the irrational creepiness of a private military firm

The other day, while attempting to answer a reader's debate question about the use of PMFs in South Korea, I came across the website of Xeros Services.

Xeros supplies men and materiel for war-making, and offers "cross-structural value," "risk mitigation," and "a nuanced approach." Take away the images of surface-to-air missiles and armored personnel carriers, and you might think you're being sold a 401K.  (Take away the website, and you can't even be sure the company is real: they're barely mentioned on the Web, outside of some duplicated Wikipedia entries.)

PMFs are criticized for making conflict too convenient, and it's hard to argue when faced with a sales pitch like this:

"Our 24-7-365 guarantee means we can help you react quickly and decisively to any unexpected developments, no matter the scale. For a small premium you can have complete peace of mind - and we'll handle the paperwork."

Do you want an army at your disposal? Log in with your password, charge your corporate credit card, and a platoon will be delivered to your door.

It's conflict outsourcing, and it's more than a little creepy.

utilizing force in the postmodern world

The March / April LD resolution asks us to consider the use of PMFs to pursue U.S. military objectives abroad. How does the changing face of war impact this debate?

Traditional war, Rupert Smith argues in The Utility of Force, is obsolete. In its place arise two distinct and yet related phenomena: the extended police action and state-building project known as the War on Terror, and perpetual peacekeeping and conflict management. These phenomena, which Smith calls "War amongst the people," demand new strategies, in which the ends are obscure or distant. As Smith writes,

The ends for which we fight are changing from the hard objectives that decide a political outcome to those of establishing conditions in which the outcome may be decided.... We fight so as to preserve the force rather than risking all to gain the objective.

This idea of force-preservation is central to every development in the postmodern military landscape.

1. The military must evolve.
As Defense Secretary, following in the footsteps of Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates has pushed the U.S. military toward greater flexibility and mobility. Fred Kaplan summarizes:

The Army needs to shift from a garrison peacetime force that's preparing for a possible head-on armored clash against a foe of comparable strength to a mobile force that's fighting actual "asymmetric" wars against rogue states and insurgents. The Air Force needs to pull back from its traditional obsession with high-tech air-to-air combat and focus more on joint operations—surveillance, precise air strikes, cargo transport, and rapid rescue—that help the troops on the ground. The Navy needs to focus less on aircraft carriers and more on vessels that can maneuver in coastal waters.

Now that Gates' tenure is ending, it'll be interesting to see whether this momentum keeps building. Necessity would seem to demand it.


2. So long, Social Contract.
In the absence of industrial war, and with Gates' quick-strike model of military supremacy, notions of a draft are no longer with us. The U.S. military is a professional force, and with that, it's only natural that Americans let the professionals handle it. To put it in other words, when security is the project, we're happy to subcontract.


3. Objectives subject to change.
A year ago, would anyone have predicted that the U.S. would consider military involvement in a Libyan civil war? Of course not. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea would have been the "obvious" concerns, with a rising China and perpetually dysfunctional Russia seen as long-term threats. The situation on the ground changes far too rapidly in a postmodern world.


4. Speed is power, and power corrupts.
Eric Wilson's "Speed / pure war / power crime," found in Crime, Law, and Social Change, 2009, is an interesting read for anyone considering a critical perspective. Following Paul Virilio's analysis in Pure War, Wilson argues that the increasing speed of conflict isn't a side effect, but a desired outcome of the postmodern corporation.

Speed reduces transparency by means of an 'optical disappearance,' which so hinders detection that the crime is effectively re-constituted a 'non-event;' that is, invisible....

By favouring the high-velocity corporations that respond with near-instantaneity to fast moving 'market forces,' 'private' structures displace traditional public institutions that are temporally encumbered by low-velocity traditional political deliberation and public accountability; nowhere is this more transparent than with the military procurement process. Pure War is identical with the systemic criminogenic environment, or 'corruption,' the covert privatization of government functions,' that is the conflation of the domestic political economy with speed. Power Crime is an emergent property of the political hegemony of speed. The question now becomes whether pure war can, in itself, affect a fundamental reconfiguration of national and trans-national juridical space.

Corruption doesn't just threaten the function of the State; when the virtual supersedes the actual, the State vanishes.

value and criterion pairs for the Private Military Firms resolution

The Private Military Firms resolution presents plenty of framework options for the Aff and Neg.

Resolved: The United States is justified in using private military firms abroad to pursue its military objectives.

The following list of Value and Criterion pairs is neither conclusive nor comprehensive. Rather, it's a set of suggestions to spark your thinking. Feel free to share your bright ideas, constructive criticism, and questions in the comments.

A work in progress.


Trending Affirmative

V: National Security
C: Pragmatism / Bolstering defense forces
We ought to value national security because the resolution concerns whether PMFs can reasonably or legitimately be used to attain military objectives. Hence the oft-used "toolbox" metaphor: to maintain security, we have to keep all the necessary tools at our disposal. Limiting our options could be expensive, counterproductive, or disastrous to our military efforts. This position will likely clash with advocacies based on freedom or human rights, since valuing security as paramount tends toward oppression.


V: National Security and/or International Stability
C: Preserving Hegemony
If PMFs help the U.S. maintain military superiority and economic clout--and thus the global balance of power via American hegemony--then they're warranted. The hegemony argument suffers from a couple pitfalls: first, it may not be true (in a multipolar world full of dangerous nonstate actors and nontraditional, asymmetrical conflict, can the U.S. even stake claim to be a hegemon?), and second, even if it's true, whether hegemony is good is another matter entirely--racism, ethnocentrism, or patriarchy, anyone? Benevolence is often solely in the eye of the benefactor.


V: Prudence (defined as carefully weighing political options; see Morgenthau)
C: Political realism
The idea here is that the US must act in its best interests, which are independent of overarching moral considerations. Rather, the U.S.'s goal is to preserve its own power, charting a careful course in a chaotic, Hobbesian world. Realists generally denounce grand state-building / democracy-spreading schemes, however, so there may be a "turn" available: that realism demands a massive scaling-back of American military activity abroad.


V: Justice or Governmental Legitimacy
C: Constitutionalism
The Constitution not only provides a justification for national defense, but seems to permit the use of Private Military Firms. So far, I have yet to see a compelling analysis that PMFs are unconstitutional; if you've found one, pass along word.


V: Societal Welfare or National Security
C: Capitalism / Free Market
PMFs, like any other business, provide jobs to hardworking Americans (and foreign nationals). Further, PMFs are constrained by market forces, which keeps them from acting too recklessly or abominably (lest they lose clients). If you're debating in a progressive region and run this type of argument, expect to face the "Cap K."


Trending Negative

V: Peace
C: Reducing "Warism," Preventing Future Conflict; Pacifism; Isolationism
Duane Cady describes warism as "the uncritical presumption that war is morally justifiable, even morally required." PMFs incentivize conflict, since they have a financial stake in providing security or goods in war zones. When the war ends, PMFs have to move on to the next opportunity. Eisenhower's warning about the "military-industrial complex" anticipated this sort of perpetual conflict machine.


V: Justice or Morality or Governmental Legitimacy
C: Social Contract
The resolution uses the phrase "is justified," which may be defined in moral terms. The moral obligation of the State is based on its contractual duties and limits--and its monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Subcontracting this to PMFs is a dangerous policy, since PMFs are accountable to stakeholders who may not even be U.S. citizens or have the U.S.'s best interests in mind. In contrast, the U.S.'s citizen-soldiers have strong commitments to the U.S's military objectives; it's the focus of their recruitment, their training, their everyday life, and the entire command structure.


V: Justice or Morality
C: Just War Theory
If PMFs don't meet the criteria of jus in bello, we negate.


V: Freedom
C: Reducing the power of the state and/or corporations
The seemingly ever-expanding influence of corporations and states on individuals--and of corporations on states--means that we risk becoming a paternalistic plutocracy that defends its own interests in the guise of national security. Globalization, corporate welfare, financial bailouts... and PMFs, all in an unholy alliance.


V: Justice or Morality or Human Dignity
C: Protecting Human Rights
Thesis: If protecting human rights is essential to justice (or morality), and if PMFs (especially security firms) violate rights with impunity, then we must negate.



Could Go Either Way

V: Societal Welfare (or Morality or Life or National Security)
C: Consequentialism (or Utilitarianism, Act or Rule)
Any case predicated on a body count, a dollar figure, or any other quantifiable metric of success is essentially consequentialist (and perhaps utilitarian). Not that there's anything wrong with that.

the necessity of private military firms

Why might the U.S. be justified in employing Private Military Firms (PMFs) to attain its overseas military objectives? In "Contractors: The New Element of Military Force Structure," found in the Autumn 2008 edition of Parameters (a publication of the U.S. Army War College), Mark Cancian outlines the ways in which PMFs have become not only useful, but entirely necessary.

1. Reconstruction
Cancian dispels the myth that PMFs are mostly mercenaries; in fact, the vast majority of military contractors are unarmed support personnel involved in diverse tasks. The largest group of contractors--nearly half--are involved in reconstruction efforts, with manifold benefits. Not only does it keep troops focused on military missions, but it establishes long-term stability in the occupied territory.

Work removes the bored and unemployed from the streets. Men who might otherwise join the insurgency for ideological or economic reasons now have a stake in maintaining stability. A job also has significance in traditional societies such as Iraq and Afghanistan, a fact that is sometimes difficult for westerners to appreciate. A job means that a man can get married and leave his family's home. Traditionally in these societies, unmarried children do not move out and get apartments on their own. This transition to independent living makes a young man an adult, thereby giving him a stake in the stability of his neighborhood or town.

2. Logistics
The military's own functioning depends heavily on PMFs for logistical support.

Most of the US personnel involved in these functions are blue-collar technicians (truck drivers, electricians, maintenance specialists), the people who keep materiel flowing and bases running. They are unarmed and often highly skilled in their areas of expertise, frequently more so than their counterparts in the military who are often much younger and, in effect, apprentices in their trades. Traditionally, military personnel performed these functions, but the high cost and relative scarcity of experienced uniformed personnel in the all-volunteer force made use of contractors an attractive option. Why use military personnel for a job that a civilian is willing, able, and often better qualified to perform?

For an example, Cancian focuses on food service, an area in which private firms outshine and have largely replaced their military counterparts.

3. Interpretation
Communication makes private support an absolute necessity.

Conflicts overseas, especially counterinsurgencies, require a large number of interpreters so US forces at every level can communicate with the local populace. Although the military is expanding its number of linguists, large-scale operations require thousands of interpreters. The military will never have enough personnel skilled in any particular language (except Spanish) to cover more than a small proportion of its total requirements. Contractors will always provide the bulk of this capability.

4. Security Details and Bodyguards
Admittedly the most problematic PMFs, armed security details and bodyguards draw the most attention, despite their relative smaller scale. Regarding the former,

About three-fourths of these security contractors protect fixed facilities inside major bases and never venture outside the wire.... The main function of these security guards consists of screening personnel entering facilities by checking identity cards. The majority of this group has never fired a shot in anger. They are more akin to the security guards one sees in the United States guarding banks or shopping malls.

Bodyguards, on the other hand, have ignited the most controversy, due to their involvement in violence. Yet according to Cancian, they represent fewer than 1% of all PMF personnel. A lack of coordination with and oversight by military forces, and what Cancian calls the "bodyguard mindset," in which the bodyguard will engage in disproportionate force in order to protect the client at all costs, combined to precipitate the infamous Blackwater incident in 2007. Since then, Cancian argues, necessary changes have been made.

The Department of Defense (DOD) and the State Department finally issued new guidelines that brought contractors under military control, required State Department security officials to accompany every convoy, installed video cameras in contractor vehicles, and clarified the rules on the use of force.

The full impacts of these changes remain to be seen, but it's an exaggeration to argue that PMFs are rogue elements operating entirely outside the control of the government.

5. The Future
The evolution of conflict, which I'll discuss further in a future post, demands an expanding military.

The Army is currently expanding from 482,400 to 547,400 soldiers. This expansion could have reduced dependence on contractors by channeling all the additional personnel into support units. But it has not. Although some of this additional manpower is being integrated into support units, the majority is going to combat units. The purpose is clear-reduce stress on personnel by increasing the number of units in the rotation base. Army leaders have repeatedly cited the need to lengthen the time units spend in the continental United States. In all their testimony related to expanding the force Army leaders have never expressed a desire to reduce dependence on contractors.

The Army is developing a strategy based on a future of "persistent conflict" where every combat unit, active and reserve, deploys on a regular basis. Indeed, the Army's planned force structure does not make strategic sense without the implicit expectation of continuous deployments. As a result, the Army will continue to depend on contractors in support of deployed forces.

6. The Absence of a Realistic Alternative
What of those who would advocate replacing PMFs with military personnel? Cancian dismisses this as impractical, bordering on impossible:

Replacing the 113,000 contractors in the security and logistics arenas (excluding interpreters and all those in reconstruction) would require a minimum of 250,000 additional military personnel, and when the rotation base and training pipeline are considered the number quickly swells to more than 400,000 as a high-end estimate. With the Army struggling to meet the more modest target of its current expansion, an increase of 65,000 active-duty soldiers, such a large expansion would appear impossible without reconstituting the draft. Since a draft is opposed by the military leadership, politicians, and the American people as a whole, reinstituting conscription is infeasible, whatever its attraction for op-ed writers.

Cancian's article, which goes into much more depth regarding the legal status of military contractors, is well worth reading in full, especially for Affirmatives building the case for PMFs.

the benefits of private military firms

Concerning the March/April 2011 resolution, what are some of the tactical and strategic advantages of private military firms? In "Reconsidering Battlefield Contractors," from the Summer 2005 edition of Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Doug Brooks and Jim Shevlin lay out some of the arguments in favor. The gist:

Private firms play an indispensable role in supporting peace and stability operations from Congo to Iraq, but sensationalization and misinformation of "battlespace contractors" has unfortunately skewed public perceptions and is having an adverse impact on policy formulation. Despite frequent claims that private firms are unprecedented, unregulated, inherently unethical and even a threat to American democracy, the private sector actually has a long history supporting U.S. military operations, is regulated by numerous domestic and international laws and statutes, plays a central role in operations critical to speedy state recovery, infrastructure reconstruction and humanitarian security, and is critical to implementing policies of democratic governments and the international community. The private sector provides policymakers, as well as those tasked to carry out the policies, with remarkably cost-effective and flexible tools, and criticisms of the industry too often have more to do with the politics behind the policies than with the performance of the companies engaged in their implementation.

Private military firms come in three main varieties:

1. Nonlethal Service Providers (NSPs)

NSPs provide logistics services, air transport, construction of military bases and refugee camps, and other specialized services such as water purification, unexploded ordinance disposal, and mobile hospitals. While NSPs face many of the same legal issues as the PSCs and PMCs when they operate in CPC regions, most concerns about NSPs focus on appropriate procurement policies, whether their services should be labeled "inherently" governmental, or whether the U.S. military is too reliant on them.

2. Private Security Companies (PSCs)

They provide armed protection for "nouns": people, places, and things. These include politicians, military leaders, buildings, organizations, convoys, etc.... While conceptually there is little difference between security guards in Iraq and in the United States, where private security outnumbers regular police three to one, PSCs in Iraq tend to have military backgrounds, be better armed, and offer a higher level of armed security capable of defending their "nouns" against attacks by heavily armed insurgents and bandits.

3. Private Military Companies (PMCs)

PMCs are firms used to alter the strategic shape of a conflict. PMCs generally work for states, international and regional organizations and provide military and police training, security sector reform, assistance in defense ministry design, and even advice on proper civil-military relations in a democracy. PMC employees are generally unarmed, though in Iraq some carry sidearms for self-defense.

Note that although Private Military Firms are involved in war zones and may tangentially be involved in combat operations, primarily their purpose is supportive and defensive.

According to Brooks and Shevlin, there are five main advantages to private military firms:
* surge capacity and speed - the ability to recruit and train personnel
* force multiplication - the ability to rapidly deploy personnel, equipment, and munitions
* specialized skills - most often in technology, security details, and training
* ease of use - the competitive market ensures that firms are highly responsive to their governmental "customers," and easily discarded if unsuccessful
* cost efficiency - on the whole, private military firms are cheaper than similarly equipped State actors

The article contains much more regarding the legal status of private firms, both in domestic and international law, too complex to summarize here. Overall, Brooks and Shevlin's analysis is well worth reading for LDers looking for affirmative arguments.

when elections don't matter

I was going to blog extensively about Glenn Greenwald's recent visit to South Puget Sound Community College, but I see that Berd beat me to it.

Instead, the abridged version.

1. At this point, in the Obama presidency, at least as it relates to civil liberties, you're either naive or cynical. Consider his track record, as summarized by Greenwald:

Civil liberties were at the forefront of the critique of the Bush-Cheney administration. Yet virtually all of these powers are still in place, or have been strengthened.

Obama symbolically ended...
* Authorization for torture. (It was no longer in use by the time he was inaugurated.)
* The use of CIA black sites. (They were already empty.)

Obama continued Bush-era practices for...
* State secrets
* Guantanamo Bay detention
* Drone attacks
* Covert activities / "interference" (that fuels terrorism, in Greenwald's view)

Obama invented...
* The right to order the CIA to target American citizens for assassination

Greenwald's summing-up: "The idea that Barack Obama would do more to institutionalize and entrench and strengthen Bush-era policies... was something that not even the most cynical Democrat would have foreseen."

2. Greenwald seemed much more upbeat about the Tea Party and the Republican "shellacking" than many in his liberal audience. Partisanship, if nothing else, deflates the president's ego.

3. New Mexico Republican Gary Johnson: savior of civil liberties? From an unidentified woman in the Question and Answer session: "I had drinks with Gary Johnson, and got a little bit drunk. He's really awesome.... He's a Republican and he's completely awesome."

some thoughts on the (new) nuclear weapons resolution

The Aug/Sept 2010 resolution asks us to consider whether states (meaning national governments) ought to possess nuclear weapons. After mulling over some of the arguments, here are a few of my thoughts.

The AFF: Why shouldn't states possess nuclear weapons?

1. If states possess them, they will be tempted to use them, which leads to...
* Unjustifiable deaths of noncombatants--both now and in the future (thanks to fallout, "nuclear winter.") It doesn't take a sophisticated theory of Just War to argue that horrific civilian casualties are beyond the pale.

* Horrific environmental destruction, which is unjustifiable even if military use could somehow be justified.

2. Even if the nuclear weapons are not used...
* The potential for accidents, theft / terrorism, associated development and maintenance costs, future Terminator-esque robot uprisings (seems silly now, but wait a decade or two...) make the risks of possession too great.

* Possession leads inexorably to an arms race, increasing the risk and raising the stakes should conflict ever occur

* Possession increases fear and intimidation, not only of one's enemies or neighbors, but of one's own citizenry. This kind of fear is not only psychologically damaging, but fosters and empowers repressive governments.

*Possession sustains the perpetual hegemony of existing nuclear powers--hypocritically, they keep other nations from developing the technology they possess.

The NEG: Why shouldn't states not possess nukes? (I know, it's awkward--but the Neg doesn't have to make the case that states *ought to* possess nukes--only that it isn't wrong for them to possess nukes. Be sure to make that clear at the top of your case.)

1. There is no in principle objection.
a. Social contract theory at best offers flimsy grounds to prohibit powerful weaponry. Nuclear weapons are certainly frightening, but, historically, no more destructive than conventional weaponry. (Think about it for a moment: which has killed more civilians in the past 50 years?) Further, the social contract doesn't apply to non-citizens, which is sad, but necessary to a state's maintenance of its sovereignty and moral responsibility to its own citizens.

b. Another option: individual morality doesn't apply to states, which operate out of pragmatism and self-interest. (Call this "political realism" of a sort, or a Hobbesian view of sovereignty.)

2. Self-defense in a nuclear world requires nukes.
a. States need to defend themselves against other nuclear powers.

b. The only way to be safe without nukes is if no other country has them. That is an impossible scenario, pie-in-the-sky utopianism. "Mutual Assured Destruction" has worked, and will continue to work.

3. Similarly, smaller states need to level the playing field with more powerful nations--in their overall national security strategy, which includes more than just military might.

4. Nuclear weapons are an unfortunate side-effect of nuclear power, which is necessary to stave off global warming.

5. States have to be ready to protect themselves (and the planet) against existential threats (asteroids, space aliens, and the like). Right now, our best hope may be our most powerful weapons.

Some tough questions:

1. What moral rules bind states in the first place? It's likely that a strong debater can make the entire debate hinge on this question. It's the sort of thing that can be given away in CX if a debater isn't paying attention or hasn't thought their case through. If it's "the social contract," which social contract? A hypothetical or constitutional contract? Lockean or otherwise? If it's an absolute morality, is this morality consequentialist (utilitarian even) or not? Or do states even have to follow moral rules? (And if not, can the Aff still argue that "ought" need not necessarily be moral--that it can be pragmatic, and still to a state's advantage, to be nuke-free?)

2. What is an acceptable level of risk? Let's say that possessing nuclear weapons means a 1-in-a-something chance of starting World War III, and wiping out most of humanity. When is that risk too risky? One in a million? A billion? And how does the risk change when another nation proliferates, or disarms? Is such a risk even calculable? The Neg can hammer this question in CX. Without a bright line for risk assessment, even apocalyptic scenarios may lack argumentative force.

3. We also have to determine what the scope of affirmation must be--in other words, what the "Affirmative world" looks like. The Neg might try to press the Aff to support universal disarmament (see below), while the Aff might say the general principle of the resolution doesn't require all countries to abandon nukes--just that being nuke-free, as a general principle, is morally superior.

The NFL's LD rules are helpful here:

Each debater has the burden to prove his or her side of the resolution more valid as a general principle. No debater can realistically be expected to prove complete validity or invalidity of the resolution. The better debater is the one who, on the whole, proves his/her side of the resolution more valid as a general principle.

No absolute defense of total disarmament is necessary to meet this standard.  (If you're worried about this, you could include this language as a resolutional analysis at the top of your case.)

Coming soon: value and criterion pairs based on some of these arguments. As always, your comments, questions, and criticisms are welcomed.

Senate axes F-22 funding

Back in February, Slate's Fred Kaplan had argued that it was time for Congress to stop ordering new F-22 Raptors, later providing reasons that the save-our-jobs argument for the fighter jet was essentially bunk. Yesterday, the Senate followed his advice. Kaplan triumphant:

This is a big deal: The Senate today voted to halt production of the F-22 stealth fighter plane, and it did so 58-40, a margin much wider than expected.

Not only is this a major victory for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who lobbied strenuously (something he rarely does) to kill this program, and for President Barack Obama, who pledged to veto the defense bill if it contained a nickel for more F-22s. The vote might also mark the beginning of a new phase in defense politics, a scaling-back of the influence that defense contractors have over budgets and policies.

Then again, I might be dreaming. Surely things couldn't be changing quite that much. Could they?

Time, as they say, is a blabbermouth.

The F-22 is wicked cool, but in today's geopolitical climate (partly cloudy, with pockets of insurgency), air superiority through fighter combat is obsolete. As Kaplan observes, the Raptor has never been deployed in battle.

The future belongs to drones.

they call it wisdom literature

During the Iraq War, an officer in the Pentagon was a little too fond of placing Bible verses on the cover of intelligence reports.

Strangely, he never included Ecclesiastes 9:11.

some general strategies for the military conscription resolution

The NFL's 2009 national tournament resolution, "Resolved: military conscription is unjust," is deceptively simple, but in reality offers a wide range of options for both sides.

Affirmative Strategies
Although it always seems weird to me to affirm a negative statement, that's what the resolution demands, so that's what we have to do. There are at least three overarching positions to take, with options under each.

1. War is itself unjust, so anything that promotes war is unjust. (Pacifism.)
Corollary: Even in peacetime, the draft increases militarism and ethnocentrism, which leads to further conflict

2. Military conscription is instrumentally unjust--in other words, it leads to unjust outcomes.
a. It ruins society or otherwise decreases social utility.
b. In practice, it is unfair or exacerbates social division.

3. Military conscription is intrinsically unjust, violating liberty / autonomy / dignity / rights. (A deontological framework.)

Negative Strategies
1. In response to pacifism...
a. Just war theory, linked into notions of national self-defense and the necessity of conscription
b. Argue for the moral necessity of war, and that social benefits, to be fairly deserved, should be fairly won
c. Argue that it unfairly broadens the resolution and is a time-suck.

2. In response to instrumental arguments...
a. Attack utilitarian notions of justice (although this might be tough for the Neg to pull off)
b. Agree with utilitarian premises, but show how they lead to the opposite conclusion

3. In response to rights- or liberty-based arguments...
a. Deny the framework, and fight back with utilitarian, communitarian, or other notions of justice
b. Accept the framework, and show how the draft does not violate liberty / rights / etc., perhaps via social contract reasoning (Rousseau might be good here).

Of course, there are other less traditional approaches that might work as well. Feel free to suggest your own in the comments.

Resolved: Military conscription is unjust.

The NFL has released the topic for 2009 nationals:

Resolved: Military conscription is unjust.

(I corrected the typo; the original states, "Resolved: Miitary conscription is unjust.")

Analysis, links, and more to follow in the days ahead. For now, some initial thoughts.

1. Libertarianism, anarchism, pacifism, isolationism. Emma Goldman. Ron Paul. Foucault.
2. Either communitarian or utilitarian justice schemes will be common for the negative. Rousseau's "general will" lines up nicely here. How about Hegel?
3. Note that the resolution is not time- or culture-bound, so watch out for conditional affirmation involving age, gender, etc.
4. More libertarianism: Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, "draft is slavery," involuntary servitude, freedom as the highest value.
5. Rawls on the neg could be interesting.
6. This has to be--nay, is--the shortest resolution in some time.

As I start to develop my thoughts, feel free to suggest your own ideas, questions, and comments.

Analysis
1. I suggest some general strategies for the Aff and Neg.
2. Joe Nusz has two articles available: one about finding a fresh angle for your case, and the other on the connection between conscription and Thoreau.

why torture doesn't work

From time to time, this blog has discussed the morality of torture, which, for its proponents, hinges on one thing: whether it works. But even the severest utilitarian would have hard time justifying a practice that, as far as we can tell, is worse than useless. Consider the newly-released details of the CIA's investigation on Abu Zubaida. Ed Brayton points to the story, found in the Washington Post:

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

Zubaida's "confessions" produced garbage, yet his captors, even when faced with evidence that further waterboarding was pointless, continued to torture him. Brayton comments,

This is one of the main problems with such interrogations and it has nothing to do with those famous "ticking timebomb" scenarios we hear so much about. They're convinced they have a high value target in detention but in fact he's just a low level flunkie who has little to tell [them]. So when he doesn't give them useful information, they're convinced they have to torture him to get the information they're sure he has.

And even after they torture him and he tells them everything he thinks they want to hear to make them stop, and even after they waste time and resources chasing all the false leads he gives them, they never think to question their own assumptions either for that person or for others. Even after the failure of their first instance of torture, they continued to approve others.

I see at least two reasons for this. First, in the heightened emotional state brought on by the combination of crisis-thinking and moral abnegation, the ordinary distortions of confirmation bias are amplified until the noise drowns out the signal. Second, torture is a sort of moral Rubicon--once crossed, there's no going back, no possible admission of failure, for it would reveal a truth too ugly to comprehend--not only to the outside world, but to the torturer.

today's umbrage links

Adam Kirsch describes how, in his Rawls-directed ire, Raymond Geuss is a modern-day Thrasymachus.

Jacob Weisberg takes several shots at libertarians. The cheapest:

The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school.

Emily Yoffe parses the evolutionary roots and social utility of umbrage.

The Transportation Security Administration is, apparently, bad beyond umbrage. Read the whole thing. Like the novel 1984, the last sentence is the saddest. [via Mark Frauenfelder]

axis of evil drops a spoke

Is this good news?

North Korea has agreed to all U.S. nuclear inspection demands and the Bush administration responded Saturday by removing the communist country from a terrorism blacklist. The breakthrough is intended to salvage a faltering disarmament accord before President Bush leaves office in January.

"Every single element of verification that we sought going in is part of this package," State Department Sean McCormack said at a a rare weekend briefing.

North Korea will allow atomic experts to take samples and conduct forensic tests at all of its declared nuclear facilities and undeclared sites on mutual consent. The North will permit experts to verify that it has told the truth about transfers of nuclear technology and an alleged uranium program.

Not everyone thinks it's good news.

Critics pilloried the development because it addresses only the North's plutonium program and does not deal with its involvement in spreading nuclear weapons technology or alleged uranium enrichment activities.

"With today's action, the administration has given up a critical instrument of leverage," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "By rewarding North Korea before the regime has carried out its commitments, we are encouraging this regime to continue its illicit nuclear program and violate its pledge to no longer provide nuclear assistance to extremist regimes."

"We are also sending a strong message to other rogue nations, such as Iran and Syria, that we will not hold them to their commitments, even as we give in to their demands," she said.

The farthest-reaching legacy of the Bush administration may not be the wars fought, but the war avoided.

I hope it's good news.

nativist, pork-laden hypocrisy

Some of the recent hoo-ha over Boeing's contract loss to EADS-Northrop-Grumman-Airbus-les Français is staggeringly stupid.

In Tuesday's speech on the Senate floor, Murray said the $35 billion decision for 179 planes was "a key piece of our national and economic security."

"Instead of securing the American economy and military at a time while we are at war we are creating a European economic stimulus package at the expense of U.S. Workers," she said.

"We cannot trust a foreign company to keep our military's best interest in mind."

Thank goodness our allies don't see things our way. Quick: without resorting to Wikipedia, name just ten of the many countries the U.S. supplies with weaponry. Which two already have a Boeing tanker contract?

Just War Theory and consequentialism

In a new paper, Thomas Hurka of the University of Toronto discusses how Just War Theory considers consequences, but in a deontological framework. [pdf]

But this interpretation is neither most intuitive nor truest to how the conditions have usually been understood. A more attractive reading departs from consequentialism, first, by distinguishing among types of benefit and harm, saying only some are relevant to the assessment of a war or act in war while others are not. Second, it distinguishes among causal processes,saying benefits and harms with one kind of causal history can count toward the assessment of a war or act while the same benefits or harms with another history cannot. Finally, it does not always weigh benefits and harms equally but gives more weight to harms an act directly causes than to any benefits it produces. In all three respects the resulting theory assesses consequences in a deontological way.

The paper is highly useful to anyone running--or running against--Just War Theory in the present resolution.

(For further information, check out Hurka's "The Consequences of War," which goes into more depth.)

the new new world order

What is America's role in the world? LDers coming across--or using--hegemony or political realism cases for the current resolution might want to check out two recent essays.

The first, by Parag Khanna, declares that American hegemony is in its last throes.

At best, America’s unipolar moment lasted through the 1990s, but that was also a decade adrift. The post-cold-war “peace dividend” was never converted into a global liberal order under American leadership. So now, rather than bestriding the globe, we are competing — and losing — in a geopolitical marketplace alongside the world’s other superpowers: the European Union and China. This is geopolitics in the 21st century: the new Big Three. Not Russia, an increasingly depopulated expanse run by Gazprom.gov; not an incoherent Islam embroiled in internal wars; and not India, lagging decades behind China in both development and strategic appetite. The Big Three make the rules — their own rules — without any one of them dominating. And the others are left to choose their suitors in this post-American world.

Khanna, after analyzing the present situation, calls for a modest pragmatism as a stabilizing strategy for the future--no American exceptionalism, and no dreams of empire. The entire essay is well worth digesting.

Derek Chollet and Tod Lindberg, however, take a slightly different view. Though they also realize that unipolarity is not an option, they still want to preserve the "moral core" of American foreign policy.

Moving beyond the slogans, would a truly values-free foreign policy really secure U.S. interests, strengthen U.S. power, and draw the sustained support of the American people? We think not. American values are an indispensable component of the U.S. role in the world — they are a key part of what unites the United States to allies in Europe and elsewhere and distinguishes the United States from countries like China. Instead of dividing conservatives and liberals, American values in foreign policy can in fact translate into a moral core that both sides can rally around. In the current political environment, as we approach the first post -9/11, post-Bush election, building such a policy bridge will be difficult. But given the stakes, it is imperative.

How this plays out in practice is outlined in the rest of the essay. Again, worth reading for insight, ideas, and blocks.

tricky phrases in the nuclear weapons resolution

What does it mean to "pose a military threat?"

That's a question I mulled over this past weekend, as I listened to affirmatives and negatives try to parse the complexities of the nuclear weapons resolution.

There's no easy, or good, answer, for either side.

1. In one view, "pose a threat" and "threaten" are semantically distinct. To threaten is to demonstrate intent to harm. The locus of agency is the person or entity making the threat.

To "pose," in the context of "posing a threat," (or its semantic cousin "posing a risk") is to come to one's attention. The locus of agency is the person or entity who feels threatened.

2. This would make "pose a threat" a more subjective concept. It would be up to the threatened to show why, say, France poses a military threat, even if France hasn't made an express warning or action against a particular nation.

3. But an affirmative might say that this reading of the resolution takes away too much Aff ground. If, as many seem to be assuming, "pose" means to "present," the locus of agency returns to the threatener. "Pose a military threat" and "militarily threaten" would mean the same thing.

So, as I see it, Affs want a narrow view of "pose a military threat," or else they are stuck defending military force in response to another nation's mere possession of a military.


What does "prevent the acquisition of" imply, if anything?

An affirmative could also narrow the resolution by arguing that "prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons" implies that the nations in question are not already armed with nukes. Two reasons:

1. The word "prevent." As Webster's notes, "prevent implies taking advance measures against something possible or probable." If a nation already possesses nukes, prevention is too late; nuclear weapon acquisition is already "actual," instead of "possible" or "probable."

2. The ever-shrinking Affirmative ground. Saying that the resolution encompasses nations that already possess nuclear weapons gives the Neg too many angles of attack in a resolution already heavily Neg-weighted, because of the ridiculous number of words and phrases that require Aff definition.

Your thoughts and comments, as always, are welcome.

international law as a social contract

Regarding the nuclear weapons resolution, in his typically thought-provoking way, reader le radical galoisien raises several pertinent questions. I'll take up his first question, which is all I have time for at the moment.

My concern so far is eloquently tying this social contract idea to justice, especially since "international justice" is a relatively recent phenomenon: the "rules of war" didn't exist a few hundred years ago. How would you argue that that an action of what is unjust by international consensus (Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, for example) is truly unjust? Basically, how would you eloquently argue that violating another nation's self-determination is an unjust action?...

First, I'd challenge the notion that because rules of war and the cosmopolitan attitude are (relatively) recent, they don't matter now; such an idea would forbid the possibility of moral advancement.

Second, the international social contract is more "real" than the classic hypothetical conception. In "Rethinking the Sovereignty Debate in International Economic Law," in the December 2003 Journal of International Economic Law, Kal Raustiala notes, "[E]xpressed consent is the traditional basis of international law. International institutions derive their powers from the explicit consent of the contracting states."

Raustiala quotes Abram Chayes and Antonia Handler Chayes, who argue,

The largest and most powerful states can sometimes get their way through sheer exertion of will, but even they cannot achieve their principal purposes security, economic well-being, and a decent level of amenity for their citizens without the help and cooperation of many other participants in the system . . . That the contemporary international system is interdependent and increasingly so is not news. Our argument goes further. It is that, for all but a few of self isolated nations, sovereignty no longer consists in the freedom of states to act independently, in their perceived self-interest, but in membership in good standing in the regimes that make up the substance of international life. To be a player, a state must submit to the pressures that international regulations impose . . . Sovereignty, in the end, is status - the vindication of the state's existence as a member of the international system. [In The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements, 1995]

Thus, Rustialia argues,

Given a world in which largely irrevocable changes in the global economy have destroyed the ability of states to prosper under autarchy, and in which states must achieve social objectives to be legitimate, international institutions are now the primary means by which states may prosper and achieve social objectives. Consequently, they are the primary means by which states may reassert or express their sovereignty.

Thus, to warrant the idea of an international social compact, we might turn to a form of Kantianism. In "Human rights and international economic law in the 21st century," in the March 2001 edition of the Journal of International Economic Law, Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann explains:

Kant was the first political philosopher who explained why national constitutional guarantees of freedom and rule of law cannot remain effective without complementary international constitutional guarantees of rule of law among states and cosmopolitan human rights protecting individual freedom vis-a`-vis foreign governments across frontiers. Kant's 'democratic peace thesis' - i.e. that constitutional democracies tend to avoid wars among each other, and that 'negative peace' needs to be reinforced by international trade cooperation and cosmopolitan law - has been confirmed by history, notably by the 1951 and 1957 Treaties establishing the European Communities, which are a new kind of peace treaty based on Kantian principles of national and international constitutionalism.

Since every individual and every government risk abusing their freedom and powers, and rules do not enforce themselves, human rights are the most important legal instrument for empowering individuals to defend their equal liberties against abuses of power and for forcing governments, and also international organizations, to regulate national and international relations in a way promoting maximum equal liberty and individual and collective self-government under the rule of law. Just as economic market competition forces producers to increase their productivity and efficiency for the benefit of consumers, and political competition induces governments to improve public policies for the benefit of their citizens, human rights promote the mutual balancing of conflicting rights and an ever more precise specification of the limits of individual freedoms and property rights and of the constitutional limitations of governmental powers. Yet, historical experience and constitutional theory teach that market competition, political competition, as well as legal competition among citizens and their human rights cannot function in an undistorted manner unless the antagonistic conflicts among the short-term interests of individuals are reconciled with the common long-term interests of rational human beings on the basis of constitutional safeguards, notably equal human rights and national and international rule of law.

The Aff could argue that in acting preemptively to prevent threatening nations from acquiring nuclear weapons, the United States not only fulfills rational self-interest in protecting its citizens, but in keeping other nations from harm, preserving their fundamental rights and dignity, and securing international order and an existence necessary for human flourishing.

(It seems we're returning to the UN vs. sovereignty resolution.)

abolishing nuclear weapons: a sound affirmative strategy?

Regarding the nuclear weapons resolution, a reader writes,

Do you think that having part of my Aff case be about the total abolition of nuclear weapons is plausible? This would severely shut down a majority of the Neg cases since they have to argue against the use of military force. Also, it would stop the Neg from saying that the US is hypocritical because the United States is wrong to prevent others from possessing nuclear weapons when it continues to possess them.

I stress that I want to run this abolition view in only a part of my Aff case. Is that possible? My value is justice, and VC is protection of human rights.

If so, how do I interweave this position into my case without jeopardizing my VC or other contentions that I might have? Could this be a contention? I could just not mention anything about the US having nukes in the first place.

Also, would abolition even be a relevant issue since the resolution deals with the justification of using military force, nothing to do with whether or not nukes are just.

I'll address each question in an order that makes sense to me.

Is abolition relevant?
Absolutely. If it is wrong, as a moral principle, to possess nuclear weapons, and that justifies the U.S.'s preventive measures against acquiring nations, then abolitionism is a valid affirmative position. If a Neg says, "That's hypocritical," the response is either to say, "That doesn't matter, because justice doesn't require that the agent be perfect," or "That's outside the scope of the resolution." (See here for an example of the first response.)

Is it plausible?
Maybe. Although I think the hypocrisy charge can be dismissed, it might stick with certain judges, especially if the Neg is running an anti-hegemony-style case. Also, a Neg might claim that abolition on the Aff is abusive, merely a form of super-negation. I don't know whether I'd buy that.

Would it work with a value of Justice and a criterion of Protecting Human Rights?
I think so. For example, in Nuclear Disarmament in International Law, Haralambos Athanasopulos argues that the use of nuclear weapons is both genocide and a crime against humanity*, violating human rights and international law.

[T]he prohibition of genocide is not only a positive norm of international law, but has become a compelling rule of international law with universal applicability and binding legal force.... Therefore, the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances against an enemy state or in the context of a total nuclear war would directly violate the Genocide Convention and would constitute a punishable crime of genocide....

The UN General Assembly Resolution 1653 (XVI), adopted by an overwhelming majority, provides that the use of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons would exceed even the scope of war and cause indiscriminate suffering to humanity and civilization and, as such, is contrary to the rules of international law and to the laws of humanity. The above resolution also states that the use of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons would represent a war directed not against an enemy or enemies, but against humanity in general, since peoples of the world not involved in such a war would be subjected to all the evils generated by the use of nuclear weapons. UN General Assembly Resolution 36/100, also adopted by an overwhelming majority, holds that states and statesmen resorting to the first use of nuclear weapons would be committing the gravest crime against humanity.

Thus, using military force as part of a program of complete abolition could be justified on human rights grounds. (This opens up the Aff to the charge that military force, even as just a part of the program, would lead to greater harms, since nations like Russia or the U.S. aren't going to disarm completely without a fight.)

Will it work with other contentions?
Depends on what they are.

This hasn't begun to exhaust the possibilities. Your comments, as always, are welcome.



*Distinct categories in international law.