The combatant-institution proximity framework as a tool for understanding moral injury in war

Abstract

Moral injury fractures the core of a combatant’s identity and disrupts their capacity for meaning-making. In the wake of violent and morally complex events of war, those who suffer from moral injury often have difficulty living with themselves or commit suicide. This thesis develops the Combatant-Institution Proximity Framework, a three-tier model that illustrates the metaphorical distance between the individual combatant and the institutional-legal domain of moral conduct in war. Chapter 1 establishes a moral injury as a form of trauma, arising from events of perpetration, betrayal, witnessing, or irresolvable moral conflict. Chapter 2 analyzes combatant identity through social, relational, and narrative theories, showing how symptoms of moral injury sever ties to meaningful identities and relationships, demonstrating that the sociocultural domain engulfs a combatant. Chapter 3 explores institutional and legal frameworks, including just war theory and the U.S. JAG Corps. Throughout, case studies highlight leadership’s dual roll enforcing institutional moral standards, and cultivating a moral climate withing their unit. Ultimately, this thesis argues that moral injury exposes the gap between their personal beliefs and the morals that the institutions and laws of ethical warfare strive to uphold. The framework developed aids in understanding this gap.