CONSPIRING WITH THE ENEMY:

Many have questioned the decision to write about cooperation between enemies in warfare but far from surreptitiously sanitising the carnage of war or apologising for its injustices this project seeks to humanise it. These valiant and sometimes devastating efforts between enemies to constrain warfare and impose some boundaries order and meaning on what is fundamentally a radical anarchic and lawless activity is a moral philosophy. Drawing on an impressive survey of military history ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, many of the incidents recounted here are moving and inspiring and offer grounds for optimism about the future of warfare. The scholarship is impressively wide-ranging with an eye for anecdote, historical episode and quotation. Despite the strong influence of just war theory in military law and practice, warfare is commonly considered devoid of morality. Yet even in the most horrific of human activities, there is frequent communication and cooperation between enemies. One remarkable example is the Christmas truce - unofficial ceasefires between German and English trenches in December 1914 in which soldiers even mingled in No Man's Land. Yvonne Chiu offers a new understanding of why and how enemies work together to constrain violence in warfare. Chiu argues that what she calls an ethic of cooperation is found in modern warfare to such an extent that it is often taken for granted. The importance of cooperation becomes especially clear when wartime ethics reach a grey area: To whom should the laws of war apply? Who qualifies as a combatant? Should guerrillas or terrorists receive protections? Fundamentally, Chiu shows, the norms of war rely on consensus on the existence and content of the laws of war. In a wide-ranging consideration of pivotal instances of cooperation, Chiu examines weapons bans, treatment of prisoners of war, and the Geneva Conventions, as well as the tensions between the ethic of cooperation and the pillars of just war theory. A significant contribution to military ethics and political philosophy. 352 page paperback.