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April 11, 2007

Draft Iraq

I remember a comedian once made a joke that drug lords make X millions of dollars selling drugs, and the US spends X+1 millions of dollars fighting the drug war: so why not just pay the drug lords $X+1 million to not sell drugs? It's one of those ideas that's utterly impractical yet fun to think about.

I had the same reaction to Laurence Kotlikoff's plan to end the insurgency in Iraq:

The Iraqi government should institute a draft of all Iraqi men between the ages of 18 and 35. This is the demographic most responsible for the violence. The removal of these 3 million men from the cities and countryside to army barracks would likely bring an immediate end to Iraq's horrific nightmare. Any men older than 35 suspected of involvement in terrorist or insurgent acts would also be enlisted...The role of the enlarged Iraqi army would not involve bearing arms or training in the use of arms. Rather the role would be to reconstruct the country.

Were the United States to pay 3 million Iraqi soldiers $10,000 yearly, the bill would be $30 billion. This is a small amount relative to the savings it would accrue from leaving the country. It would also make service in the Iraqi army highly desirable...

via Tyler Cowen, who invokes Coase yet, justifiably, ignores the transaction costs here.

Posted by Zach Wendling at April 11, 2007 06:23 PM

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Posted by: John M. at April 12, 2007 09:53 AM | permalink

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