The Code of the Warrior

Exploring Warrior Values Past and Present

Shannon E. French

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2025
• Edition: 3
• eBook ISBN:
  9798881863470
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History

Combining ethics, history, and psychology, this book examines historical and contemporary warrior cultures, arguing that today's warriors need a code to navigate the moral line between soldier and killer.

Exploring the roots of military ethics, this third edition furthers author Shannon French's argument that modern troops need a code to shield their humanity as they endure the horrors of war, including updated first and last chapters addressing the need for warrior codes throughout history and in today's military climate. Stories of ancient Greek and Roman soldiers, Chinese warrior monks, Vikings, Celts, Japanese samurai, medieval European knights, Islamic warriors, and Zulu warriors combine with contemporary perspectives on modern day warfare's latest technologies and power structures to present a truly global and timeless case for the exercise of restraint in warfare-primarily for the benefit of those doing the fighting.

A new chapter on the famous Zulu warrior Chief Shaka makes the important distinction between a warrior and a strongman. Incorporating philosophy with history, religion, anthropology, sociology, and moral psychology, French addresses concepts which resonate within and beyond military service. She also presents thoughtful answers to complex questions such as: Why should one side of a conflict show restraint if the other side does not? How can a command climate become corrupted? What is the difference between a warrior and a murderer, or a terrorist, or a strongman? How do changes in technology affect the conduct of war?

French provides analysis grounded in her own decades of work with and for members of the U.S. military, as well as her extensive, international scholarship in military ethics. It is a must-read book for anyone interested in how wars can be fought ethically and how warriors can be spared the worst moral injury that comes from betraying their own chosen core values.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword, Senator John McCain (From the first edition, 2004)
• Why Warriors Need a Code: Shielding Humanity in the Horror of War
• The Homeric Hero: A Hector Who Wins?
• The Two Faces of Rome: Stoicism and Hedonism in Service to the State
• Vicious Vikings: Vengeance, Valkyries, and Valhalla
• Shaka Zulu: Strongmen, Instability, and Disruption of the Status Quo
• Knights of the Round Table: Never to Do Outrage nor Murder
• Indigenous Americans: Warrior Transitions on the Sacred Plains
• Chinese Warrior Monks: The Peaceful Martial Artists of Shaolin
• The Soul of the Samurai: Balancing Duty, Devotion, and Death
• Sultan Saladin and the Warriors of Islam: Revelation and the Rules of Engagement
• The Warrior’s Code Today: Do We Need New Ethics of War?
• Index
• About the Author