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Strategic Assumptions and Moral Implications of the
Constabulary Force
James Burk a
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Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, TX, USA

Online Publication Date: 01 November 2005

To cite this Article: Burk, James (2005) 'Strategic Assumptions and Moral
Implications of the Constabulary Force', Journal of Military Ethics, 4:3, 155 - 167
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Vol. 4, No. 3, 155 167, 2005

/

Strategic Assumptions and Moral

Implications of the Constabulary
Force
JAMES BURK
Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, TAMU, TX, USA

ABSTRACT Noting that the use of modern instruments of war had unpredictable and
revolutionary consequences, Morris Janowitz introduced the concept of a ‘constabulary force’
to show how a professional military in a liberal democratic state might use modern weapons and
yet conserve the existing political order. This article explores the meaning of this concept in three
ways. First, it examines the strategic assumptions underlying the concept to explain why Janowitz
thought it offered an approach to containing the revolutionary consequences of the use of force
that was more promising than alternative concepts of military force. Second, it explores the moral
implications of the concept (which Janowitz did not do), identifying key moral commitments a
constabulary force must meet to sustain a liberal democratic order as it attempts to resolve
dilemmas posed by the use of force. Third, it considers in what way these moral commitments are
particular to a constabulary force, while yet preserving an approach to the use of force that could
be applied across the spectrum of force by military structures of various kinds.

KEY WORDS: Constabulary force, democratic values, Morris Janowitz, moral commitments,
use of force

Morris Janowitz introduced the concept of a ‘constabulary force’ in the final

chapter of his classic study, The Professional Soldier. 1 The concept was
offered in response to a problem met earlier in the work, during a discussion
of the logic of war. The problem was how could the military profession
‘sustain conservative political commitments to the existing social order, while
the instruments of warfare become more drastic devices of social change, with
almost unpredictable and revolutionary consequences’ (Janowitz 1971: 258).2
The problem is a general one, affecting the militaries of democratic and non-
democratic societies alike. Janowitz, however, was most interested (as we will
be) in how the problem could be solved in liberal democratic regimes.3 Since
the nineteenth century, with the early industrialization of warfare, that
problem had become increasingly difficult to solve, acutely so following
World War II and the development of nuclear weapons. The problem was a
practical one: could the United States meet the demands for heightened
military security without sacrificing its commitment to liberal democracy?

Correspondence Address: Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, 4351 TAMU, College Station,
TX 7843-4351, USA. Tel:
/1 979 845 0813; Fax:
/1 979 862 4057; Email: jsburk@tamu.edu

1502-7570 Print/1502-7589 Online/05/03000155 /13 # 2005 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/15027570500216535
 156 J. Burk
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Samuel Huntington (1957) argued in The Soldier and the State that it could
not. To prevail in the cold war, he thought the United States should retreat
from the claims of liberal democracy to embrace a conservative political
culture more compatible with the demands of military security. Janowitz took
a different view. He assumed that the evolving technology of war required
reconsideration of the maxim that war was inevitable. The destructive power
of modern weapons* epitomized by nuclear weapons* was now so great, he
/ /

reasoned, it was ‘unthinkable’ to wage a general war on the scale of the

previous world wars (265 266).4 International relations could be influenced
/

by the threat and use of force, but only within limits which weapons of mass
destruction had ‘drastically narrowed’ (417 418). These circumstances
/

required a new approach to the use of the military, departing from practices
followed during the two world wars. Needed was a constabulary force that
was ‘continuously prepared to act, [was] committed to the minimum use of
force, and [sought] viable international relations rather than [military] victory’
(418). Notice that Janowitz’s definition emphasizes an approach to the uses
and aims of force. Janowitz thought a constabulary force would abandon the
format of mass armies mobilized for world war for the format of a
continuously mobilized professional force. But he did not prescribe a
particular organizational structure. More important was the approach to
conflict across the spectrum of violence, whether to deter nuclear war, fight
limited regional conflicts, or engage in peacekeeping missions.
We may raise three questions about this idea. First, why did Janowitz think
the constabulary force solved the problem he had posed? His answer
considers the strategic assumptions that underlie the idea of constabulary
force to make it a solution preferred over alternatives. Second, what moral
implications attach to a constabulary force? Janowitz never addressed this
question, not directly at least, despite his concern to maintain a military that
was compatible with liberal democratic values. Nevertheless, the question
must be addressed to determine whether or how far the use of constabulary
force supports or at least fails to undermine a liberal democratic order. Third,
do the moral commitments governing the use of constabulary force apply
only to constabulary forces or do they govern any use of military force? Only
if the implications do not apply universally can a constabulary force per se be
considered a real solution to the problem Janowitz faced.

Strategic Assumptions
The strategic assumptions underlying the constabulary force were ‘grounded
in’ what Janowitz called a ‘pragmatic’ doctrine of military thought which
emerged following the world wars (418). It was characterized by five beliefs.
First, military conflict was only one tool states had to influence international
relations in ways they preferred; states could also use economic and
ideological tools to reach their objectives (264). Second, the use of force in
warfare could and should be adjusted to the political ends to be achieved.
War was not an either/or contest in which states struggled for ‘total victory’
(264). Third, pragmatic military doctrine was instrumentally rational.
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Military means were calculated in light of the political ends sought but
political ends were also defined and sometimes limited by what military
means could achieve (265). Fourth, the primary object of war was political.
When force was used, the aim was to revise the political order, not simply to
punish an enemy (267 271). And, finally, the use of force must reinforce
/

‘commitments to a system of international alliances’ (273). Implicitly the

sovereignty of states was not absolute (as it was in a Hobbesian order) but
was harnessed to the aims and needs of an international community.
There are at least two alternatives to the pragmatic strategic outlook. The
alternative Janowitz dwelt on was the ‘absolutist’ outlook, which was well-
established in the US military early in the twentieth century and remained
influential. Unlike the pragmatist, the absolutist thought that: (1) war was the
basis of international relations; (2) total victory in war was the best way to
achieve political goals; (3) the ends of war were taken as given and not
adjusted in light of the means required to attain them; (4) the primary object in
war was punitive rather than political; and (5) the state’s role in international
relations was to protect itself and its own interests, nothing more. Janowitz
dwelt on the contrast between the pragmatic and absolutist outlooks because
they were opposing and contested points of view within the American military
during the first two decades after World War II. The contest between them
was not simply an academic squabble. It was a struggle to determine how the
military would adapt to meet threats in the post-world war era. In contrast to
Huntington, who favored an absolutist outlook, Janowitz thought a
constabulary force, grounded in the pragmatic outlook, offered a better
chance for enlightened adaptation to the current challenges of war. Indeed, the
absolutist outlook promised no adaptation at all. It was a historical throw-
back, clinging to past understandings of military form and function that were
adaptive perhaps during the world-war era, but not now. Nonetheless,
Janowitz was unsure the pragmatic outlook would dominate. Many in the
military held (and still hold) the absolutist view. For them, the military’s
purpose was to fight and win the nation’s wars. Missions less reliant on force to
maintain viable international relations were distinctly secondary interests.
Another alternative to the constabulary force was the Lasswellian ‘garrison
state’ (Lasswell 1941). Unlike militaries following the absolutist outlook,
military and political elites moving toward a garrison state did not fail to
adapt to the changing threats posed by modern weapons systems. The
problem was that garrison state adaptations to the threats of chronic war were
incompatible with democratic order. Under the strain of chronic international
tension, military professionalism was undermined. Rather than retain
political neutrality, Janowitz (440) thought, ‘the military in coalition with
demagogic civilian leaders, [would] wield unprecedented amounts of political
and administrative power’; the democratic state would fall prey to unanti-
cipated militarism; and officers would fight ‘for national survival and glory’.
Establishing the constabulary force was a way to prevent this outcome. In the
constabulary force, officers fought because they were professionals ‘with a
sense of self-esteem and moral worth’ based on a cultivated commitment to
the democratic system and an understanding of how it works (440).
 158 J. Burk
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In sum, for Janowitz, the ideal of a constabulary force represented the best
of three possible ways that militaries could evolve in the post-world war era.
It was the best for prudential and for normative reasons. Prudentially, the
constabulary force institutionalized limits on the use of force and embraced a
strategy of deterrence across the force spectrum, to prevent the use of
weapons of mass destruction, to fight limited (even guerilla) wars, to promote
arms control and inspection regimes, and to engage in peacekeeping (xv xvi,
/

418). This much the absolutist was unprepared to do. Normatively, officers in
the constabulary force were professionally committed to preserving liberal
democratic values despite continuous threat to the physical security of the
state arising from a hostile international arena. This commitment a garrison
state force (by definition) was unable to make.

Moral Implications
To my knowledge, Janowitz never examined the moral implications attached
to the concept of a constabulary force. Nevertheless, I think it worthwhile to
do. The concept of constabulary force is obviously value-laden. It is nestled
within a normative theory about the value of the pragmatic outlook given the
strategic situation we are in. It entails the hope that we may use the
instruments of modern warfare and yet preserve a liberal democratic order.
Yet that hope can only be realized if a constabulary force contains within it a
series of moral commitments that render the use of force compatible with
liberal democratic values. At least three moral implications are essential to
consider. (Others may also deserve attention. I make no pretense to being
exhaustive here. My aim is to open the door to this line of inquiry.) Taken
together they identify a minimum set of commitments without which one
simply could not use constabulary force.
The first commitment is to accept limitations on the use of force. This
commitment acknowledges that the use of force at least sometimes is a harm.
The moral purpose of limitations on the use of force is to reduce the harm
force does. Yet more may be involved. There are two important questions
to consider. One asks when the use of force is so harmful that its use is
morally prohibited. The other asks when the use of force is permitted despite
the harm its use may cause. Indirectly, Janowitz (1977: 370 371) offered
/

an answer to the first of these questions. He believed that use of modern

weapons (if used as they were in the world wars) would have revolutionary
consequences that could destroy liberal democratic society. These conse-
quences would be felt not only if the weapons were used against us by
our enemies. They would be felt even if we used the weapons against our
enemies. In short, the use of modern weapons in a general war was
self-defeating. Behind this argument lies a prohibitionary moral claim: Do
not use force when its use is self-defeating. This prohibition may seem obvious
and not very demanding. But in the aftermath of two world wars and in
the midst of a cold war with its strategy of mutually assured destruction,
it drastically narrowed the field of what was considered the permissible
use of force.
 Constabulary Force 159
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But when may we use force? A moral perfectionist would prohibit the use
of force whenever its use caused harm. As a practical matter, that would mean
the military use of force was always prohibited. This is the stance of the
pacifist. While constabulary force would limit harm, its proponents reject
moral perfectionism as unrealistic. It is too strict in this world of evil doers to
prohibit military force. The question for the constabulary force is when the
use of force* the doing of harm* may be morally permissible. The absolutist
/ /

would not be troubled by the question. What is morally permissible is

decided, in utilitarian fashion, by calculating the costs and benefits of its use
and assessing whether the use on balance is ‘worth it’. But this response
misses the point. For the utilitarian, so long as the calculation of
consequences turns out right, the use of any amount of force in any way is
permissible. (But notice that, on consequentialist grounds, the absolutist may
join the constabulary force in prohibiting the unrestricted use of modern
weapons in general war.)
For the constabulary force, there is a dilemma: Is it permissible to do wrong
(using force to cause harm) when doing so has good consequences in
utilitarian terms (preserving a liberal democratic order for most)? For those
who take the dilemma seriously, it is inescapable and impossible to resolve.
Even failing to act simply means that one has done what is bad (failing to
preserve a democratic order for most) in order to do what is right (not using
force to cause harm). In this situation, more common than we would like,
political leaders cannot avoid having ‘dirty hands’; they are forced to choose
the course which is a ‘lesser evil’.5 As Michael Ignatieff (2004) has argued,
when thinking about the use of force against terror, this is not a ‘free’ choice
in which ‘anything goes’. The choice to use force is disciplined by recognition
that the choice is (1) always a moral hazard, (2) never justified unless no other
means to meet the threat are available, and (3) does not undermine
commitment to maintain free institutions or to preserve individuals from
gross harms. The choice to use force does not belong to political elites alone.
It must be ratified through a system of adversarial review by the legislature,
judiciary, and an independent media. In short, the requirement that a
constabulary force use minimum force is not merely tactical. Behind it lies a
substantive moral claim: because using force causes harm, the harm it is
permitted to do must limit violations of human rights and not undermine basic
institutions of liberty.
The second commitment is to respect the dignity of constabulary soldiers
and of those they might harm (armed combatants and noncombatants alike).
This commitment is related to the first, but is more directly concerned with
the obligation of society to care for the moral well-being of those it recruits to
serve in the constabulary force. The obligation to care is particularly acute
because constabulary soldiers are implicated in the choice between lesser evils.
They have to enact the choice and that subjects them to moral risk. Janowitz
had some insight into the problem, which he talked about as the need to
control frustration (435 439). Frustration was the result, as he understood it,
/

of asking soldiers to excel at the management of violence so they would never

have to use it, at least at the higher ends of the force spectrum. That is the
 160 J. Burk
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essence of the strategy of deterrence. But the moral problem goes deeper than
Janowitz seemed to realize. Rather than professional frustration, the problem
is how to maintain the warrior’s moral worth, to prevent his or her descent
into barbarism when the use of force is morally ambiguous. (A lesser evil is
evil nonetheless.) Three examples help illustrate the point.
First, consider bomber crews with the Strategic Air Command or
submariners patrolling undersea during the cold war. They trained to unleash
weapons of mass destruction whose use they knew would be catastrophic and
self-defeating. They excelled at preparing to do what was morally prohibited
because the prohibition could be ensured only if the threat of deterrence was
credible. How does training to do what is morally prohibited affect warriors’
understanding of what distinguishes them from barbarians who use force
without restraint? An answer to this question is difficult because the choice
actually to engage in the morally unthinkable behavior is made by institutions
(the defense establishment), not by individuals. This is qualitatively different
from the case of a soldier, say at My Lai during the Vietnam War, who could
choose whether to participate in the massacre, run away, or try to stop it.
When the defense establishment trains fliers and submariners to fire nuclear
weapons, it cultivates habits of acting without deliberating about the moral
consequences of the act.
Reflecting on the potential for ‘conflict between military obedience and
basic morality’, Huntington (1957: 78) asked: ‘What does the military officer
do if he is ordered by the statesman to commit genocide, to exterminate the
people of an occupied territory?’ He recognizes the problem often faced by
functionaries: ‘As a soldier, he [the soldier] owes obedience; as a man he owes
disobedience’. Yet Huntington does not confront the problem. Rather, he
ends the discussion by asserting that ‘only rarely will the military man be
justified in following the dictates of private conscience against the dual
demand of military obedience and state welfare’. That may be true. The
question remains whether an order to commit genocide* or, in this case, to
/

engage in mutually assured destruction* qualifies as a reason to obey one’s

/

conscience rather than the order.6

Fliers and submariners whose mission was nuclear deterrence were not
expected to rely on their character as moral agents to choose what they ought
to do. Their conscience was subordinated to the claims of military necessity.
That a price is extracted for such subordination can be surmised from the
experience of a British flier who participated in the firebombing of Hamburg
during World War II. Remembering the scene of destruction, he wrote, ‘I saw
no streets, no outlines of buildings, only brighter fires which flared like yellow
torches against a bright red ash. . . . I looked down, fascinated but aghast,
satisfied yet horrified’ (Quoted in Grossman 1996: 101; see also Gray 1959:
171 213, esp. at 184 185). The flier was satisfied, having met the ‘dual
/ /

demand of military obedience and state welfare’. But he was also horrified
and aghast; the untold suffering that he could not see but knew was there
afflicted his ‘private conscience’.
The analogy is imperfect. Unlike this flier, those in the Strategic Air
Command (or the submarine force) never fired their missiles. Still, they were
 Constabulary Force 161
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instruments to deter the use of nuclear weapons by threatening mutually

assured destruction; it was a high stakes wager based on a hope that the bluff
would never be called. If the bluff were called, they would be required to do
the morally unthinkable, to fight a self-defeating war wreaking incalculable
destruction. The prospect alone creates a hard-to-bridge chasm between
military demands and the demands of conscience.
Second, take the air war against Serbia during the war on Kosovo. To
protect the lives of soldiers in NATO’s constabulary force, no ground troops
were committed to the conflict and pilots were ordered to fly at higher
altitudes than usual when dropping their bombs. No doubt this saved lives of
NATO forces. But did emphasis on force protection increase harm done to
non-military targets, damaging property and killing noncombatants? Simple
answers must be avoided. The air campaign relied on precision-guided
munitions to a greater degree than in any prior major conflict (Human Rights
Watch 2000). These munitions permitted NATO forces to concentrate
firepower on military targets and to minimize ‘collateral damage’, even
when planes flew high to stay beyond the reach of Serbian air defenses.
Arguably, greater precision in bombing from higher altitudes protected the
lives of NATO pilots and respected the lives of innocent civilians.
Nonetheless, war is no place to expect perfection, even with advanced
technology. Precision-guidance failed, for instance, when clouds scattered the
laser beam directing a bomb to its target (Clark 2001: 274). The bomb would
go astray. It was of course still lethal, but now the damage done was done at
random. Even when technology worked as planned it could not prevent error
in the identification and engagement of targets: a bridge struck while a
passenger train was crossing; a convoy of refugees attacked when mistaken for
a military convoy; an old-people’s home; the Chinese Embassy; all struck in
error, taking lives of noncombatants (Daalder & O’Hanlon 2000: 122;
Human Rights Watch 2000; Ignatieff 2000: 107). Some errors might have
been averted with a lower flight ceiling; but one cannot know that for certain
(Clark 2001: 276).
Certain, however, is that many bombs dropped were not precision guided.
Through the first six weeks of the air war, NATO used cluster bombs in
attacks near populated areas which resulted in as many as 150 civilian deaths
(Human Rights Watch 2000). Perhaps most important, the bombing was not
an effective tactical weapon against Serbian forces in Kosovo (Daalder &
O’Hanlon 2000: 121). The air campaign, Ignatieff (2000: 62) concluded ‘could
neither halt the ethnic cleansing nor avoid mounting civilian casualties’. In
the absence of ground troops to stop it, ethnic cleansing continued as Serbian
militia attacked Albanian Kosovars with relative impunity. It is a soul-
challenging business for warriors to know that the decision to protect their
lives (a good) resulted in the deaths of noncombatants (a wrong). Political
leaders pursued a policy they thought was the lesser evil. The soldiers and
pilots were implicated by that choice in the violation of humanitarian
principles which the constabulary force was organized to defend.7 Although
fighting in defense of human rights, for political reasons they were made to
fight in ways that entailed small or no risk to themselves. (NATO incurred no
 162 J. Burk
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combat fatalities in the war.) Paul W. Kahn (1999) calls this ‘riskless warfare
in pursuit of human rights’ and believes it entails ‘a moral contradiction’
because it employs an asymmetric valuing of human life in defense of a
universal standard of human rights.
Finally, think about the genocide in Rwanda. The UN peacekeeping forces
reported in January 1994 that the Hutu were planning to massacre the Tutsi.
But they were not authorized to raid arms caches to reduce the potential for
violence. Colonel Luc Marchal, a commander of the UN force commented,
‘we were not authorized, I should say, to do our job, and that was a real
frustration’. But the frustration mounted in April, after the Hutu killed
Belgian peacekeepers and began the genocide in earnest. The soldiers wanted
to protect the Tutsi but were prevented from doing so by their civilian masters
who feared the peacekeepers would take casualties as the US had done in
Somalia a few months before. But the peacekeepers in Rwanda did not share
this ‘force protection’ goal. Asked whether he wanted to pull out after the
Belgian peacekeepers were killed, Captain Luc Lemaire replied, ‘Certainly
not, because as soldiers we have to be prepared to die at any moment’.
However defensible the decisions of the civilian authorities, the peacekeepers
had the sense that they were violating their honor as constabulary soldiers.
When ordered to retreat and withdraw from Rwanda, Colonel Marchal said
simply, ‘I was ashamed to execute that kind of decision. . . . And when you
know that kind of action will just have [as] a consequence, the losses of
thousands and thousands of lives, it’s not easy to* to live with that’. But that
/

was what he was ordered to do.8

The examples show, clearly I hope, that the soldiers’ personal experience of
enacting policies of ‘lesser evil’ extracts a toll. But unlike politicians who
choose the policy, in a liberal democratic society, soldiers are required to
follow the orders of civilian authorities. For the soldiers, the lesser evil they
are required to enact is not a policy of their choosing. If only for that reason,
civilian authorities have a moral responsibility to care for the moral well-
being of their soldiers. It is an old Kantian idea, but appropriate here, that we
should not treat people merely as means, but should treat them also as ends in
themselves. At a minimum, that means the moral contract between soldiers
and society should draw as clearly as possible the lines that separate conduct
that soldiers are permitted and required to do from conduct that is
impermissible and cannot be allowed. It is the line that allows soldiers to
know when their actions are honorable, despite their resort to the use of force.
It is a line that tells soldiers that they are respected as moral beings by the
society that recruited them and that, while they must sometimes use force to
do harm, they are expected to treat noncombatants and even those they fight
as moral beings with rights to be respected as well (French 2003). The last
point, to treat others with respect, is required because it reinforces the
soldier’s character as a moral actor and because moral action of that kind
lays the groundwork for viable international relations, which is the aim of the
use of force.
The third commitment is to cultivate trust between soldiers and civilian
authorities. A liberal democratic society requires members of the constabu-
 Constabulary Force 163
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lary force to obey civilian authorities. This is so as a matter of law. But the law
rests on an idea that the military profession is justified by its willingness to
serve the state, not the other way around. If it were otherwise, should the
military rule or gain excessive influence over the political process, the result
would undermine the effectiveness of democratic institutions and the goods
that flow from them. It would be incompatible with the goals of the
constabulary force to preserve liberal democracy. The moral principle to
follow then is that the constabulary force should be politically neutral and
obedient of lawful political authority (see Cook 2004: chap. 2).
When is this principle likely to be observed? Quite simply, only when
political and military leaders trust one another. And when will this be? Trust
is a complex relationship. At the interpersonal level, we trust those who
possess the attribute of reliability or constancy, a commitment to truthfulness,
and an absence of guile, so we are not forced to wonder whether their conduct
is based on a ‘hidden agenda’. When we trust others, we suspend our usual
defenses in relation to them; we allow ourselves to depend on them; we are
vulnerable; and if our trust is misplaced that vulnerability will be exploited.
Hard enough between persons, trust is harder to cultivate between complex
institutions like the military and the state. Ideally the military’s obedience is
backed by their trust that political leaders, however imperfect, will listen to
their advice about security issues, provide what they need to perform their
role, and not put them in harm’s way for a frivolous purpose. Also ideally,
political leaders can trust the military to offer them disinterested advice about
military security policy and then swift obedience to orders no matter what the
leaders decide.
This is a too idyllic depiction. Trust leaves both sides vulnerable to be
taken advantage of by the other. As a result, there are always self-protective
reasons to monitor the behavior of the other to verify that ‘bonds of trust’ are
being upheld. Even then trust’s presence is never assured. Cautious political
and military leaders may rely on self-help and careful monitoring to protect
their institutional interests, as evidenced for example by the US Army’s
failure to deploy Apache helicopters in Kosovo even after the president had
approved their use in support of close air support operations (Feaver 2003:
279 280; cf. Clark 2001: 288 289, 302 306). The result, in recent US history,
/ / /

is growing mistrust, even hostility, between civilian and military leaders.

Civilian elites who never served in the military are less likely than veterans to
have confidence in the military as an institution (Gronke & Feaver 2001).
Military officers (and some enlisted as well) believe that civilian society is
corrupt and that the military, as a repository of virtue, might improve
American society, helping it become more moral (Kohn 2002: 29; Ricks
1997). Some military leaders have tried to influence the political process, as
they have lobbied in private and sometimes in public, not merely to advise
civilian leaders, but actually to make policy, for instance, affecting the land
mine treaty, the use of ground forces in Kosovo and elsewhere, and
membership in the International Criminal Court (Dunlap 1994; Kohn
2002: 14 16, 21). This occurs in a context within which military members
/

are not viewed as politically neutral. They are known to be predominantly

 164 J. Burk
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conservative and more likely to identify with the Republican than the
Democratic Party (Graham 2004; Holsti 2001). This has led the Republican
Party to target the ‘military vote’. More subtly, it has led Democratic leaders
to suspect the truthfulness of claims made by the military (Kohn 2002: 26 /

28). If the military becomes ideologically rigid and out of touch with the
whole range of societal views, it will, as Janowitz (1977: 386) thought, become
‘an additional element of political controversy in a society already racked
with extensive political conflict’. This erodes the commitment on both sides to
cultivate trust that enables adherence to the principle of political neutrality
and public obedience.
These difficulties do not weaken (or make less necessary) the moral
commitment of a constabulary force to cultivate trust between soldiers and
political leaders. They make the commitment more difficult to keep.

Particular or Universal Commitments?

We are left to ask whether the moral implications of a constabulary force
are universal commitments applicable to every military force. My presump-
tion is that they are not. Rather they define particular commitments that,
when kept, are compatible with and help conserve a liberal democratic order.
This is not to deny that these commitments may be compatible with other
military forces and help conserve other kinds of political order. Quite
possibly, they are and they do. If they govern a constabulary force and
conserve a liberal democratic order* supporting something like what John
/

Rawls (1999) calls a ‘reasonable liberal people’* then perhaps they are also
/

compatible with a military force that conserves what Rawls calls a ‘decent
hierarchical people’. Both social orders are forms of ‘decent peoples’,
restrained in the use of force, committed to justice, and protective of human
rights (Rawls 1999: 88). In short, I do not defend the claim that these
commitments apply only to a constabulary force that conserves liberal
democracy. What I deny is that these commitments are universal. They are
not honored in or compatible with every kind of military force. Recall
Janowitz’s distinction of constabulary forces from absolutist and garrison
state forces. The absolutist force flatly rejects the first moral commitment
to accept limitation on the use of force and the garrison state force
perverts the third moral commitment to be politically neutral and obedient
to lawful authority. To these two we may add a third case, Rawls’s ‘outlaw
state’, which is not bound by the second moral commitment to war in
a way that respects the dignity of its soldiers and of those they might harm
(Rawls 1999: 5, 80 81).
/

There is another way of arguing for the particularity of the moral

commitments governing a constabulary force. It rests on the following
sociological claim. Military forces are most effective when their mission is
focused and they are organized to perform one task. This is a fundamental
idea underlying Thomas P.M. Barnett’s (2004) analysis of global security.
In his view the world is divided into a functioning ‘core’ of connected
states that adhere to a rule set ensuring their security and a dysfunctional
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‘gap’ of disconnected states (or areas) where this rule set is not followed.
Each area, he thinks, requires a different kind of military force. For the gap,
what he calls a Leviathan force is needed, which (like the absolutist force)
is specialized in fighting war. For the core, an Administrator force is needed,
which (like a constabulary force) is specialized in peacekeeping. That different
particular moral commitments underlie the two kinds of force is suggested
by his claim that ‘we need a force for might and a force for right’ (Barnett
2004: 315, original emphasis). The argument seems plausible, but is
misleading. It mistakes a constabulary force with a particular organizational
structure. But if a constabulary force were a particular structure, it could
offer no real solution to the problem of protecting liberal democracy against
the revolutionary consequences stemming from the use of modern weapons.
At most it offered a half-solution, effective only in the core where the use
of force is restrained. But in the gap, where the use of force is unrestrained,
it offered no solution at all. With hopes pinned on military victory, a
liberal democracy might still be undone by the unrestrained use of modern
weapons.
Janowitz thought about constabulary force in a more fluid way. It was not a
particular structure. It was an approach to the use of force that could be
applied across the full spectrum of force and by military structures of various
kinds. It didn’t matter whether the military was a mass army trying to deter
the outbreak of general nuclear war or a small professional peacekeeping
force trying to prevent genocide in Rwanda. Though Janowitz never spelt it
out, what mattered I have argued here was keeping the moral commitments
that restrained every use of force. When this was done, force was less likely to
spark revolutionary consequences threatening democratic order or to disrupt
the search for peace.

Notes
1
Special thanks to Don Snider, Al Schaffer and the journal reviewers for their helpful comments and
criticisms, and also to the participants in the 2004 NEH Institute on War and Morality for their help
turning my attention to this topic.
2
The Professional Soldier was originally published in 1960. I cite the second edition from 1971 because it
contains a new and long prologue by the author to which I sometimes refer. Because this work is cited
so frequently, all future references to it will only note parenthetically the particular pages cited.
3
By liberal democracy I shall mean, borrowing from Judith Shklar (1998: 3), a political regime
characterized by one overriding aim: ‘to secure political conditions that are necessary for the exercise
of personal freedom’.
4
Janowitz’s emphasis in 1960 was on nuclear weapons, the unrestrained use of which would be self-
defeating. By the late 1970s, he thought the unrestrained use of the most powerful ‘conventional’
weapons was also self-defeating (personal communication). I use the term ‘modern weapons’ here to
mean weapons whose unrestrained use would not bring victory or sustain viable international relations.
5
On the problem of dirty hands and political action, see Wolfers (1949) and Walzer (2004).
6
The term genocide in this context may be inflammatory. To threaten devastating nuclear punishment
against an enemy who might otherwise mount a nuclear attack against us is morally problematic; yet,
unlike genocide, it is a practice that may be justified at least on prudential grounds (Lee 1993; Walzer
2000: 269-274).
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7
See Hartle (1989: 71-78). Hartle defined the humanitarian principles as follows ‘individual persons
deserve respect as such’ and ‘human suffering ought to be minimized’. The first of these, he argues, has
priority over the second.
8
Quotes are from Frontline (1999).

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Biography
James Burk (PhD, University of Chicago, 1982) is professor of sociology
at Texas A&M University and formerly editor of Armed Forces & Society. He
is a long-time student of civil military relations, in particular of the ways war
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and preparation for war affect and are affected by democratic societies. His
current research examines social and political justifications for compulsory
and voluntary military service and their effects on the moral contract that
binds the armed forces to civilian society.