justification and 

Motivation,” paper presented at the 1999 JSCOPS Conference, 

accessed September 5, 2008, at www.usafa.edu/isme/JSCOPE99/

jscope99.html.

33. See Marvin W. Berkowitz, “The Science of Character 

Education,” in William Damon, ed., Bringing in a New Era of 

Character Education, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2002, p. 

56.

34. Major Charles Pfaff, “Teaching Military Ethics,” undated, 

unpublished manuscript prepared for instructors in the 

Department of English and Philosophy, USMA (in possession of 

Dr. Snider).

35. For a cogent argument for using multiple frameworks, see 

Sean T. Hannah and Patrick J. Sweeney, “Frameworks of Moral 

Development and the West Point Experience: Building Leaders 

of Character for the Army and the Nation,” Chapter 4 in Don M. 

Snider and Lloyd Matthews, eds., Forging the Warrior’s Character: 
30

Moral Precepts from the Cadet Prayer . . ., 2d Ed., New York: McGrawHill, 2008, pp. 65-89.

36. For the history of this study, see Joe LeBoeuf, “The Army 

Training and Leader Development Panel,” chapter 22 in The 

Future of the Army Profession, 1st Ed., 2002, pp. 487-504.

37. For a new attempt to fill this void, see the first six chapters 

of Forging the Warrior’s Character.

38. For a newly developed model of the role of human 

spirituality in the development of moral character, see Patrick J. 

Sweeney, Sean T. Hannah, and Don M. Snider, “The Domain of 

the Human Spirit,” Chapter 2 in Forging the Warrior’s Character, 

pp. 65-90.
31

Army Center for the

Professional Military Ethic

West Point serves as the Army Center of Excellence for 

the Professional Military Ethic (ACPME) and the Force 

Modernization Proponent to perform all doctrine, 

organization, training, materiel, leadership, education, 

personnel, and facilities (DOTMLPF) functions for the 

Army associated with the Professional Military Ethic 

(PME) and character development.

The mission of the ACPME is to increase Army-wide 

understanding, ownership, and sustain development 

of the Army’s Professional Military Ethic through 

research, education, and publication.

The ACPME’s four major objectives are:

• assess, study, and refine the PME of the force

• create and integrate PME knowledge

• accelerate PME development in individuals, 

units, and Army culture

• support the socialization of the PME across the 

Army culture and profession

http://acpme.army.mil