New Book: Redefining the Modern Military by Finney & Mayfield
[Mark Safranski / “zen“]
Friend of ZP, Nathan K. Finney who with Tyrell O. Mayfield are among the co-founders of the excellent The Strategy Bridge blog, have edited an important compilation entitled Redefining the Modern Military: The Intersection of Profession and Ethics (due out October 2018). From Finney and Mayfield:
Major Nathan Finney (USA) and Lt Col Tyrell Mayfield are founding members of The Strategy Bridge, an online professional journal for national security, strategy, and military affairs. The Strategy Bridge is in its fourth year of publication and has since incorporated as a 501c3 Non-Profit. Multiple The Strategy Bridge articles have appeared in PME curriculum.
In 2015 The Strategy Bridge ran a series on Profession and Ethics. Nate and Ty took 12 of the articles and worked with the contributors to expand them to chapters, and then edited the work into a book. The book, entitled Redefining the Modern Military: The Intersection of Profession and Ethics, will be published by US Naval Institute Press with a release date of 15 October 2018.
Gen (Ret) Martin Dempsey wrote the forward for the book, and it has been endorsed by Gen McChrystal, Admiral Stavridis, RADM Peg Klein, USN (Ret) former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Military Professionalism, LTG Robert Caslen, USMA Superintendent, MAJGEN Mick Ryan, Commander of the Australian Defence College, and others.
Summary:
This edited collection will expand upon and refine the ideas on the role of ethics and the profession in the 21st Century. The authors delve into whether Samuel Huntington and Morris Janowitz still ring true in the 21st century; whether training and continuing education play a role in defining a profession; and if there is a universal code of ethics required for the military as a profession.
Redefining the Modern Military is unique in how it treats the subject of ethics and the military profession, as well as the types of writers it brings on board to address this topic. The book puts a significant emphasis on individual agency for military professionalism as opposed to broad organizational or cultural change. Such a review of these topics is necessary because the process of serious, intellectual self-reflection is a requirement–especially in a profession that involves life and death of people and nations.
Pre-Order now here.
May 29th, 2018 at 12:37 pm
The professionalism and ethics now in practice among American officers is that of Guderian and Rommel. It is a narrow focus on tactical matters without any regard to any moral or ethical concerns. The US drone campaign and its proliferation of pointless and actually illegal wars are cases in point.
May 29th, 2018 at 6:36 pm
The American officer corps has a historical tendency to focus on tactical and to an extent operational matters to the exclusion of other important professional subjects. Not really seeing the moral difference between a rifle bullet or a plane fired missile and a drone though.