MALS Final Project Spotlight: Cristian Mihai Maris

Concentration: Military Ethics: Implications and Drawbacks

About Cristian’s Project

Albert Einstein said that “so long as there are men, there will be wars.” However true this may be, the face of future wars will be completely different than the wars we have fought in the past. Although, war will remain in a Clausewitzian sense, “politics by other means,” the complexity of the operational environment will exponentially increase with the advent and expansion of technologies like drones and social media. In this context, his paper analyzes the ethical readiness of the Army’s junior officers, as they prepare to tackle this ever increasingly complex operational environment. In order to accomplish this task, the paper looks at tensions in Just War Theory as they impact ethics education in the military. By evaluating cases of ethical failure, the paper makes a case for the potential ethical atavism, which would condemn armed forces to fighting, from an ethical perspective, according to last war’s doctrine. The paper attempts to provide a solution by suggesting a different approach to ethical training for the future officers, a method that embraces a Kantian theoretical approach to military ethics, derived from Lawrence Kohlberg’s approach to moral education.

About Cristian

Cristian is commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, Field Artillery Branch in the US Army. Previously Cristian has served, for five years, as a Sergeant in 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, NC. Previously, Cristian worked in the hospitality and casino business in New Jersey and Nevada in various management positions. He obtained his Bachelors of Science in Financial Management from Babes-Bolyai University, in his native Romania. Cristian has been married to his wonderful wife, Alina, for three years, and together they have a daughter, Eliza. Cristian intends to continue the work he has started in the MALS program, and while pursuing his military career, to advocate for the development of ethical training for our armed forces and possibly work for the Army’s Inspector General, dealing with ethical issues in the military.