Soft War

Michael L. Gross is Professor in and Head of the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa, Israel. He specializes in applied normative theory, military and medical ethics, asymmetric war, and non-kinetic warfare. He is the author of Ethics and Activism (Cambridge, 1997), Bioethics and Armed Conflict (2006), Moral Dilemmas of Modern War (Cambridge, 2010), Military Medical Ethics for the 21st Century (with Don Carrick, 2013,) and The Ethics of Insurgency (Cambridge, 2015). He has lectured widely on battlefield and military medical ethics at defense centers in Israel, the US and Europe. Tamar Meisels is a political theorist and Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at Tel Aviv University. She earned her D.Phil. in Politics from the University of Oxford in 2001. Her primary research and teaching interests include liberal nationalism, territorial rights, and the philosophical questions surrounding war and terrorism. She is the author of Territorial Rights (2005, 2009) and The Trouble with Terror: Liberty, Security, and the Response to Terrorism (Cambridge, 2008).

'For many years, philosophers and military ethicists have focused on the rights and wrongs of physical violence - understandably so. But war can take subtler forms. Economic sanctions, cyber warfare, propaganda, and 'psyops' can have dangerous and devastating effects; nonviolence can sometimes prevail over armed might. This superb collection is a pioneering effort to analyze the ethics of 'soft war.' The authors include some of the leading theorists of just war, and their essays shed welcome light at a time when we need it. It's a must-read for anyone interested in today's conflicts - philosophers, security specialists, military ethicists, and concerned citizens.' David Luban, Georgetown University, Washington, DC

• Introduction Michael L. Gross and Tamar Meisels; Part I. Definitions and Meta Views: 1. Defining war Jessica Wolfendale; 2. Coercion, manipulation, and harm: civilian immunity and soft war Valerie Morkevičius; Part II. Economic Warfare: 3. Reconsidering economic sanctions Joy Gordon; 4. Conditional sale Cécile Fabre; Part III. Cyber Warfare, Media Warfare, and Lawfare: 5. State-sponsored hacktivism and the rise of 'soft' war George R. Lucas, Jr; 6. Media warfare, propaganda, and the law of war Laurie R. Blank; 7. The ethics of soft war on today's mediatized battlespaces Sebastian Kaempf; 8. Abuse of law on the 21st-century battlefield: a typology of lawfare Janina Dill; Part IV. Nonviolence: 9. Unarmed bodyguards to the rescue? The ethics of non-violent intervention James Pattison; 10. How subversive are human rights? Civil subversion and the ethics of unarmed resistance Christopher J. Finlay; 11. Bearers of hope on the paradox of non-violent action Cheney Ryan; Part V. Hostage Taking and Prisoners: 12. A cooperative globalist approach to the hostage dilemma Ariel Colonomos; 13. Kidnapping and extortion as tactics of soft war Tamar Meisels; 14. Conclusions: proportionate self defense in unarmed conflict Michael L. Gross.