Air Command and Staff College

Warden's Five-ring System Theory: Legitimate Wartime Military Targeting or an Increased Potential to Violate the Law and Norms of Expected Behavior? Air Command and Staff College

Publisher Marketing: With the publication of -Air Theory for the Twenty-first Century," Colonel John Warden ushered in a new era of wartime targeting. No longer are warfighters limited, as in years past, to an ad hoc, haphazard system of selecting wartime targets. Rather, Warden presents the warfighter with a unique tool-the five-ring system theory-that dramatically improves the warfighter's ability to systematically identify wartime targets. However, for all of its acclaim, little has been written about Warden's five-ring system theory. Even less has been written about the legal and moral implications of using Warden's theory to identify wartime targets. In this book: (1) briefly examine Warden's theory in light of prevailing law and norms of expected behavior; (2) find that Warden's five-ring system theory sidesteps major issues; namely it fails to account for the legal and moral constraints of wartime targeting and, in doing so, increases the warfighter's potential to run afoul of international law, domestic law, and norms of expected behavior; and (3) conclude, as a result, that such targeting should not be done without due consideration to the legal and moral issues surrounding the complex process of targeting.