Ethics, Tecnologia & War - Ricerca sull'intelligenza artificiale specializzata al MIT

Ethics, Tecnologia & War

Scott D. Sagan

“All’s fair in love and war,” so the saying goes. Ma,

Ovviamente, we know that it’s not true. For we com-
monly judge and sometimes punish individuals, In
the arena of love, for infidelity, deceit, and crimes
of passion; and we commonly judge and sometimes
punish individuals, in the arena of combat, for acts
of aggression, rape and pillage in war, and crimes
against humanity. The intense pressure of compe-
tition, in both affairs of the heart and the crucible
of war, can help explain why unfair, even inhumane,
behavior is common, but it does not excuse it.

Several technological innovations and political de-
velopments are changing the nature of warfare today
in ways that pose complex challenges to the tradition-
al standards that we use, under the influence of inter-
national law and just war doctrine, to judge govern-
ments’ and individuals’ actions in war. New technol-
ogies–including the use of drones, precision-guided
weapons, cyber weapons, and autonomous robots–
have led both to optimism about the possibility of re-
ducing collateral damage in war and to concerns about
whether some states find it too easy to use force today.
New technologies also have been developed, howev-
er, that can provide early warning of civil conflict and
promote more effective peacekeeping operations. On
the political front, the growth of terrorism by nonstate
actors, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, E
changing doctrines in the United Nations about the
responsibility to protect civilians pose new questions
about the appropriate legal rules and ethical norms
governing decisions to use military force. Professional
military lawyers play an increasingly important role in
reviewing targeting policies and rules of engagement,

SCOTT D. SAGAN, a Fellow of the
American Academy since 2008, È
the Caroline S.G. Munro Profes-
sor of Political Science, the Mimi
and Peter Haas University Fellow
in Undergraduate Education, E
Senior Fellow at the Center for In-
ternational Security and Cooper-
ation and the Freeman Spogli In-
stitute at Stanford University. His
books include Moving Targets: Nu-
clear Weapons and National Security
(1989), The Limits of Safety: Organi-
zations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weap-
ons (1993), and The Spread of Nu-
clear Weapons: An Enduring Debate
(with Kenneth N. Waltz, 2012).
He leads the Academy’s project on
New Dilemmas in Ethics, Tech-
nology, and War.

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at least in the United States, to ensure that
military plans and operations are compliant
with the laws of armed conflict. War crimes
tribunals have grown in use, but raise new
questions about whether they encourage
ruthless leaders to fight to the finish rath-
er than accept resignation and exile. Nuovo
knowledge about post-conflict medical sys-
tem failures raises questions about both the
best practices to end wars and sustain peace
accords and about whether political lead-
ers systematically underestimate the costs
of going to war before they make decisions
about military interventions.

These are just a few of the emerging di-
lemmas that caused the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences to create a new initia-
tive on New Dilemmas in Ethics, Technol-
ogy, and War in 2014. Intellectual inquiry
on the relation between ethics and war is
certainly not new. The seminal work of Mi-
chael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (1977), Rif-
mains the classic investigation into just war
doctrine applied within the context of in-
terstate conflict during the Cold War, but it
is striking that there is no volume that has
successfully become the successor to Wal-
zer’s book.1 This failure is certainly not due
to lack of research and writing about ethics
and war. Infatti, there are lively and ongo-
ing debates concerning just war doctrine in
a number of academic disciplines and also
among policy-makers and policy analysts.
But these groups rarely speak to each other
and there is a growing gap between strong
scholarship regarding ethics and war and
policy-relevant work that can influence
government decisions and public debates.
Trends in universities prioritizing analyt-
ic philosophy in philosophy departments,
formal models and game theory in politi-
cal science departments, and social histo-
ry over military history in history depart-
ments have all contributed to the relative
neglect of the study of the evolution of just
war doctrine, international law, and appli-
cations to real world security problems.

The Academy project therefore gath-
ered together an interdisciplinary group
of scholars and practitioners–including
political scientists, philosophers, ethi-
cists, lawyers, physicians, historians, sol-
diers, and statesmen–for a series of small
workshops to discuss these issues and re-
view commissioned essays. The result is
both this Fall 2016 issue of Dædalus, “Eth-
ics, Tecnologia & War,” and a companion
volume, the Winter 2017 issue of Dædalus,
“The Changing Rules of War.” In both vol-
umes, scholars move across the three tradi-
tional categories of just war doctrine issues.
Contemporary scholars too often contin-
ue to approach ethical and legal questions
arising from wars according to the catego-
rization of jus ad bellum (rules governing
when to go to war), jus in bello (rules govern-
ing behavior in combat), and jus post bellum
(rules governing appropriate actions after
war). Yet significant changes in both mil-
itary postures and political developments
require a reconsideration of such catego-
ries. Rather than understanding the link-
age among these categories in a linear con-
tinuum–from prewar to conflict and then
to postwar decisions–our authors explore
the ways in which these categories should
be seen in a circular relationship, Dove-
in the conditions that influence and affect
military decisions in one of them ultimate-
ly reflect and influence the others.

Incentives to improve national security
and win conflicts have often led to the de-
velopment and use of new and more de-
structive technologies of war. And yet, es-
pecially since World War II, very strong
incentives have also existed to prohibit ag-
gression and promote self-defense, to en-
courage legal and moral constraints on vi-
olence in war to protect noncombatants,
and to punish soldiers and political lead-
ers whose actions are judged to be war
crimes. The United Nations Charter in
1945, IL 1949 Geneva Conventions, E
the Geneva Protocols of 1977 created legal

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145 (4) Fall 2016Scott D. Sagan

institutions to interpret and promote tra-
ditional just war principles such as non-
aggression, protection of prisoners, pro-
portionality, and noncombatant immuni-
ty. The collective set of such agreements,
along with customary international law,
form the laws of armed conflict and inter-
national humanitarian law. Like all laws, Di
course, the laws of war are not always fol-
lowed. And like all ethical principles, just
war principles are often violated. But the
promotion of these principles and the de-
velopment of the institutions to enforce
them were strong enough that Walzer, In
an important 2002 article, declared that
there had been a “triumph of just war theo-
ry,” although he rightly also warned about
“the dangers of success.”2

Among these dangers of success are
overconfidence, complacency, and a fail-
ure to understand that new technologies
can create new dilemmas regarding ethics
and war. Each generation faces new chal-
lenges. This issue of Dædalus addresses
how new technologies and political con-
ditions create both challenges and oppor-
tunities in the prevention of war and con-
straint of violence within war.

The issue begins with three essays as-
sessing how specific emerging military
technologies are influencing current and
potential operations in war. Michael Wal-
zer examines targeted killing and the use
of unmanned aerial vehicles (uavs), more
colloquially known as drones. Drones pro-
vide the opportunity for more discrimi-
nate use of military force against targets,
but can also provide a temptation to use
military force more often or in more plac-
es than would otherwise be the case. Wal-
zer explores both the benefits and the dan-
gers of drones from a just war theory per-
spective. Michael Horowitz then examines
the ethical implications of a set of military
technologies that are just beginning to enter
into the arsenals of advanced states: auton-
omous weapons and the use of robots that

can replace human decision-making and
soldiers in combat. Horowitz asks wheth-
er human accountability and responsibili-
ty will be possible with autonomous weap-
ons and reviews the emerging debate about
this potential revolution in military tech-
nology. David Fidler’s essay focuses on cy-
ber warfare, cyber espionage, and cyber
coercion. To what degree does the devel-
opment of offensive and defensive cyber ca-
pabilities by many militaries and nonstate
actors around the globe challenge the prin-
ciples of just war doctrine and the laws of
armed conflict?

Two essays focus on an older military
technology that has produced what are
still the most destructive weapons known
to mankind: nuclear weapons. General C.
Robert Kehler, former commander of U.S.
Strategic Command, provides an insider’s
look at nuclear targeting, the requirements
of deterrence, and the ethical and legal con-
siderations that can influence military plan-
ning and implementation. Jeffrey G. Lew-
is and I then examine the consequences of
a potential change in the existing presiden-
tial guidance given to the U.S. military. A
what degree would a U.S. commitment to a
new war planning requirement–that U.S.
nuclear weapons only be aimed against le-
gitimate military targets that cannot be de-
stroyed with reasonable prospect of success
by conventional weapons–reduce civil-
ian fatalities in a nuclear conflict, produce
stronger adherence to the laws of armed
conflict, and impact the credibility of de-
terrence?

Military technology is not developed
in a political vacuum. And military tech-
nology development does not always
lead to more destructive weaponry. One
of the most important global political
developments in recent years has been
the rise of and the challenges to the re-
sponsibility to protect (r2p) doctrine.
Al 2005 United Nations World Sum-
mit, the heads of states accepted a collec-

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesEthics, Tecnologia & War

tive responsibility to respond effectively
if any government failed to protect its
own people from the horrors of genocide,
ethnic cleansing, large-scale war crimes,
or other crimes against humanity. Jenni-
fer Welsh examines the current standing
and future trajectory of the responsibili-
ty to protect doctrine, which has been se-
verely challenged by such events as the
collapse of the Libyan state into chaos af-
ter the 2011 nato-led military interven-
zione, on humanitarian grounds, against the
Gaddafi government, and the Syrian civ-
il war, which began soon thereafter. Lloyd
Axworthy, the former foreign minister of
Canada, e A. Walter Dorn then explore
the potential positive effects of technologi-
cal developments–such as improved algo-
rithmic forensic data analysis and auton-
omous surveillance vehicles–on peace-
keeping operations, humanitarian crisis
prevention, and post-conflict reconstruc-
zione. What are the ethical and legal respon-
sibilities for state leaders and civil society
to develop and use such technologies to re-
duce the risk of conflict and to protect lives
in civil wars? Jennifer Leaning provides a
different perspective, as a medical doctor
with many years of experience in war-torn
societies, examining the degree to which
new information technologies and ana-
lytic capabilities provide adequate early
warning of mass atrocities against civil-
ians appearing over the horizon. Leaning
addresses how improved technology can
impact the challenge of early warning and
risposta, focusing on whether the just war
principle of “last resort,” which requires
restraint from military action until all rea-
sonable means of peaceful settlement are
exhausted, can be met with new warning
mechanisms.

The volume ends with two essays that
focus our attention on broader trends in
violence, both inside states and between
stati. Keith Krause notes that most dis-
cussions of just war doctrine and interna-

tional law focus primarily on interstate war
(and to a lesser extent on civil wars), Ma
that much of the violence in the world to-
day takes place outside of conflict zones and
inside states that are not engaged in orga-
nized war. Krause challenges us to focus on
how the erosion of the state’s practical mo-
nopoly over the use of violence and the pro-
liferation of more powerful and sophisti-
cated weapons into the hands of nonstate
armed actors requires new thinking about
how to prevent not only war, but also vi-
olence against noncombatants outside of
warzones. Finalmente, Benjamin Valentino ex-
amines the shifts over time in American
public opinion regarding the use of mil-
itary force, especially regarding military
operations that kill civilians directly as de-
liberate targets, or indirectly as collateral
damage from an attack on a military tar-
Ottenere. Are the historical trends in both the
conduct of war and public attitudes about
killing civilians best explained as the result
of changing ethical norms, changing ideas
about how best to win wars, or changing
strategic conditions in the wars the Unit-
ed States has fought?

Let me conclude with a brief explana-
tion of the choice of photographs that ap-
pear on the inside front and back covers of
this Dædalus issue. The front inside cov-
er is a picture of Prime Minister Shinzō
Abe with President Barak Obama during
his historic visit to Hiroshima on May 27,
2016. In his speech, Obama declared: “Hi-
roshima teaches this truth. Technological
progress without an equivalent progress in
human institutions can doom us. The sci-
entific revolution that led to the splitting
of an atom requires a moral revolution as
well.”3 The laws of armed conflict and in-
ternational humanitarian law are imper-
fect, but still evolving, human institutions.
Obama’s speech reminds us that modern
technological innovation has put such
destructive power into the hands of man-
kind that our very existence as a species is

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145 (4) Fall 2016Scott D. Sagan

at risk; and he called for a “moral awaken-
ing” to strengthen the constraints we place
on warfare in the future.

The photograph on the back inside cover
is of nine-year-old Nabila Rehman, testify-
ing to Congress in October 2013 and show-
ing her drawing of the U.S. drone strike that
killed her grandmother the year before.4
In May 2013, President Obama signed a
new Presidential Policy Guidance to set
rules on when and where the U.S. military
and intelligence agencies would conduct
drone strikes. Obama then announced that
“America does not take strikes to punish
individuals; we act against terrorists who
pose a continuing and imminent threat to
the American people, and when there are
no other governments capable of effective-
ly addressing the threat. And before any

strike is taken, there must be near-cer-
tainty that no civilians will be killed or
injured.”5 Still, secondo 2016 official
NOI. government estimates (estimates
that have been challenged by many as be-
ing too low), NOI. drone attacks have killed
Di 2,500 members of terrorist organi-
zations, but also caused between sixty-
four and one hundred civilian fatalities
through accidental targeting or collater-
al damage between 2009 E 2015.6 Questo
photograph of the granddaughter of one
of those civilian victims should remind
us that even when weaponry is developed
that provides a greater ability for discrim-
ination, permitting direct attacks on mil-
itary targets with lower yield explosives,
noncombatant collateral deaths cannot be
entirely eliminated.

endnotes

Author’s Note: This special issue of Dædalus (and the one that follows in winter 2017) would
not have been possible without the assistance of many people and organizations. I thank Amy
Zegart and David Relman at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford
University and Graham Parsons at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Each
institution hosted an authors’ workshop that allowed for rigorous peer reviews of the essays
and ensured intellectual coherence to both collections. I also thank Sarah Sadlier, who took
notes and provided commentary on the discussion at the Stanford workshop. I am grateful
to the many Stanford and West Point faculty members, and practitioners from international
organizations, who attended our authors’ workshops as discussants and provided thought-
ful and thorough reviews of the essays for the benefit of the authors. I want to acknowledge
Natasha Trethewey and Phil Klay who conveyed in poetry and prose the many facets of vi-
olence and participated in one of our most successful public events for this project. Nell'annuncio-
dizione, I want to thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Humanity
United for supporting our work on New Dilemmas in Ethics, Tecnologia, and War. Al
American Academy, Jonathan Fanton provided both strong leadership support and substan-
tive content to the project, Francesca Giovannini was an inspiring and insightful program
director, and Kathryn Moffat provided strong administrative support. Finalmente, I am grateful
to the authors for providing their insights about and analyses of the many ethical dilemmas
posed by rapid changes in technology and warfare.

1 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 5th ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2015).
2 See Michael Walzer, Arguing about War (Nuovo paradiso & London: Stampa dell'Università di Yale, 2008),
3–22. On the development and influence of the laws of armed conflict on the U.S. military,
see John Fabian Witt, Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History (New York: Free Press,
2012).

3 “Text of President Obama’s Speech in Hiroshima, Japan," Il New York Times, May 27, 2016, http://
www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/world/asia/text-of-president-obamas-speech-in-hiroshima
-japan.html?_r=0.

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesEthics, Tecnologia & War

4 Amnesty International, “Will I Be Next? NOI. Drone Strikes in Pakistan,"Ottobre 22, 2013, http://
www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/asa330132013en.pdf; and Karen McVeigh, “Drone
Strikes: Tears in Congress as Pakistani Family Tells of Mother’s Death,” The Guardian, Octo-
ber 29, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/29/pakistan-family-drone-victim
-testimony-congress.

5 The White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Remarks by the President at the National De-
fense University,” May 23, 2013, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/
remarks-president-national-defense-university.

6 Charlie Savage and Scott Shane, “U.S. Reveals Death Toll from Airstrikes Outside War Zones,"
The New York Times, Luglio 1, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/world/us-reveals
-death-toll-from-airstrikes-outside-of-war-zones.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=1.

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145 (4) Fall 2016Scott D. Sagan
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