Dear readers,

I am delighted to be able to present this new regular publication from zebis – our center for ethical education in the armed forces.

Four years ago, this center was established in Hamburg, Germany, as an adult education institution of the Catholic military chaplaincy for the German armed forces (Bundeswehr). The center pursues two main tasks. Firstly, in view of the importance of character guidance training (Lebenskundlicher Unterricht) as a key part of professional ethics training in the German military, its role is to devise ongoing and advanced training programs for military chaplains so that they are suitably qualified to give these professional ethics courses. These skills development activities are supported by maintaining a regularly updated internet portal that provides teaching modules for character guidance training classes.

As a second focus, zebis devises formats for ethical education and qualification for members of the armed forces in leadership positions, especially for ethical education multipliers.

The primary purpose of the new e-journal is to document these activities for a wider, even international audience with an interest in issues relating to military ethics and  security policy. The aim in publishing an e-journal is to offer readers an attractive format containing short, informative essays that are not overloaded with annotations. The journal will also consider the most important current issues in peace ethics and military ethics from an interdisciplinary perspective, so that opinions are heard not only from the field of ethics but also from the fields of international law, psychology and education, for example. This multi-perspective approach aims to strengthen the capacity to perceive and identify moral problems in the context of military action and security developments, and facilitate ethical debate.

I hope that the new e-journal “Ethics and Armed Forces - Controversies in Military Ethics & Security Policy” will find many interested readers.