The unlimited liability contract tells us that so long as an order is legal (even if it is suicidal or perceived as unjust) a military member is normally expected to obey it (Coleman 2015).

At the big picture level, if you are fighting in a war, you should have some understanding of why the war is taking place. If you are fighting a war you believe is ethically justified, then you should be prepared to take some responsibility for the harm that you might cause. If you knowingly follow an illegal order to go to war, some people argue that you should be held as responsible as if you followed an illegal order during a conflict.

See 3 of Clubs

Stephen Coleman, Military Ethics: an Introduction with Case Studies, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013), p154.

Nikki Coleman, ‘The Unlimited Liability Contract and its Effects on Serving Military Personnel’, in George Lucas (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Military Ethics, (Routledge, Abingdon, 2015), p280.