TY - JOUR
T1 - ‘Dying Was Never a Preference’–Post-War Ethical Discourse (PWED)
T2 - Casualty Aversion and the War Legitimizing Projects
AU - Bigman, Akiva
AU - Lebel, Udi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Modern case studies are presented to show how the idea of war in Western societies is legitimized through an ethical script by which war and warfare result in few losses to both sides. A Post-War Ethical Discourse model is used to describe the prevalent postwar condition of casualty aversion, by which modern leaderships attempt to convince the public of the need to justify the idea of military empowerment and to legitimize the idea of war, through technological revolutions and doctrines aimed at assuring that the next war will be more precise and more ethical, distancing soldiers from the battle field and thereby resulting in less casualties to both sides. The paper illustrates this condition by analyzing events that took place after World War 1, World War 2 and the Vietnam War, as well as an Israeli case study.
AB - Modern case studies are presented to show how the idea of war in Western societies is legitimized through an ethical script by which war and warfare result in few losses to both sides. A Post-War Ethical Discourse model is used to describe the prevalent postwar condition of casualty aversion, by which modern leaderships attempt to convince the public of the need to justify the idea of military empowerment and to legitimize the idea of war, through technological revolutions and doctrines aimed at assuring that the next war will be more precise and more ethical, distancing soldiers from the battle field and thereby resulting in less casualties to both sides. The paper illustrates this condition by analyzing events that took place after World War 1, World War 2 and the Vietnam War, as well as an Israeli case study.
KW - Military ethical communities
KW - casualty aversion
KW - legitimacy crisis
KW - normative ethics
KW - policy narrative
KW - post-war ethical discourse
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85158095201&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17419166.2023.2210469
DO - 10.1080/17419166.2023.2210469
M3 - ???researchoutput.researchoutputtypes.contributiontojournal.article???
AN - SCOPUS:85158095201
SN - 1741-9166
VL - 19
SP - 161
EP - 182
JO - Democracy and Security
JF - Democracy and Security
IS - 2
ER -
