Executive summary

Joint Force Quarterly, July, 2009 by D.H. Gurney

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

I say it often, but it bears repeating here: in Afghanistan, the people are the center of gravity in this struggle. We know that. This whole effort is about them and their security. At the center of it all, what it really all comes down to is trust.

--ADM Michael G. Mullen

In this issue, Joint Force Quarterly explores the very foundations of military art and science: ethics and law. The readers of JFQ know better than any how fundamental these disciplines are to leadership and the exercise of force on behalf of a nation. The profession of arms is a unique calling that precipitates and even necessitates a complex, structured subculture. Service to the Nation via an oath to defend the Constitution is not a right of citizenship; it is a privilege for which one must qualify to obtain and compete to maintain. Those citizens who pass muster are developed to exercise the authority of the state to arrest, detain, and kill with equipment as rudimentary as a knife and as sophisticated as nuclear weapons. With great power comes great responsibility, and these authorities are structured and channeled by ethical standards and codes of conduct crafted to preserve the rule of law.

The Forum begins with the candid views of this journal's publisher, Admiral Mike Mullen. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff naturally takes a special interest in the institutional ethics of the Armed Forces, and he is especially concerned with the challenges presented by hybrid conflicts where securing legitimacy in the eyes of the local population is essential. JFQ visited Admiral Mullen in his Pentagon office on April 30, 2009, and the 10 questions he fielded all bear on contemporary issues of ethics and law.

The second offering is a short essay from the Institute for National Security Ethics and Leadership. In it, General Richard Myers and Dr. Albert Pierce identify the traits of strategic leaders and outline the challenges to be overcome in the exercise of strategic leadership.

The third Forum installment comes from the Chief of Staff of the Army, General George Casey. Recognizing that "Army culture and institutions are not keeping pace with what is happening on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan," he has chartered an ethics institution to address the demands of persistent complex conflict. The Army Center of Excellence for the Professional Military Ethic (ACPME) was established in October 2007 to see after three primary missions. The first is to assess, study, and refine the professional military ethic of the Army; the second is to create and integrate knowledge about this ethic; and the final mission is to transform attitudes and promote sensitivity to the nuances of operating among indigenous populations. ACPME is located at West Point, but the effort is ambitiously aimed Army-wide.

In our fourth Forum essay, Lieutenant General George Flynn speaks to a work that shall always be in progress as cultural change meets the immutable nature of war. This essay details how the U.S. Marine Corps is working to ensure that the greatest loyalty of Marines is to the Constitution and the principles that undergird it. The author posits that irregular warfare places an increased premium on values and supports this claim by reporting the results of the Army's Mental Health Assessment Team. Because it is impossible to predict ethics failures on the basis of any measurable performance standard, the Marine Corps has implemented a "coordinated continuous effort that must progress throughout a Marine's service."

The fifth essay takes us to an area of research that is long overdue in JFQ. Chaplains John Brinsfield and Eric Wester speak to the traditional role of clergy in ethical leadership and connect the dots to post-9/11 operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. military personnel are serving amid cultures that "do not separate religion, politics, and ethical norms," and chaplain involvement in "Track Two Diplomacy," recognized in Joint Publication 1-05, adds another dimension of support to military objectives. The activities of chaplains, however, can produce unintended consequences and always require commander direction.

The Forum concludes with an interesting article on the ethics of intelligence. After a historical survey, Professor William Nolte notes several basic reasons why intelligence must be bound by an ethical framework. This concept is by no means a traditional one. Congressional oversight of a powerful, secret, and permanent array of intelligence services within the framework of our constitutionally based republic has an even shorter history. As former Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden asserted, American intelligence "must operate in the space permitted by the American people." Read this article; it will make you think.

In developing the essays in our Forum and Special Feature sections, the editor drew upon the offices of three noted leaders and scholars. For the essays on ethics, JFQ wishes to acknowledge Dr. Al Pierce and the former publisher of this journal, General Dick Myers (see sidebar). For legal advice, JFQ is indebted to the National War College's Professor Harvey Rishikof. Since its inception in 1993, this journal has benefitted from the generous support of the world-class faculty within National Defense University's colleges and research centers, to whom JFQ owes more than can be repaid.