Military Medical Ethics in Contemporary Armed Conflict : Mobilizing Medicine in the Pursuit of Just War

Integrating the ethics of medicine and the ethics of war, Military Medical Ethics in Contemporary Armed Conflict offers theorists and practitioners, clinicians and commanders the tools they need to distribute scarce medical resources in wartime. Emphasizing that military medicine''s goal is to maintain unit readiness and the force capabilities necessary to wage just war, Michael L. Gross instructs readers on when and how compatriot and host nation war fighters, local civilians, detainees, and veterans should receive medical attention. Readers will see how medicine functions also as a weapon of war. To this end, military forces deploy medical care to win local hearts and minds and harness medical science to enhance war fighter capabilities.

Beleaguered countries struggling against aggression or powerful nations defending others from brutal regimes mobilize medicine to wage just war. As states funnel medical resources to maintain unit readiness and conserve military capabilities, numerous ethical challenges foreign to peacetime medicine result. Force conservation drives combat hospitals to prioritize warfighter care over all others. Civilians find themselves bereft of medical attention; prison officials force feed hunger-striking detainees; policymakers manage healthcare to win the hearts and minds of local nationals; and scientists develop neuro-technologies or nanosurgery to create super soldiers. When the fighting ends, intractable moral dilemmas rebound. Post-war justice demands enormous investments of time, resources and personnel. But losing interest and no longer zealous, war-weary nations forget their duties to rebuild ravaged countries abroad and rehabilitate their war-torn veterans at home. Addressing these incendiary issues, Military Medical Ethics in Contemporary Armed Conflict integrates the ethics of medicine and the ethics of war. Medical ethics in times of war is not identical to medical ethics in times of peace, but a unique discipline. Without war, there is no military medicine, and without just war there is no military medical ethics. Military Medical Ethics in Contemporary Armed Conflict revises, defends, and rebuts wartime medical practices, just as it lays the moral foundation for casualty care in future conflicts.