Moral Hazard And War

Economists talk about "moral hazard." This means a situation where there is a tendency to take undue risks because the costs are not borne by the party taking the risk. We should extend the concept to war.

In 1941 and 1942 the attacking forces faced at least as much risk as those being attacked. This was true at Pearl Harbor, at Bataan and Corregidor, in the Coral Sea, and at Midway. And countless other battles.

It is usually not true of the political leaders who order a country to war. They do not bear the risks of the military forces.

The equation of risk becomes distorted forever when attacks are conducted from halfway around the world by those who sit in front of computers and direct robotic drones to destroy targets and people. It is the inhabitants of target areas who bear the risk.

Is this a kind of moral risk we are willing to take?

As a professional military officer, I always wanted to minimize the risk to my own sailors. At what point does this kind of planning cross a moral divide?

Apart from moral considerations, we may need to think about the message we convey. Is the message that our cause is not worth risking an American life? If so, we should say so. But we need to ask ourselves the question - if a cause is not worth dying for, is it worth killing for?