ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the responsibilities discharged by rank-and-file military personnel may be privatized only if contractors are placed under a uniform chain of command. Rank-and-file military personnel include lower-level military officers who lack command responsibilities, enlisted personnel and contractors who discharge the responsibilities of enlisted personnel. The chapter sketches Fabre's weapons-claim. It considers a challenge to the weapons-claim that applies even in the presence of sound institutional regulation: James Pattison's problem of private choice. The chapter describes a defense of formal command structures offered by Avihay Dorfman and Alon Harel. It presents the control argument in place of Dorfman and Harels unsuccessful defense. The control argument thus delivers the following revision of the weapons-claim: if authorizing entities place contractors under a uniform chain of command, their reliance upon private actors to kill in war may be justified according to the same rationale that the purchase of weapons is justified.
