The Real Costs of War

While Just War Theory is the best account of the morality of war, along with many others, the author does not believe that actual decisions by states to go to war are often, or at all, informed by such ethical considerations. A much more plausible view is given by the doctrine of realism, familiar in international relations. This chapter discusses realism as a basis for evaluating weapons research in wartime, and here the author refers to Clausewitz views of war and politics. His conclusion, in a nutshell, is that since states on this account are only concerned with their own interests, there can be no assurance that the products of weapons design will not be used for aggression.

Projectile Weapons

The author shows some examples in order to see how justifications can be constructed, and defeated. Projectile weapons belong to many different types or categories, and in this chapter, the author considers examples of artillery and infantry weapons. He includes among the former torsion artillery developed by the Greeks over two millennia ago. This interesting example shows that weapons design has a long history. He considers the development of the modern rifle, which had its genesis in the nineteenth century, and the modern assault rifle. In all of these cases, the weapons were produced at one time and place, in one context, and came to be used in future times and places which the weapons designers could not have known about. To mention one example here, the standard German infantry rifle of both world wars first came into production in 1898 as a result of work started 25 years before. This weapon was used to murder millions of civilians, including Jews, in the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945.

Purposes and Means

In this chapter, the author argues that the canonical description of a weapon is that it is the means to harm. And he argues that if it is wrong to harm, then it is wrong to provide the means to harm. This amounts to the first of two things that he needs to establish if he is to show that weapons design is morally wrong. The chapter includes a general taxonomy of the purposes of artefacts and this is used to show that the means to harm is indeed the canonical description of a weapon.

Weapons Design in Peacetime

In this chapter, the author revisits the other two justifications canvassed in Chapter 5: weapons design in peacetime done for the ends of defence and deterrence. In view of the previous chapters, it is by now easy to see that these justifications do not stand up to scrutiny. The author does, however, review and revisit both deterrence and defense to show that this is the case.

Weapons Design and Its Justification

This chapter introduces some key concepts and ideas that play an important role in the book. For instance, the concepts of weapons design and weapons research are introduced. The author outlines the (simple) moral system, basic morality, that he will use to make moral judgements about weapons design. And he gives the standard justification of weapons design, and all forms of defence spending, which he calls the standard justification. The aim of the book could be said to be the project of showing that this does not serve to justify weapons research and design.

Proportionality, Just War Theory, and Weapons Design

The author believes that the most plausible justification for weapons design amounts to the claim that it is needed for the prosecution of a just war. This chapter addresses this attempt and argues that it does not succeed. The reason why has to do directly with the general criterion that any justification must satisfy. It does so because a just war, according to Just War Theory, must be a proportionate response to aggression, and what this means is that the basic costs of the war—namely, the harms caused—must be seen to be proportionate to those mitigated. The author argues that when it comes to weapons design, this condition cannot be satisfied.

Nuclear Weapons

This chapter is also devoted to examples of weapons design, this time in regard to nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. The author begins, however, with a more detailed examination of deterrence, specifically nuclear deterrence. He discusses the Manhattan Project, the design of thermonuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles. Much of this is relatively familiar and he emphasises those episodes that are most relevant for present purposes. The main point is that (nearly) all of this work was done in the Cold War in an era of superpower confrontation. The Cold War is over, but the weapons remain.

Justification

At this stage, the author claims to have established that weapons designers are obliged to justify their work and do so with reference to the historical circumstances in which the products of this work are to be located. How are they to do this? This chapter addresses that general question. To this end, the idea of justification is elucidated, and then ways in which weapons designers can try to construct justifications are considered. Three candidates emerge to be examined in detail in the remaining chapters. However, a general criterion which any such justification must satisfy is identified, and in view of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of this being achieved, the author suggests that the prospects of justification seem remote.

Defence

The standard justification of weapons design was introduced in Chapter 1. Here, defence as a justification of weapons design is considered in terms of the notion of a defensive weapon, the idea being that the design of defensive weapons needs no (further) justification because (self-)defence is always morally permissible. The position is criticised. This entails a discussion of the idea of defence, of levels of defence, of defence and aggression, and of the idea that there can be weapons that cannot aid aggression. It is established that no weapons fall into the latter category and, hence, that justification of weapons design in terms of defence must make reference to the actual historical context in which its products are employed. The author calls this an historical justification.

Weapons Design and Development

The author looks at weapons design in more depth in this chapter and gives a definition. He discusses whether and in what sense weapons design and weapons research are applied science: the author advocates a wide view which allows weapons design to be based on systematic methods that are not necessarily applied science. He discusses the idea of design and the designer intention.