Would This Work?

There's an idea I've wondered about in the past. I'm sure it would be completely impractical for some reason, and that I betray my relatively amateur knowledge of political science and military organization and international law by even suggesting it, but here goes:

What if there were single-mission volunteer peacekeeping armies?

Although it seems to have fallen out of the public spotlight, the war in Darfur (which is still going on) was, for a while, a major cause for liberal types. "Why aren't we doing anything?" was the cry, meaning "Why aren't we sending our army/NATO/somebody over there for heaven's sake?" It particularly upset people that we were losing soldiers and spending billions in Afghanistan and Iraq supposedly protecting the peace and spreading democracy while we hypocritically ignored the situation in Sudan. ("We" here meaning the U.S., although the international community has been pretty hands-off on the whole - possibly because to condemn the actions in Darfur as genocide would morally obligate the expense of lives and money to fight the problem.)

So what if those who were so upset could join a volunteer force and be sent over to Darfur to establish peace?

It could work like this: the government announces there is enough interest that they are opening the peacekeeping Darfur program. Volunteer officers from the standing army will train the recruits and lead the mission, but the majority of the force will consist of completely new volunteers. These volunteers will *pay* their own way. In other words, no tax dollars are spent on the mission - it's essentially a citizen-funded enterprise with government-level organization. Those individuals who cannot afford the tens of thousands of dollars it will cost to train, ship and arm them can try and get sponsorship from those who have the means and are interested, or conduct fundraisers.

(Maybe a very small amount of tax dollars are spent paying the standing army officers who lead the mission or who train the recruits, but this can be considered an acceptable investment because in the end, the country still gains battle-ready soldiers, should we ever seriously need them.)

This approach solves two problems:

One, the people who volunteer are presumably, many of them, not interested in being regular soldiers, with the attendant long period of service and the requirement to serve in conflicts which they may not personally support. They are, however, humanitarian in spirit, and want to help stop a genocide; so this way they can contribute.

Two, because no tax dollars are used, this bypasses the question of whether public opinion supports sending our tax-paid soldiers over to a foreign country to do good deeds. The volunteer soldiers are privately funded.

Note that since the volunteers are unpaid and receive no benefits besides the knowledge that they are doing good, this would have no effect on our standing national army, which would still be staffed by patriots and people who can't afford not to be paid or who want to go to college via the military's programs.

In order for one of these volunteer army single-mission operations to happen, three criteria would need to be met: 1) there is enough interest from potential volunteers and funders to enact the mission; 2) there is no direct objection from the rest of the public [i.e., the prevailing attitude is not *against* the mission, but rather merely does not favor spending tax dollars on the mission]; and 3) the international community/UN does not frown upon the particular purpose of this mission.

So the general intention would be that this would work for cases like Darfur, where nobody, to my knowledge, thinks that ending the conflict would be a bad thing, merely that spending our own resources to do it would be; and there are some individuals who just might be (self-)righteous enough to be willing to fight to help end the conflict.

The main issue would be how committed and well-trained the volunteers are when over there. If they go over thinking it will be easy, that they'll just get to stand around brandishing guns and peace will happen, then all it will take is for some enemies to kill a few and the volunteers will want to turn and run. It might have to be the kind of thing where once you commit, you're obligated to a year of service (unless the mission is completed first), and if you desert, it will be prosecuted no differently than in the regular army. It might also have to be that passing through the basic training for the mission is not guaranteed no matter if you've paid or not; you have to prove that you're capable of being a soldier and of following orders.

The other big issue is just how you stop a conflict like that in Darfur with the mere application of firearms, but that's not specific to this volunteer concept.

So I'm sure this wouldn't work in the real world - but I'm not sure precisely why.

Thus, two questions for you, O readership:

1) Would this work and why/why not?

2) If there were, say, a corporate sponsor who was willing to pay your way and it was sanctioned by the international community, would you yourself volunteer for such a mission, get trained as a soldier, and go to Darfur for a year to help protect civilians and end the conflict?

Do Something

Back during my brief and eventful tenure as a Diamondback columnist, I had a column idea that had rattled around my head for a while. Because of the tone I wanted to take with the column, I never quite polished and submitted it, but I still think the general sentiment was valid. The opening line was something along that lines of "At least half the students at Maryland are pretty worthless." And then I excoriated the student body for their lack of involvement in student activities or anything on campus beyond their studies. The way I had figure it, at least half the student population was spending a lot of their time outside of classes sitting on their asses, and while there are a lot of students who have other greater time commitments (those paying their way through school and student athletes, for example) there are a whooooole lot of students who have no good reason not to get involved.

Although I probably would have changed the tone, in retrospect, I still believe that it doesn't take a lot to get a lot done. Take one of the most visible organizations on campus, The Diamondback itself. The paper has a staff of probably around 50 (Adam can correct me if I'm way off here, but it's an estimate). A dedicated group of 25 or 30 students could absolutely get a competing publication up and running. If there's one thing I heard repeatedly from journalism majors it was that they hated the Diamondback. It's a shame they have never banded together to create a valid rival.

Then there are community organizations. Although I sometimes felt frustrate with what was accomplished during my time with MaryPIRG, I think all of the folks I knew in the organization had their hearts in the right place and did the best they could with a very thin number of volunteers. A doubling of the number of participants would absolutely have a positive impact. Not only would it allow them to plan more activities, but it would allow more ability to reach out and coordinate with other groups doing similar work.

Now I admit all of this sounds well and good in retrospect, but we've all graduated from college, so now what? I still think everyone fresh out of college should be volunteering in some respect. In the real world, it's tougher to get a new organization or idea of the ground, but there are far more organizations out there to learn from and apprentice under. Life outside of college becomes less of a sprint and affords more time to making intelligent long-term changes and improvements to the community.

Volunteering Thoughts

As I mentioned in a comment a little while ago, I promised to offer some thoughts on volunteering. I claim no expertise and I think I came pretty late to the game, but there are a few things everyone should consider when considering where/when/what to volunteer.

1. Try a lot of things out - There are countless opportunities, try out a number before getting to wedded to any one organization.

2. Know what you want out of it - Yes, volunteering is about helping people, but if you're not enjoying it then you're going to be less helpful. Know what you want as much as what you don't want. Volunteering after work may be good, unless you're always beat after work, same goes for early morning volunteering. You might have issues with kids or with old folks. You may want to volunteer with a really talky group or you may just want to focus on the task at hand. I know I'm often most satisfied when I can quantify what I've done. Either we cooked 200 meals or we gleaned 5 tons of vegetables, etc.

3. Know your commitment - Some people like the regularity of volunteering every week or every other week, or the first Tuesday of every month. Some folks prefer irregular opportunities as time permits.

4. One offs are a mixed bag. As I said in the comment, I think one-offs (MLK Day, Servathon, X-Mas/Thanksgiving, Special Disaster related events) can be good but can be heavy on the speechifying and light on the volunteering. And while none of these things does any harm, some of them can be light on the actual benefit. That said, if it gets folks to volunteer more in general, I think it's an absolutely good thing.

5. Once you've sorted things out, stick with it. If you're a regular with an organization, you will absolutely be more helpful in general and likely you'll get a better sense of the big picture. You're going to learn a lot more in general from cooking meals every couple of weeks than from making PB&J sandwiches once a year. I'll be the first to admit that I've picked up plenty of kitchen basics from volunteering that I wouldn't know otherwise.

There are loads of charity clearing houses so I will just mention a few:
Greater DC Cares - http://www.dc-cares.org/ - This is a great source for numerous projects
Charity Navigator - http://www.charitynavigator.org/ - Provides loads of lists of charities and ranks them based on certain financial and accounting criteria.
DCJCC - http://www.washingtondcjcc.org/ - One of the centers of Jewish culture in the city and also a provider of many volunteer opportunities