The Paradox of Recruitment

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.