Ethics & the End of the Cold War

Disclaimer:  All of this is purely my opinion.  I am aware that I am oversimplifying some of the moral positions of the Cold War and War on Terror.  Let’s be honest, most people function from oversimplifications and generalities.  Because that’s how people function, I think my questions are legitimate.

"We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner." – Omar Bradley

I have recently spent a great deal of time with the newest lieutenants in the Army.  They are in their final training before beginning their military careers.  Most are in their early twenties.  The Soviet Union broke apart the year many of our current students were born.  I can’t help but wonder what this might mean for how they understand ethics and geopolitics.  I was a child at the end of the cold war, and missed most of the bomb drills in schools and the fear of nuclear holocaust that those who grew up in the 50s & 60s might have seen.  I saw fallout shelter signs on the YMCA building.  When my friends and I played army, we were always fighting WWIII against the Soviet Union.  I saw all of the 80s movies where good defeated evil embodied by the US and USSR. As a child we knew that that both nations had the capacity to destroy life as the world knew it.  I was too young to find it frightening, but there always felt like the conflict was one with a clear, moral right and wrong.

I point this out because General Bradley’s comment called for people to step back and ask ethical questions.  He saw a society losing contact with his moral foundations with possibly disastrous consequences for all of mankind.  The new officers entering today’s military have no memory of this period in history.  They don’t remember having a clearly defined enemy that is “evil.”  What they are intimately acquainted with is the war on “terror.”  Terror is not a clearly defined enemy.  It’s fighting a concept.  It requires adaptability and flexibility by our armed forces, which they excel in performing. 

My question is what impact does this have on the ethical development of our future leaders?  We fight an enemy that requires different tactics in different settings.  My fear is that because the enemy is a broader concept instead of a specific nation-state our moral engagement becomes clouded.  We view our ethical foundations as situational instead of how we carry out the mission.  It makes instilling a professional ethic in 18-22 year olds entering the military very different.