THE UNITED STATES NEEDS NATIONAL MILITARY SERVICE

[rangerrebew]

THE UNITED STATES NEEDS NATIONAL MILITARY SERVICE
 
By Andrew A. Michta
February 13, 2024
Will Buckner
There comes a time when the traditional way of doing business no longer meets the requirements of the day. This is clearly the case when it comes to how the U.S. recruits its military. Ever since Richard Nixon ended the draft in 1973, the United States has maintained an all-volunteer force model, with our enlisted service members and officers proudly displaying the professional skill level no other armed forces in the world have been able to match. But this model is no longer capable of generating the numbers and reserves the country will need should we be forced into a war with Russia and China, not to mention potential further escalation in the Middle East or the Korean Peninsula. If the rates of attrition for equipment and personnel witnessed in Ukraine over the past two years are any indicator of what the next major war might look like, it is clear that even with America’s advantage in air power and precision weapons, in order to prevail in such a conflict the nation will need to have a pool of readily-available reserves.

During the last phases of the Cold War, generous defense budgets allowed the all-volunteer model to meet the nation’s defense need. This was in part because of the very size of the defense budget, but also that the United States confronted only one superpower adversary, the Soviet Union. U.S. defense spending during the Cold War peaked at close to 9.5% of GDP at the height of the Vietnam War, but even when it declined it averaged 6.9% of GDP between 1960-1990.  In contrast, after the Cold War U.S. defense spending between 1991-2021 ran on average around 3.9% of GDP (it currently stands at around 3.2%), while the cost of ever-more sophisticated weapon systems – to say nothing of the numerous campaigns America fought over the past twenty years during the Global War on Terror – has relentlessly reduced the purchasing power of those numbers.   


But the dollars and cents spent on defense tell only part of the story. The other critical aspect is the numbers of service men and women that the United States has been able to field post-Cold War. Throughout the Cold War the combined personnel numbers of our military never dropped below two million, and in fact peaked at 3.5 million during the Vietnam war, which still relied on the draft to fill the ranks. [ii]   In contrast, the overall size of the active U.S. military authorized end strength is today just over 1.3 million,[iii] with every service, save for the Marine Corps, having failed to meet its recruitment targets.[iv]  And when one considers the readiness level, that number is smaller still. At the same time, while the United States faces potentially two simultaneous conflicts in the Atlantic and the Pacific, current personnel targets for the Russian military alone are set to create a force of 1.5 million[v], while today China boasts the world’s largest military estimated at over two million personnel, with increasingly sophisticated capabilities. There is also a mismatch in the amount of money we spend on defense relative to that of our two principal adversaries. The defense budget Vladimir Putin just signed has put Russia back at Cold War levels of spending while China is running the largest military expansion project in history, especially for the People’s Liberation Army Navy.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/02/13/the_united_states_needs_national_military_service_1011380.html

[rangerrebew]

Just like Viet Nam.  The old coots in congress get the US involved in too many "conflicts" for the forces available, and just like that, the thought of a new draft raises its ugly head again.

[Timber Rattler]

No, it doesn't.  People have forgotten what kind of what shape the U.S. military was in when conscription ended in 1973.  Forcing young people into military service who don't want to be there, especially today's entitled "Generation Z," would just lead to further rot and distrust throughout the armed services.  The all-volunteer military worked just fine until Obama and Biden injected "wokism" and DEI into its ranks, and the Austin DoD made it clear that whites and multigeneration recruits were no longer welcome to serve. The result deterioration and incompetence that has been demonstrated repeatedly over the past few years too has done nothing to encourage voluntary enlistments.

At any rate, it would take years to rebuild the necessary infrastructure to conscript and train all those people, after so much has eroded away since the 1980s, with the various BRACS closing most of the old bases.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Maybe the Military, the VA, and Congress should treat service members and their families better.  Too often, the elites treat the enlisted as the hired help.

A compulsory military service would only worsen divisions in this country.  Many of those divisions have their origins in the VietNam Draft - the rich, middle class, college students, and politicians' kids that could get deferments or assignment to domestic National Guard units versus the rest who couldn't.  That created a class-based chasm and schism that has only gotten worse.

[Timber Rattler]

Maybe the Military, the VA, and Congress should treat service members and their families better.  Too often, the elites treat the enlisted as the hired help.

A compulsory military service would only worsen divisions in this country.  Many of those divisions have their origins in the VietNam Draft - the rich, middle class, college students, and politicians' kids that could get deferments or assignment to domestic National Guard units versus the rest who couldn't.  That created a class-based chasm and schism that has only gotten worse.

Exactly.  I follow a couple of active service social media pages like U.S. Army WTF and Terminal Lance (for the USMC), and the poor treatment and conditions of the current service members, as well as the arrogance and incompetence of the officer corps, are toxic.  This is demonstrated in the various discussion threads on a DAILY basis, often in real time.  Nearly all of these folks either can't wait to get the DD-214s to get out, or else celebrate afterward.  And they are telling their sons and daughters and anybody else who will listen to avoid military service at all cost right now.  It's THAT bad.

[libertybele]

Exactly.  I follow a couple of active service social media pages like U.S. Army WTF and Terminal Lance (for the USMC), and the poor treatment and conditions of the current service members, as well as the arrogance and incompetence of the officer corps, are toxic.  This is demonstrated in the various discussion threads on a DAILY basis, often in real time.  Nearly all of these folks either can't wait to get the DD-214s to get out, or else celebrate afterward.  And they are telling their sons and daughters and anybody else who will listen to avoid military service at all cost right now.  It's THAT bad.

Wow. Very sad and actually quite frightening as to what's happening to our military.

[LMAO]

The military is also competing with labor shortages in the private sector

[Timber Rattler]

The military is also competing with labor shortages in the private sector

Well, that's the Pentgon's go-to excuse, but it's not the real reason.  DoD's heavy handed behavior and throwing out dissidents during COVID has hurt the military too...people have very long memories about how they were mistreated, which is why retention is in the toilet too.