9 - Soldiers and Spies, Police and Detectives

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Successful, effective, mutually beneficial military participation in what we would call civilian law enforcement is not unknown in history. Ancient Rome and the contemporary French Gendarmerie – who have an excellent working relationship with the rural population of France – might be included on a list of good examples. Unfortunately, the list of oppressive, abusive, even genocidal examples seems infinitely longer, and this list is surely a source of our national apprehension about using our military forces for standard police work.

Our founding fathers were, of course, sensitive to this issue and sought to minimize the possibility that the American public would suffer oppressive use of the military by unethical government leaders. Indeed, although military resources have been utilized countless times in response to domestic disasters and catastrophes, we tend to focus our collective memory on the tragic results of hostile encounters like the New York draft riots, Kent State, or the Texas border country, where military force has been used in response to civilian behavior with tragic results. We simply do not want our military involved in law enforcement in civilian environments, or controlling civilian behavior of any type, especially when the use of force might be deemed necessary. It might be worth noting that the bright line that separates the military and civil sectors is less clearly drawn in most other advanced Western societies, largely because the insulation against invaders provided by two vast oceans is a luxury that European nation-states do not share.