The benefits of a volunteer military
18th October 2010
Of course, this is from tReason magazine, who sort of have a bit of, shall we say, investment in there not being a draft, but it still has some good points.
Hendrik Hertzberg noted recently in The New Yorker magazine that “for the first time in a century, America is fighting a long war—indeed, two long wars, each longer than our participation in both World Wars put together—without conscription.”
On the other hand, these are ‘little wars’, of the sort that Britain fought for centuries without a draft. I suspect that if the war were with, say, Russia or China, we’d have a draft so fast it would make your head duck and cover.
That change represents a sort of throwback to the early days of the republic. When President James Madison proposed conscription for the War of 1812, New Hampshire’s Daniel Webster rose on the House floor in eloquent opposition.
“Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or wickedness of government may engage it?” he demanded. That was the end of that idea, until the Civil War.
And wouldn’t that put ‘progressives’ in a pickle? All their groovy-granola hippiness would hyperventilate and pass out if the Obamassiah decided to fight racism and inequality somewhere. Popcorn would be at a premium in right-wing households.
David Henderson, an economist who teaches at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., says he sometimes asks his students, all officers, how many favor a return to conscription. “It’s been zero for the last 15 years,” he says. The common view is, “Why would I want people under me who don’t want to be there?”
Funny how they never asked that question during the Cold War, even when officers were being fragged in their own billets.
Another is that it’s a colossal waste to cycle large numbers of people, many of them poorly suited to military service, through the ranks for a couple of years just so they can bail out at the first opportunity.
On the other hand, it makes them all rub shoulders together (take that, Harvard) and gives some actual exposure to the military other than playing Call Of Duty for 48 hours straight. We increasingly have people in Congress, and people voting for people in Congress, whose only exposure to the military was picketing recruiters for extra credit for their Gender Studies seminars and watching Dr. Strangelove in Film Appreciation class (when not asleep).