Good stuff from Charles Wheelan, author of Naked Economics. One of my favorite books.
Article: A Moral Hazard of Global Proportions
Summary: Its easy to support a war if it doesn’t cost you anything personally. To make our society more thoughtful about resorting to violence:
1. Reinstate the draft, but make it include everybody. Anyone between 18 and 65 should be drafted for desk jobs, cooking, etc.
2. Create an all-volunteer humanitarian branch of the armed forces for situations like Darfur. Soldiers who have additional special training in “peacekeeping, solving humanitarian crises, and the like.” They’d be volunteers because they would not be directly defending the US, but trying to keep world peace.
Of course you want young men full of testosterone fighting wars, and not everyone thinks the US has a moral obligation to be the world’s police force. But, I agree with Wheelan.
