The Toolkit provides a practical and adaptable framework designed to strengthen ethical decision-making, integrity, and professionalism in the defence and security sector. 

Its primary aim is to equip military and civilian personnel with concrete tools, scenarios, and learning methods that help translate ethical principles into daily practice both in peacetime and during operations. The toolkit supports institutions in building resilient organizational cultures grounded in accountability, transparency, and respect for the rule of law.

Rampant and widespread unethical behaviour serves only to undermine rather than further the goals of public defence and national security. - George Lucas, Distinguished Chair of Ethics, emeritus, U.S. Naval Academy

The publication is structured to guide users from foundational concepts to applied practice. It begins with detailed guidance for a “train-the-trainers” approach and explains the core principles of ethics. This is followed by information on ethical leadership, consequences of abuse of authority, ethical dilemmas related to nepotism, conflict of interest, whistleblowing, emerging technologies, as well as other topics paramount to the defence sector and its resilience.

The sections present real-world case studies (which have been anonymized), ready-to-use training exercises, and discussion prompts, enabling instructors to integrate the toolkit into existing training programmes with minimal adaptation.

The toolkit has been externally and internally vetted to ensure methodological relevance to diverse defence environments, and it has been piloted and tested in multiple contexts, including field-level and institutional settings in Kyrgyzstan, Tunisia, and Ukraine. Feedback from these pilots has informed the refinement of exercises, improved cultural adaptability, and ensured that the toolkit responds to real operational and organizational challenges.