Editor’s note: MWI senior nonresident fellow Max Brooks wrote the following as part of the New York Times‘ Op-Eds From the Future series.
The United States Army is on strike. It’s difficult to believe that America’s contracted defenders have simply walked off the job—especially at a time like this. As contract negotiations lumber into their third, fruitless month, the world seems to be coming apart at the seams.
In Arabia, the fractured Saudi Principalities continue their bloody power struggles. In North Korea, the coup that took down the Kim dynasty has degenerated into all-out civil war, with a looming threat of nuclear action. To our north, the Sino-Russian peacekeeper divisions have openly refused to withdraw from Quebec. This last crisis puts at least four confirmed I-mech battalions and possibly one full cyclone brigade within hyperswarm range of Washington, DC. All the while, our bases remained shuttered, our ships docked, our aircraft grounded, and even our joint cyberspace network—the core of our national defense—continues to be “temporarily unavailable” while its operators sit at home waiting to hear about their new pay raise, working hours, vacation days, and, as stateless citizens, immunity from not only war crimes but all crimes under US law.
In the old days of the Army, this would have been a mutiny. But “mutiny” implies the revolt of government troops, not private contractors. And that is who’ve we’ve entrusted to our security. Mercenaries.
Read the full piece at the New York Times.
Max Brooks is the author of World War Z and the forthcoming Devolution. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: casch52
From the New York Times piece above:
"Lastly, we must look at more than reruns of 'The Office' on our private screens. We have to learn about the world we live in and be able to tell the necessary conflicts from the convenient ones. The best way to prevent wars is to understand why they happen. This will lead to fewer wars and give us the assurance that if our fellow citizens are going to risk their lives for us, then they need to know, that we know, that every other option has been exhausted."
If "the best way to prevent wars is to understand why they happen," then let us, in this light, consider that:
a. The reason why we have engaged in "small wars"/"wars of choice" of late — the reason why these such "small wars"/"wars of choice" happened —
b. This is much the same reason as why the West engaged in "small wars"/"wars of choice" in the past, for example, as explained by C.E. Callwell in his "Small Wars: Their Principles and Practices," first published in 1899 at the height of the pre-World War I "Age of Imperialism." Herein, consider this from his, Chapter II, "Causes of Small Wars:"
"Small wars are a heritage of extended empire, a certain epilogue to encroachments into lands beyond the confines of existing civilization … The great nation which seeks expansion in remote quarters of the globe must accept the consequences. Small wars dog the footsteps of the pioneers of civilization in the regions afar off. The trader heralds almost as a matter of course the coming of the soldier and the commercial enterprise in the end generally leads to conquest."
(Pay particular attention to the term "pioneers of civilization" in Callwell's item above. This will be important when we view excerpts from the U.S. Marine Corps Small Wars Manual immediately below.)
With regard to the "pioneers of civilization" wars noted above, consider the following from the 1940 U.S. Marine Corps Small Wars Manual.
From Section III, Psychological, Paragraph 1-10f, Foreword. See Page 11.
"The motive in small wars is not material destruction. It is usually a project dealing with the social, economic, and political development of the people. … "
From Section III, Psychological, Paragraph 1-17b. Summary. See Page 32:
"The purpose should always be to restore normal government, or give the people a better government than they had before, and to establish peace, order, and security on as permanent a basis as practicable. Gradually there must be instilled in the inhabitants' minds the leading ideas of civilization, the security and sanctity of life and property and individual liberty. In so doing, one should endeavor to make self-sufficient native agencies responsible for these matters."
Thus, to answer the question "why wars happen" — at least from the U.S./Western "small wars" and/or "wars of choice" perspective — then this would seem to be easily accomplished by (a) reviewing the material offered, above, relating to "small wars" in the past and (b) the "civilizing"/"nation-building" initiatives undertaken by the U.S./the West in such places as Afghanistan and Iraq of late?
Accordingly:
a. Now that we have a better understanding of "why — small wars/wars of choice — "happen,"
b. Will this (from my quoted item from our article above — at the top of my comment here) "lead to fewer wars and give us the assurance that if our fellow citizens are going to risk their lives for us, then they need to know, that we know, that every other option has been exhausted?"
(Or is this unlikely; this, given the imperial nature of the small wars/the wars of choice" described above — which would seem to have much less to with "defense" and much more to do with "expansion?")
From the information provided above, is it now possible to consider whether the privatization of U.S. Army is a good and wanted thing — or bad and unwanted thing — this from the perspective of:
a. Small wars/wars of choice. This, as opposed to:
b. Large wars/wars which cannot be avoided?
(Note: A problem that I have with this such distinction is that — in the case of both our small wars/wars of choice — and in the case of our large wars/wars which cannot be avoided also — the requirement to restore our way of life, our way of governance, our values, etc. — or to INSTALL these such attributes in other states and societies — this would seem to be the mission. This being the case in both Germany and Japan after World War II — and in Iraq and Afghanistan of late. This seems to suggest that what we are looking for in an "army" — re: BOTH our small wars/wars of choice AND our large wars/wars which cannot be avoided — this is personnel who can be deployed and employed overseas, on and off, indefinitely — much as much/most of the U.S. military has been since World War II?)