The moral and humanitarian dilemmas for the peacekeeping soldier on the ground are immense. The pressure is intensified by scrutiny, quite properly by the chain of command, sometimes by legal representatives and always by the media. Moral as much as legal accountability haunts the military.
Military ethics can be defined as the spirit in which force is used to achieve political ends. In practice, the impact on military operations, planning and rules of engagement often falls short of the theoretical policy goal. The link between ethics and military realities, both strategic and tactical, is not always clear or easy to maintain.
