This book examines emerging defense technologies such as directed energy weapons, nanotech devices, and bioscience applications that have the potential to dominate international relations in the future, just as nuclear weapons and space infrastructure-assisted conventional weapons do now. Emerging Military Technologies: A Guide to the Issues examines the potential of the United States to bring new technologies to deployment in the service of America's security and defense. The work also discusses how other international actors may regard the United States' investment in these high-tech capabilities, identifying possible resultant counter actions, and presents several divergent viewpoints on what the future may bring. The book thoroughly explores three general categories of emerging technologies: autonomous computers, nanotechnology and biotechnology, and the interrelated topics of directed energy weapons and ubiquitous space access. Security studies expert Wilson W.S. Wong balances coverage of today's cutting-edge science and engineering with treatment of real-world concerns of effectiveness, military ethics, and international relations in the 21st century. An invaluable resource for members of the military and intelligence communities, this book also provides general readers with an accessible introduction to these highly technical topics.

In this volume, internationally renowned researchers attempt to address the fundamental and applied ethical and legal problems posed by emerging military technologies and present their insights.

This book addresses issues of legal and moral governance arising in the development, deployment, and eventual uses of emerging technologies in military operations. Proverbial wisdom has it that law and morality always lag behind technological innovation. Hence, the book aims to identify, enumerate, and constructively address the problems of adequate governance for the development, deployment, and eventual uses of military technologies that have been newly introduced into military operations or which will be available in the near future. Proposals for modifications in governance, the book argues, closely track the anxieties of many critics of these technologies to the extent that they will proliferate, prove destructive in unanticipated ways, and partially or wholly escape regulation under current treaties and regulatory regimes. In addition to such concerns in domestic and especially in international law, the book addresses ethical norms in the professions involved in the design and eventual use of specific technologies, principally involving the professional norms of practice in engineering and the military (as well as biomedical and health care practice), which impose moral obligations on their members to avoid reckless endangerment or criminal negligence in the course of their activities. Thus, in addition to exploring the application of existing legal regimes and moral norms, the book examines how these professions might develop or improve the voluntary constraints on forms of malfeasance that are enshrined in their histories and codes of best practices. This book should prove of great interest to students of ethics, military studies, philosophy of war and peace, law, and international relations.

The essays in this volume illustrate the difficult real world ethical questions and issues arising from accelerating technological change in the military and security domains, and place those challenges in the context of rapidly shifting geopolitical and strategic frameworks. Specific technologies such as autonomous robotic systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, cybersecurity and cyberconflict, and biotechnology are highlighted, but the essays are chosen so that the broader implications of fundamental systemic change are identified and addressed. Additionally, an important consideration with many of these technologies is that even if they are initially designed and intended for military or security applications, they inevitably spread to civil society, where their application may raise very different ethical questions around such core values as privacy, security from criminal behaviour, and state police power. Accordingly, this volume is of interest to students of military or security domains, as well as to those interested in technology and society, and the philosophy of technology.

This volume looks at current and emerging technologies of war and some of the ethical issues surrounding their use. Although the nature and politics of war never change, the weapons and technologies used in war do change and are always undergoing development. Because of that, the arsenal of weapons for twenty-first century conflict is different from previous centuries. Weapons in today’s world include an array of instruments of war that include, robotics, cyber war capabilities, human performance enhancement for warriors, and the proliferation of an entire spectrum of unmanned weapons systems and platforms. Tactical weapons now have the potential of strategic results and have changed the understanding of the battle space creating ethical, legal, and political issues unknown in the pre-9/11 world. What do these technologies mean for things such as contemporary international relations, the just-war tradition, and civil-military relations? Directed at readers in the academic, scientific, military, and public policy communities, this volume offers current thought on ethics and emerging technologies from internationally-recognized scholars addressing the full spectrum of issues in present warfare technology. It includes current and ongoing topics of multi-discipline and international interest, such as ethics, law, international relations, war studies, public policy, science and technology. This book was originally published in various issues and volumes of the Journal of Military Ethics.

Governing Military Technologies in the 21st Century is one of the first books to tackle the big five technological threats all in one place: nanotech, robotics, cyberwar, human enhancement, and, non-lethal weapons, weaving a historical, legal, and sociopolitical fabric into a discussion of their development, deployment, and, potential regulation.

Which citizens have fought America's wars? Which ones should fight in the future, and how should they be recruited? Should military or other national service be an obligation for every citizen? David Segal's probing look at the complex issues behind these questions tells us much about the changing manpower needs of our armed forces and about the evolution of civil-military relations in the United States. Segal analyzes the mobilization, contributions, and limitations of drafted, reservist, and volunteer forces from the early days of the republic to the present. In the process, he shows how Americans have come to separate the benefits of citizenship from service to their country. Symptomatic of this separation is the current reliance on an all-volunteer military, a system that treats military service more as an occupation and opportunity for self-advancement than as a civic duty and obligation. Drawing on a vast interdisciplinary literature in American history, sociology, political science, and economics, Segal illuminates the ways demographics, weapons technology, international relations, scientific management, and social policies have all affected the composition of America's armed forces. He also shows how the military anticipated and expanded the American welfare system and played a pivotal role in creating better opportunities for minorities and women. The capabilities and performance of U.S. armed forces in future conflicts will depend on a thorough understanding of and informed response to the crucial manpower issues Segal discusses. His thoughtful study should be required reading for military professionals and policymakers and will be of interest to anyone concerned about the future of this country's armed forces.

Analysis of the central role of militarization in the devel opment of state, society and economy in the U.S.S.R. between the end of the "New Economic Plan" in 1926 and the conclusion of the first "Five-Year Plan" in 1933.