Partly Cloudy: Ethics in War, Espionage, Covert Action, and Interrogation

by David L. Perry

Overview

Partly Cloudy: Ethics in War, Espionage, Covert Action, and Interrogation explores a number of wrenching ethical issues and challenges faced by military and intelligence personnel. It provides a robust and practical approach to analyzing ethical issues in war and intelligence operations, and applies careful reasoning to issues of vital importance today, not only for soldiers, intelligence professionals, and policy makers, but also for the citizens they serve and protect.

This new edition has been updated throughout and includes new contents, to deal with critical issues such as torturing detainees, using espionage to penetrate terrorist cells, mounting covert actions to undermine hostile regimes, practicing euthanasia on the battlefield as mercy-killing, or using targeted killings as a means to fight insurgencies.

Partly Cloudy provides an excellent introduction to the field for students, instructors, and practitioners who are interested in the ethical challenges faced by public servants.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442262027
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	10/12/2016
Series:	Security and Professional Intelligence Education Series
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	258
Product dimensions:	6.37(w) x 9.34(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

David L. Perry taught ethics for 24 years at several institutions of higher education, including the U.S. Army War College, Davidson and Dickinson colleges, and Seattle and Santa Clara universities. He now lives on Bainbridge Island near Seattle.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Ethical Reasoning
Chapter 2: Comparative Religious Perspectives on War
Chapter 3: Just and Unjust War in Shakespeare's Henry V
Chapter 4: Anticipating and Preventing Atrocities in War
Chapter 5: Battlefield Euthanasia: Should Military Mercy-Killings Be Allowed?
Chapter 6: Secret Intelligence and American Democracy
Chapter 7: The KGB: CIA’s Traditional Adversary
Chapter 8: Espionage
Chapter 9: Covert Action
Chapter 10: Targeted Killing
Chapter 11: Interrogation
Epilogue: On Peacemaking
About the Author
Index

Editorial Reviews

Once again Perry has provided an ethicist's insights into the study of warfare's uglier aspects. This new edition updates the case studies and vignettes that make this reference so valuable. Perry transports the context of espionage, atrocities, assassination, and torture from medieval times into the 21st century, and his new chapter on battlefield euthanasia is especially compelling. He disabuses us of the delusion that dirty deeds are purely attributable to the demonic enemy and forces us to face the darker side of our common humanity. This book belongs in the hands, minds, and hearts of military leaders and civilian policymakers everywhere!

G. K. Cunningham

This book has now become a classic in military ethics. Its immense virtue is its realistic recognition of the intrinsic ambiguity and contestability of ethics, especially military ethics. I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a book that combines careful ethical analysis with subtle application of ethical concepts in the context of military and intelligence operations in all their variety.

James Connelly

Dr. Dave Perry has written a wide-ranging and engaging examination of ethical issues involved in war, espionage, intelligence gathering, recruiting and handling of spies, cyberwarfare and more. Unlike many more conventional ‘just war’ volumes, Perry skillfully and knowledgeably leads the reader into issues rarely examined in the literature. This is an invaluable contribution to the field.

Martin L. Cook

Recommended.

March 2010 CHOICE

David L. Perry's 2009 book, Partly Cloudy: Ethics in War, Espionage, Covert Action, and Interrogation, makes significant contributions to the ongoing discourse on some of the thorniest issues in military ethics. Perry has a solid background in theology and philosophy and taught ethics for several years to senior military officers and policy-makers at the US Army War College. As a result, he is well-versed in the Just War tradition and the current range of international scholarship in the field. This allows him to provide the reader with rich background and context for modern debates on subjects such as torture. He offers incisive analyses of established perspectives alongside his own original insights. Partly Cloudy will have value both to those who desire to remain current in the literature and those seeking a quality text for a course on the ethics of war…. The outlook for ethics in war, espionage, covert action, and interrogation may indeed be Partly Cloudy, but Dave Perry's clear-eyed contemplation of these murky matters is enlightening.

Journal of Military Ethics

With Partly Cloudy, David Perry has made a substantial and timely contribution to current thinking on ethical issues surrounding both intelligence work, and war in general. His book highly deserves the close attention and discussion it is likely to generate among military and other ethicists and professionals.

International Journalof Intelligence Ethics - Eric Jens

A useful contribution to military ethics writing and a good general introduction to the field. It is recommended.

From the Publisher

When it comes to situations involving war, assassinations, bombing, torture, imprisonment of people without trial or conviction, or other similar acts, we may react without much thought regarding morality and ethics, when the harm is directed at our society. This book is an opportunity for the reader, whether a practitioner or not, to step back and ask "why?"

September 2009 International Association for Intelligence Education

David Perry… is eminently qualified to discuss the sort of ethical problems that can (and often do) arise in the conduct of war and intelligence operations. … [His] background, combined with Perry's years of research in open-source material on the work of military and intelligence personnel, his conversations with members of those professions that has yielded both frightening and heart-rendering testimony from soldiers and intelligence operative, and his careful and always balanced ethical analyses, make for a uniquely rich and discerning narrative. He also writes in an accessible and engaging style, which makes his books a delight to read…. There is much to admire in Partly Cloudy …. I warmly recommend this book to military officers, intelligence personnel, and anyone who wants to understand better the often difficult moral issues that arise in connection with the activities Perry describes.

Philosophy in Review

Recommended.

Choice