The Paradox of Recruitment

Abstract

This article compares six cases between the US and Israel in the areas of anti-war mobilization and its impact on military deployment, force protection, and prisoners’ swap. It argues that the more the recruitment is built on state-coercion rather than market regulation, the higher the state’s sensitivity to the well-being of its soldiers because the likelihood for collective action focused on military issues is higher. The power of republican discourse, the coercion of recruitment on powerful, but sometimes also unwilling enlistees, and the favoring of voice over exit all cause the state to increase its commitment to its soldiers. At the extreme, the state may even favor soldiers’ lives more than its commitment to protect the citizens.

Notes

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2 Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 4th ed. (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications 2009) p.61.

3 See Hugh Smith, ‘What Costs Will Democracies Bear? A Review of Popular Theories of Casualty Aversion’, Armed Forces & Society 31/4 (Summer 2005) pp.487--512.

4 Christopher Dandeker, ‘New Times for the Military: Some Sociological Remarks on the Changing Role and Structure of the Armed Forces of the Advanced Societies’, British Journal of Sociology 45/4 (Dec.1994) p.643.

5 See Eyal Ben-Ari, ‘Epilogue: A “Good” Military Death’, Armed Forces & Society 31/4 (Summer 2005) pp.651–64.

6 Charles Tilly, Roads from Past to Future (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield 1997) pp.193--215.

7 Deborah Avant, and Lee Sigelman, ‘Private Security and Democracy: Lessons from the US in Iraq’, Security Studies 19/2 (May 2010) p.241.

8 Todd Woodruff, Ryan Kelty and David R. Segal, ‘Propensity to Serve and Motivation to Enlist among American Combat Soldiers’, Armed Forces & Society 32/2 (April 2006) pp.353--66.

9 Joseph Paul Vasquez, ‘International Politics by Ordinary Means: Conscription’s Constraints on Democracies Waging War’ (PhD dissertation, Univ. of Notre Dame 2009) pp.85--8.

10 See the summary of James Burk, ‘Military Mobilization in Modern Western Societies’, in Giuseppe Caforio (ed.), Handbook of the Sociology of the Military (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum 2006).

11 Margaret Levi, Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism: Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions (New York: Cambridge UP 1997).

12 Vasquez (note 9).

13 Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard UP 1970).

14 See, for example, Stuart Tannock, ‘Is “Opting Out” Really an Answer? Schools, Militarism, and the Counter-Recruitment Movement in Post-September 11 United States at War’, Social Justice 32/3 (2005) pp.163--78.

15 Vasquez (note 9).

16 Joseph Paul Vasquez, ‘Shouldering the Soldiering: Democracy, Conscription, and Military Casualties’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 49/6 (Dec. 2005) pp.849--73.

17 See Rafael Ajangiz, ‘The European Farewell to Conscription?’ in Lars Mjoset and Stephen Van Holde (eds.), The Comparative Study of Conscription in the Armed Forces (Amsterdam: JAI Press 2002).

18 David S. Meyer and Catherine Corrigall-Brown, ‘Coalitions and Political Context: US Movements against Wars in Iraq’, Mobilization 10/3 (Oct. 2005) pp.339--40.

19 Laura L. Toussaint, The Contemporary US Peace Movement (New York: Routledge 2009).

20 See Ronald R. Krebs, ‘Where are this War’s Winter Soldiers?’ Slate, 7 March 2008.

21 Lawrence J. Korb and Sean E. Duggan, ‘An All-Volunteer Army? Recruitment and its Problems’, PS, Political Science & Politics 40/3 (July 2007) pp.467--71.

22 Robert Cushing, and Bill Bishop, ‘The Rural War’, New York Times, 20 July 2005.

23 Douglas L. Kriner, and Francis X. Shen, The Casualty Gap: The Causes and Consequences of American Wartime Inequalities (New York: OUP0) pp.29--31.

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25 Kriner and Shen (note 23).

26 Thomas Ricks, ‘The Widening Gap between the Military and Society’, Atlantic Monthly 1 July 1997.

27 Tannock (note 14).

28 Cynthia G. Franklin and Laura E. Lyons, ‘From Grief to Grievance: Ethics and Politics in the Testimony of Anti-War Mothers’, Life Writing 5/3 (2008) p.243.

29 Daniel Lieberfeld, ‘Media Coverage and Israel’s “Four Mothers” Antiwar Protest: Agendas, Tactics and Political Context in Movement Success’, Media, War & Conflict 2/3 (Nov. 2009) pp.319--21.

30 See Joyce Robbins and Uri Ben-Eliezer, ‘New Roles or “New Times”? Gender Inequality and Militarism in Israel’s Nation-in-Arms’, Social Politics 7/3 (Fall 2000) pp.309--42.

31 Asher Arian, Israeli Public Opinion on National Security 2000 (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies 2000) pp.24--6.

32 Dalia Dassa Kaye, ‘The Israeli Decision to Withdraw from Southern Lebanon: Political Leadership and Security Policy’, Political Science Quarterly 117/4 (Winter 2002) p.570.

33 Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israe’s Security and Foreign Policy (Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of Michigan Press 2006) p.215.

34 Lieberfeld (note 29).

35 Yagil Levy, ‘An Unbearable Price: War Casualties and Warring Democracies’, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 22/1 (March 2009) p.73.

36 Tamar S. Hermann, The Israeli Peace Movement: A Shattered Dream (New York: Cambridge UP 2009) pp.93--4.

37 See Hanna Herzog, ‘Family-Military Relations in Israel as a Genderizing Social Mechanism’, Armed Forces & Society 31/1 (Fall 2004) pp.5--30.

38 Ehud Barak, ‘The Withdrawal from Lebanon: Test Case of Military-Political Relations’, in Ram Erez (ed.), Civil-Military Relations in Israel: Influences and Restraints (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies 2003) p.35 (Hebrew).

39 Thomas W. Smith, ‘Protecting Civilians…or Soldiers? Humanitarian Law and the Economy of Risk in Iraq’, International Studies Perspectives 9/2 (May 2008) pp.160–1.

40 Dan Caldwell, Vortex of Conflict: US Policy toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP 2011) pp.229--41.

41 Andrew J. Bacevich, ‘The Petraeus Doctrine’, Atlantic Monthly 302/3 (Oct. 2008).

42 Christopher Gelpi, Peter D. Feaver, and Jason Reifler, Paying the Human Costs of War: American Public Opinion and Casualties in Military Conflicts (Princeton UP 2009).

43 Korb and Duggan (note 21).

44 Avraham Sela, ‘Civil Society, the Military, and National Security: The Case of Israel’s Security Zone in South Lebanon’, Israel Studies 12/1 (Spring 2007) pp.53--78.

45 See Efraim Inbar, ‘How Israel Bungled the Second Lebanon War’, Middle East Quarterly 14/3 (Summer 2007) pp.57-- 65.

46 Roni Bart, ‘Warfare—Morality—Public Relations: Proposals for Improvement’, Strategic Assessment 12/1 (June 2009) pp.19--28.

47 Yagil Levy, ‘The Tradeoff between Force and Casualties: Israel’s Wars in Gaza, 1987–2009’, Conflict Management and Peace Science 27/4 (Sept. 2010) pp.386–405.

48 Stuart A. Cohen, The Futility of Operation Cast Lead (Perspective paper no. 68) (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan Univ., The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies 2009).

49 Gili  Cohen, ‘As Gilad Shalit Goes Free, a 5-Year-Long Media Campaign Comes to a Close’, Haaretz.com, 18 Oct. 2011.

50 Yoram Schweitzer, ‘A Mixed Blessing: Hamas, Israel, and the Recent Prisoner Exchange’, Strategic Assessment 14/4 (Jan. 2012) pp.23--40.

51 Yagil Levy, ‘Life and Death Economics’, Haaretz.com, 17 Sept. 2009.

52 Aryn Baker, and Nate Rawlings, ‘Bring Our Son Home’, Time Magazine, 28 May 2012.

53 Vasquez (note 16).

54 Jeffrey Pickering, ‘Dangerous Drafts? A Time-Series, Cross-National Analysis of Conscription and the Use of Military Force, 1946–2001’, Armed Forces & Society 37/1 (Jan. 2010) pp.119--140; Seung-Whan Choi and Patrick James, ‘No Professional Soldiers, No Militarized Interstate Disputes? A New Question for Neo-Kantianism’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 47/6 (Dec. 2003) pp.796--816.