ABSTRACT
This entry describes the scholarly field of military ethics along three lines of inquiry. The first line describes just war theory, which provides the principal categories through which the ethical assessment of military operations occurs. The second line presents examples of ethical questions that have arisen in the wake of the United States’ twenty-first-century interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The third line of inquiry reviews current ways of thinking about the soldier's professional self-understanding and military ethics education. The entry's overall aim is to provide a sense of the range of topics that compose the contemporary study of military ethics.
