ABSTRACT

Generally speaking, when one talks about weapon systems and ethics, the conversation is about the weapons’ use in combat and whether such use is morally justified and adheres to the laws of war. To be sure, history is replete with issues of inhumane weapons, some of which ultimately came to be banned or considered unacceptable for use by civilized nations. Chemical and biological weapons, nuclear weapons, and land mines are but a few examples. Debates about potential employment of certain weapons should obviously occur well before such weapons are even built. What I wish to discuss in this chapter, however, are some of the less frequently discussed, but very important, ethical issues encountered in the actual process of acquiring weapons, after the decision process about the moral propriety of their potential operational use has already been evaluated. The manufacture and sale of arms is an important component of national identities, as well as national economies, and it is also the source of a great deal of morally questionable behavior. Scandals, and the questionable ethics that underlie them, have erupted regularly in the weapons procurement business. I begin by reviewing some of these regrettable events, and then proceed to analyze the weapons procurement process to identify where things can go wrong.