Young Americans, beware — Uncle Sam may ask you to join him soon on a worldwide adventure to exotic places to see fascinating sights and to meet interesting people and kill them or be killed by them. This week as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen were testifying before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, its chairman, Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), asked the question he said no one wants to ask: “Is the cost of maintaining an all-volunteer force becoming unsustainable and, secondly, do we need to consider reinstituting the draft?"
As a stunned audience gasped for air, Gates indicated that the escalating costs of maintaining an all volunteer armed force were worth it. Mullen was not so hopeful. The exchange brought out in the open an issue that has been ignored by politicians this election year — military conscription.
Why would politicians want to discuss an issue in public as controversial and loathsome as the draft in any year let alone one in which a new congress and president will be chosen? Inouye’s reference that no one wants to ask about the draft on Capitol Hill can be construed as an admission that he has had discussions in private with other members of Congress to reinstitute the draft. In public, the two major presidential contenders, Barack Obama and John McCain, have also steered clear of this political hot potato in their speeches and pronouncements. However, verbiage on both men’s official campaign websites raises troubling questions about their position on converting the all volunteer military into a conscripted one.
While both men never mention the word draft or anything related to it, they both directly state that the U.S. military must be enlarged. Obama’s site states:
We have learned from Iraq that our military needs more men and women in uniform to reduce the strain on our active force. Obama will increase the size of ground forces, adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.
These are strange words from a candidate who has repeatedly pledged to withdraw troops from Iraq. If under Obama we would withdraw troops from Iraq, why do we need more? Additionally, how is the increase going to be achieved? The site does not specify. Will Congress and President Obama provide more inducements by way of higher pay and better benefits for troops to reenlist and potential recruits to sign up? Or are we looking at a draft?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
The answer to all of this is very, very simple.
The left knows that popular sentiment against the Iraq War and especially the greater War on Terror is not nearly as negative as the media and pundits have tried to make it appear. Most people are increasingly indifferent and when pushed will marginally support the war.
The left knows that the ONE issue which would generate strong and genuine negative reaction is the possibility of a draft. This is why they have been saying that a draft is inevitable and even proposing one for 5 years, while the administration and the military have consistently insisted that a draft is unnecessary.
The left is pushing this issue in election season because they also want to force the administration to admit what they think the future of US military involvement in places like Iraq is, and the answer to that question is one word - Blackwater. And they think that's going to be just as controversial as the draft to a lot of people. IMO they're figuring that wrong, because while the idea of Blackwater certainly terrifies the radical left, most people kind of like the idea of privatizing risk and creating high paying jobs.
Dave
2 - Lee Richards
Anyone who supports our continued combat presence in Afghanistan and Iraq and God knows where else for God knows how long, has zero credibility unless they also support a draft for the sake of fairness and a war tax for the sake of fiscal responsibility.
3 - Dave Nalle
Odd, I'd say that anyone who supports a draft or a war tax, whatever the pretext has zero credibility. In fact I'd say they were downright evil. There is not and has never been any justification for forced conscription into the armed forces. Anyone who would accept forced conscription for any reason is a traitor to the basic principles of liberty on which this nation was founded.
Dave
4 - Lee Richards
#3:
So all those who accepted forced conscription into the service in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc., and faithfully served their country, often giving life and limb to do so are "traitors to the basic principles of liberty", and "downright evil"?
Dave, you outdo yourself with oddness! What a strange point of view for Memorial Day.
Supporting wars you don't have the troops for and charging them to your grandchildren strikes me as both a violation of American principles and stupid.
5 - SFC SKI
"they also support a draft for the sake of fairness "
What is it with this mindset that fairness means making someone serve in the military when others voluntarily do so?
I read an opinion piece on the NPR site a while back, where a woman with a 17 year old child wished that there wasa draft, so she wouldn't have to choose to support his decision to enter the military, if he chose to, and then she'd have a stake in the current conflict.
It's a volunteer military, I think the only thing that could actually break it forever would be to force the volunteers to serve with a bunch of involuntary comrades.
No draft is needed, or desired.
20 years of service, proudly. Have a great Memorial Day weekend, I hope your rush to the mall is interrupted by a parade.
6 - Dr Dreadful
I agree with most of the above commenters. It's unfair to imply that Obama and McCain are supporting the reinstitution of a draft merely on the strength of their campaign rhetoric.
Politicians also frequently talk about putting more police officers on the beat, but no-one thinks that they want to achieve this by forcibly drafting people into the police force.
7 - Lee Richards
If we're going to have a significant force and presence in the M.E. for 5, 10, or 100 years, we need 1)the troops and 2)the money to have any chance to be effective.
"Fairness" in this context means that we will not have the troop strength necessary to maintain involvement indefinitely with volunteers only, and that the burden of the wars is being disproportionatly carried now by the volunteers and their families.
If this is for the benefit of the nation and all of us, we should all be called upon to be actively involved and share the sacrifices.
8 - Lumpy
I'm sure that once we hand things over to Blackwater they can find a way to make the war pay for itself.
9 - Dr Dreadful
Lee, it sounds as if you're resigned to troops being in the Middle East indefinitely with no theoretical limit on their level of presence. If you're fine with that, then yes, the draft would be one avenue to explore.
But a volunteer armed forces is an essential component of the system of checks and balances. It compels Washington to think carefully and often before deciding if, and to what extent, the nation can afford to commit itself to military action.
10 - Lee Richards
No, I'm not OK with that. But the current CIC is, and at least one of his potential successors is. I'm saying that to "support" this effort for the last 6 years and for any potential further time we're there with mostly wishful thinking and let's-pretend commitment is wrong. We should all have to do our part, or none should.
"It compels Washington to think carefully..."
Didn't work.
11 - Dr Dreadful
"...and often", Lee.
12 - Dr Dreadful
Lumpy: I'm sure that once we hand things over to Blackwater they can find a way to make the war pay for itself.
That would be absolutely fantastic. Then perhaps al-Qaeda and the insurgency can contract their side of the conflict out to somebody else as well, and the two companies can fight it out amongst themselves without bothering the rest of us.
13 - Lumpy
Sounds like a plan. I'm sure Iran would like to make some money hiring out the two full divisions of al Quds fighters they have.
14 - Cindy D
LOL Dr.D! That is hilarious!
15 - Doug Hunter
This idea is going somewhere, instead of actually fighting the contracted wars they could run a computer simulation of the war then just declare the inevitable winner that way and offer a early termination package to the losing government.
16 - Dr Dreadful
Doug: you're right, there might actually be something to this. The US Army is reported to be developing robot soldiers which may eventually replace humans in many or most combat situations. Other powers (to use a creaky late 19th/early 20th century term) will then have to develop their own robot warriors in response. Extrapolating this to its logical conclusion, the final result would be combat theaters with no human presence whatsoever.
Eventually, as you forecast, the opposing sides would come to the inevitable conclusion that rather than blow up each other's actual robots with actual munitions, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper and less messy to simulate the whole thing.
17 - Lee Richards
The guys in the VA hospitals will be happy to learn that in the future there will be only virtual injuries.
18 - wld
I have two sons serving at this time. I think the military itself needs to be reformed. Especially at the entry level. One son, who wished to be in the army infantry was given a "desk" job because he was "colorblind". When he said he would not join in that case all of the sudden he could go into infantry but as punishment for being colorblind he could not receive an enlistment bonus! I could actually go on and on with strange stories. I remember someone saying that the disadvantaged are those that join the military in droves. I observe this to be somewhat true, at least in the army and marine corp. Would a draft, however unpleasant, serve to balance things out? If there were more middle and upper class men and women perhaps the leadership would be more inclined to treat its service members a little differently. From where I sit there is not much building of men that takes place. Unless you consider coarse vulgarities over duty and patriotism the way to acheive that goal. If we follow the Israeli practice of everyone joining for two years of service perhaps we would once again have a society that respects and loves its own nation.
19 - Beth
Military draft, like hell, over my dead body will I raise my children only to go off to war in Iraq , Afganistan, I don't love my country that much, I will take my children and leave this country if that happens, hello Canad or Mexico.
20 - chad
look for one the article is wrong in the constitution it is said congress has the power to enlist during times of war this is an implied power given to them they use this power by making a draft it doesnt violate any of our amendments at all... secondly i dont want to go to war either but im not going to run away or don a hippy outfit and march on the capital. our government has given us so many freedoms and liberties we take for granted. and if your going to tuck tail and run because our country asks for help? thats bull**** get a backbone you may not agree with the war but you can help your country if we leave Iraw terrorists would ragin control over the governemnt and we'd end up with another 9/11 so stop your complaining unless you want to raise your children with the threat of a bomb exploding in their school or being killed from opening a letter with anthrax
21 - Kenn Jacobine
Chad,
You watch too much Fox News. First of all, our government has not given us any freedoms or liberties. The ones we had were given to us by the Constitution. At this point, the government is taking our freedoms away from us. Secondly, I said a draft was wrong, not necessarily fighting in defense of our country. If we were legitimately attacked I would enlist myself. But, I will be damned if I or my sons will go off and fight for somebody else - Haliburten, the President of Georgia, Israel, George W. Bush. With the current group of scoundrels in Wash. robbing us blind with the bailouts for their buddies on Wall Street, we may be better off starting over.
22 - David
Beth:
It's people like you who have spoiled our youth into the brats they are today. I myself am a college student and in no way supporter of the war. But, that doesn't mean I don't support my country. If our government needs our help bad enough that they will go through with a desicion in which half the country disagrees with, well then I'll be the first to go. A draft would ONLY help our nation as a whole. If we had a draft, we would have more informed, committed, and responsible citizens. It would also build much needed character in today's youth. Yes America would suffer losses, but haven't we before? We would recover from our physical and economic losses faster than ever before. What hurts us only makes us stronger. So beth for everyones sake, just go ahead and move to canada or mexico. It is people like you that make other country's beleive that we are the most lazy, scared, and arrogant people to walk the earth. I know you don't want to do your country a favor, but just leave
23 - STM
Geez, what's wrong with you people? There won't be a draft.
All-volunteer military with better pay and conditions and a face-saving extraction from Iraq to encourage more people into the armed forces.
Less than 100,000 extra troops we're talking here ... and in the great scheme of things that is the US military, it's not that many.
If you were to have draft, you'd have a lot more than 100,000 troops. Anyone remember Vietnam and the numbers involved in the draft?
And of course, Lee is right too. The pentagon has been mired in WWII/Cold War conventional military thinking, which is part of the reason that - until recently - it has had the problems it has had in Iraq. It's learned its lesson, but at a high cost in American lives, which is a tough school.
The sad part about it all is that most of Iraq's population viewed the US as liberators in the immediate aftermath of the fighting, because apart from a small cadre of supporters, they universally hated Saddam Hussein's stalinist regime.
Abu Ghraib, where some overpaid fool in Washington thought it would be a good idea to put a bunch of small-town reservists in charge of probably the most sensitive task of the war (and with predicatble results), was the point where it went pear shaped for the coalition.
You can't win against an insurgency by a) using conventional tactics (you know, just plain armed instead of "armed social work", with less emphasis on the armed bit than on the social bit, which is a huge and fundamental part of COIN work), and b) the numbers that allow combat troops to go out and do what they do while other units consolidate the areas that have been cleared of insurgents and attempt to keep the peace by showing the populace that their intentions are good, not bad.
That's working, but it takes time. There are precedents and examples to draw from in this: the British in Malaya took 12 (long) years to end the insurgency there, while the French spent 8 years trying to quell the uprising in Algeria by using torture and limited COIN operations that were too small in scope and backed by too few regular French troops to be successful. Very similar to Iraq. In that case, it also resulted in a mutiny of sorts among the French brass and brought down a French government, a situation that might have a familiar ring to it for Americans.
Interestingly, in the 1920s-30s, the British in Iraq fought an almost exact but earlier facsimile of the war being fought by the US there now: A running battle just to stay in control against diverse factions of nationalists from different ethnic and religious groups, and religious fundamentalists.
Ultimately, they didn't commit enough troops - relying instead on the RAF to do much of the dirty work - and didn't establish peace until the granting of formal independence in 1932, while still exerting control for another turbulent 25 years, and in the end, the result was ... Saddam Hussein and the baathists. Iraq is the bastard child of the British Empire, and now of the US "Empire".
Perhaps that is where the real lessons are to be drawn for the US in this conflict. Getting out now while the going's good (or not, depending on your point of view), just opens the door for more of the same.
24 - Les Slater
"Geez, what's wrong with you people? There won't be a draft."
The U.S. is gearing up for more and bigger wars with greater geographical scope, including within U.S. borders. A draft will become necessary.
25 - Cindy D
"...unless they also support a draft for the sake of fairness..." (Lee)
"...anyone who supports a draft or a war tax, whatever the pretext has zero credibility. In fact I'd say they were downright evil. There is not and has never been any justification for forced conscription into the armed forces. Anyone who would accept forced conscription for any reason is a traitor to the basic principles of liberty on which this nation was founded." (Dave)
It is a commonly held Anarchist position that if there is to be a military then there should also be a draft. It is a reasonable position that goes: No draft = a military filled with low income people, whom no one really gives a shit about. Draft = people from higher incomes are required to enlist and suddenly a war doesn't look like such a good idea.
Notice how many of your "representatives" have children in the military.
Noam Chomsky holds this position. I think it's a reasonable one. Having a 15 year old nephew, however, makes me feel a bit less like being fair. I can't support a draft because my heart would not let me. As long as there is actually choice involved, I'd like to keep my nephew in one piece.