Stealth and the Laws of War

If you rent only one film this year about a computer-piloted fighter jet which goes rogue after being hit by lightning (!) but ultimately comes to recognize the sanctity of human life, I highly recommend Stealth, the latest philosophical blockbuster from the makers of The Fast and the Furious. Stealth often succumbs to the limitations imposed by its genre, but the moments in which it surpasses them are well worth watching.

On two separate occasions, a team of elite fighter pilots declines to strike a primary target in a manner which will guarantee its destruction while minimizing risk to themselves because the foreseeable number of civilian deaths will be too high. In the first case, one pilot risks death himself to execute a maneuver which achieves the objective while minimizing loss of innocent life. In the second, the pilots shift their attention from the primary target (nuclear warheads which if destroyed would send a radioactive dust cloud into a neighboring village) to secondary targets (missile casings and firing platforms), leaving the primary targets for retrieval by ground forces. This may be the first time principles of discrimination and proportionality have been referenced in a mainstream action movie. If you know of others please share.

The movie also features two short but intelligent discussions of the ethical implications of routine use of pilotless warplanes. A commanding officer defends the program as a rational means to achieve strategic objectives without risking the lives of human pilots. A pilot responds that such technology, by decreasing the internalized costs of warfare, will reduce disincentives to engage in armed conflict. (“War is horrible. It’s supposed to be horrible. If war stops being horrible, what’s to stop us?”) Every good action movie is loud; this one is pretty bright (in spots) as well.

It might seem that these moments in the film are unconnected: the proportionality principle is a norm of jus in bello which applies to commanders and soldiers in the field, while the prospect of dead soldiers primarily bears on political decisions to initiate, perpetuate, or terminate conflict. Yet it occurs to me that they might be connected in at least two ways.

The first connection has to do with certain nativist biases which distort moral reasoning.  I heard an Air Force lawyer (who’s name I’ve long forgotten and have not been able to find) at the New York Bar Association around two years ago, who said that the problem with the proportionality principle is that military commanders value their soldiers’ lives far more than the lives of foreign civilians, particularly civilians from different ethnic or religious groups. Similarly, the political evaluation of armed conflict is measured in the numbers of (our) soldiers lost, not the number of (their) civilians killed. By contrast, in the film the pilots deviate from their mission plans to save the lives of foreign civilians of two different ethnicities.

The second connection has to do with the nature of the proportionality principle itself, which demands a comparison of apparently incommensurable values: the preservation of human life and the achievement of military objectives. This fragmentation of value prompts Michael Walzer to write that “because I don’t know how to measure the relevant values or how to specify the proportionality, and because I don’t think anyone else knows, I prefer to focus on the seriousness of the intention to avoid harming civilians, and that is best measured by the acceptance of risk.” Arguing About War 137 (2004). Absent human pilots, the internalized risk incurred by future aerial strikes will be limited to the possibility of losing planes to anti-aircraft fire.

This does not mean that nations that are serious about minimizing loss of innocent life cannot use pilotless planes. On the contrary, subject to norms adapted to keep pace with technological innovation, pilotless planes may lead to fewer civilian deaths and a stricter regime of legal oversight. The use of human pilots in a mission indeed speaks to the importance placed on its success. But the fear of losing human pilots understandably leads commanders to adjust mission parameters to protect their safety (e.g., increasing the altitude at which bombs are dropped or missiles fired, increasing pilot safety but decreasing accuracy), and for better or worse international law permits some trade-off between the lives of soldiers and the lives of civilians. By contrast, where pilotless planes are used, it will be difficult if not impossible to justify failure to accept essentially financial risks where necessary to reduce civilian deaths. Since the loss of pilotless aircraft lacks the moral weight and demoralization costs of lost soldiers, commanders can also be fairly expected to comply with stricter legal requirements. Pilotless aircraft may therefore make war (politically) easier to start yet (legally) harder to prosecute. That’s hardly a wash, of course, and certainly no cause for celebration, but it may be the best we can expect from “the moral pit where [we] appear to have settled, surrounded by enormous [and ever-advancing] arsenals.” Thomas Nagel, War and Massacre (1972).

For bringing the laws of war to mainstream movie audiences, Stealth is my Number 5 International Law Movie of 2005.