I suspect that talk of a draft is from people who don’t have “skin in the game”. Armchair Generals who’ve never served on the front lines. Some believe that a draft is cheaper for some reason.
Cue my wall of text:
“So, in the New York Times, Tom Ricks echoes Stan McCrystal’s call to bring back the draft. Ricks is two days younger than me, but our life experiences are quite different, apparently, because his vision of a draft is decidedly not to support our warfighting capability, and contrary to McCrystal’s plan to have every American community have “skin in the game” in the next war, Rick’s sees it as a jobs program and to provide cheap labor – an Army of janitors;”
—Ricks: Draft our kids: This Ain’t Hell.
“McChrystal admits that it would lead to a loss of professionalism in the ranks, but I guess because he’s a liberal deep inside (he voted for Obama, he says) the loss of a successful military is secondary to everyone’s feelings about war. Americans were largely against the surge in Iraq, and their opinions didn’t matter, because it happened anyway. Americans wanted the wars to end and they voted for Obama…the casualties since the “peace President” took office are 2/3s of the total US casualties in the nearly 11-year war. So what good would everyone having “skin in the game” do for our policies?”
—McChrystal calls for a draft: This Ain’t Hell.
“The U.S. Army by the end of the Vietnam War suffered from a bad case of this; as mentioned above, many films set during the War show military units that are barely wearing uniforms, with half of the soldiers high most of the time. While this often seems jarring to viewers, any soldier who was there will tell you that it was absolutely Truth in Television: the army was falling apart, discipline had gone completely to hell, the percentage of heroin-addicted soldiers had reached the double digits, and killing your own commander was so common as to get its own Deadly Euphemism: fragging. “
— “Mildly Military“: TVTropes.org
ordered to de-ice them before flying operations in wintertime. It is recalled that, since no jet fuel was available for jet heaters, these soldiers used brooms to remove the ice, a process which resulted in the MiGs’ honeycomb structures such as elevators, flaps, rudders and ailerons being seriously damaged.
Several of the MiGs never flew again. Not coincidentally, Hungary ended the draft in 2005.
by DAVID AXE, warisboring.com
From a General who can’t keep his mouth shut, a lefty mouthpiece journalist and many, many corners of the ‘net.
The draft has its origins in Medieval warfare. When kings would go to war, they would call upon the nobles (princes, lords, barons, other minor nobles). In exchange for their loyalty to the king, they promised their fighting men. In exchange for living on a noble’s land, the peasants would have to fight for their lord and their king.
Castles and kings became towns and democracy. However conscription remains. The west fought countless wars with conscripts. The left is still just angry about Bush. McCrystal just wants to vindicate himself and possibly run for office.
Wars are not fought so much as processed. Information, high tech weapons, cultural sensitivity are more important than just stuffing bodies into uniforms. WWI was the last time armies just lined up and shot at each other. WWII, Korea, Vietnam, were wars of maneuver, Korea and Vietnam brought politics to the mix. Desert Storm, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan would have chewed up and spit out Forrest Gump.
A draft army is a slave army, forced to fight.
The mission of the military is to fight and win the nation’s wars. This crap about “making men out of boys” or “building citizenship” is utter bullshit. The draft-era military was all about sending men to die. That was one of the way the North won the civil war. We don’t fight that way in the 21st century. Those who are too spoiled, too fat, to criminal or too leftist don’t need to be in uniform. The reporter asking for a draft won’t send his kids to fight. He undermines his point by asking draftees to do the easy jobs that the DoD as long ago given to civilians.
“Civilians are like beans; you buy ’em as needed for any job which merely requires skill and savvy.
But you can’t buy fighting spirit.”
—Starship Troopers
Before WWII, most jobs in the military were simple. Technology marched on between the wars. The airplane, tanks, radio, as the war ground on we got rockets, jets and the bomb. The Cold War saw computers go from filling a room to being able to fit in the palm of your hand. We don’t need ersatz “soldiers”. Even the smallest amount of carelessness can kill. Draftees will make this worse.
“I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don’t think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can’t save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!“
— Robert A. Heinlien: 29th World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, Washington (1961)
Well said.
Link: Brad takes down the jobs Rick’s “army” would do.