2 volumes, sold as a set. Textbooks of Military Medicine. Section editors Edmund D. Pelegrino, Anthony E. Hartle, and Edmund G. Howe, et al. Addresses medical ethics within a military context.

As asymmetric ‘wars among the people’ replace state-on-state wars in modern armed conflict, the growing role of military medicine and medical technology in contemporary war fighting has brought an urgent need to critically reassess the theory and practice of military medical ethics. Military Medical Ethics for the 21st Century is the first full length, broad-based treatment of this important subject. Written by an international team of practitioners and academics, this book provides interdisciplinary insights into the major issues facing military-medical decision makers and critically examines the tensions and dilemmas inherent in the military and medical professions. In this book the authors explore the practice of battlefield bioethics, medical neutrality and treatment of the wounded, enhancement technologies for war fighters, the potential risks of dual-use biotechnologies, patient rights for active duty personnel, military medical research and military medical ethics education in the 21st Century.

As asymmetric ’wars among the people’ replace state-on-state wars in modern armed conflict, the growing role of military medicine and medical technology in contemporary war fighting has brought an urgent need to critically reassess the theory and practice of military medical ethics. Military Medical Ethics for the 21st Century is the first full length, broad-based treatment of this important subject. Written by an international team of practitioners and academics, this book provides interdisciplinary insights into the major issues facing military-medical decision makers and critically examines the tensions and dilemmas inherent in the military and medical professions. In this book the authors explore the practice of battlefield bioethics, medical neutrality and treatment of the wounded, enhancement technologies for war fighters, the potential risks of dual-use biotechnologies, patient rights for active duty personnel, military medical research and military medical ethics education in the 21st Century.

Beleaguered countries struggling against aggression or powerful nations defending others from brutal regimes mobilize medicine to wage just war. As states funnel medical resources to maintain unit readiness and conserve military capabilities, numerous ethical challenges foreign to peacetime medicine result. Force conservation drives combat hospitals to prioritize warfighter care over all others. Civilians find themselves bereft of medical attention; prison officials force feed hunger-striking detainees; policymakers manage healthcare to win the hearts and minds of local nationals; and scientists develop neuro-technologies or nanosurgery to create super soldiers. When the fighting ends, intractable moral dilemmas rebound. Post-war justice demands enormous investments of time, resources and personnel. But losing interest and no longer zealous, war-weary nations forget their duties to rebuild ravaged countries abroad and rehabilitate their war-torn veterans at home. Addressing these incendiary issues, Military Medical Ethics in Contemporary Armed Conflict integrates the ethics of medicine and the ethics of war. Medical ethics in times of war is not identical to medical ethics in times of peace, but a unique discipline. Without war, there is no military medicine, and without just war there is no military medical ethics. Military Medical Ethics in Contemporary Armed Conflict revises, defends, and rebuts wartime medical practices, just as it lays the moral foundation for casualty care in future conflicts.