Machiavelli: counterinsurgent's muse?

Few men are so tightly bound in the public mind to a particular idea as Niccolo Machiavelli, whose very name has been adjectivized to represent an especial sort of cunning calculation. Less well-known is the infamous Florentine's role as a military innovator, elaborated in Felix Gilbert's chapter in the classic volume The Makers of Modern Strategy. Machiavelli championed the transition from condottieri-led mercenary armies, which were often resistant to direction and ineffective in combat, to the conscripted militia. But military utility was not Machiavelli's only concern: his advocacy was guided by the belief that citizen armies would both blunt the foreign policy influence of the wealthy elites who largely funded operations in the mercenary era and stabilize domestic politics by cementing a link between ordinary citizens and the affairs of state.

A military evolution of this magnitude would have undeniable social consequences, and Machiavelli's philosophy of government -- in many ways so different to the utilitarian ethic so often ascribed to him -- made positive account of the change. According to Gilbert,

That a militia would fight willingly, perhaps even enthusiastically, only if its members were well treated by the state in which they lived was evident to Machiavelli.

Indeed, in his accounting, each successful republic in history was built on a foundation of la iustizia et l'arme -- "justice and arms."

Here's an incisive passage from Erica Benner's 2009 book Machiavelli's Ethics, which is said to present an innovative and sympathetic treatment (I can only judge by Chapter 8, which I've read online and enjoyed immensely. Though I was a history undergrad, I've got to admit that I'm not familiar enough with the source material in political philosophy to say much more than that):

The idea that justice is an indispensable foundation of political and military power is a recurrent, central theme in Machiavelli’s writings. It appears in texts written before and after The Prince. Among the earliest extant sources of Machiavelli’s views on justice is a series of proposals for reforming Florence’s military defenses written in 1505–6. A letter from Cardinal Francesco Soderini thanks Machiavelli for outlining his “new military idea,” [G here: that is, conscription] adding: “you write wisely that this idea [questo principio] requires justice [bisogna la iustizia] above all, both in the city and in the countryside.” (p. 292)

Apologies for the length of this excerpt, but it's important. Benner continues:

While it is true that the emphasis on justice in this military context connotes discipline as well as the notion of justice in an ethical sense, Machiavelli’s concept of justice here is not reducible to military standards of well-ordered command. The Cagione dell’ordinanza ties it to libertà as well as to security and stable order. 

The Provisione does propose measures that at first glance may seem to treat justice as a mere means to military ends. Machiavelli underlines the need to uphold “severe justice” (severa giustizia) against the heads of private factions who prevent individuals from fulfilling their duties, and against anyone who shirks his military duties without legitimate reason (absente sanza legitima cagione).  

But the main argument of the Provizione is that well-ordered military defenses cannot be maintained unless general political and legal justice is upheld. If the men of different ranks and occupations in a city are asked to serve in its defense, more than punitive force and military discipline are needed to motivate them to serve loyally; they also need persuasive “reasons to obey” public demands for their service. Cities whose governments are seen to uphold general justice are more likely to secure the trust and loyalty of citizens than cities where “the many” perceive that their interests are subordinate to those of the few. The citizens called on to serve as their city’s armi are less likely to avoid service if they are confident that no exceptions to general conscription are made in exchange for political or monetary favors. (p. 292-293)

This understanding may help us to conceive of the very real differences between the demands of coercive, control-oriented military operations in counterinsurgency and the longer-term political evolution imperative to stable civic order in a representative society.

I know, I know -- this looks like a stretch; Benner even admits that Machiavelli was talking essentially about fealty and esprit in military forces, not about curatives for rebellion. But his insight into the drivers of military loyalty applies also to free society, where a man's right to revolution (or less drastic political change) is forgone only in exchange for government that meets his needs. The same may not be true of different civic structures, but this just serves to further illustrate the difference between the solitary mandate for control in authoritarian government and the requirement for at least minimal legitimacy (coupled, Machiavelli would remind us, with force or its threat) in a community of free peoples.

"Hearts and minds"? What about justice and arms?

I will not boycott you again Tom - I will continue to engage you as my "solipsistic self"

Thank you, Tom, for pointing out that the United States has used the draft in the past 100 years. I obviously didn't know that since I was only born in 1980 and obviously nothing existed before me, at least nothing worth knowing. Or maybe my position on this topic is based on the realities of modern warfare, arms, and other conditions and not a "we've always done it this way" mentality. Possibly.

Yes, the draft was used in every major war the United States has fought since the Civil War through to Vietnam - most of these conflicts being of vital interest to the U.S., if not existential in nature. Obviously these conscripted forces performed very well - the Greatest Generation being the exemplar in this regard. There was a call and need for national service and it was well met.

I question the logic that if Americans were conscripted then the U.S. would not undertake foreign interventions because of greater effect on the elites and popular unrest. A war was fought in Vietnam with a conscript military with steady escalation. A war the ended after conscription ended. Decision-makers - politicians - have any number of reasons they make the choices they do, and I don't know how much their personal lives influence that (I'm sure it varies from politician to politician). As I mentioned in the comments to my last post on this topic, Senator McCain supported the Surge in Iraq and he did have "skin in the game" - a son in the USMC and another at the Naval Academy that was about to graduate. It didn't affect his decision making.

I also question the feasibility of conscription in today's economic conditions. All branches of the military are looking at where they can make cuts as our current wars start winding down and I'm not hearing any arguments from Congress or the Executive Branch to significantly increase spending to make these wars more "fair" when everyone is talking about cutting or at least stemming costs. They're much more concerned about weapons development and jobs in their constituencies, not adding tens of thousands (or more) people to the military's roles, with significant short term costs in paying, training, and equipping them and longer term costs in benefits. It is a political nonstarter because no one wants to pay for it.

And speaking of politicians, what do they benefit from re-instituting conscription? Pissed off constituents who feel their rights are being infringed? More national debt? An all-volunteer force is perfect for the political classes because they can use that force with minimal impact on the rest of America. I'd like to think they would do so out of their perspective of national interest and not personal politics, but we all know it's a little of columns A and B. They have zero interest in changing that paradigm - it's just bad politics for individuals.

The insulation of the military is also an absurd argument to bring back the draft. Draftees in our nation's history have been activated for 2-6 years of duty. I have no idea what the numbers are for those that stayed in after their commitment (and would be interested in seeing them if anyone has them), but are today's military leadership much different or more insulated than those during times of conscription? Are they not the same types of people that would have volunteered instead of getting drafted? Or stayed in after their conscription time elapsed? There has always been a core of military "elites" around which these conscripted forces were formed. That was the reasoning behind the founding of West Point - provide the professionals to lead the citizen soldiers when they were required. Conscripted junior enlisted and officers will not change the fact that the military's senior leadership will always be somewhat different from the rest of us.

So, yes, I do think that "some form of the draft just isn't gonna happen." Because it has been used in the past does not mean it will be used in the future. There's a whole other discussion of how the U.S. fights its wars now as opposed to WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam: it is technologically and capably superior to its foes, not based on mass. I think there's a good argument that our type of military does not benefit from losing its professional ideal. But that's another discussion for another time, just like how we'll have to sort out whether or not women get drafted and some other topics before this could be taken seriously as a real possibility. At the moment we can't afford a conscripted military, the politicians don't want one, it would have little to no effect on military "insulation", and probably isn't best for military readiness. If you want the people of this nation to care about war, then raise the hell out of taxes to pay for it. That will make people care and truly spread the pain (as opposed to a lottery that would likely have so many loopholes as to make the tax code look simplistic), even if that, too, is politically unlikely.

Would we reinstate it if a major conflict arose with existential consequences? Probably - and we probably should at that point. Until then there is no political will to do this nor any real reason. Except to make some people feel better that they're not the only ones paying for war. That's an unfortunate reality and will continue to be so until our actual survival as a nation is threatened. So no, I'm not being "solipsistic" or ignorant of our history. I'm looking at today with the benefit of having learned (yes, from books and not experience in this case) from that history and I don't see any real possibility of a draft in the near future nor the need for it.

I could care less about your indignation and sense of "fairness", the draft is a nonstarter

When we started this blog I assumed we would write about many various and sundry topics. But I never thought I'd ever feel the need to blog about reinstating the draft or compulsory service. Yet, here we are. For some reason, it has been a popular topic of late and I cannot fathom why. Some of the more prominent writers on the topic in the past weeks have been Tom Ricks and Crispin Burke. I cannot express enough how much I think reinstating the draft is a bad idea and I find the arguments for it to be somewhat less than compelling. Crispin tackles some of the hard numbers pretty well at Offiziere.ch, so I'm going to attack this issue from a more qualitative approach (while not completely devoid of numbers). I'm going to pose a lot of questions that I don't have the answers for because the answers are so patently outrageous as to immediately disqualify starting the draft/conscription. If you haven't thought about this things then you're not seriously considering this problem.

The biggest problem I have with the pro-drafters is that they seem to base their arguments on some sense of fairness as opposed to legitimate policy concerns. First, is the pro-draft argument that only 1% of the population is bearing the brunt of Iraq and Afghanistan. My response is: so what? How much of the population needs to be involved in these wars to balance the burden? When policymakers and politicians wrangle over 30 thousand troops here and there (as they should), how would drafting the vast majority of military age men and women affect the wars? Sure, putting 4 million (the number of citizens in the U.S. who reach their majority each year) Soldiers and Marines into Afghanistan and Iraq might be enough to execute the COIN strategy put forward earlier this year, but how on earth would we pay for that?

When we're staring defense efficiencies in the eye, how could any responsible government contemplate increasing the size of the force many times? What with the costs in pay, healthcare, retirement, and other overheads and all. There's also the question of what would these people do? Deploying soldiers costs a lot of money and we couldn't possibly have enough to do for all of them. Would they mainly train? Train to do what? We don't know what our relatively small all-volunteer military is going to do once these wars are over, how could we justify adding millions of people to that problem? The military is not a jobs program.

Then there's the oft-argued question of fairness with the all-volunteer force when it comes to the socio-economic status of enlistees. Crispin cites some numbers that suggest that our recruits don't necessarily come from the poorest as is usually argued, but surely many of them do. And I ask again: so what if they are? Being a private in most branches of the military is relatively low skilled work with huge amounts of supervision. Comparable work in the civilian world, if there is such a thing, would pay similarly to what a lower enlisted person makes, but without all of the long-term costs. While there are many wealthy kids who enlist in the military, the vast majority do not and leave this grunt work, literally and figuratively, to their less-fortunate fellow citizens. If being a soldier is the best you can do with your life than you do it. If it's not, then you do something else. I don't see that as a matter of fairness, I see that as a reality of our world where some people do the things they can and others do the things they want to.

The whole pro-draft argument almost always focuses on junior enlisted and ignores non-commissioned officers, warrant officers, and commissioned officers. The world has it's middle management and its elites. So does the military. These are all important for the functioning of organizations. Why do junior enlisted continuously reenlist and work their way up to the ranks? At that point it's not usually because there isn't anything else they can do - it's a free choice. Do officers go through their commissioning source because they don't have any other options? No. They do it because of very personal reasons for each of them. Just like the men and women who enlist. Those that stay in to make NCO ranks and those that join as officers may have more options in life, but the fact that they choose the military completely refutes the fairness argument of joining the military. It's not the only choice for the poor and less educated. It's an opportunity for those people, just as it is for the less poor and more educated. If it were the only choice, more of the poor and undereducated would enlist.

This probably smacks of an elitist rant, but I like to think of it as more of a realist rant. I came from a lower-middle income family and decided that I wanted to be a military officer and did it. That was my choice. I have no patience with these bizarre concepts of "fairness" that the poor are bearing the brunt of our wars and that that needs to be fixed. That canard isn't merely untrue, it's irrelevant. I spent nearly three years in Iraq, bearing a greater brunt than most military folks, and the vast majority of the people I served with, enlisted and otherwise, did so because they chose to join the military, not because it was the only choice they had. I cannot recall a single instance where someone thought it was unfair that they were at war when 99% of the population was unaffected by that war - we all knew that when we joined. You know what's unfair? Making a young man or woman (yeah, there's that whole topic I'm not even going to go into) go to war who didn't want to be in the military in the first place because some misinformed people thought something they did voluntarily was unfair to them. That's damned unfair. And it doesn't help the national interest to boot. So as the title of this post states, I really could care less about your indignation and sense of fairness on this topic. It's misplaced. The only thing a draft will accomplish is diminish the military's capabilities and satiate your sense of "fairness." Sounds like a couple of good reasons to infringe upon our fellow citizens' rights. But hey, you'll feel better, so that's something.