As always during our discussion groups we got a little side tracked but as usuall it was very fruitful. While I am not for a draft many people in the group are, which I find very interesting. I would like to continue the discussion here.
First off in the 1960’s there were plenty of examples of organized resistance against the draft. I believe that if reinstated the resistance would again rise. What possible benefits would a draft provide? We don’t need more people in the Military these days becasue we have superior technology, training and other “force multipliers”. I’m not saying that if a threat arose (like China declaring war on us or us on them) that it would not be a good idea to consider reinstating it. However, there is no current emergency that would warrant such a need.
Putting a draft into play for our country would mean that everyone (men and women) who is qualified for service would be required to do so. This is practiced in other countries but none where freedom and individuality are so highly valued as they are in ours. This would also mean that since it is a requirment that we would have more people recieving veterans benefits and the more people that there are consuming the pie the smaller the peice that an indiviual would get. For example take the G.I. Bill. If all citizens are required to serve then all would be eligible to recieve it. Where would the money come from? Taxes? I just doesn’t seem plausible that we would be able to afford to send the entire nation to college for free. And if we can’t send everyone we send no one, and end the benefit? In the end there would be less benefits for Vetrans.
One of the points Matt tried to make is that with a draft there would be a “citizen army” in comparison to a “professional army”. If I understood your point it was that Wars would in theory be short or more likely to be avoided if the draft were in place. While this could be an outcome we may also go to war more. What about the bulk of American Christians that want to simply Nuke the middle east rather than deal with it? With out a professional military what are the chances that these people would get into a position of power, I would speculate higher. By having a professional military yes wars may last longer or may be more easily started but remember at the end of the day the President is the commander in Cheif. So if he says go we go… it doesn’t matter if it’s citezen’s army or not. (Yes I know declarations of war should be approved by congress but we’ve all seen how well our congress works at doing it’s job and that this can and has been bypassed).
The big idea here is that a draft would affect more people so war would be less likely. I have my doubts to the reality of this idea. In the army if a soldier refuses orders he can still legally be shot and killed by leadership. This is still in the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice). It hasn’t been used in years granted. But think how much more likely it would be to use such “method of motivation” in a culture where no one wanted to be there. I personally don’t want to be in an army where I would have to kill my own soldiers for not following orders. And I don’t think that is something I need to worry about in the current state of our armed forces.
I would welcome rebutals to my thoughts. And I won’t lie I was indoctrinated into Army leadership and taught that a volunteer army is a positive thing. The fact that we can defend our nation with less is good thing in my opinion. The fact that most of our population is free from the worry of dying overseas allows us a very unique perspective in the world. Not all countries can afford to give their citizens this kind of freedom and I think it’s a benefit that we can.
(BTW I didn’t have spell check sorry)
My impression of moral and discipline in the WWII and Korean conflicts is that it was not a large problem. We could argue about the Vietnam conflict.
Another reason to bring back the draft is to ensure more of country shares the burden of national defense.
There is also the time lag necessary to assemble a large force. This gives the country more time to debate the merit of the war.
Oops, that’s “morale”.
I wonder why morale was not as much of an issue in WWII and Korea… I’ll have to dig into this thought more.
“Another reason to bring back the draft is to ensure more of country shares the burden of national defense.” I could get on board with this idea.
In the U.S. military there is always a ramp up and reduction before and after a war. Even with a volunteer force you see this. During the ramp up for OIF bonuses increased significantly and there were a lot of guys joining out of a sense of duty. These days bonuses are dwindling and the ability to get out or get kicked out have increased.
To increase the time to debate the merit of war is a very challenging goal. In any system there are ways to circumvent it.
My thought is that, with an all volunteer military, you wind up with a class of individuals who consider themselves the military elite, and an additional sense of priority will occur with succeeding generations. We are seeing this already: the military doesn’t represent the population, witnessed by the fact that the military populace votes very strongly GOP. It is conceivable that this strong sensation of eliteness combined with a predominantly conservative outlook could produce a junta in the right circumstances. The military must represent a cross section of the people it defends for this reason, and for the reasons given before by others: that people need to feel as if they are part of the process of defending and supporting the country and the people within the military need to feel the divisions that occur outside in order to more accurately voice their support or dissent for a particular military action.
I grew up in a time shortly after the Korean conflict. People expressed plenty of dissent… though not as much was expressed over the World Wars. In those conflicts there was more a sense of moral outrage and of impending danger. The course seemed clear to a majority of people. Nearly all of the men I knew from the WWII era volunteered, or would have if they could. It was tabu not to. Korea, not so much. People were very divided over whether we should be sacrificing American lives there.
By the time Vietnam rolled around, there was no real sense of impending invasion; people didn’t identify with orientals, and they didn’t really feel as if it was their war. Many felt that the cold war was a game that played out in congressional committee and arms-manufacturer boardrooms. It hadn’t been too many years since the conservative McCarthy era debacles, and people still smarted from this heavy-handedness and early cold-war government propaganda manipulation. Young men were dying by the thousands for an idea that wasn’t clearly patriotic to most people.
I’m not sure I agree with your assumption. While the Military may lean to the GOP it’s not married to it or anything. http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/pew-chart.png?w=753
Also, racially the military actually represent our population pretty well. check this http://www.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2010_Demographics_Report.pdf and compare the data to the 2010 stuff on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity
The big problem we have in the Miltary is we need to make it a better place to work for women.
I was in the military for 20 years. I never understood the need for a separate UCMJ, basic training hazing, fawning adherence to clothing uniformity, etc. It’s barbaric, sadist mind-fuck and slavish dependence on uber-tradition, as far as I can see. Certainly, there needs to be a responsive chain of command, but the same goes for any responsive organization. I’ve been in corporations that have a greater affinity to goals, reviews, etc. than any of the military units I was in.
In my experience, more enlisted individuals join the military initially because they’re too poor, too uninformed, too young, or too lazy (with grades too low) to understand or do the paperwork necessary to get a good education on their own. (High schools are soooo lacking in true transitional skills education.) Enlistment certainly goes up when the job market is weak. Kids join for a job, to get away from parents, for adventure or glory. Most people who initially join don’t have their frontal lobes fully developed and are still responding to the limbic system impulses and the excessive hormonal influence of the very young. They’ve heard war stories from older men who don’t know how to keep their mouths shut, and they find them intriguing. They really have no idea what they’re getting themselves into.
When I was in the Illinois Air National Guard, most of the young people we got were there because they were guaranteed education support from the state, in addition to the federal commitment. That’s all they wanted from their enlistment. It was like pulling teeth to get them to perform in any typical military training or, god forbid, emergency–such as a flood, riot, etc. There was constant culling to get rid of the dead weight… which often took on a very racist tone. This is the all-volunteer military for ya.
My “all-volunteer” Army Reserve experience was similarly uninspiring. Our company met in our local village, upstairs over an insurance office. We were enlisted from the local community and expected to train on everything via audio/visual tapes. This is where we learned how to blow bridges, use the LAW, etc. We never got to do any of these things, of course. Occasionally, on an extended bivouac weekend, we would build a hasty bridge out of local trees over a swampy area at the local Boy Scout camp, or go orienteering through some local state forest. Mostly we marched around behind the bank building, to the amusement of old people in their rocking chairs on their back porch. You see, we were supposed to be drill sergeants, and once a year we got to go to Ft. Leonard Wood and actually perform this craziness. And it IS craziness. My only trip to LW got me a gig driving a general around. This, I thought, was great training for a drill sergeant candidate… to stand slavishly at a car-door, salute, and close the door for someone who is perfectly capable of this strenuous chore himself. Anyone who has never “burned a rope” from his uniform or spit-polished his boots could possibly understand the true idiocy of it all.