We Need a Limited Military Draft

[Maj. Bill Martin]

This is one idea I truly dislike, and this guy's arguments in favor sort of highlight why it's actually a really bad idea.  In any case, this may deserve to be reposted in the politics forum because it may become an issue, but at least for now....

We Need a Limited Military Draft

It's time to change how our country fills the ranks of our military.

Since 1775, our nation has used a combination of volunteers and draftees to meet our national defense personnel needs, especially in times of crisis.

Today, the military needs only about 160,000 youth from an eligible population of 30 million to meet its recruitment needs. But after two decades of war -- both of which ended unsuccessfully -- and low unemployment, many experts believe the all-volunteer force has reached a breaking point. And American confidence in its military is at a low.

The fastest and most effective way to resolve this recruiting crisis is to change how we recruit.

Instead of an "either an all-volunteer force or a fully conscripted force" model, I propose a both-and solution.

We should have our military recruiters sign up new troops for 11 months out of the year, and then have the Selective Service draft the delta between the military's needs and the total number recruited.

This model would alleviate the incredible pressure on our recruiters, lower the cost of finding new troops, and significantly reduce the much decried civilian-military gap by subjecting all of America's youth -- rich and poor -- to the possibility of military service via the draft.

This increased public interest might also have the added effect of increasing public pressure to prevent open-ended wars led by unaccountable senior leaders like we experienced in our national debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the causes of our current recruiting crisis are many, the fastest and best solution lies within our already existing Selective Service System.

This would obviously represent a seismic change, given the more recent history of military drafts.

In 1973, the draft was abolished with the establishment of the all-volunteer force, driven largely by the American public's weariness with our debacle in Vietnam; systemic inequities in the draft (e.g. wealthier Americans being able to defer service); and the fact that the size of our population had become so large in relation to the needs of the military, universal drafting became obsolete.

While the all-volunteer force had the effect of lowering discipline problems and professionalizing the force, it also created a vast gap between American citizens and those who serve -- effectively creating a military warrior caste that now appears more like a multi-generational family business than an organization that represents the true makeup of our democratic republic.

The establishment of the all-volunteer force also drove the military to expend an incredible amount of resources in terms of manpower and dollars to build a recruiting machine to attract America's youth to service. Considering it costs about $15,000 to recruit each new member, the overall cost each year exceeds $2 billion....

(Excerpt)

https://www.military.com/daily-news/opinions/2023/07/29/we-need-limited-military-draft.html

[mountaineer]

steve smith the anti-communist
@stevesmithsnoq
Imagine trying to have a military draft in this climate.  Imagine the outrage at giving all those young Marxists and Hamas supporters in college an exemption from a draft while Biden works to void their student loans.
And I would not put it past Biden to also exempt other favored groups like African Americans and women. Only poor rural or suburban white and Asian kids will be called up.  And Americans will just roll over and take it…
8:12 AM · Oct 28, 2023

Hugh Hewitt
@hughhewitt
This—-> Any minute this could become a two front war for Israel and the U.S. is already close to being drawn in by Iran’s proxies attacking U.S. troops.
7:54 AM · Oct 28, 2023

If we can't even define what male and female mean, how the heck can women be excluded from a draft? Let's just have an all-tranny military, while we're at it.

[Timber Rattler]

It would be a monumental failure for at least three reasons:

1) The military infrastructure (facilities, qualified instructors,  etc.) no longer exist because of various BRAC rounds, and would take years to rebuild.

2) Congress would have to act on multiple legislative fronts, authorizing increased troop levels across all branches, bigger defense budgets, and new military construction programs, as well as the implementation of selective service partial mobilization itself.  How many votes are in Congress right now that would do all of this?

3) The political climate in this country is so divided and hot that 2023 compared to 1968 makes the latter look all peaceful and serene.  Can you imagine the size and intensity of the Code Pink/anti-draft protests and riots that would erupt overnight if even a partial-draft was implemented?  How many of today's Generation-Z would even show if called up for service?  And how many would head for the Canadian border?  The patriotism necessary for such an action, that was taken for granted in decades past, is just no longer there in the last 2-3 generations.

In 1973, the draft was abolished with the establishment of the all-volunteer force, driven largely by the American public's weariness with our debacle in Vietnam;

So how is today's public any less weary from the more recent debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which it would even re-consider compulsory military service?  And YES, the Biden Administration, and future administrations, would almost certainly carve out exemptions for favored protected-class and elite people, leaving the burden on lower-class rural folks and Asians and Latinos.