The Privatization of American Warfare - A Failed Idea

The latest round of rifts between the American military, the Iraqi government and private military contractors (formerly known as mercenaries), prods at the edges of a wider - and more disconcerting - issue: the privatization of American warfare. Setting aside partisan hyperbole and hand wringing, it is easy to see that such a trend is deleterious not only to democracy, but to foreign policy in general. The American tradition of shared risk and reward is being replaced by a monolithic political structure, insulated financially, politically and, perhaps, shielded morally from the electorate it was designed to serve. The trend belies a design for efficiency it seeks to achieve.

The easiest way to dig into the idea is to begin with what the military is designed to achieve. Its sole purpose is to defend the United States of America and its interests abroad. Those interests are - by virtue of democratic fiat - complex and difficult to anticipate from one administration to the next. Some administrations and congresses focus primarily on economic and political interests abroad. Others have a more idealized world view, seeking to export American ideas.

These interests are as fickle as the people who devise them.

The military, responsible for projection and protection of those interests, has a mandate for efficiency. What good is it to say we want nation "x" or dictator "y" contained, if we are unable to act on the idea with speed and real effect? How do we sustain economic growth and prosperity if our military consumes too much of our nation's resources? We don't. So the military is tasked with being efficient, small and technologically superior to achieve maximum effect at minimum cost. - Continues Below


F-22 Raptors

In ideal circumstances, this sort of military force is sufficient. However, we learn nothing from history if we do not learn that the ideal is rarely in any way associated with reality. In reality, political pressure to overachieve often places an unrealistic burden on a overextended military. One of the basic rules of personal economics is to count cost before making expenditures. It would be ideal to own the perfect house, best car and put one's children in the finest schools. The reality is that few can afford the largesse required to achieve that ideal.

If one transfers that analogy to geo-political behavior, the situation in which we are now immersed is too expensive for our budget. This is where the financial insulation I mentioned before becomes evident. Our government, carrying out a specific policy ideal in response to an unprecedented attack on New York and Washington D.C., has overextended. Our military, designed for peacetime efficiency and assymetric warfare, has been placed in a counter-insurgency situation featuring three hostile, heavily armed and foreign supported factions in Iraq.

That overextension has led to decisions to bring in mercenaries to fill gaps left by the depletion of military forces. Enter Blackwater Inc. - Continues Below



Before I go too far, I will concede that in times of national peril, mercenaries could be necessary for survival. However, they should be a last resort, after all other options are exhausted. At present, we haven't come anywhere near last resort options. So why are we employing mercenaries?

They are relatively cheap labor, in many cases even trained by our military.

Mercenaries aren't the only issue in our failure to share the financial risk here, we are. We are because we do not demand accountability for the cost of this war. We cannot rightly demand accountability because we are, collectively, refusing to become involved in the management of it. Instead, congress is debating useless resolutions with no meaningful effects, because we do not hold them accountable.

By we, I mean conservatives, not liberals. Liberals are loud and clear on wanting to leave Iraq now, even though it is only one front in a growing global war. Conservatives, on the other hand, hand wring and complain about failure, but refuse to pressure congress to take necessary steps to enhance the efforts of our military. And we sit idly and demand a win, without pressing for involvement.

Dennis Miller, to his credit, has forwarded the idea of war bonds to finance the war. That is a great idea, allowing the American people to obtain a direct stake and accountability for the effort. A loss is a financial loss for everyone, not a political inconvenience for a party. And with ownership comes oversight. If I'm invested in the outcome, I'll know what my congressman is doing.

The idea of war bonds isn't far-fetched. Why aren't we using them? I suspect that there is a large segment of the public sector that doesn't want the scrutiny. Instead, it would prefer to argue meaningless resolutions.

But we also touch on the second point of political insulation here, and the arguments in this debate span the width of opinions. Consider a draft. Begin with the military and one will find an organization adamantly against the idea. Going back to the purpose of being small and efficient, the military is dead set against conscription. It is a recipe for inefficiency and it costs a small fortune to train a soldier for the modern battlefield. The military attempts to choose the smartest and most adapted applicants, with an eye toward unit effectiveness and keeping costs down.

A draft also crystalizes public involvement. Of all of the ideas about which I am certain, I am most certain that a draft would bring a rapid end to the "Do Nothing" congress. With no choice but to be involved, American public opinion would become educated and involved. Shared risk for everyone lowers political insulation for the government, but is there any concept more uniquely American? We should be in this together, though we are not now.

I'll leave out any discussion of the corporate sector, not because I believe that they are faultless, but because I do not have the time to adequately describe their faults without sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

Which brings us to the final point of the government being somewhat shielded morally by the current arrangement. An all volunteer force makes for a great political argument. It allows for a projection of power with no risk to those who do not wish to be involved. This is dangerous to any democratic system. It encourages a lack of participation in the decision making process by the very people who may have to pay dearly for gross miscalculations. All the while, the government can proceed without the natural moral check of the will of the people, because the people are isolated from the human toll of the war.

Until we become involved as a group financially, personally and politically, we risk grave mistakes made on our behalf without our consent or input. And that's the upside of the analysis. Read Roman history for the downside.