A Draft?—The Washington Monthly Story Doesn’t Make the Case
I’m a fan of Phil Carter, but his Washington Monthly article arguing for a military draft doesn’t make the case.
At least not at the moment. Why? Start with the first two paragraphs:
The United States has occupied many foreign lands over the last half century?Germany and Japan in World War II, and, on a much smaller scale, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo in the 1990s. In all these cases, we sponsored elections and handed-off to democratic governments control of countries that were relatively stable, secure, and reasonably peaceful.
In Iraq, we failed to do this, despite heroic efforts by U.S. and coalition troops. The newly-elected Iraqi government inherits a country in which assassinations, kidnappings, suicide bombings, pipeline sabotages, and beheadings of foreigners are daily occurrences. For the last eight months, the ranks of the insurgency have been growing faster than those of the security forces of the provisional Iraqi government?and an alarming number of those government forces are secretly working for the insurgency. American-led combat operations in Ramadi and Fallujah killed large numbers of the enemy, but at the price of fanning the flames of anti-American hatred and dispersing the insurrection throughout Iraq. Despite nearly two years of effort, American troops and civilian administrators have failed to restore basic services to much of the central part of the country where a majority of Iraqis live. The U.S. military has not even been able to secure the 7-mile stretch of highway leading from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone where America’s own embassy and the seat of the Iraqi government are headquartered.
The democratic surge in the Middle East has put a hard date-time stamp on this commentary– as in out-dated and strategically wrong. See my post on GEN Abizaid’s testimony about the size of the Iraq’s terror clique and its waning power to intimidate.
I don’t know his co-author, Paul Glastris (other than the bio says he’s editor-in-chief of Washington Monthly), but Phil’s a first-rate troop. Still, the take in these two paragraphs smacks of DNC– that’s not an allegation, that’s a comparison. I think a case can be made for the draft (see my comments at the end of this post), and at some point this discussion needs to happen. Give Carter and Glastris credit: much of the article addresses important nuts and bolts issues regarding military manpower requirements. However– for the time being REP Charles Rangel’s political gamesmanship with the draft issue has poisoned rational and civil debate on the issue. The attempt to use “draft fear” to motivate college students to vote for John Kerry flopped — but that gambit’s toxins remain. Last fall I found flyers outside of my seminar class alledging a secret Bush plan to reinstitute the draft. That’s right, a conspiracy. Pish. One evening one of my students asked me about the issue after class. My response: “I’d love to discuss issues like universal military service or government service. But not in a climate of scare tactics. This is a sick lie.”
That being said, here’s a paragraph that is the basis for a reasoned discussion:
What we’re increasingly learning from Iraq is that the all-volunteer force, as presently built, cannot do that?indeed, it was consciously designed to be incapable of such deployments. Today’s force was built for precisely the kinds of wars that Caspar Weinberger and Colin Powell envisioned in their doctrines: wars with explicit purposes, narrow parameters, and clear exit strategies. In other words, it was built for the kinds of wars the military prefers to fight, not necessarily the kinds of wars we have, as a nation, historically fought.
The article then lists what it calls “five bad options” for addressing manpower needs. I’ll quote it at length:
In theory, there are several ways to get out of the military manpower bind we find ourselves in. In reality, there are inherent limits to almost all of them. The first option?at least the one Democrats and moderate Republicans have talked most about?is to convince other countries to share the burden in Iraq. But that’s not likely. Even if the security situation in Iraq improves and the Bush administration begins to share decision-making?something it’s so far refused to do?European leaders would be extremely wary of trying to sell their citizens on sending troops to keep the peace in a war they expressly opposed. It may be possible to convince the Europeans and other developed nations to be more willing to contribute troops the next time there’s an international need. But that, as we’ve seen, will require more U.S. troops, not fewer. Nor should it be the policy of the United States to have to rely on other countries’ troops. We must be prepared to intervene unilaterally if necessary.
A second solution to the manpower crisis would be to rely more on private military contractors, whose use has exploded in recent years. Currently, more than 40,000 government contractors are on duty in Iraq, working in myriad jobs from security to reconstruction. The advantage of using contractors is that they provide surge capacity; they are hired only for the duration of an engagement. But according to Peter W. Singer, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, these private armies also create problems. First, all costs considered, they’re not necessarily less expensive for the military.
Second, private military contractors often compete with the military for personnel, so any growth in these contractors usually results in tension between military retention and contractor recruiting efforts. Third, contractors operate in a legal gray area where their financial and accounting activities are heavily regulated, but their operations are barely looked at. It’s one thing to contract for truck drivers; it’s another to hire contractors to guard Afghan President Hamid Karzai or work as interrogation linguists in the Abu Ghraib prison because the military has too few commandos or linguists in its own ranks. The military has probably already pushed the contractor concept about as far as it will go; expecting much more surge capacity from private industry is probably unrealistic.
A third possibility might be to follow the advice of several cutting-edge military reformers to radically transform today’s military. According to these reformers, today’s force was drawn up for a bygone age of massed superpower armies; it does not reflect today’s threats. These visionaries would downsize the Navy, scrap some of the Army’s mechanized divisions, and in these and other ways free up tens of thousands of troops to be redeployed into ?soldier centric? units capable of doing everything along the spectrum from humanitarian relief in Banda Aceh to combat patrols in Baghdad. Under pressure from the Iraq mission, the military has taken some steps in this direction?for instance, by retraining and reequipping some army artillery and air defense units into military police units. But such moves have been incremental in nature thus far; the true scope of the problem is orders of magnitude larger than the Pentagon’s current solution. And some day, a war may come which requires all kinds of combat power?from large land-based formations to ships capable of sailing through the Taiwan strait to legions of peacekeepers. The military cannot build additional capability simply by playing a shell game with its personnel; at some point, it must genuinely add more soldiers too, and in large numbers.
A fourth option, and the most obvious one, would be to simply increase the size of the active-duty force. This too has been discussed. During the 2004 campaign, Sen. John Kerry called for increasing the active-duty force by 40,000 troops. More recently, a bipartisan group of hawkish defense intellectuals published an open letter on The Weekly Standard Web site calling on Congress to add 25,000 ground troops each year for the next several years. And the Pentagon has announced some money for extra troops in the administration’s latest budget. The problem with such proposals is that they underestimate both current manpower needs and the cost of forcing the all-volunteer military to grow.
In theory, one can always lure the next recruit, or retain the next soldier, by offering a marginally higher monetary incentive?but in reality, there are practical limits to such measures. The pool of people who might be convinced to join the Army is mainly comprised of healthy young people with high school degrees but no college plans. That pool is inherently limited, especially when the economy is heating up and there’s a shooting war on. Last year, despite signing bonuses in the tens of thousands and other perks, military recruiters had to lower entry standards to meet their enlistment goals. The active force met its recruiting targets for 2004, but the reserves have found themselves increasingly struggling to bring enough soldiers in the door.
But it’s the long-term cost issues that most militate against making the all-volunteer force bigger. Generals today are fond of saying that you recruit a soldier, but you retain their families. One reason the Army has resisted Congress’ attempts to raise its end strength is that it does not want to embrace all of the costs associated with permanently increasing the size of the military, because it sees each soldier as a 30-year commitment?both to the soldier and his (or her) family. According to the Congressional Budget Office, each soldier costs $99,000 per year?a figure which includes medical care, housing, and family benefits.
The United States does not necessarily need a massive standing military all the time. What it needs is a highly trained professional force of a certain size?what we have right now is fine?backed by a massive surge capacity of troops in reserve to quickly augment the active-duty force in times of emergency. Sure, right now, the Army is light several hundred thousand deployable ground troops. But over the long term, the demands of Iraq will subside, the need for troops will decline, and it could be another decade or two before another mission that big comes along…
… A fifth option would be to build this surge capacity into the reserves, instead of the active force. Under this plan, which some military personnel planners are already discussing, the army would radically bump up enlistment bonuses and other incentives to lure vastly more young people directly into the reserves than are being recruited now. Such a plan would have the advantage of creating the surge capacity the nation needs without saddling the nation with a large, standing professional army. But the disadvantages are substantial, too. For such a plan to work, the military would have to make a commitment, which thus far it never has, to fix the legendary resources problems and anemic readiness of the reserves. A great many reservists have gone through the crucible of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and yet still cope with vehicles that lack armor, weapons older than they are, and a paucity of training dollars. Also, the army would always (and rightly) insist that signing bonuses for reservists be substantially below those offered by to active-duty recruits. And even if bonuses and other reenumeration for both the active-duty and the reserves were to rise substantially, it is hard to see how the reserves could lure in a sufficient number of recruits without significantly lowering admissions standards. The real advantage of the all-volunteer force is its quality. If the military tries to recruit so many soldiers that it must substantially lower its entry requirements, then the all-volunteer force will lose its qualitative edge. This decrease in quality will have a cascade effect on discipline within the ranks, degrading combat effectiveness for these units.
The article suggests what a 21st century draft could look like:
Here’s how such a plan might work. Instead of a lottery, the federal government would impose a requirement that no four-year college or university be allowed to accept a student, male or female, unless and until that student had completed a 12-month to two-year term of service. Unlike an old-fashioned draft, this 21st-century service requirement would provide a vital element of personal choice. Students could choose to fulfill their obligations in any of three ways: in national service programs like AmeriCorps (tutoring disadvantaged children), in homeland security assignments (guarding ports), or in the military. Those who chose the latter could serve as military police officers, truck drivers, or other non-combat specialists requiring only modest levels of training. (It should be noted that the Army currently offers two-year enlistments for all of these jobs, as well as for the infantry.) They would be deployed as needed for peacekeeping or nation-building missions. They would serve for 12-months to two years, with modest follow-on reserve obligations.
Whichever option they choose, all who serve would receive modest stipends and GI Bill-type college grants. Those who sign up for lengthier and riskier duty, however, would receive higher pay and larger college grants. Most would no doubt pick the less dangerous options. But some would certainly select the military?out of patriotism, a sense of adventure, or to test their mettle. Even if only 10 percent of the one-million young people who annually start at four-year colleges and universities were to choose the military option, the armed forces would receive 100,000 fresh recruits every year. These would be motivated recruits, having chosen the military over other, less demanding forms of service. And because they would all be college-grade and college-bound, they would have?to a greater extent than your average volunteer recruit?the savvy and inclination to pick up foreign languages and other skills that are often the key to effective peacekeeping work.
A 21st-century draft like this would create a cascading series of benefits for society. It would instill a new ethic of service in that sector of society, the college-bound, most likely to reap the fruits of American prosperity. It would mobilize an army of young people for vital domestic missions, such as helping a growing population of seniors who want to avoid nursing homes but need help with simple daily tasks like grocery shopping. It would give more of America’s elite an experience of the military. Above all, it would provide the all-important surge capacity now missing from our force structure, insuring that the military would never again lack for manpower. And it would do all this without requiring any American to carry a gun who did not choose to do so.
But from there the article returns to allegations of “inept leadership,” etc. As I said, it carries a date-time stamp.
I do agree that military service brings extraordinary benefits to our society and too many of America’s economic and intellectual elites shirk military service. Who has the hardest job in a democracy? Answer: a PFC, when he’s tackling a machine gun nest.
For the record, Rangel proposed a draft bill then when it came to the floor he voted against it.
Dirty pool exacts a penalty. I’d like to see Carter and Glastris paste Rangel for poisoning the manpower debate. Then, after a decent interval, and perhaps an apology from REP Rangel, we can return to this discussion.
UPDATE:Comments 1 and 2 expand on my argument. Here’s what I would say about the benefits of service. Military service seeded throughout society adds a special leaven — of common sense and common experience. That’s the bright side of what Carter and Glastris are proposing. As for the commenter’s notion that this is a trojan horse — that’s part of what I mean by the poisoned debate. Keel haul Rangel and the Kerry campaign for that.
UPDATE 2: I see Instapundit linked. Here’s a link to an article of mine on military manpower. “Grunt Work” dates from August 26, 2001 — right, pre-9/11. The article ran in the San Antonio Express-News and was picked up by the Pentagon’s Early Bird clipping service. The EBird gets read worldwide. The article produced a short ton of tut-tut hate mail from the Beltway suits. One letter called me a Luddite, etc.. A Luddite is something I am not. It would have been nice if national magazines were interested in the manpower subject and “grunt work” in early 2001, but they weren’t.
UPDATE 3: Comment 24, quoted in part:
“Those who chose the latter could serve as military police officers, truck drivers, or other non-combat specialists requiring only modest levels of training. ”
These guys don?t know jack about training requirements. And they also have no freaking clue as to which MOS?s are taking most of the casualties in Iraq.
My take: Glad you pointed this out– a similar thought about truck drivers flashed through my mind when I read that sentence. Iraq has been an MP war from July 2003 on, and MPs are combat troops one minute, cops the next. Donald Sensing has made the very point about truck drivers taking casualties in Iraq. (I don’t have a link handy– visit www.donaldsensing.com .) He was discussing the Close Combat Badge proposasl that would exclude combat support and combat service support– even if they saw close combat. I suspect the political lean of Washington Monthly had a lot to do with the way this article is presented. This article is packed with hard slaps at the Bush Administration and ever-so-slightly-out-of-touch remarks like the one Commenter 24 notes. Instapundit says Washington Monthly promoted this particular article quite heavily. I wonder who Glastris had fact-check it, edit it, and for that matter, provide advice on presentation. The decision to go with “Iraq is a failure” as the lede was a huge strategic faux pas, but one a left-leaning DC magazine is/was all too-likely to make. That damages the intellectual utility of the article.
Many of the commenters are obviously military or ex-military and have hammered on the article’s shortcomings– thanks for posting. Manpower, however, is a complex issue. How we attract, select, train, and retain quality military personnel remains a major defense and social issue. That’s why I’m for discussing all options, and since I’m for discussing all options, that’s why I am completely ticked at Rangel and Kerry for their inexecuseable “the draft’s coming” campaign scare tactic. Am I for a draft? No– not now. But I know the burden and privilege of military service needs to be more broadly borne by our society. I have toyed with the idea of requiring every college or university that receives any type of federal aid money or grant money or scholarship money or student loan money to have a compulsory year of ROTC– yup, from your local community college on up. Professors who never served in the military –particularly sociology profs– would be required to take a “military service sensitivity training course” where they will learn how to curb any residual anti-military bigotry.
“It would instill a new ethic of service in that sector of society” How? In what sense does forcing people to do something that they don’t want to do create in them an ethic to do it? What makes even less sense in this proposal is that it would create exactly the reverse of surge capacity. Since everyone would get their choice of what service to perform, when the military is needed one presumes is when most people would choose to tutor disadvantaged kids. Besides which, what’s the purpose of drafting people into roles like, “military police officers, truck drivers, or other non-combat specialists requiring only modest levels of training” when “It’s one thing to contract for truck drivers; it’s another to hire contractors to guard Afghan President Hamid Karzai or work as interrogation linguists in the Abu Ghraib prison because the military has too few commandos or linguists in its own ranks.”
Comment by ctl — 3/2/2005 @ 11:23 am
You’re right - the article has been proven wrong by subsequent events. Carter’s crystal ball malfunctioned, thankfully.
Comment by Jim Manning — 3/2/2005 @ 11:24 am
One thing I don’t see mentioned in the excerpts (haven’t got time to go read the whole thing now) is the work being done to train the Iraqis to take over their own defense. I realize we will have deployed soldiers there for a long time, but as more of the Iraqis become proficient, we will need less in the way of manpower. And as the Iraqis get their local governments up and working, they will start taking over some to all of the rebuilding and upkeep that our soldiers are currently also doing. Once again - there is a gradual decrease in the need for manpower. Yes, I know there needs to be a revamping of the numbers and types of troops and I haven’t got the vaguest idea of what would be the right way to go in that regard. But we also have to make sure that we don’t over correct for a condition that is happening now and (even though it’s slow) is resolving itself over time. I think the problem is flexibility. Each war or significant portion thereof, is different than others that have come before it. So, what was necessary to win WW2 is different than Korea, Vietnam, and currently Iraq. It’s very difficult to be flexible with such a huge military and most times we don’t find out what we really should have had in place until after the fact. That the military we have - as much as people seem bent on telling us it’s inadequacies - is able to perform at such a stellar level, shows us just how good the people are in our armed forces. I would like to see improvements, but not knee jerk reactions to changing situations.
Comment by Teresa — 3/2/2005 @ 11:38 am
You’re right - Rangel, “Rock the Vote” and, frankly, John Kerry, all poisoned any future debate about a draft. Bush HAD to promise that there will be no draft, and it is a promise he cannot break without wrecking the Republican Party for the next decade. Even a limited draft for domestic (ie homeland security) would be a bad idea - look at Canada in WW II with the “zombies” as they were called - eventually you have a pool of trained manpower and you use it for overseas service. Also, what Carter does not address, is that 2 year enlistments are not long enough; although the Army does offer them, the hope is that the soldiers will re-enlist. I would argue that it takes about four to six months to properly train a soldier, ad another nine to twelve months while he or she becomes a really profficient soldier, so you’re looking at six to eight months of really useful service before release (though the process is compressed somewhat in wartime). Carter, as a ormer officer ought to understand why this is a bad idea. One of the biggest factors behind the historically low US casulties in the last three years is the extremely high level of proffessionalism and training in the Army. Finally, Carter and Glastris don’t address the idea that this national service could have the unintended consequence of causing qualified applicants to avoid college altogether, never mind the legal arguments that these draftees woudl innevitably make when, having chosen the military service option for the higher bennies during peacetime, they get unexpectedly sent to war. We hear this argument already from the “soldiers as victims” crowd - how much stronger would it be if the soldiers were all draftees?
Comment by holdfast — 3/2/2005 @ 11:57 am
What confuses me is this: we’ve maintained large armies in the past. Didn’t Carter himself cite the 800k people we sent in Gulf War I in the absence of a draft? Why is it no longer possible to muster such a force today? I get that our recruitment goals are lower than they were, but why couldn’t they be raised back?
Comment by Jeff Licquia — 3/2/2005 @ 12:01 pm
Hmmmm. Austin: I think your take on any sort of draft is incorrect. The current reorganization of the military is entirely designed to eliminate non-critical non-combat jobs. What you’re describing is an bloated organization that would be forced to create make-work jobs. It’s just not useful. Then there is the increasingly technical aspect of most military jobs. Even being in the infantry is tremendously different from when I was a Marine in 1982. Back then you had a rifle/M203 or M-60, and that was it. Now they’ve got GPS PDAs, squad level recon drones and combat robots. The plans for the next generation of infantry gear nows looks like something out of Star Wars. Hell have you kept up with the militarie’s attempt at creating chameleon battlegear? Computer driven uniforms equipped with tiny ccd cameras and coated with organic digital display cloth. I just frankly don’t think a draft has any utility. If you want to have national service, because those damn young people are enjoying themselves waaaaay too much and need to clean toilets for a couple years, then come out and say so. Heck I’d agree with you.
Comment by ed — 3/2/2005 @ 12:07 pm
Actually, the most effective way to raise a large surge force is to trade on something America can confer cost-free and which is highly sought after in many areas of the world - U.S. citizenship - by creating an American version of the Foreign Legion. Offer 4 - 6-year enlistments at wages that get more comparable to what citizen enlistees get the longer the term of service. Part of the pay could go to families in the country of origin during the term of enlistment. At the end of that time, the recruit is an American and so is his family with full rights to live and work here. Re-upping into the regular U.S. military could be denied or allowed as manpower needs dictate after the initial enlistment term. Those killed get posthumous citizenship for themselves and full citizenship for their families, plus immigration rights, plus full military survivor benefits. On this model, we could raise and train and deploy an extra million men in two years at an affordable cost.
Comment by Dick Eagleson — 3/2/2005 @ 12:14 pm
The idea of a draft being something that would HELP is just plain wrong. I’m a MSgt in the USAF, and I can tell you that having a bunch of unwilling, unmotivated non-volunteers counting down a “sentence” would do much more damage than good. More of us who WANT to do this would have to spend more of our time trying to make the unwilling do their jobs than the increase in manpower would increase our capability. Congress is the culprit. The services have not exhausted the pool of recruits; we are turning people away, and the Navy and the Air Force are both currently forcing approximately 15,000 people each to separate involuntarily to bring our end strength in line with Congressionally mandated caps. A lack of volunteers is not the problem. The problem is that Congress is not willing to pay what they need to to ensure national defense. They’ve been piggy-backing on the Guard and Reserve, but the military’s ability to tap into them at this level will expire in the next couple of years. What is needed isn’t a draft, it’s for Congress to authorize a budget with enough money to allow all of those who want to volunteer, and those currently serving who want to continue, to do so. That would expand our capability, and not waste our time by turning significant numbers of us into babysitters monitoring short-term personnel without motivation. It’s much more effective to allow those who wish to serve to join/stay, and then we can concentrate on our mission and leadership and not on trying to corral the unwilling. That’s my two cents.
Comment by Cletus — 3/2/2005 @ 12:15 pm
Your reference to Rep Rangel’s HR-163 in the last Congress reminded me that apparently nobody ever read the bill. Please go to thomas.loc.gov and read the actual bill. It has 4 references to the “active and reverse components” of the military. Yes, that is not reserve, but rather reverse (sounds French). It was not a typo, it happened 4 times; perhaps a “cut and paste” error. The “twin” in the Senate S89 had “reserve” so there actually was no threat of the draft returning without revising Rep. Rangel’s bill.
Comment by J_Crater — 3/2/2005 @ 12:37 pm
There’s an argument I’d eventually make about the unfree nature of a draft in a free society, and why is it that only the youngsters get taxed like this, but that’s for another time, I think. There’s another issue raised in this debate I’d like to address. The structure of the current military doesn’t support the current roles and missions of exercising American power. Changing this structure may provide more benefit than simply imposing some form of national service. Some of DoD actual roles and mission cross department lines–things like the tsunami response, security support, infrastructure support–along the lines of what Tom Barnett calls the “SysAdmin” force. The older National Guard folks with real life experience are very useful because they have a different skill set than what DoD gives them–but DoD doesn’t have a way to track, nourish, and effectively utilize those skills. Build your SysAdmin (from not just DoD but USAID, Treasury, USCG, et cetera) and you have more effective use of people assets for the nation. Some of the skill sets needed don’t require a nineteen year old kid. DOPMA forces a twenty year retirement and an up-or-out system. Non-OPPMS XXI services still have a single pyramid for officer advancement (everyone should plan to be the CNO, so no Foreign Area officer is actually used as such, and if you’re done in your unrestricted line community you’re done in the service despite your other useful skills). DOPMA reform would cause benefits that would relieve some of the personnel strain. The timeframe available for people to be in the service drives good people out in fallow times and forgets that they’re needed later. Two examples: Army RIFs after WWII and Vietnam. Another example: Matthew Heidt’s observation that all the SEALs got out in the ’80s because there was nothing to do–”Why do you think Blackwater and Triple Canopy are full of former Frogmen?”. There’s got to be a more effective way to allow people to flow in and out of the service when it’s useful to do so. I say we fix all that before we start muttering about a draft…
Comment by Chap — 3/2/2005 @ 12:38 pm
Pardon me if I am wrong, but wasn’t the army much bigger before the end of the cold war? I seem to remember there being 8 more activeduty divisions and another four in the National Guard. The force that went into Desert Storm was 600,000 strong, compared to 125,000 at the beginning of the Iraq war. So my question is, why CAN’T the active duty army get big again? I do not like Phil Carter. He is a pessimist. He is always, everyday, posting bad news about how bad the military is doing. And yet we still manage to keep winning. Also, the consequence of a draft would be losing the war. It would destroy public support for the war. Duh! That’s why it will never happen.
Comment by John Lynch — 3/2/2005 @ 12:46 pm
The draft is antithetical to the entire mind-set of the modern military. The current system works because of highly-trained and highly-motivated individuals. The amount of time that it takes to turn a civilian into a soldier in the modern army is much greater than the boot camps of WWI and II. Instituting a draft sounds like a quick and easy solution to the problem of “we don’t have enough people”. The catch is that the problem is actually “we don’t have enough qualified people”.
Comment by Rob Crocker — 3/2/2005 @ 12:56 pm
I think what this article shows is not that we need a draft, but that we need a major-caliber effort to educate people on how the modern military works. Outside the defense community, there are a lot of folks who are stuck with the Vietnam paradigm - grab an 18-year-old, run him through basic training, then deploy the poor schmuck. Who promptly gets killed. It’s someting that we need to hammer home to the general public. Yes, we need some more manpower. But we need money a LOT more. The Dirty Little Secret is that we are fighting with 20-year-old tanks, 30-year-old airplanes, and 40-year-old ships. And weapons systems that qualify for antique license plates need a LOT of very expensive maintenance.
Comment by Mike McDaniel — 3/2/2005 @ 1:26 pm
Military reformers since Thomas Jefferson have been peddling the idea of cutting the Navy back as a way of managing the question of military budgets and manpower, and they’ve ALWAYS BEEN WRONG. Jesus. How many times does the USA have to get it in the shorts due to an inability to project force across oceans before we get this one down? I mean, I can see the case for not needing any more nuclear missile subs, stealth bombers, ICBMs or other nuclear first-strike Cold War weaponry. But how many times do we have to demonstrate the value of aircraft carriers and shore bombardment? Okay, rant over. To build on Rob Crocker’s comment, the problem with a draft is that history says you usually get bad quality troops. Isn’t it interesting that the Soviets got their butts kicked in Afghanistan and we didn’t?
Comment by BadLiberal — 3/2/2005 @ 1:50 pm
The other thing I meant to say: granting citizenship to large masses of troops in exchange for military service has been tried before. It was called the Roman Empire. Didn’t work out so well.
Comment by BadLiberal — 3/2/2005 @ 1:51 pm
Carter has been beating this drum for a while. A key fact that he ignores is that the Army, currently at about 530K, maintained an authorized strength of 781K between 1972 and 1991.
Comment by streiff — 3/2/2005 @ 2:03 pm
We need to reorganize the military to meet today’s needs. The most obvious step is to disband the Air Force as a separate service and merge its fuctions back into the Army, where they belong. Strategic bombing was the only mission that required a separate Air Force, and that’s long gone.
Comment by ZT Miles — 3/2/2005 @ 2:09 pm
Actually the Roman Army worked fine. There was a problem with succession that kept coming up. That said, Carter is in the Hackworth zone of constantly nay-saying. A draft is not the answer.
Comment by Eric Blair — 3/2/2005 @ 2:14 pm
One major problem is that too large a peace dividend was taken after the victory in the Cold War. That we can maintain a sufficiently large force using the AVF is demonstrated by the force size maintained from the mid ’70s to the mid ’90s. A second problem is that after Vietnam the total force structure was designed so that the regular forces could not engage in protracted or substantial hostilities without the call up of significant reserves. This is not a feature, it is a bug. I am far more concerned about breaking the Reserves/NG in the current environment than I am about being able to find insufficient volunteers for the regular forces. The functions that have been made the near exclusive domain of the reserves, such as civil affairs, should be returned to the regular force so that the regular forces can deploy for an Iraq size engagement without necessitating the repeated call up of such substantial numbers of reservists for such extended tours. I would be fora more interested in questioning the viability of the reserves than the reimposition of a draft.
Comment by Mrs. Davis — 3/2/2005 @ 3:07 pm
This analysisk fails in two very signficant ways. First, although the government does not bear the cost of a draft directly, the social cost is immense. That one or two year service term is taken at the cost of the same amount of time spent in the work force (after graduating in the case of college students). What’s more, since these are people who would not, by default, be in the military, this generally means the private sector values their service more highly than the military does. So they would be more costly to society than the current active members of the military. The article ignores this cost. Second, and this is huge, where is the apples-apples comparison b/w enlarging the pool of reservists and implementing a draft? Reservists are volunteers, which is better both on terms of moral and justice. They are better trained and better organized. In fact, reservists are better on every point except the long term cost to the military of maintaining. But this cost is directly related to their preparedness. No fair or direct comparison is made by the authors. In my opinion, no credible argument for the draft can be made w/o showing how it is clearly superior to enlarging the pool of reservists. The moral objections to forced enlistment require it and it is also the clearest, simplest alternative.
Comment by mpowell — 3/2/2005 @ 3:39 pm
“moral” should read “morale”. Sorry.
Comment by mpowell — 3/2/2005 @ 3:40 pm
The Foreign Legion idea is pretty intriguing, but it raises two issues. First, the domestic and abroad Left is already joyous about our professional military, since they can call the troops “mercenaries” without any qualms of conscience, since most troops over the grade of E-4 make something close to a living wage, at least when you count benefits. That’s an important consideration when the first battlefield most Islamacists and leftists prepare and strike on is the mass media. Second, the Foreign Legion has never truly been foreign, with occasional exceptions. A lot of times, Frenchmen enlisted to evade angry husbands or wives, to avoid the magistrate, or to get some adventure, or simply a place where they would be fed and housed and have some fun - they lied about their nationality and enlisted. That was the historical model. The modern Foreign Legion is more like the Special Forces, or the Rangers, or a particularly sharp Marine unit - more about soldiers looking for a profession, than term soldiers. The Legion has been based on the model you describe – serve 5, get citizenship, benefits, and a new identity if you want it. One problem in the past was that you get a lot of rogues that way, and you have desertion problems (a lesser problem in the age of FL as SF. Another problem was national loyalty – I submit that the attempted coup of 1963(?) involving the First Paras stemmed in part because the ranks were largely made up of ex-Wehrmacht and SS troops, East Bloc’ers, and others with little or no loyalty to the French government - so they were easily manipulated into the coup attempt by their disloyal French officers. Of course at the rate France goes through Republics, one can’t be sure a wholly native force would have done any better.
Comment by Al Maviva — 3/2/2005 @ 3:57 pm
Raise the pay. Encourage reenlistment. And target college graduates or have a “take three years off” program where the students come right back into school after the military. for four/six year terms. When we hire, ex-military always get special consideration. And reorganize the military, esp the Army. Convert some NG and AR units to RA. SOme will stay; some won’t, but you will have the cadre to make it work. Create active-duty cadre units.
Comment by puredata — 3/2/2005 @ 4:14 pm
I love this paragraph. Here’s how such a plan might work. Instead of a lottery, the federal government would impose a requirement that no four-year college or university be allowed to accept a student, male or female, unless and until that student had completed a 12-month to two-year term of service. So you’ll see a lot of rich kids going to foreign colleges. And community colleges in this country will get a big boost. And some people who were borderline about going to college will say ‘the heck with it’. Is this really the desired result? Unlike an old-fashioned draft, this 21st-century service requirement would provide a vital element of personal choice. Students could choose to fulfill their obligations in any of three ways: in national service programs like AmeriCorps (tutoring disadvantaged children), in homeland security assignments (guarding ports), or in the military. Presuming there’s a war going on, it seems possible that huge numbers of ‘draftees’ will sign up for the AmeriCorps or Homeland Security option. How, exactly, does this solve our supposed manpower problem in the military? Those who chose the latter could serve as military police officers, truck drivers, or other non-combat specialists requiring only modest levels of training. These guys don’t know jack about training requirements. And they also have no freaking clue as to which MOS’s are taking most of the casualties in Iraq. (It should be noted that the Army currently offers two-year enlistments for all of these jobs, as well as for the infantry.) They would be deployed as needed for peacekeeping or nation-building missions. They would serve for 12-months to two years, with modest follow-on reserve obligations. Sinc the rest of their analysis commentary seems to be based on ignorance and a complete lack of common-sense, there’s not much point of getting into the above.
Comment by Pat Phillips — 3/2/2005 @ 4:15 pm
Mrs. Davis, above, hit the major points. The post-cold war drawdown reorganized support functions into the Reserves, and the Iraq occupation uses a disproportionate number of Reservists. It’s primarily their deployments that are unsustainable. SecDef has repeatedly emphasized the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), and the need for reorganization, which will result in a lighter, more agile force. He’s right, but the pace has been too slow. Both reorganizations (RMA and returning support functions to the regulars) need to speed up, and the result will probably require an increase in end strength. (Through recruiting, not a draft.) The other issue is political. We currently have ~200,000 troops in PACOM and EUCOM, deployed mostly for political considerations (only a small part in Korea). Our allies are overrepresented in the support and peacekeeping functions, and we’d planned on their support–but most, especially those intent on reining in the “hyperpower,” are withholding it. A sensible reprioritizing of troop deployments, and some arm-twisting, are in order. Carter’s piece is too flawed to fisk. Love reading his legal stuff, but he ain’t no operator.
Comment by Cecil Turner — 3/2/2005 @ 4:29 pm
MSgt Cletus is correct - the one thing that stand out from my tour in the Army Security Agency (ASA) in the 60’s is the cry “short!” which some people would start yelling on a regular basis with more than a yearof service to go. And the ASA was all volunteer 4 yr terms - but probably because it looked better that a 2 yr hitch in the infantry.
Comment by Oscar — 3/2/2005 @ 4:47 pm
Folks, As a former commander that had a mix of draftees and professional volunteers, professionals are the way to go. In a draft, the soldier never has to agree to serve, just that he has to serve. Professionals have volunteered at least once, if not multiple times to serve. This is the major distinction that makes the U.S. military today far superior to any conscript force. The quality is far better, and their motivation (even the mobilized reservists) are far better. I am aghast that anyone that claims that they are knowledgeable about the military would want to bring back short-term draftees. It is the skill and motivation of our volunteer force that has had years of training that has kept our casualties low. A short-term 12 month draftee does not hold a candle to the skill of a seasoned six or seven year American infantryman. In firefights in Iraq, it is fairly easy to determine which side is firing (aside from the obvious weapon-specifics). The insurgents “spray and pray” when they fire, whereas the Americans fire discipline is far superior. Single deadly shots against single targets, or massed fires that are accurately directed and controlled. That’s why in a stand-up fight, the insurgents are dying at roughly a 30:1 rate when they attack American combat formations, even when they get the first shot in. To demographics - noting that the Army was kept (as a previous poster well put it) at 781,000 troops from 1975-91 as an all-volunteer force, that means that we could easily as a society rebuild that size force using volunteers. More importantly, our society has grown to nearly 295 million - we’ve added 47 million people to our nation since 1990 (247 million total), which should give us a large pool of military age people that would want to serve. Given that the fight that we face is primarily an infantry fight, the manpower is out there to rebuild the infantry formations. However, we also should not be too quick to dispense with heavy forces. Gen. Wallace (Cdr, V Corps) stated that 3ID was a “heavy metal fight” all the way into Baghdad - and we find that what we want is MORE armor to protect our soldiers, not less as the fight goes on. Light fighters are great for rapid deployments, but armor keeps you alive. To wit: we can build up our forces to at least their pre-drawdown levels given the human capital that our nation has. Drafts are a terrible idea, because they do not produce forces that have the morale nor skill to win the fights of the 21st century.
Comment by Brian — 3/2/2005 @ 5:33 pm
[…] . So the Washington Monthly has a front page article on the draft, and COL Austin Bay has some points to bring up about it. Good discussion in the comments, and yours truly does put two cents […]
Pingback by Chapomatic » The Freakin’ Draft Again — 3/2/2005 @ 6:48 pm
“However, we also should not be too quick to dispense with heavy forces. Gen. Wallace (Cdr, V Corps) stated that 3ID was a “heavy metal fight” all the way into Baghdad - and we find that what we want is MORE armor to protect our soldiers, not less as the fight goes on.” All very nice, but we have more MBTs than we can deploy. And as they greatly increase logistics requirements, employing them is often difficult or impractical (e.g., Afghanistan). Obviously we don’t want to get rid of all of them (and in fact should probably increase APS/MPS prepositioned stocks) but the numbers need to be reduced. We also need to integrate our supporting fires (especially air power) more effectively, and since you mentioned V Corps, improve attack helicopter doctrine and tactics. The final mix ought to be leaner, faster, and more reliant on off-platform firepower. (And we’re unlikely to get there in one iteration.) Sec Rumsfeld is correct that it makes little sense to add forces to the current mix and then reorganize, but again, we need to step up the pace. And with due respect, a significant part of the problem is obstructionism, especially on the part of some senior personnel in the US Army. (BTW, as someone who rode a tank in the last Gulf War, I’m a very friendly audience to armor enthusiasts.)
Comment by Cecil Turner — 3/2/2005 @ 7:00 pm
“What confuses me is this: we’ve maintained large armies in the past …” Actually we have never maintained a large standing army in the past or anyother time … on the soil of the continential United States. The only time in our history that we have maintain a large standing piecetime Army was in the 1980s, and even then it was mostly stationed overseas, not in the US. The Founding Fathers were deathly afraid of standing armies of any size. Consequentlyu, the United States has been virtually defeneless between wars and has paid a high cost in entry fees in its many initial battles. I belive right after the Treaty of Paris, we didn’t even have an army. We had about 350 folks assigned to garrison a couple of forts turned over by the British and no one assigned to guard our military “depots” or store. After evey major war we have almost overnight stood down our Army, because as the Founding Fathers observed, idle armies cause trouble. The 80’s demonstrated that in peace time, in a so-so economy (the Regan economy didn’t catch fire over night), military service at compensation rates (compared to available civilian jobs at the time) proved very attractive. Additionally, the Army became expert advertisers and recruiters promising worldwide travel, etc. The 18 or so dividsion we had then (as opposed to the hollow Army under Carter) was heavily stationed overseas. The “peace dividend” at the end of the Cold War was a typical downsizing of the US Army in a peacetime environment. … well, maybe a bit overboard.. the original goal was to lop it down to about 420,000 men. It never went that far, but easily could have. The problem with building back up to 18 divisions is…. real estate to station them, train them, and house their families. BRAC has sold off a significant portion of our WWII infrastructure. Our oversea bases have been returned to the host nations. So just snapping in a draft for instance still has the basic problem of stationing. (I’ve suggested that North Dakota be bought out and turned into one large training base and manuever area, but haven’t had any takers on the proposal yet.) So bottomline, why we can’t have a large standing Army, is Congress doesn’t trust large standing Armies, and there is no place currently available in which to station it.
Comment by Delta Dave — 3/2/2005 @ 8:29 pm
This comment will suffice: Back then you had a rifle/M203 or M-60, and that was it. Now they’ve got GPS PDAs, squad level recon drones and combat robots. The plans for the next generation of infantry gear nows looks like something out of Star Wars. Yeah, but these high-tech soldiers are still walking around alleyways and arterials. Sometimes they’re shot at, sometimes they’re shooting, sometimes they’re wounded or dead. Their tasks would hardly surprise a British infantryman from 1919 (in the same freaking place, by the way). If they’re particularly blessed, they’re traveling through said danger zone in Humvees or Strykers which would have been shredded on the Eastern Front fify years ago. With weapons that are fifty years old. It’s not the force. It’s the mission.
Comment by stickler — 3/3/2005 @ 12:56 am
I critique Carter at my blog, The Liberal Empire
Comment by John Lynch — 3/3/2005 @ 2:45 am
Did a posting on this on my blog and tried to TB but the url was rejected? NEWS · SIGNUP · LOGIN · FAQ · FORUMS · CONTACT · ADVERTISE Members Instructions/Code Template Gallery Manage Comments Manage Trackback Settings FAQ Support Forum LogOut Welcome Back toniview Send Trackback Pings Pinging http://austinbay.net/blog/wp-trackback.php/110... HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 13:06:47 GMT Server: Apache/2.0.44 (Unix) PHP/4.3.1 mod_webapp/1.2.0-dev Content-Length: 333 Connection: close Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Not Found The requested URL /blog/wp-trackback.php/110 was not found on this server. Just thought you might be interested to know.
Comment by Toni — 3/3/2005 @ 7:12 am
The Founding Fathers were deathly afraid of standing armies of any size. Not Alexander Hamilton or many of the Federalists. All very nice, but we have more MBTs than we can deploy. And as they greatly increase logistics requirements, employing them is often difficult or impractical (e.g., Afghanistan). Obviously we don’t want to get rid of all of them (and in fact should probably increase APS/MPS prepositioned stocks) but the numbers need to be reduced. Only if you’re fighting this war again. Look east. There’s your next threat, likely to be very conventional in nature.
Comment by MikeTee — 3/3/2005 @ 9:21 am
You are far to kind. This article deserves to be hammered with wrecking ball. http://posseincitatus.typepad.com/posse_incitatus/2005/03/oh_boy_the_draf.html
Comment by Posse Incitatus — 3/3/2005 @ 10:21 am
Hells bells, Austin, I made a better case for the Draft over on the Winds of Change two years ago. See: The American Ground Troop Shortage July 11, 2003 03:58 PM http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/003719.php “The problem of the American ground troops shortage, the political games being played to avoid facing up to it during the War on Terrorism, and my thoughts on a proposed Liberian intervention.” and U.S. Military — Back to the Future! June 20, 2003 09:42 AM http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/003631.php To win the “War on Terrorism” America needs hundreds of thousands of full time support troops it does not have to occupy and reform foreign cultures. America is going to have to institute a draft to get them. This logic of empire has many implications…
Comment by Trent Telenko — 3/3/2005 @ 5:32 pm
What you both have missed is that one of the keys to avoid Vietnam style problems is to avoid units composed almost solely of youths (19-20). Using reserves which are generally older on average, brings an age mix to each unit and adds maturity to the general behavior(the ‘Lord of the Flies’ antidote). It also ensures support on the home front, as you don’t create a youth ghetto of manpower. It is exactly to the point that in Vietnam we drafted 19 year-olds and then denied them the right to vote! The group asked to enact JFK’s “bear any burden, pay any price” was the group that was denied the right to have any say over their own future! This is totally against the general principle of personal responsibility. Everyone making decisions then did not bear the personal responsibility to fight the war. Giving 18 year olds doomed the draft and forced responsibility upon the balance of society with salutary results.
Comment by Machias Privateer — 3/3/2005 @ 6:56 pm
Austin, I think the only way to fix the recruiting problem is to fix our culture. And I’m not talking about American culture, but military culture, which is directly related to a flawed military organization. 1) Officer/enlisted caste system. Intelligent, qualified enlisted men are slapped in the face every time a 22 year old comes out of college and the Army puts them in charge if a platoon. 2) The Green-to-Gold program (as of 1994, anyways) discrimated against enlisted men in awarding only 3 year scholarships to enlisted men, when any kid coming out of high school could get a 4 year scholarship. 3) The rapid rotation of officers in and out of command positions encourages dog-n-pony shows, formations, crap like that. These are some of the reasons serving sucks, but by no means is this a comprehensive list. I could go on for years. But if the military is serious about fixing its retention problems, it ought to look at simple — and free — ways to fix it, because none of Phil’s 5 solutions looks attractive to me. f There are too many officers and not enough enlisted men.
Comment by Fred Schoeneman — 3/3/2005 @ 8:43 pm
Perhaps something you may have missed? That a case may be made that Dick Cheney’s reduction of force and base closures during his tenure with Bush I (at the end of the cold war) may not just have increased the danger of a terrorist attack but fomented it! While it is true that maintaining bases worldwide can be expensive I would hazard that the war in Afghanistan, and Iraq were and are for more so! As is the so-called war on terror. It is analogous to a security guard in a store. He probably would not notice shoplifting, he is mostly there as a uniformed reminder of what might happen should a patron decide to take merchandise without paying. The bases worked the same way. People in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, China, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, etc, and etc. would see our military technology on a regular basis. Their awe would likely bring a dawning realization that they conceivably might never be able to create such a force. Once we left, and jets stopped screaming overhead they forgot their awe, as well as the significant economic benefit obtained by having such bases nearby. And terrorism crept in. History records that the exact same thing happened to the Romans when they stopped supporting keeping those very efficient legions in distant lands. I believe a draft may be necessary not so much to put “boots on the ground” in any emergency but to preserve the security those far flung bases once provided against the rise of terrorism and anarchy.,
Comment by Manoppello — 3/3/2005 @ 8:44 pm
Thr problems with expanding the size of the US Army are: 1)Money, check the deficit. 2)A SecDef and his civilian crew who apparently believe war is virtually all about having the latest high tech toys and so wish to spend the money available on those toys, not more soldiers. 3)Young people watching the coverage of the fighting over here in Iraq and probably telling themselves that taking on 155mm artillery shell IEDs in HMMWVs isn’t how they’d care to fight a war. 4)The fact that beyond “promoting democracy” the US does not appear to American citizens (Like my relatives)to have any overall strategy to deal with the potentially unstable and obviously dangerous world we face now. 5)An apparent reluctance or fear by the Bush Administration to disrupt the US economy by any “Call to Arms”. Has the President ever gone on TV to say, a’la the “Starship Troopers” movie’s “Fednet” recruiting ads “We need Soldiers!”? Nope. Great posts and discussion thread. And greetings from Camp Slayer, Baghdad, Iraq. As a 96B I can say things are looking up in our fight here, but the insurgents are only down, not out. YET. God Bless. Rifle308.
Comment by rifle308 — 3/3/2005 @ 9:23 pm
Hmmm. If anybody has a real desire for enlisting foreigners into a Foreign Legion may I suggest the Ghurkas?
Comment by ed — 3/3/2005 @ 11:13 pm
Conscription and mass production are the basic elements of an Industrial Age Army: vast masses of identical men and guns shoveled into the fiery maw of war. By and large, this accurately describes most of the conflict in the last 2 centuries [e.g. the most numerous soldier of WWII was an plain old foot soldier supported by horse-drawn supply wagons] However, the Industrial Age ended 50 years ago at Hiroshima. We are currently the pre-eminent masters of Information Age Warfare, which is a more profoundly deadly change in the fundamental nature of battle than the advent of rifled muskets. Conscription and mass production [we will NOT EVER put 19,000 combat aircraft into the air again - even the US can’t afford that many] have both been eclipsed by totally different classes of systems [hint: we now deploy UAVs to Platoon Level] ANY conscript army of ANY size that takes the field against the US is doomed before it lines up at the arms room for rifles and live ammo. Draftee armies are as dead and gone as my father’s beloved horse cavalry. The “manpower shortage” is simply a force structure issue: we have lots of bodies, but they are in the wrong types of units. For example: Air Defense Artillery [last shot a plane down over 50 years ago!], corps-level tube Field Artillery [did not miss it one bit in OIF, the zoomies had it covered]. The vast numbers of uniforms doing what civilians [or retired military types] could do with ease could be shifted to other specialties [we have enough divisions to form ONE numbered Army, but how many of those HQs do we still have?] Don’t tell the Chinese yet - it could be interesting to watch them try to use their antique show military to play at being a World Power [this time our CINC may notice them when they arrive - unlike MacArthur]
Comment by OldFan — 3/4/2005 @ 1:24 am
>>All very nice, but we have more MBTs than we can deploy. [ . . .] >Only if you’re fighting this war again. Look east. There’s your next threat, likely to be very conventional in nature. Not sure what you mean by “Look east.” PRC? No way. Iran? Okay, but that certainly wouldn’t require all our current MBTs. “Conventional in nature” does not equal “likely to use all our armor assets.” I’d submit the only realistic scenario for that latter possibility was REFORGER/Fulda Gap, which is now too unlikely to be used as a driver for force structure.
Comment by Cecil Turner — 3/4/2005 @ 8:34 am
1.) for those who think demographics say we CANNOT field a large military force… total US military (Fy 2004) = 2,254,000 {includes total active duty, and ALL reserves and guards} total US population (2000 census) = 281,421,906 = ~ 0.80 % of US population Of course, this takes no account of age, gender, ability, etc, but it still makes the point, made by other posters here, that population is NOT the problem! Motivation is the problem! One motivated troop can do 10 times the work, whatever is required, than someone who HAD to join. It is also true that there are too many officers, and not enough leaders in the military. I don’t know recall having met many veterans who would want to bring back the draft. It’s also VERY true that all branches of the military are “making do” one way or another, with antiquated equipment, and that includes active forces as well as Guard and Reserves.
Comment by cas — 3/5/2005 @ 12:38 am
It is obvious that, under current conditions, instituting and maintaining a draft will have problems no matter how it is structured. Indeed, under current conditions, most of these problems will be insurmountable due to political considerations. Under current conditions, we’ll just have to go along improving the all-volunteer model to the extent that time and money allows. But current conditions are not future conditions. It seems to me that to ask under what conditions a draft becomes politically acceptable leads only to one point: a catalytic event. That event would be, it seems to me, only of the level that involves a catastrophic attack upon the homeland which would, this time, not only cost the lives of thousands or perhaps tens of thousands but include among those lives the one element of American Society that was (except for those in the planes) spared on 9/11 — our children. Such an attack would alter our current condition of an unmobilized society into a fully mobilized society and make a draft not only possible but essential. The reason that we cannot have a draft is that we are not, as a people, at war. We are a people that has agreed to let our military be at war. Unless that changes, all will remain as it is. Speaking for myself, I hope never to see a catalytic event that changes this. Indeed, our current bet is that, working with the military as it stands and as it is planned to evolve, we never reach the point where that change has to come. I am hoping we are successful in this. If we are not, everything above and in the original article becomes simply historic and academic.
Comment by Vanderleun — 3/5/2005 @ 12:07 pm
I had a dream I was in India and saw a recruiting poster that looked like this, only it was written in Hindi. Do You Dream of America? Learn English, learn teamwork and leadership, make friends who will be friends for the rest of your life, learn to parachute out of airplanes, to field dress a wound, to fight, drive, build, and succeed at anything you do. Travel the world, save innocents from tyrrany, destroy terrorists, pirates, thugs, and murderers, triumph in the cause of freedom and justice, and after a five year tour of service, earn Citizenship in the United States of America. Dare to Triumph Over Tyrrany The American Foreign Legion Then the poster was in Urdu. Then the dream was in France, with the same poster in French. Netherlands. Germany. China. Japan. Phillipines. Mexico. Brazil. Lebanon. Bosnia. Ukraine. Think that we’d still need a draft?
Comment by Lorenzo — 3/5/2005 @ 11:32 pm
Holy Prussian Reserve System! What’s he want next, the Schlieffen Plan? It’s been said in a number of other places, but bears revisiting in this context: the level of training our people have is more important than the technology, that level of training cannot be readily achieved in a year or two. The draft might work fine for stevedores or truck drivers, but would not produce the quality of combat troops that we currently enjoy. As regards downsizing the Navy (I’m a former naval officer and somewhat parochial), Iran has recently suggested they might close down the Straits of Hormuz if they feel threatened, I’m not confident that the other services could effectively deal with that. The amount of materials and goods coming to and going from the US via ship is staggering, downsizing the Navy beyond the reductions already in place is not viable. Besides, the UN would have to send one of their carrier battle groups and and amphibious landing forces next time there is a tsunami, I’m afraid those folks would have a long wait. I used to teach at ACC in Austin, I think the military sensitivity course is a splendid idea.
Comment by Scott Gainer — 3/7/2005 @ 10:38 am
“Generals today are fond of saying that you recruit a soldier, but you retain their families.” Amen to that - they screwed the pooch with me, but then again I came of age, well, was born into the VN war and nearly graduated high school with the stinky thing still going on. My dad at the time was assigned to the Pentagon, a LtC., doing something with the National Guard. We were watching the fall of Saigon together, the famous rooftop disgraceful exit event, he said to the room, ” Thank God that’s over, now I will not have to send you to Canada.” This was not directed straight to me, and was actually the only time ever, before or after, that he voiced concern in the area of his son and that war. This was a shocking delivery to me, my father was a Lifer, and did numerous years in the Special Forces, etc… Yeah alot of folks would ship their boys and girls off to school in France if you have a forced draft tied to college. I have a 6 yr old right now and I tell all you military and ex-military, he would be on the first plane out to Italy, to go to school in Bologna. And his Granddad resting in Arlington would agree. PAY MORE (PFC vs Halliburton truck driver).Treat the enlisted better, especially the families of! Why do the enlisted men have wives back home working at McD’s?
Comment by BrooklynRooster — 3/8/2005 @ 9:21 am
From a friend’s email this am, after recieving an invite to a show I’m in titled; On the Subject of War. Yeah I’m artist son of an ex-SF, go figure. “coming from a poor rural school district, we constantly had Army recuiters coming in talking the talk. We (the guys) even had to take a mandatory military appittude test. The months after high school graduation the tiny local newspaper featured photos of every kid who had entered the service, and it was alot. My inexplicable brainic tendencies routed me toward a flimsy state college. And now here I am in Georgia surrounded by families with at least one spouse working at Ft. stewart. ” Just keep hitting on those poor boys it is the traditional way to fill any Army, anywhere. That’s how my old man ended up in the service, to pay back ROTC. Unless you guys can figure out a scheme to create a worth while upperclass regiment type thing the British have always had or the old Prussian model…? But in this country civilians still don’t get that military types are not just - those that can’t do teach, those that can’t teach join the military - You guys do not advertise at the right levels - always just showing this low level Army of One crap to rope in the lower level guys - where have you all ever shown the learning, degrees, and knowledge one aquires from staying in for 20 plus years - getting MBA’s and all type of degrees - and no one really knows how difficult the Academy degrees are to attain or what the heck they are for… appeal to a higher level and for a longer service.
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