Politics and the General in Supreme Command

Richard Adams is a commander in the Royal Australian Navy. He has doctorates from the University of Western Australia and the University of New South Wales. He was an Australian Fulbright scholar to Yale University and a visiting research fellow to the Changing Character of War programme at the University of Oxford.

• 1 Introduction2 What’s Been Said – Scholarship has Paid Insufficient Attention to the General3 Law and War – Law Cannot Capture War’s Moral Complexity4 Liberalism and Law – The Risk in Law’s Overstatement5 Conscience – Some Things will be Morally Impossible6 For All of Us, As One of Us – The General is Equal as a Citizen7 More Than a Postman – The General’s Singular Burden8 Let the General Say No – Moral Space in the Shadow of Law9 Conclusion

'Sometimes problems are disagreeable, and it is impossible to do as one would wish. But law should offer an opportunity to decide, to act responsibly with the best intention. Speaking of the supreme command, Adams makes this case clearly.'Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, AO, CSC, Royal Australian Navy (ret’d) Chief of Navy 2014–2018