Impact case study database

Having recognised the need for innovative, accessible pedagogical strategies to meet the challenges of and demand for military ethics education in diverse groups of military personnel, King’s has, since 2015, developed and offered freely accessible quality distance learning materials for the use of anyone in the military. This has revolutionised the way Military Ethics has been taught and how policy and strategy have been developed in many different countries.

Launching military ethics education solutions – a training course and tools

Drawing on over ten years of research, King’s researchers distilled their findings and created a structure for military ethics learning which provided accessible educational themes in online courses. These courses include modules such as ‘Armouring against Atrocity’ which examines how, in the corrosive environment of war, you can prevent the deterioration of ethical culture [A1]. Each module can be taken by individuals or used as a train-the-trainer template, to build institutional capacity and skills.

Taking military ethics teaching out of the classroom, King’s researchers also created multiple versions of the innovative ‘Military Ethics Playing Cards’ which act as a disruptive vehicle for raising ethical awareness and competency [A1]. These cards take the form of a dialogical game rather than a formal teaching tool which, using their familiar and therefore unthreatening format, can be used in the field or in barracks to prompt informal discussion and debate, normalising engagement and reflection on ethical issues (with QR links to supporting material and videos sharing best practice). Groups of questions are thematically linked so impromptu or pre-planned supported discussions can quickly be developed using the open-access material. The cards help to move the collective narrative from ‘this is what I am told to do’ to ‘this is what we do’, with the SAS noting in particular the value of the approach taken in the materials - not to seek to prescribe ethics, but rather to support military personnel to answer ethical questions for themselves, “to dispel academic ignorance” and create a self-learning environment [B].

The free online courses and playing cards are not associated exclusively with any one nationality, but rather are a global, professional resource. Following its wide take-up by the UK Armed Forces, the King’s online course material has been adopted by the Romanian Staff College, Australian Special Operations (2019, 2020), US Military Chaplains (Sep 2018) and the Australian Command and Staff College (2018 - 2020), as well as the Colombian military. Since the 2016 launch, the online courses have gained nearly 30,000 unique users from 162 different countries and as of Oct 2020 users have worked through 70,187 hours of video content and answered 217,698 questions on military ethics [A3]. Over 5000 packs of playing cards have been distributed to military personnel all over the world, to Australia, Brazil, Brunei, China, Colombia, Jordan, Netherlands, Oman, Romania, Serbia, US and the UK. To meet demand, the website, numerous courses and the playing cards have been translated into Spanish, French, Arabic, Serbian and Turkish through partnerships with the Ministry of Defence, and the European Chapter of the International Society for Military Ethics [A3].

With the identification of the need for more resources specifically for the military medical setting [5,8], King’s researchers developed a second set of playing cards to prompt informal discussion about the ethical challenges faced in humanitarian crisis environments (for example: How does one apply triage when lack of resources mean people can be saved today but are likely to die tomorrow from complications?). These ‘Military Medical Ethics Playing Cards’ have been adapted to be deliverable in the form of a self-contained free app available in English and Arabic [A1].

Transforming military pedagogy and strategy

King’s researchers have raised the profile of ethics as a subject and re-shaped military curricula to such a point that ethics is now recognised as a significant aspect of training, with King’s materials having been absorbed and incorporated into military pedagogy and strategy in a variety of different ways. This is evident by direct reference to King’s research in the newly-inserted section on military ethics and its importance for strategic leaders in the UK Defence Academy’s major report, ‘Getting Strategy Right (Enough)’ [C p.72] which discusses the art and science of military strategy-making and implementation in the wake of the Chilcot Report.

As a result, specific committees and discussion groups, such as the Ethics Board of the Army’s 77^th Brigade, are forming to “challenge thinking within the formation from an ethical perspective and promote a culture of ethics in every area of business to ensure the highest possible standard of decision-making, risk management and accountability” [D]. [text removed for publication]

On the strength of his contributions to military ethics, Prof. Whetham was also appointed an Assistant Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force in 2020 and asked to write an addendum report for the Afghanistan Inquiry Report into the alleged commission of historical war crimes by Australian Special Forces troops [3], focusing on the reasons for failures in leadership and ethics. Whetham’s report was released to the public as part of the full publication and has been adopted as a ‘lessons learnt’ document for institutions across defence. It was referred to specifically by the Australian Chief of Defence, and all its recommendations as to training and education have been officially accepted by the Australian Defence Force [E].

Building the capacity of militaries around the world to provide military ethical training

King’s military ethics training resources have, for the first time, enabled military educators to successfully introduce ethical training, normally only provided to officers, to all outside of a classroom environment. In particular, the disruptive playing cards have been used to facilitate this by military chaplains, education officers, and regiment commanders to train soldiers, cadets and junior officers informally [A2] as well as in more formal ethical briefings.

The high-quality military ethics materials have been praised by military trainers as “very effective ”, and “extremely useful” [A2]. For example, a senior commanding officer in the Royal Marines asserted that “the online material has been especially effective in preparing the Commando’s senior leaders to deliver and guide ethical and decision-making training… without this expert primer, the vast ocean of material available on the subject would have swamped us… without the structured course-ware I do not believe we would have been able to achieve the current level of training and education” [F]. In addition, a consultant physician and Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force described it “as the most thought-provoking ethics training I have received in either the NHS or the military in 30 years” [G] and another military trainer called the cards “by far the best resources for generating conversations about ethics” he had come across in his 28 years in the Army [A2]. The Director of the Australian Command and Staff Course said that “students frequently report that the [King’s] course has been a leap in their understanding of ethics, the military profession, and their personal morality” [H].

Aside from military personnel and institutions directly utilising the generic online military ethics courses and playing cards, King’s researchers have assisted in the preparation and installation of specific curricula. For example, assisting the Colombian military in reforming their professional military education as they transition to post-conflict military thinking and structures. King’s researchers delivered a fully integrated 18-part military ethics curriculum in Spanish with teaching guides and pre-classroom materials, which can now be used as a proven off-the-shelf framework by others. In 2018, King’s delivered a two-week train-the-trainer workshop in Bogotá for the local teaching staff. Since then, nearly 1800 Colombian officers and NCOs have undertaken formal military ethics training, which constitutes their first substantive engagement with the subject of military ethics. According to the Director of the Colombian School of Combined Arms, “the course in military ethics, indeed, has proven to be very successful… it helped raise awareness of the topic of military ethics amongst the students as well as provide them with practical knowledge of how military ethics can be applied in real-life situations” [I]. In December 2019, King’s training received the endorsement of the Colombian Army’s Training and Doctrine Command to expand the course across the whole Army [I].

Impacting military behaviour, shaping conduct and lives on the ground

King’s military ethics work is impacting military behaviour, shaping the operational conduct of military personnel and saving lives on the ground. As noted by Brigadier Toby Rowland “time spent considering these issues as part of ongoing professional development and in particular prior to operational deployment definitely plays dividends later on” [J].

By equipping participants with tools that can be applied in real life to analyse ethically challenging circumstances and determine the best course of action during combat operations and humanitarian crises, military personnel have highlighted how King’s military ethics training embeds core skills and is directly applicable to problems faced in the operational environment. For example, in anonymised course feedback with a sample set of 461 officers at the Colombian War College, 96.3% said the ethics training had had a positive impact on their professional lives and 94.9% said it had also had a positive impact on their family lives [H].

In Afghanistan, Brigadier Toby Rowland was tasked with assisting the Afghan National Army (ANA) in developing field surgical capabilities. He highlighted how the ethics engagement shaped thinking, noting that King’s research [6] had “provided invaluable food for thought on a wide range of subjects, especially as regards to finding the right balance between legal, ethical and military considerations and how they related to the respective responsibilities of our clinical and operational leaders…. Not only did it provide invaluable assistance to me personally as a senior military medical planner, it helped shape the work that ultimately delivered a safe, sustainable field surgical capacity for the ANA…this went on to save a great many lives, relieved suffering on the battlefield, built capacity in the Afghan National Army and ultimately supported security transition in Helmand Province” [J].

As senior figures in the SAS and Army Medical core attest, the long-lasting impact of ethics training can be seen in the new skills in military personnel which assist them in analysing complex courses of action and making life and death decisions more ethically and ultimately saving a great many lives [B,J].