Legitimacy...What definition?

"You will recognize for your leader... and you will obey him in everything he commands you for the good of the service, the observance of military regulations, the enforcement of laws, and the success of the arms of France".

Lhe other general components of the legal framework for the use of armed force

It is not possible to discuss the place of ethics in the use of armed force without including the legal dimension of this use, for this dimension is of particular importance, at least in the Western world, where it is the fruit of very ancient religious and philosophical questions. The current legal framework for the use of armed force is in fact the result, still in the process of being developed, of a regulation of violence aimed at introducing humanity and humanism into confrontations that may be inhuman, both because of their intrinsic cruelty and because of their sometimes apocalyptic dimension. That is why law and ethics, while not covering the same areas of behaviour, interact both at the level of the individual and at the level of institutions, and in particular within the armed forces.

It seems useful to briefly mention the meanings of a few terms.

Morals and ethics

The first term is of Latin origin. It refers to the science of good and evil. It is a theory of human action as being subject to duty and having good as its goal. It often materializes in a set of rules of conduct.

Ethics is not very different, and indeed the two words have been used indiscriminately until very recently. It is a term of Greek origin that can be defined as a set of moral conventions specific to a milieu, a culture, a group. It is a corpus of fundamental values specific to individuals which, because they are shared, can constitute the common reference of a social body.

One cannot deal with ethics and defence without questioning the conditions of the use of force which armies are in possession of until its paroxysm with the state of war. In order to avoid any misunderstanding, it is also necessary to define clearly what is meant by force, which must be distinguished from violence.

It is this distinction that will make it possible to identify the ethical principles on which the use of force by armies must be based.

Why a dossier on ethics? So much has already been said on the subject. Moreover, are the moral principles on which the military must base its action not well framed, accepted and recognized in our democracies?

The reasons are very simple: when one practices the profession of arms, a permanent reflection on ethics is indispensable. Indeed, the conditions, the context, the environment in which warlike action is carried out, as well as the nature of the adversary, because they are constantly evolving, require that these questions be constantly revisited.

In October 2017, the U.S. Army published a new edition of its Field Manual 3-0 [1]; a fundamental document that regulates the training and doctrinal direction of U.S. land forces. This new edition supports a choice of redirection in doctrine after several years of non-linear operations (counter-terrorism, counter-interference, etc.). Indeed, the U.S. Army wants to orient its capabilities to be able to conduct high-intensity operations against 'peer-competitors'. However, this refocusing can be dangerous. Why is this dangerous? Because this document evaluates the capabilities, the mission and the future opponents of the army in a too restrictive way. In the long term, this risks limiting the usefulness of land forces as an instrument of the country's overall strategy. Moreover, some concepts developed by the army doctrine centres - such as the Multi-Domain Battle Concept or Army Vision 2028 - espousean incorrect vision of future warfare by asserting its predictability. These bets will not only be futile, but can prove dangerous.

[1] https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-0.pdf

The adage "A healthy soul in a healthy body" is well known to all. It is very revealing that the complete quotation from Juvenal (Tenth satire) is less revealing: "Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano". "It is necessary to pray for a healthy soul in a healthy body.

The People's and Peasants' Army, a prestigious institution under the Soviet Union, was transformed into the "Armed Force of the Russian Federation" after the fall of the USSR.

In the current societal context where the search for saturation of the internal security forces is a declared will of most subversive movements, a reinforcement of the departmental structures of the OTIAD chain could prove useful while remaining in line with the propensity for resilience desired by the command. The Finistère Defence Command, a particular structure, could in this context prove interesting and even inspiring.