{"id":1942,"date":"2011-02-13T16:08:29","date_gmt":"2011-02-13T16:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/harvardnsj.com\/?p=1942"},"modified":"2011-02-13T16:08:29","modified_gmt":"2011-02-13T16:08:29","slug":"drafts-and-mercenaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/2011\/02\/drafts-and-mercenaries\/","title":{"rendered":"Drafts and Mercenaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

By John Thorlin —<\/strong><\/p>\n

Should the United States reinstitute the draft?<\/p>\n

In the Summer 2010 edition of the Yale Journal of International Affairs, Dr. Joseph Vasquez questions the wisdom of using private military contractors (PMCs) and suggests that reinstitution of the draft might be preferable on moral and economic grounds.\u00a0 He cites a 2007 shooting incident which led to manslaughter charges being brought against Blackwater.\u00a0 The Blackwater employees were later exonerated, but Dr. Vasquez maintains that such incidents are to be expected due to a lower level of military control and accountability in PMCs.\u00a0 Dr. Vasquez argues that the lower cost of PMCs (due to fewer benefits and more efficient administration) leads inexorably to their greater usage and, subsequently, a multiplication of incidents such as the 2007 Blackwater incident.<\/p>\n

Dr. Vasquez\u2019s case for the draft rests on three key assertions.\u00a0 First, it would dramatically increase available manpower for the armed forces, thereby reducing strain on volunteer soldiers.\u00a0 Second, it would increase the public\u2019s awareness of foreign policy issues if more people had to serve.\u00a0 Finally, the draft would decrease the need for PMCs.<\/p>\n

Dr. Vasquez\u2019s first point is true, but ignores important differences between volunteers and draftees.\u00a0 Draftees are, by definition, people who would not otherwise join the military.\u00a0 This trivial observation suggests two equally clear facts about draftees.<\/p>\n

First, they have far lower morale than volunteers.\u00a0 This means they will do their work less effectively.\u00a0 They will also tend to drag down the morale of volunteers who are forced to work with draftees, a well-recognized effect of the draft in the Vietnam era.<\/p>\n

Second, the act of drafting a citizen has a large, clear economic cost, both to the individual citizen and the country as a whole.\u00a0 Educations and entry level job experiences are deferred.\u00a0 May citizens are not soldiers because they have a comparative advantage in a different field.\u00a0 For example, a skilled programmer\u2019s talents are wasted if he is forced to be a soldier for two years.\u00a0 We would do well to wonder how much value would have been lost in the world if Mark Zuckerberg had been patrolling Ramadi instead of creating Facebook.<\/p>\n

Dr. Vasquez\u2019s second point, that the draft would increase the public\u2019s awareness of foreign policy issues, is debatable.\u00a0 The information available to the public regarding the wars is already quite detailed (perhaps even too detailed given the recent Wikileaks imbroglio.)\u00a0 Perhaps what Dr. Vasquez means is that the public would be more sensitive to the death of draftees in war.\u00a0 If that is true, it may be simply because we all pity the unwilling draftee who is sent off to die regardless of whether he is sent off to fight a \u201cgood\u201d war.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Imposing that emotional tax may cause lawmakers to think twice before sending soldiers off to fight, but it will not be because of any rational policy consideration.\u00a0 The same emotional tax might deter an otherwise laudable mission such as ending genocide or protecting our allies.<\/p>\n

While Dr. Vasquez raises several legitimate concerns about the current policy toward PMCs, his article does not offer any fundamental reasons why the use of PMCs should be curtailed.\u00a0 The one incident he cites resulted in exoneration of the contractors involved.\u00a0 Even if the contractors had acted criminally in that case, it would remain unclear why we should be against PMCs generally.\u00a0 After all, U.S. military personnel have committed many morally culpable acts in the current wars (such as the detainee scandals at Abu Ghraib), but we do not allow the depraved acts of individual soldiers or units to impugn the efforts of all the rest.<\/p>\n

The use of PMCs (or, to use a less politically correct appellation, mercenaries) is an ancient tradition.\u00a0 Xenophon\u2019s Anabasis<\/em>, one of the key works of Ancient Greece, describes the travails of ten thousand Greek mercenaries.\u00a0 Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a hero of the American Revolution, was a mercenary.\u00a0 A particularly illuminating argument regarding mercenaries and the draft arose when General Westmoreland was questioned by Milton Friedman regarding the Vietnam-era draft.\u00a0 \u00a0Westmoreland said he did not want to lead an army of mercenaries, to which Friedman responded, “General, would you rather command an army of slaves?” Westmoreland answered, “I don’t like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.” Friedman retorted, “I don’t like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries. If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general.”<\/p>\n

Friedman\u2019s point was simple: there is nothing fundamentally immoral about mercenaries (or, perhaps synonymously, paid volunteers).\u00a0 Resorting to a draft raises entirely different moral concerns and would likely be far less economical.\u00a0 Dr. Vasquez\u2019s provocative article notwithstanding, there remain good reasons not to spurn volunteerism in favor of a draft.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Getty Images.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By John Thorlin — Should the United States reinstitute the draft? In the Summer 2010 edition of the Yale Journal of International Affairs, Dr. Joseph Vasquez questions the wisdom of using private military contractors (PMCs) and suggests that reinstitution of the draft might be preferable on moral and economic grounds.\u00a0 He cites a 2007 shooting incident which led to manslaughter charges being brought against Blackwater.\u00a0 The Blackwater employees were later exonerated, but Dr. Vasquez maintains that such incidents are to be expected due to a lower level of military control and accountability in PMCs.\u00a0 Dr. Vasquez argues that the lower 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