2018/06/11 by Brian Smith · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Health Professions · Social Sciences · #War, Ethics, and Justification #Health and Conflict Studies #Torture, Ethics, and Law
paper · doi:10.1163/24683302-03801004
openalex publication_date 2018/06/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
This article argues that the new war thesis has promulgated at least two dogmas that permeate present day military ethical discourse. First, since the early 20 th century, civilian casualties have gradually come to represent an increasing percentage of the overall casualties in warfare. The second dogma is that there has been an increase in ‘risk-transfer war’, which assumes that governments are more willing to risk the lives of noncombatants than the lives of their soldiers. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate why these empirical claims are problematic. First, we do not yet have the kind of reliable data that would allow us to make accurate claims about trends in civilian casualties. And secondly, a cursory glance at the history of warfare provides us with numerous examples of risk transfer.