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dc.contributor.authorJ. Bellamy, Alex
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-03T15:49:38Z
dc.date.available2017-05-03T15:49:38Z
dc.date.issued2008
dc.date.modified2011-08-30T06:20:25Z
dc.identifier.issn15027589
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/15027570801953448
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/40449
dc.description.abstractRecent years have seen a revival of interest in Michael Walzer's doctrine of 'supreme emergency'. Simply put, the doctrine holds that, when a state confronts an opponent who threatens annihilation, it can be morally legitimate to violate one of the cardinal rules of the war convention - the principle of non-combatant immunity. Walzer cites the case of Britain's decision to bomb German cities in 1940 as a case in point. Although the theory of supreme emergency has been scrutinised, the historical case that Walzer refers to has not been looked at in depth. This article seeks to remedy this problem by asking whether the principle actors involved in the decision to bomb German cities understood themselves to be in a supreme emergency. It argues that the British leadership never openly admitted that they were in fact targeting German civilians, and that the principle reason for this was a widespread belief that the British and American publics would not support such a campaign. As a result, throughout the war, the British government publicly maintained the fiction that the devastation of German cities was a collateral product of attacks on its industrial infrastructure. This, in turn, suggests that liberal societies - even those facing imminent destruction - do not tend to support a relaxing of the rules of non-combatant immunity, suggesting that the prohibition on deliberately killing non-combatants may be more embedded than has hitherto been thought.
dc.description.peerreviewedYes
dc.description.publicationstatusYes
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherTaylor and Francis
dc.publisher.placeNorway
dc.relation.ispartofstudentpublicationN
dc.relation.ispartofpagefrom41
dc.relation.ispartofpageto65
dc.relation.ispartofissue1
dc.relation.ispartofjournalJournal of Military Ethics
dc.relation.ispartofvolume7
dc.rights.retentionY
dc.subject.fieldofresearchInternational Relations
dc.subject.fieldofresearchApplied Ethics
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode160607
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode2201
dc.titleThe Ethics of Terror Bombing: Beyond supreme emergency
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.descriptionC1 - Articles
dc.type.codeC - Journal Articles
gro.date.issued2008
gro.hasfulltextNo Full Text
gro.griffith.authorBellamy, Alex J.


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