Bring back The Draft (Univeral Service)?

[pbleighton]

Congressman Rangel has been pushing this idea for quite a while.

 

It would make it harder for a President to start a major, sustained war, especially one which would involve an occupation of a decent-sized country. Perhaps you think this is good, perhaps you think this is bad.

 

There would very likely be a non-military form of service alonf with the draft, so it would really be a form of universal serevice for a year or two.

 

It would be very expensive.

 

It would create a commonality of experience.

 

It would be a form of involuntary servitude?

 

What do you think?

 

For me, I find it interesting, but at the end I come down against it, primarily because of the involuntary servitude argument.

 

Peter

[mike777]

So much for Duty to country...just another right wing militaristic catch phrase to make fun of.

[jtfanclub]

It would make it harder for a President to start a major, sustained war, especially one which would involve an occupation of a decent-sized country. Perhaps you think this is good, perhaps you think this is bad.

That's why they changed a large number of functions (like supply) from Army to National Guard after Viet Nam. The theory was, you couldn't have an extended war that the people were against, because so many families would be affected by the war whose kids just joined the 'weekend warriors' and never expected to see combat that the populace would rise up against it.

 

Didn't work so well, did it?

 

I don't think having a draft would have stopped this war, especially if universal service is an option.

 

Universal service actually isn't expensive at all, in fact, it would probably save us money. Think if in the two years of service they got one year's worth of college education in (which wouldn't be tough). The cost of feeding, clothing, etc. those kids for two years would be far less than educating them for one, and that assumes that universal service wouldn't directly save us money (by having them, say, repair roads and dig ditches) or do so in the long run (by instilling discipline and thereby reducing crime and poverty).

 

Is it involuntary servitude? Is middle school? Are taxes? If you can leave the country and give up citizenship then it isn't really involuntary, all of those things are pretty much either-or.

 

It sure would increase the cost of hamburgers, though. Fast food restaurants and similar businesses rely on those 18-19 year olds to do most of the work. Taking them out of the pool would hurt them a lot. Me, I'll settle for having a national program that will give anybody who wants it food, medical, shelter, and 5 grand a year in return for work. Let's see how many people take them up on it.

[mike777]

Rumsfield theory was that tech would allow for a much smaller army. A voluntary army would be much more effective than an army of disgruntled people who hate being there.

 

He may be correct on both points yet.

1) Tech may be able to fight insurgents or a war on radical islam as well or poorly as a 2 million man army.

2) A small highly motivated group maybe more effective.

 

At the very least let us not dismiss these ideas out of hand.

[DrTodd13]

Rangel is an idiot. Walter Williams has a great economic evaluation of the draft. What gets used more? Product X with a price Y or product X with a price less than Y? The answer is simple. For the same product, if you charge less you get more demand for it and therefore more use. Look at the wages paid to people who are conscripted compared to the wages paid to those who volunteer. The wages paid to those who are conscripted is much less than those who have to be seduced with money before volunteering. Therefore, if we reinstate the draft we will only have the tendency for more war. His ridiculous assertion is that this will hit the families of the legislators and therefore they will be careful about starting wars. When we had the draft, does anyone really believe that the children of the wealthy had any problem avoiding service if they wanted to? The system is rife with corruption. Increase the minimum wage? Yes we will the Dems say. Oh..but wait...we won't increase it for tuna canneries in San Francisco. Why them? Surprise surprise, Nancy Pelosi's district.

 

Nevermind the fact that conscription is slavery. If the country is really being threatened then people will volunteer.

[hrothgar]

I have mixed feelings about the renewing draft:

 

On the one hand, I don't think that the draft really makes sense from a military perspective. The US military is a very high tech organization. It takes a long time to train a soldier/sailor/airman. I think that it would be incredibly wadteful to draft a bunch of green young kids, spend 18 monthes whipping them intoshape, then having them all leave the military as soon as they were starting to be productive. As far as I understand matters, most of the military branches agree with this assessment and strongly prefer a volunteer system.

 

On the other hand, I understand the argument that we may be seeing a severe disconnect between the political class and the folks who actually serve in the military. I think that the "Chicken-Hawk" line is fairly apt. Its disgraceful to see folks like Lieberman, Cheney, and Kagan displaying their extreme blood-lust when they all had other priorities during any one of a number of conflicts.

 

Ultimately, I think that I'm opposed to bringing back the draft. I have to believe that there are other ways to check the government from launching idiotic wars.

[luke warm]

i'm not sure if i posted this before, but it was heinlein (i think) in one of his books who had a voluntary military, with a twist... the twist was, only veterans could vote... the vast majority did not join, and could not vote, but were fine with that tradeoff

 

i'm against a draft for a lot of reasons, but would institute one in case of nat'l emergency.. i don't share todd's optimism should we be threatened

[pbleighton]

"That's why they changed a large number of functions (like supply) from Army to National Guard after Viet Nam. The theory was, you couldn't have an extended war that the people were against, because so many families would be affected by the war whose kids just joined the 'weekend warriors' and never expected to see combat that the populace would rise up against it.

 

Didn't work so well, did it?"

 

The National Guard is voluntary, not to mention almost unheard of among children of the upper middle class. A BIG difference.

 

"I don't think having a draft would have stopped this war, especially if universal service is an option."

 

Possibly on this war.

 

Peter

[DrTodd13]

If we get invaded and people don't volunteer then maybe what people are saying is that they would prefer to live under the governance of the people invading rather than their current governance. Anyway, if you don't value your freedom enough to volunteer to fight for it then you don't deserve it.

[pbleighton]

"If we get invaded and people don't volunteer then maybe what people are saying is that they would prefer to live under the governance of the people invading rather than their current governance. Anyway, if you don't value your freedom enough to volunteer to fight for it then you don't deserve it."

 

This comment is totally irrelevant to the question.

 

Peter

[Winstonm]

I lived through a period of the draft - from a personal perspective I am very much against it. We are kidding ourselves to think that when powerful people want war there is any way to stop it.

[Al_U_Card]

The only draft that I am aware of is the one that appears to be flowing through the ears of the politicians that want it. No sentient being would.

[hrothgar]

"If we get invaded and people don't volunteer then maybe what people are saying is that they would prefer to live under the governance of the people invading rather than their current governance. Anyway, if you don't value your freedom enough to volunteer to fight for it then you don't deserve it."

 

This comment is totally irrelevant to the question.

 

Peter

Come on Peter...

 

You have to love that DrTodd of all people posted this.

 

Recall all of Todd's rants about the evil oppressive United States government depriving him of his natural rights and freedoms.

 

Last I heard, Todd was working for Intel rather than manning the ramparts fighting for his rights...

 

Kinda puts things into perspective

[mike777]

The only draft that I am aware of is the one that appears to be flowing through the ears of the politicians that want it.  No sentient being would.

Really?

 

This seems a bit strong. Is Bin laden correct, the west is into appeasement?

 

"Rangel is an idiot"

 

The democrat from Harlem and ex GI is not an idiot.

 

Heck we may disagree strongly(extremely) on tax policy and other issues, but I really respect the man and would be honored to share a beer with him.

[helene_t]

This proposal is ridicolous. Mike777 and DrTood are right.

 

In Denmark, they still have the draft. It works like this: some randomly chosen young men vaste one year of their most productive age, playing cowboys and indians. Whenever Denmark has to send soldiers to peace-guarding missions abroad, they send volunteers, for two obvious reasons: first, no officer would like to babysit incompetent and unmotivated draftees. Second, it would be cruel to force someone to do such a dangerous job against his will.

 

I can understand that some politicians have such an obsession with being in charge of other people's destiny that they really need to introduce slavery. Please let the slaves clean streets, then. Knowing that everybody has to clean it up might motivate some people not to throw garbage on the streets.

 

The draft is not only slavery, it's a particularely cruel kind of slavery: forcing people to do a dangerous job, and even a job that goes against some people's conviction.

[Gerben42]

They still have it in Germany (where I live now) but stopped having it in the Netherlands (where I'm from) after the cold war ended. As such, I never had this obligation to serve in the army.

 

I think a draft is a bad idea since it takes people away from their life. Male German job starters are on average 2 years older than Dutch ones (one more year in school, 1 year military or civil service) and this is a disadvantage for them through their life as these are the two most expensive years you can imagine, as any money made in those two years has the highest compound interest.

 

Besides being drafted is not a good motivation to defend a country, or whatever you might be defending.

[Codo]

Quite funny, that people who had never been drafted judge about it.

Of course there are real reasons against the draft:

 

-It is quite senseless in the acutal political situation. YOu cannot send drafted citizens to Afghanistan or Iraque.

-It is expensive, if you try to teach them on the real modern weapons

- It is unfair if it is not done for anybody.

 

The upsides are:

- the army has a much better relation to the public. The possibility, that the Army becomes a state in the state is much smaller.

 

- If your country is attacked (and I mean a real attack, not these terrorists), then much more men are trained to military structures and some military basics.

 

-When you are lucky, you are drafted into an area where you never had been before with people, who you had never met. And I don´t talk about Talibans in Afghanistan. For me it was a unpayable experience to get to know people from many parts of Germany and with very different social background.

 

- Many peoples life a quite one-dimensional live. F.E. if you are the kid of a teacher, you go to school, study and become a teacher yourself. Nothing wrong with this, but the draft is a possibility to get to know other parts of life.

 

So I would love, if any male citizen would be drafted. Some for the military, most for social work. This would be fair and an eyeopener to some of these young guys.

[Al_U_Card]

Let's not confuse public service with selective service.

 

Even the Israeli's, whose country is arguably in imminent danger at all times, probably have some problems with their "draftees".

 

The first US soldier to die in a foreign war, died in the "Middle East" in the 1790's.

 

Gen. G. McClelland, in the 1800's, advised his president that US foreign policy had to recognize that the Middle East was a culture distinct and totally foreign to the US and its way of thinking.

 

Xenophobia comes from ignorance and enlightenment comes from awareness.

 

How crystalline must it become before the US realizes its errors and figures out a better way? Good ole Yankee ingenuity still exists and it is never too late until it is too late.

[mike777]

Geez reading these latest anti draft comments I can see why Bin Laden thinks the way he does. Why not fight the West, they may not fight back with anything long term.

[hrothgar]

Geez reading these latest anti draft comments I can see why Bin Laden thinks the way he does. Why not fight the West, they may not fight back with anything long term.

A number of the posters, myself included were quite careful to note that a military draft is an extremely inefficient way to provision the military. If you want to increase the size of the army, there are much more effective ways to do so than re-instituting the draft. Offering higher wages and recruitment bonuses is one obvious example. Offering an accelerated path to citizenship for potential immigrates has also been suggested. The top brass in the military is quite clear that they want to keep the all volunteer army.

 

As usual, your post amounts to little more than random whining... I'm beginning to think that more than a few of those baton strokes back in 68 may have connected with your temple.

[mike777]

As usual you seem to fail to read my posts.. see my early one where I pointed out these things that you repeat. :P I commented on the later anti draft ones not yours Richard which was an early one.

[Winstonm]

Geez reading these latest anti draft comments I can see why Bin Laden thinks the way he does. Why not fight the West, they may not fight back with anything long term.

Mike, I fail to follow the logic here. What is there about believing that the draft creates a less efficient military that would embolden bin Laden? (BTW, is he even still alive?).

 

What is there about a small minority of Islamics to be so fearful of that one must charge around the world trying to eliminate them? Do you really accept that the fraction of Islam that is militant is of any real threat to the U.S. - and not just random terror attacks but a genuine threat to U.S. existence?

 

I can only speak for myself, but for me as a kid growing up the U.S. was a place I believed in and could trust the leaders of the country to only engage us in wars of serious consequence, ones that could alter the world map and truly threaten the freedom of our nation.

 

But then J.F.K. was killed, and Bobby, and Johnson created the Gulf of Tonkin incident and we began to pour draftees into Vietnam - and slowly, we began to see that there was no good reason to be there, and that led to an incredible polarization of this nation to the extent that the National Guard shot down protestors at Kent State - this seemed to many of us as if it was the State against the will of the people. The ones who supported the war were not killed.

 

Then we had Nixon and Watergate, "Peace is at hand," from Kissinger ad nauseum, and in the end we found that the nation we believed in as children no longer existed. We could not trust our leaders. We became cynics.

 

Justin is a great example. Here is a young man who decided college wasn't for him. He has great talent and drive and thus took off on a the road to become a bridge professional - if he had been in my shoes in 1969, he wouldn't have had that option. If we had those same options today, his choices would have been go to Baghdad, go to Canada, go to jail, or go to college and hope the war ended before you get out of school.

 

Yes, that is the freedom of choice that has been fought for by brave men who paid dearly - but I refuse to accept that that dear price was necessary in Vietnmam, Afghanistan, or In Iraq.

 

Terrorism is the concern of intelligence and police - more people have been killed in the U.S. in the past 30 years by ingesting peanuts than by terrorist actions.

 

We were taught in the 60's that we could no longer trust our government - sadly, that has not changed.

 

There was a time when patriotism could be defined by following our leaders and supporting their decisions - that was then; this is now. If a division of Iranians assaults Seattle, sign me up; if an Iranian nuke hits Dallas, I'm in; if you want oil to protect our national security and nation build, well, brother, you can count me out.

[Al_U_Card]

IF the terrorist's goal was to defeat the US militarily.....they have yet to win but only because the US has yet to "punch itself out" through attrition and just plain being sick of the whole damn mess.

 

IF the terrorist's goal was to cause the US pain and suffering and inflict on them cause for reflection and eventual changing of their ways....then maybe they are winning.....The US has responded in a way that can only lead to internal strife and degradation. They are denying their own citizens the basic fundamental rights that are the cornerstone of their society.

 

The terrorists care not for the american people nor for their american institutions. Whether they care for their own people or for certain ideals and principles is a moot point. They are a reaction to an action. If you wish to provoke a different reaction (opposite) then perhaps a different course of action is called for?

[joshs]

Rangel is an idiot. Walter Williams has a great economic evaluation of the draft. What gets used more? Product X with a price Y or product X with a price less than Y? The answer is simple. For the same product, if you charge less you get more demand for it and therefore more use. Look at the wages paid to people who are conscripted compared to the wages paid to those who volunteer. The wages paid to those who are conscripted is much less than those who have to be seduced with money before volunteering. Therefore, if we reinstate the draft we will only have the tendency for more war. His ridiculous assertion is that this will hit the families of the legislators and therefore they will be careful about starting wars. When we had the draft, does anyone really believe that the children of the wealthy had any problem avoiding service if they wanted to? The system is rife with corruption. Increase the minimum wage? Yes we will the Dems say. Oh..but wait...we won't increase it for tuna canneries in San Francisco. Why them? Surprise surprise, Nancy Pelosi's district.

 

Nevermind the fact that conscription is slavery. If the country is really being threatened then people will volunteer.

Somehow this is an exceedingly silly argument (although the conclusion is correct, but not for the reasons stated).

 

As a matter of marginal costs, lets consider 2 scenarios:

a. Current Situation, Cost of Labor (including Wages) are $5,000/month

b. Universal Service, Cost of Labor (including Wages) are $4,000/month

 

In scenario B, if a soldier dies in battle, our expenses go down by $4000/month.

In scenario A, if a Soldier dies in battle, our expenses go down by $5000/month.

 

So in fact, while you would willing buy more of something when its cheaper, you would be willing to get rid of more of something when its more expensive, and risking soldier's lives in battle corresponds with get rid of those soldiers not buying new ones..... (I.E. The goverment has to spend less money if their soldiers died then if they lived)

 

Of course this doesn't actually reflect the real situation. In the real situation there are two issues:

A. Every Soldier (As a labor commodity) has a marginal value/productivity (=amount of work it can do in the future) and a marginal cost (what it costs for them to do it) but there are also fixed costs (training, etc.) which have already been sunk into them to increase their marginal value. For a highly trained force (no draft), the force has high marginal value and has high fixed costs, thus are too valuable to lose. In a draft situation, there have been less fixed costs already sunk into the soldiers, and thus losing them is a greater economic loss than losing a untrained soldier. The point is that you need to compare fixed costs here, not just marginal costs. (Note: a complete analysis here has to include the different probabilities of each type dying, in addition to their different productivity.)

 

B. If you have a draft, then you don't need the support of the people to go to war, since you already have the means to wage war. Without a draft, you need to convince enough people to fight for home and country.

 

Note, of course, if a universal service gives each person the choice of how to serve: (military, low income housing core, public works, teaching, etc.) then there is not a standing reserve of soldiers available for a country to wage war, and how many people choose the military option relative to the other options does depend on the relative attractiveness of the options, which creates a market, so none of these objections really apply.

[mike777]

1) Is going to war always a choice? Do the other guys get a vote?

2) As I mentioned I do think a voluntary army is the best way right now for the USA but I can see discussing a draft in the future for some countries to be worthwhile including the usa if the goal is to win some war rather than just costs.

3) As mentioned before I think tech will play a huge role in some unknown future wars/battles. Push a computer button and some power grid or banking system fails? Robot/Borgs/malevolent AI? Just asking.

4) I see even with 20 year old tech China took out a satellite today.