What Do They Know?

What do they know that we don’t? Recently, almost unnoticed in the distracting din over “UFO hearings” and whatever the Democrats are indicting Trump for now, the Biden administration quietly called up thousands of reservists to send to Europe.

Now, the American media are sotte voce kicking off a campaign to revive the military draft.

The American military has been a volunteer force for the last fifty years.

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.

Why the push to change, now?

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.

“Rich and poor” — sure. As Steve Earle sang, “They take the white trash first round here, anyway”.

One outcome of abolishing the draft was to effectively create two classes of Americans — those who served, and those who didn’t. The former often tended to run in families — “Same as my daddy, and his daddy before” — effectively creating a military warrior caste.

But two decades of reckless adventurism by feckless politicians — who, to a man, belonged to that class of Americans who didn’t serve (oh, come on: does the National Guard really count?) — has severely disillusioned that military caste. Seeing your sons and daughters come home minus limbs, if at all, while a doddering president turns an already-failed mission into a humiliating rout, tends to do that. The appalling treatment of wounded veterans has only made it worse.

At the same time, unemployment, while not at the all-time lows of the Trump era, remains relatively low which undermines one traditional recruiting drive for working-class and minority Americans.

As a result, recruitment is in crisis.

Every service except the Marine Corps is poised to miss its recruiting goals. In 2022, the Army alone fell short by 15,000 recruits […]

While conscription has always been a controversial issue throughout our history, a hybrid model would alleviate our current military manpower crisis, increase the connectivity between the American public and its military, and more responsibly use taxpayer dollars.

Military.com

It’s not the first time in recent years that America’s media-political class have hinted at reviving conscription.

On December 31, 2002, a year after the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, the opinion page of the New York Times read, “Bring Back the Draft” […]

In 2020, a national commission studied the Selective Service system and recommended keeping the draft and highlighted the need for “institutionalized exercises of national mobilization processes”.

CFR

One of the proponents of a revived draft in 2002, was Democrat Charles Rangel. Rangel, a Korean War veteran, warned that the all-volunteer force encouraged adventurism and that forced service might help citizens appreciate the true cost of war. But in 2002, the push for conscription was voted down 402 to 2.

But in 2002, the Forever Wars were just getting started. Public enthusiasm and recruitment was still relatively high. Two decades of bitter reality have sent recruitment plummeting.

Even as the War Machine in Washington is itching for a great, big, new war. A war Joe Biden is vowing to keep fighting — a promise he’s already made good on, to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars. A few months ago, media “fact-checkers” went into overdrive when social media users picked up on Zelensky’s talk of the US having to “send their sons and daughters… to war”.

Yet, here we are, and talk of conscription is back.