Australian military forces are often ethically tested and have almost consistently made decisions grounded in integrity while respecting international law. The rare exceptions highlight the costs of failing to do so – the hearts and minds of locals, the integrity of command, the trust of the Australian public, and the moral injury of the team involved. These costs are documented in the ledger of the Afghanistan Inquiry and similar reports of breaches from other nations.

The writers of The Ethics of Special Operations have been helping Special Operations Forces (SOF) navigate the moral minefields of their work across different national contexts. Deane-Peter Baker is one of Australia’s leading military ethicists, based at UNSW, and the most widely utilised ethicist in ADF teaching from ADFA courses to Special Operations Command’s (SOCOMD’s) ethical armouring courses. Roger Herbert served for 26 years as a SEAL officer and then taught ethics at the US Naval Academy. David Whetham is Professor of Ethics and the Military Profession at King’s College London, co-editor of Making the Military Moral, and an Afghanistan Inquiry contributor.

The book acknowledges that warfighters have always faced ethical dilemmas, but the challenges and complexity are greatly increased in contexts of terrorism involving non-state actors, humanitarian missions, hostage recovery, and the training of local and proxy forces – areas of operation for SOF. Furthermore, SOF have become a preferred tool alongside cyber-attacks and drones in many contemporary conflicts, though these conflicts often fall short of war within contested statecraft. The resulting pace and dilemmas of operating in this grey zone is challenging for operators, no matter how specially screened, highly trained, and well-resourced they may be. The writers argue that SOF require the best “ethical armouring” to operate ethically and to return not just physically but morally intact.

With illustrative case studies covering World War II to the present day, and considering how ethical frameworks in some contexts need to be renewed and occasionally rethought, the writers explore the ethics of SOF across four primary missions: raids, recoveries, reconnaissance, and rebels.

Raids

Conventional forces are trained for conformity and predictability. SOF cultivate a more independent mindset, imagination, and creativity at lower ranks, as well as training with specialist technology and equipment. This uniquely equips them for specialist missions, but they are not exempt from ethical guidelines.

Utilising the mission sets of ‘raids’, the authors explore the ethical complexity that can arise. For example, Op JAYWICK ingeniously attacked Japanese shipping in Singapore, with the Z Special Unit disguised as local fishermen under a Japanese flag. Arguably, this was merely justifiable deception and not perfidy; however, it did lead to a second-order effect of locals being blamed and punished for the sabotage.

More recently, Operation Neptune Spear (the bin Laden mission) was a military success, but stretched respect for territorial integrity and more concerningly, was ethically questionable in using a medical vaccination program to locate him, which has threatened trust in other vaccination programs. Unethical stretching, albeit justified by necessity and big payoffs, can have second and third-order effects.

Recoveries

How can SOF and government decision-makers evaluate when and how to recover hostages or POWs held by hostile powers? What is the duty to recover citizens, whether POWs as from the Son Tay POW camp in North Vietnam, or hostages such as those rescued by SAS from the Iranian Embassy in London? Recoveries can be risky for hostages and operators.

The ‘leave no one behind’ philosophy can be exploited by adversaries. Ransoms may be appropriate as an alternative to force, but they can encourage further hostage-taking and finance terrorism. Often, deception is necessary in recoveries, but that must have moral limits, such as not disguising operators as Red Cross workers or journalists. Recoveries typically raise the commander’s 'trilemma' or triangular balance of prioritising the mission, civilians, and/or mates.

The Australian lived experience, like that of other FVEY nations (the Five Eyes intelligence alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States), has been to use military recovery as a choice of last resort, if at all. Other Government Agencies (OGAs) have taken primacy for resolution, leaving the SOF community often frustrated at the inability to enact their trained capabilities.

Reconnaissance

Reconnaissance is another specialist capability of SOF that raises another set of ethical trilemmas. Operators spend long durations deep in enemy territory and face serious consequences if caught. To what extent do they go to protect their identity and cover to avoid discovery? What limits are placed on disguising themselves, using an enemy uniform, spreading misinformation, or mistreating adversaries or their bodies or property?

The infamous case study of an ethical trilemma faced during a SOF reconnaissance mission is Seal Team 10 on Operation Red Wing, made famous by the movie Lone Survivor. When encountered by local villagers, the team debates whether to kill them but ultimately decides to release them. However, when their position was disclosed, they were hunted, their positions overrun, and three of the four operators (along with others in a rescue helicopter) were killed. Do dire outcomes ever outweigh discrimination and non-combatant immunity? Would the ends of saving them justify killing the citizens, albeit as part of an ‘extreme emergency’, or was the decision a courageous adherence to international law and respect for non-combatants?

The team’s commander, Lieutenant Michael Murphy, had previously heard Admiral Eric Olson, Commander of USSOCOM, address a SEALS audience: “Never sacrifice what you know is right for what is convenient or expedient. Live the life of a leader – one of values, character, courage, and commitment. What you do and what you tolerate in your presence best demonstrates your standards.” (p.117) This kind of trilemma (mission, mates, or civilians) calls for the best virtues, including a pre-prepared commitment to ethical principles.

Rebels

Another strategic mission for SOF is the irregular warfare tasks of training, advising, and assisting local forces. This raises challenges when the local forces may not commit to the same ethical standards. For example, Myanmar armed forces trained by US have engaged in violence and ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims. On the other hand, a Western military may be more willing to commit to a war or proxy war when its forces do not suffer the immediate consequences. Supporting any conflict must consider the risk of escalation and other second and third-order effects. This calls for diligent diplomacy as well as well-developed cultural intelligence. When supporting local groups, military leaders also need to consider long-term commitment to their wellbeing; e.g., whether they will evacuate them if the battle goes wrong as needed to be decided at Kabul, rescuing Afghans who served alongside ADF.

Rethinking just war?

SOF ethics are practised by individual soldiers and their teams, but there are also ethical considerations regarding government and command decisions about when and how to deploy SOF. The authors discuss the ongoing relevance of just war principles jus ad bellum (when to go to war) and jus in bello (how to fight the war) but suggest we also need to consider new jus ad vim conventions for a ‘theory of just and unjust use of force’.

Force-short-of-war still needs to consider discrimination, proportionality, and necessity. However, the writers acknowledge that force-short-of-war may require a more nuanced and flexible framework, as it does not necessarily demand the same standard of last resort (since SOF may be a viable first resort to prevent outright war) or public declaration (given the need for secrecy and deniability). Nonetheless, there is a pressing need for a new principle to monitor the likelihood of escalation (or at least factor that into proportionality).

Such ethical deliberations likely underpinned Israel’s decision to pre-emptively destroy Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian aircraft on their runways rather than wait for an invasion. They hypothetically could have led the USA to topple Saddam with special operations forces as anticipatory self-defence, before he could develop Weapons of Mass Destruction but without outright war. Additionally, they may have influenced Russia’s choice to employ their special operations forces during the ‘little green men’ invasion to instigate the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, in ways that delayed Ukraine and the world’s response while also limiting bloodshed and avoiding outright war. At that time, in stark contrast to their later criminally and morally indefensible invasion of Ukraine, Russia was discriminating and proportional, using special operations forces not as a last resort but as a surprising first resort.

Another insightful case study was when Navy Seals broke the expectation of secrecy and blew the whistle on Chief Eddie Gallagher for shooting civilians and stabbing a prisoner. Part of SOF ethics is to be aware of moral numbing, situational stressors, exceptionalism, and the group effects that lead to war crimes and their cover-up.

The Ethics of Special Operations is important reading for SOCOMD personnel and those supporting, instructing, and commanding them. With the release of both the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) and the National Defence Strategy (NDS), it also promises to be insightful for others working in broader Defence, with a focus on near-region engagement and partnered operations.

Notes: The book’s publisher details are Deane-Peter Baker, Roger Herbert and David Whethem, The Ethics of Special Operations: Raids, Recoveries, Reconnaissance and Rebels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024).