Editors’ note: This is part of the Op-Eds From the Future series, in which science fiction authors, futurists, philosophers and scientists write Op-Eds that they imagine we might read 5, 10, 50 or even 200 years from now. The challenges they predict are imaginary — for now — but their arguments illuminate the urgent questions of today and prepare us for tomorrow. The Opinion piece below is a work of fiction.
The United States Army is on strike. It’s difficult to believe that America’s contracted defenders have simply walked off the job — especially at a time like this. As contract negotiations lumber into their third, fruitless month, the world seems to be coming apart at the seams.
In Arabia, the fractured Saudi Principalities continue their bloody power struggles. In North Korea, the coup that took down the Kim dynasty has degenerated into all-out civil war, with a looming threat of nuclear action. To our north, the Sino-Russian peacekeeper divisions have openly refused to withdraw from Quebec. This last crisis puts at least four confirmed I-mech battalions and possibly one full cyclone brigade within hyperswarm range of Washington, D.C. All the while, our bases remained shuttered, our ships docked, our aircraft grounded and even our joint cyberspace network — the core of our national defense — continues to be “temporarily unavailable” while its operators sit at home waiting to hear about their new pay raise, working hours, vacation days and, as stateless citizens, immunity from not only war crimes but all crimes under U.S. law.
In the old days of the Army, this would have been a mutiny. But “mutiny” implies the revolt of government troops, not private contractors. And that is who’ve we’ve entrusted to our security. Mercenaries. For two decades our country has slept under the watch of people motivated by profit, from the chief executive Maniple Ltd. to the men and women on foreign battlefields. We need to stop calling them “traitors” because treason implies violating an oath of loyalty. They never violated their oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, because they never took one.
And why should they? We’re talking about corporate employees, not public servants. And if their union is lawfully demanding a larger benefit package, why should we be surprised? If we have a problem with that kind of greed, we need to admit that it was our greed that caused the problem in the first place.
The march toward privatization didn’t begin with the Defense Reform Act of 2032. It didn’t even begin, as some are now suggesting, with President George W. Bush’s “go to the mall” speech of 2001. The cold, hard truth is that Americans have been slowly retreating from being the nation’s protectors for a long time, and, ironically, the first step on that retreat was taken exactly a century ago.
In 1950, during the First Korean War, we broke with a tradition going back to our revolution: war bonds. Up until that moment, every American citizen had the privilege of contributing to the nation’s defense by purchasing defense bonds. If you still have access to a non-Chinese, open-source search engine (I still trust Quezon or Wallenberg), try looking up “World War II bond drives.” You’ll see a variety of videos from a variety of celebrity influencers rallying the public to invest in national security. During the Korean conflict, that investment ended, along with an individual connection to the greater good. And it was only the first step.
Ending the draft in the 1970s might have seemed like a good idea at the time. The Vietnam War tore our society apart, creating a cultural rift that we still have yet to close. People were sick of seeing poor kids sent off to combat while rich and middle-class kids (remember when we still had a middle class?) duck out of harm’s way. The military establishment was also in favor of an all-volunteer army, because it removed the threat of genuinely mutinous draftees.
Creating a professional warrior class seemed like the obvious solution, but, looking back, we see now that it created an isolated community that society at large could expend on endless wars. These were no longer our sons, our fathers, our friends. These were distant superheroes we occasional saw in movies and airports. We might have told them “thank you for your service,” but what we really meant was “better you than me.”
And so we squandered them, threw them into one conflict after another. Nearly two decades after 9/11, it was recorded that American personnel were committed to at least seven major combat zones around the globe. Seven! Did any of us know that at the time? Would many of us have cared? When President Donald Trump told a grieving war widow that her husband “knew what he was getting into,” wasn’t he just voicing what we all felt?
It’s easy to see now how attractive privatization looked by the late 2020s. Recruitment was down. Suicide was up. It was even revealed that, thanks to our horrendous education and nutrition standards, 71 percent of all young Americans were unfit for military service. So why not get rid of that service altogether?
We’d already begun privatizing as early as the 1980s when President Reagan Ronald announced, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” And that philosophy only gained traction in the 1990s when President Bill Clinton declared, “The era of big government is over.”
By nationalizing narcissism, should we have been surprised that all our major turn-of-the-century breakthroughs had absolutely nothing to do with current events? Some geriatric Gen X’rs like me still remember that during the oil wars of the early 2000s, when America, the world, was screaming for an alternative to petroleum, all we got was Steve Jobs crowing about watching “The Office” on our phones.
In our rush to cut taxes and maximize profits, it seems inevitable, now, that after privatizing the Departments of Education, Agriculture and Corrections, the behemoth of Defense was next. This was especially clear after President Miller’s “Two Birds” argument. After all, no more soldiers meant no more veterans, which meant no more Department of Veterans Affairs. It all sounded so attractive, from both a financial and emotional point of view. Instead of feeling responsible for veterans, we could now outsource our guilt. We could finally have it all.
That was the feeling barely a quarter-century ago. No more obligation, no more providing for “the common defense.” Now someone else could do all the suffering to keep us happy and safe, and all we had to do was “pray,” “hug our children” and “participate in the economy.” And we did. We shrunk our national duty down to the size of a bumper sticker reading, “I support our troops” or “Freedom isn’t Free.”
And look where it got us.
And what can we do now?
It seems almost un-American to say this, but there simply is no quick fix. There are short-term patches, no doubt, like giving our mercenaries what they want. We don’t have a choice. If we don’t pay our sell-sword’s ransom, they may do a lot worse than simply drop those swords; they may turn them on us.
We’ve seen this happen in several countries over the last few years. In Venezuela, West Congo and what used to (ironically) be known as the “United” Arab Emirates. In all those cases, hired guns decided it was more profitable to own the bank than simply work for it. What’s to stop that from happening here? And what’s to stop our private contractors from simply switching sides?
We saw it in 2019, when the Blackwater founder Erik Prince sold his warfighting expertise to China. We saw it in 2031 when China used its purchase of Bayer (which owned Monsanto, which owned the rights to almost all our corn and soybean seeds) to scare us away from Taiwan. For all we know, right now, our mercenary strike may very well be fueled by a Sino-Russian offer to buy Maniple right out from under us. And if that happens, our enemies won’t have to defeat our armed forces. They’ll legally own them.
Is this our new normal? Will every contract negotiation threaten a strike, coup d’état or betrayal to the highest bidder? Maybe. Probably. Unless we stop paying other people to protect us and start protecting ourselves. Does that mean bringing back the draft? Of course not. Today’s conflicts don’t need legions of trigger-pulling grunts. They require highly trained, highly specialized, highly professional warriors, but those warriors need more than a bumper sticker for support.
We need to bring back war bonds, and a war tax, and, possibly, some semblance of national service to give our children the muscle memory of being part of something greater than themselves. We need to force our innovation sector to work on inventions that make our lives better, instead of just more comfortable. And if they have to earn just a smidgen less profits to build those inventions here at home, so be it. If America protects our corporations, then they should protect America.
Lastly, we must look at more than reruns of “The Office” on our private screens. We have to learn about the world we live in and be able to tell the necessary conflicts from the convenient ones. The best way to prevent wars is to understand why they happen. This will lead to fewer wars and give us the assurance that if our fellow citizens are going to risk their lives for us, then they need to know, that we know, that every other option has been exhausted.
This might sound like a revolution, but it will probably look more like an evolution. After all, it took us a full century to dig the grave we’re now in, and it may very well take another century to climb out. But if we start today, as voters, taxpayers, neighbors and parents, we may just have a shot at saving tomorrow.
Max Brooks is the author of “World War Z” and the forthcoming “Devolution.” He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point.
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