I think the article’s main point is that you can’t go around conducting multiple major military operations with a small army. It rightly notes that there isn’t political support for the draft. Our military is stretched to the breaking point even with civilian contractors. (a.k.a. mercenaries) Q.E.D. We need to reduce the scope and/or number of our military engagements. It’s that or the draft.
I’m of two minds here.
One, I think there’s a lot to be said for mandatory universal military service, with possible substitutions of other types of public service. It gives everyone an appreciation of and stake in the nation’s military operations that they might not otherwise get. It builds communal bonds.
Two, I think of the reasons I was unwilling to go ROTC when I went to CMU. (sexuality was least among them) I don’t trust the political process that runs a soldier’s life. I’m not willing to turn off my own judgment, salute and say “Yes, sir!”
I think they’re both driven by the same motive, a desire for the ultimate expression of force to be employed responsibly.
While I sometimes think that mandatory public service of some kind might create community bonds, at other times I worry that it might instead create community resentment.
Plus you could argue that jury duty is a mandatory public service, and look at how many people get around that.
Well, look at where it’s in place and see how people feel about it. It would have to be billed appropriately, but that’s far from impossible.
I share that two-mindedness, with the second mind being much louder if we use the 21st century as an example.
Public engagement is good, but only when provided an idealized (perhaps impossible) civilian leadership whose judgment and integrity are above reproach. If we have good reason to believe that top level decisions are being made by a syndicate of graft artists, the public suspicion alone is enough to undermine the whole endeavor. The whole “prosthetic industry lobbying against land mine bans etc.” nightmare scenario.
Please tell me that scenario was purely hypothetical.
Um, I guess I can’t tell you that it isn’t!
We don’t have transparent government. Even with the new earmark regulation, you aren’t allowed to print or photocopy anything.
It would be interesting to do a study of nations that still employ a draft (Israel is the only one that comes to mind) and somehow try to gauge how that service impacts people’s attitudes about their country, etc.
Apparently quite a few still do.
Though a large number (scroll up in prior link) discontinued it in the 90’s and early 00’s. =)
There’s a couple of comments on the article in the link you posted that expresses my feelings on the subject very succinctly:
1) It would be far more ethical to raise troop pay, than to force people to join up and take whatever salary some jackass in congress arbitrarily sets it to.
2) The argument that “everyone should serve his [and her?] country” is predicated on an imperial government to which citizens must be subservient. If we view government as the servant of the people and their will, the concept is nonsensical. “Serving the country” is a euphemism for subjecting the people to will of the state, the sovereign, and the moneyed interests that control it.