Defense Policy

As I mentioned on twitter, the substantive readings for the week combine a lot of policy issues that have been "hot topics" over the past few years. Although I like Peters' reasoning for combining defense policy and law enforcement into one chapter, I think it makes sense for me to talk about them separately. I know a little more about law enforcement and criminal justice policy than defense policy, but I think that I can pull together our readings from Stone and some of the current issues in defense policy to help you think about this policy arena.

I think that even the most libertarian-minded individuals would agree that the basis of the social contract is that government should provide for the people's defense. Civil defense is a classic example of a collective good, for which the market cannot provide. For all those except the most extreme pacifists, the idea that government should provide for the protection of its citizens is not under dispute. The questions of how and to what degree remain.

For the past two weeks, we have been reading about policy goals. From Stone, we have learned that they are often subjective and vaguely defined. Security, liberty, and efficiency are often discussed as rationales for our defense policies. Most Americans would agree that our military should protect us from current and future harms in the most efficient way possible, but does that mean that we should allow pre-emptive strikes and water-boarding to ensure our safety? What about assassinations? Should we grant citizens, non-citizens, guerilla forces, and opposing military forces the same protections or do certain groups deserve more protections than others? I think the chapters in Stone about policy goals can help us think about all of these issues.

I want to take a moment to address one issue in particular, in the context of Stone. Peters discusses the all-volunteer army and military procurement as two of the problems currently facing defense policy. We have decided that contracting out not only the creation of new weapons and strategies, but also the carrying out of on-the-ground security, as the most efficient way to fight our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Like the library analogy, however, we have to ask "efficient at what and for whom?" If our ultimate goal is to engage in many conflicts in a variety of so-called "theaters" then contracting out security, language, and logistics while enlisted men and women focus on combat may be the most efficient way to allocate responsibility. On the other hand, if you are concerned with a military that is more responsive to commands then contracting out services seems less efficient. If our ultimate goal is to avoid conflict whenever possible, requiring the military to carry-out all services on the ground would be the most efficient way to achieve that goal. (After all, it would require us to either reduce our conflicts to what a volunteer military can handle or institute a draft). If our goal in any individual conflict is to win at any cost, then we might consider contracting out even more services. If our goal is to win the hearts and minds of the people in the countries where our conflict takes place it may be more efficient for military personnel to be conducting fewer combat operations and more humanitarian missions and to contract out more of the security and combat duties. Some of these options may not be legal or ethical, but to say that contracting is efficient suggests an objective understanding of efficiency.

Of course, the contracting out of defense services also brings up real questions of equity. If soldiers in the military are the ones tasked with the most dangerous jobs, is it fair that military contractors far out-earn them? You may say yes if you are most concerned with process, assuming that everyone has the opportunity to either become a contractor or a soldier, because it is only the most experienced professional soldiers who will earn the higher paying contract jobs. On the other hand, you may consider that the military is more likely to recruit historically disenfranchised groups, while the contractors tend to recruit professionals. If this is how you think about the issue, then paying more to contractors is highly inequitable.

You could also think about the structural harms that contracting out may impose on the survival of our military. By incentivizing career military employees to transition to a higher paying contractor job, the reliance on contracted service may reduce the degree of expertise present in our military. Because contractors are not required to remain at their posts in dangerous circumstances, contracting out may reduce troop morale and community trust.

These are just some examples of how we can use Stone's perspective to understand one hot-topic under debate in the defense policy arena. I think the most important take-away here is that there is not one-single objective answer to the question of whether contracting out military services is equitable, efficient, or harm-inducing. Instead, we are arguing and debating our points based on our subjective understandings of each of these concepts.