The Ethics of Insurgency: A Brief Overview

Are all forms of guerilla warfare apprehensible? Or can there be such a thing as just guerilla warfare? If so, what would be the reasonable requirements we would make of guerillas in order to consider them just? The remarks below, based on my new book The Ethics of Insurgency; A Critical Guide to Just Guerilla Warfare (Cambridge University Press, 2015), summarize my attempts to answer those questions, discussing such issues as legitimate authority, just cause, and compliance with the laws of armed conflict, including the use of human shields and ‘soft-war’ tactics such as cyber warfare. Three commentators thereafter delve into some of the most central critical questions and objections, to which I subsequently reply.