Moral Rearmament

The chief of the British general staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has written a foreword to a collection of essays on the tradition of "just war", in which he reveals that the "key challenge" for the military leadership is to educate ground-level troops about their moral responsibilities. The American military came up with a similar public relations effort some months ago; but of course this is not the only advantage. "The swords have not become ploughshares but in an innovative way more akin to pruning hooks," Sir Richard says. The pruning hooks "are being used to try to contribute to prosperity and stability and not merely to threaten or destroy"; apparently it is inconceivable to Sir Richard that the prosperity and stability of some persons might be eminently compatible with, or might even depend upon, the threatening and destruction of others. Anyway, when politicians decide to "send a military force on a discretionary intervention there is a conscious or subconscious acceptance that in deploying to a less fortunate part of the world, we do so having publicly adopted a position on the moral high ground," something that does not happen in real wars, and certainly not in those conducted by foreigners. Hence, "when officers or soldiers act in a way contrary to our traditional values and standards and fail to respect the human rights of those they have gone to help, then we risk falling from the high ground to the valley, often in a very public way." As we know, abuse of human rights by those with different traditions to our own projects the perpetrators instantly into the abyss; we ourselves, thanks to our values and standards, merely risk an embarrassing descent. Sir Richard helpfully provides a list of the said values: "selfless commitment, ... discipline, ... loyalty and respect for others" or, as they used to be called, "obeying orders"; and "courage" and "integrity" insofar as these are compatible with the foregoing. Since every war is a just war to those who start it, and every army in history has boasted of the self-same traditional values and standards before, during and after the butchery it was paid to perform, it is a little hard to see what difference will be made by a few ethical pep-talks in the New Labour style.