Murray: Future warfare could move too fast for lawyers

摘要

The future battlefield might move too fast for Army commanders to check with lawyers about the legality and morality of some decisions, especially when soldiers are confronted with swarms of autonomous robots, the leader of Army Futures Command said April 22. "I fully believe that there will be nuanced cases where humans just can't keep up with the speed of engagement," Gen. John Murray said at an event on Futures Command hosted with the U.S. Military Academy's Lieber Institute. "How fast can you deliver lethal effects in a not only legal, but moral way?" In Afghanistan, commanders would usually have time to evaluate whether to fire on a target, and there would be a lawyer in the room who could speak up if an action violated the laws of war, Murray said. Between the speed of conflict and the volume of information in a future fight against a near-peer competitor, a commander would have far less time to make decisions, he said. And that could mean that a lawyer does not get the chance to contribute to the discussion.