Skin In the Game

Postscript to my provocative post about conscription.

In my post of earlier today—Conscription to Cure Forever Wars?—I provocatively suggested that re-instating the draft would likely cause Americans to think twice about supporting the U.S. government’s perpetual war policy. My intention with the post was to illustrate the psychological point that we have a tendency to be very thoughtless about things—even in matters of life and death—if we don’t have any skin in the game.

This is why James Madison expressly warned about the danger of establishing a “standing army”—that is, professional military—in the new American Republic. The trouble with an established military interest—funded by the state—is that it will not be incentivized to maintain peace, but to seek war, for it it war that expands the power, money, and honors that accrue to the military establishment.

Some of my favorite novels are the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian that are set in the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars. For the protagonist, Captain Jack Aubrey, the interminable war with France is what gives his life purpose and meaning—a fact that is comically expressed by his ineptitude in managing his affairs back home in England during occasional interludes of peace.

As Madison and John Adams observed, there is never any shortage of monsters abroad. Indeed, the world is positively crawling with them. The trouble is, the constant pursuit of warfare abroad does not serve We the People. This would be plainly apparent to everyone—especially in a country bounded by vast oceans—if everyone wasn’t constantly barraged with propaganda about all the bad guys abroad.

I suspect that everyone would regard war propaganda with a far more critical eye if they were confronted with the prospect of having to fight wars abroad instead of simply cheering Congress to support them with debt financing.