Military Medical Ethics in Contemporary Armed Conflict Mobilizing Medicine in the Pursuit of Just War

Beleaguered countries struggling against aggression or powerful nations defending others from brutal regimes mobilize medicine to wage just war. As states funnel medical resources to maintain unit readiness and conserve military capabilities, numerous ethical challenges foreign to peacetime medicine result. Force conservation drives combat hospitals to prioritize warfighter care over all others. Civilians find themselves bereft of medical attention; prison officials force feed hunger-striking detainees; policymakers manage healthcare to win the hearts and minds of local nationals; and scientists develop neuro-technologies or nanosurgery to create super soldiers.

When the fighting ends, intractable moral dilemmas rebound. Post-war justice demands enormous investments of time, resources and personnel. But losing interest and no longer zealous, war-weary nations forget their duties to rebuild ravaged countries abroad and rehabilitate their war-torn veterans at home.

Addressing these incendiary issues, Military Medical Ethics in Contemporary Armed Conflict integrates the ethics of medicine and the ethics of war. Medical ethics in times of war is not identical to medical ethics in times of peace, but a unique discipline. Without war, there is no military medicine, and without just war there is no military medical ethics. Military Medical Ethics in Contemporary Armed Conflict revises, defends, and rebuts wartime medical practices, just as it lays the moral foundation for casualty care in future conflicts.

Michael L. Gross is Professor of Political Science and past Head of the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa, Israel. He has published widely in medical ethics, military ethics, military medical ethics, and related questions of medicine and national security. His articles have appeared in numerous prominent journals, and his books include Ethics and Activism (Cambridge University Press, 1997), Bioethics and Armed Conflict (MIT Press, 2006), Moral Dilemmas of Modern War (Cambridge University Press, 2010); The Ethics of Insurgency (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and two edited volumes, Military Medical Ethics for the 21st Century (Routledge, 2013) and Soft War (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Gross has been a visiting fellow at The University of Chicago, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics and the European University Institute, Department of Political and Social Sciences in Florence, Italy. He has led workshops and lectured on battlefield ethics, medicine, and national security for the Dutch Ministry of Defense, The US Army Medical Department at Walter Reed Medical Center, The US Naval Academy, The US Naval War College, The UK Defense Medical Services, the Medical Corps and National Security College of the Israel Defense Forces and the International Committee of Military Medicine (ICMM).

Introduction
Part I: THEORY: Military Medical Ethics and Just War
Chapter 1: The Principles of Military Medical Ethics
Chapter 2: Patient Rights and Practitioner Duties
Chapter 3: Moral Reasoning in Military Medical Ethics

Part II: ON THE BATTLEFIELD: Caring for the Wounded of War
Chapter 4: Military Medicine in Contemporary Armed Conflict: Iraq and Afghanistan Revisited
Chapter 5: Combat Casualty Care
Chapter 6: Detainees and Prisoners of War
Chapter 7: Care and Compensation for Civilian Victims of War

Part III: OFF THE BATTLEFIELD: Medicine as Weapon of War
Chapter 8: Military Medical Research and Experimentation
Chapter 9: Warfighter Enhancement: Research and Technology
Chapter 10: Medical Diplomacy and the Battle for Hearts and Minds

Part IV: AFTERWAR: Post-War Justice and the Responsibility to Rebuild
Chapter 11: Post-War Health Reconstruction
Chapter 12: Veteran Healthcare
Conclusion: Military Medical Ethics and Just War: The 21st Century