Beyond Accountability: the Constitutional, Democratic, and Strategic Problems with Privatizing War
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Washington University Law Review Volume 82 Issue 3 2004 Beyond Accountability: The Constitutional, Democratic, and Strategic Problems with Privatizing War Jon D. Michaels United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview Part of the Government Contracts Commons, Legislation Commons, and the Military, War, and Peace Commons Recommended Citation Jon D. Michaels, Beyond Accountability: The Constitutional, Democratic, and Strategic Problems with Privatizing War, 82 WASH. U. L. Q. 1001 (2004). Available at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol82/iss3/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Law Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BEYOND ACCOUNTABILITY: THE CONSTITUTIONAL, DEMOCRATIC, AND STRATEGIC PROBLEMS WITH PRIVATIZING WAR JON D. MICHAELS* TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1003 II. THE MODERN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE WITH MILITARY PRIVATIZATION ............................................................................. 1012 A. Commercial Privatization in National Defense .................... 1014 B. Transitioning to Combat-Related Privatization .................... 1018 1. “[T]hey are not just running the soup kitchens.” ......... 1019 2. The Advent of Combat-Related Privatization................ 1020 3. A Survey of Recent Combat-Related Private Contracts 1024 a. Latin America ........................................................ 1024 b. The Balkans ........................................................... 1026 c. Afghanistan............................................................ 1029 d. Iraq ........................................................................ 1031 e. Rwanda .................................................................. 1034 f. Gaza Strip.............................................................. 1036 C. Conceptualizing Tactical Privatization................................. 1037 1. Using Private Troops To Minimize Political and Legal Contests ......................................................................... 1040 2. The Optics of Military Privatization.............................. 1042 a. Public Opposition Grounded in an Expectation of Zero-Casualties: A Focus on Soldiers’ Deaths ..... 1043 b. Lowering the American Profile Abroad ................ 1047 III. THREATENING THE NATIONAL SECURITY CONSTITUTION ............. 1048 * Law Clerk to the Honorable Guido Calabresi, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; Law Clerk designate, the Honorable David H. Souter, U.S. Supreme Court; J.D., Yale Law School; M.A., Oxford University; B.A., Williams College. The author wishes to thank Bruce Ackerman, Jonathan Becker, Brad Bedwell, Guido Calabresi, Sewell Chan, Josh Civin, Patrick Curran, Michael Graetz, Jerry Mashaw, Ed Meier, Craig Michaels, Trevor Morrison, Raj Nayak, Nicholas Parrillo, Susan Rose-Ackerman, Nikhil Shanbhag, Reva Siegel, Alexander Slater, Jake Sullivan, David Super, Seth Waxman and the editors of the Washington University Law Quarterly. Special thanks are owed to Ellen and Larry Michaels, and to Toni Moore. 1001 Washington University Open Scholarship p1001 Michaels book pages.doc3/29/2005 1002 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW QUARTERLY [VOL. 82:1001 A. Military Privatization’s Threat to Limited and Democratic Governance ....................................................... 1050 B. The Fallacy of Imperial Warmaking and the Reality of Coordinate Powersharing ..................................................... 1053 C. Bypassing Congress Through Privatization: An Attack on Constitutional, Limited Government ..................................... 1062 1. Denial of Congress’s Regulatory Role .......................... 1062 a. Size of Military....................................................... 1062 b. Reporting and Oversight ....................................... 1065 c. The Appointments Clause: Senate Confirmation of Military Officers .................................................... 1070 d. Governance and Discipline of the Military ........... 1073 2. Denial of the Appropriations Role ................................ 1074 3. Denial of the Authorization Role................................... 1076 D. Bypassing the People Through Privatization: Harms to Democracy ............................................................................ 1077 IV. UNDERMINING THE INSTITUTIONAL INTEGRITY AND STRATEGIC COMPETENCE OF THE U.S. MILITARY........................................... 1083 A. Harms to the Institutional Integrity—and Comparative Excellence—of the American Military .................................. 1084 1. The Notion of “Separate Community” .......................... 1084 2. Privatization’s Harms ................................................... 1089 a. Potential Strategic Liability................................... 1091 b. Perceived Strategic Liability/Morale Problem...... 1095 c. Perverse Incentives To Prolong/Expand War ....... 1098 B. Debunking the Normative Iconography of the Citizen- Soldier ................................................................................... 1101 1. First Among Equals: Traditional Laurels for Citizen- Soldiers.......................................................................... 1101 2. The Marketplace Debases the Polis .............................. 1107 V. INTERNATIONAL LAW/DIPLOMACY HARMS .................................... 1111 A. Alienating Friends and Foes Alike........................................ 1111 1. Allies.............................................................................. 1111 2. Would-Be Allies............................................................. 1113 3. Adversaries.................................................................... 1114 B. Flaunting the Ideals and Undermining the Institutions of Collective Security and Global Governance ......................... 1115 C. Setting Bad Precedents and Encouraging the Global Growth in Private Military Forces and Capabilities ............ 1118 VI. CONCLUSION................................................................................... 1120 https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol82/iss3/6 p1001 Michaels book pages.doc3/29/2005 2004] BEYOND ACCOUNTABILITY 1003 A. Achieving Parity: Leveling the Asymmetries Between the Public and Private........................................................... 1122 1. Restoring Equilibria in the National Security Constitution ................................................................... 1122 2. Disciplining Contractors As Soldiers............................ 1123 3. Cultural Conflation: Publicization of Contractors ....... 1124 B. Coming Full Circle: Arriving at a Place Where Issues of Accountability and Efficiency Are (Again) Paramount......... 1126 I. INTRODUCTION In late 2002, while grabbing headlines for boldly promising to slash the federal civilian workforce in half,1 the Bush Administration was at the same time discreetly hiring private contractors to relieve Special Forces troops of their duty to protect President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.2 In the more celebrated declaration regarding workforce reductions—perhaps the culmination of a decade-long, bipartisan initiative to reinvent and streamline government3—the President attempted to allay concerns by 1. See Edwin Chen, Bush Aims To Privatize Many Federal Jobs, L.A. TIMES, Nov. 15, 2002, at A1; Paul C. Light, Editorial, The End of the Civil Service?, WASH. POST, May 9, 2003, at A35; Ellen Nakashima, Bush Opens 40,000 Federal Workers’ Jobs to Competition; Goal: Put 425,000 Positions Up for Grabs to Contractors, WASH. POST, June 8, 2001, at A27 [hereinafter Nakashima, Bush Opens]; Ellen Nakashima, Bush Plan Could Cut Federal Workers, WASH. POST, Aug. 26, 2001, at A1 [hereinafter Nakashima, Bush Plan]; Richard W. Stevenson, Government May Make Private Nearly Half of Its Civilian Jobs, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 15, 2002, at A1 [hereinafter Stevenson, Government] (describing President Bush’s plan to transfer 850,000 government jobs to private contractors); Richard W. Stevenson, The Incredible Shrinking Government, Bush Style, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 8, 2002, at D4 [hereinafter Stevenson, Incredible Shrinking]; Edward Walsh, OMB Details Outsourcing Revisions, WASH. POST, May 30, 2003, at A21 (describing President Bush’s plan to speed up the process of opening up hundreds of thousands of federal jobs to private sector competition). For the announcement of this policy proposal, see EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, CIRCULAR NO. A-76 (Revised) (Nov. 14, 2002), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ omb/circulars/a076/a76_111402.doc (last visited June 4, 2004) [hereinafter CIRCULAR NO. A-76]. 2. See James Dao, U.S. Company To Take Over Karzai Safety, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 19, 2002, at A24; Michael Elliott, The Trouble with Saving the World, TIME, Dec. 30, 2002, at 109; Eric Pape & Michael Meyer, Dogs of Peace, NEWSWEEK: INT’L ED., Aug. 25–Sept. 1, 2003, at 22; Leslie Wayne, America’s For-Profit Secret Army, N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 13, 2002, at C1. 3. See Nakashima, Bush Plan, supra note 1 (“Bush’s management package is but one in a series of attempts to remake the government bureaucracy over the years,