A New Draft?

I have not been terribly sympathetic to the idea of a new draft. Yes, I value my (limited) military experience. There is merit to having people of varying socio-economic groups get their lumps together in the cause of defending America. I'd say the most interesting example was me-the white Detroit "old man" of the platoon sparring with Frear-the son (or was it nephew) of a Motown star. For the life of me I can no longer remember who she is. He had graduated from Brown University. I was a University of Michigan graduate. We each claimed superiority and belittled the other's school. He carried his silver spoon in his mess kit! (I liked him, actually. I have to respect someone who had no reason to join, yet still did) A lot of people could benefit from Army Basic Training.


Yet our volunteer military does not need conscripts. We are an information age military and not an industrial age mass production military. Our military does not need massive numbers of cannon fodder.

Nor am I persuaded by our war on terror to support conscription for the sole reason of calling on our people for "sacrifice." If even the modest efforts our government has made thus far lead critics to cry "police state!" how would they react to a needless draft? I think we are fortunate to live in an age when going to war does not require us to eat beans and put off all major purchases until after the war because every factory has to produce war material. Why do advocates of sacrifice think we have to mimic World war II conditions in the twenty-first century?

Yet maybe conscription would be a good idea. Oh, not to staff our regular military-unless we must fight a peer competitor like China (if Chinese power and hostility grow over the decades-neither are guaranteed, however) or anything like that-we just don't need masses of infantry for our high tech wars against small powers.

But in a decades-long war on terror, mass conscription could serve valuable purposes. The fact that we do not need conscripts to wage the war actually makes it easier to start universal conscription. If we wanted to use a draft to man our actual fighting military, we would need to take only a small percentage and exemptions would undermine the leveling effect. Making a draft nearly universal is a key to providing the socializing aspect a reality.

So how would we use draftees in a Homeland Defense Corps?

We could train medics whose skills are obviously of use in coping with a terror attack even before they are mobilized. Such skills diffused throughout the population would save lives.

We could train security personnel who could augment military police type formations guarding our borders, bases, or civilian infrastructure in their communities during emergencies. This might be a pool of reservists available to the military services and the new Homeland Defense Department.

We could also train draftees in basic squad-level infantry skills so that there is always a pool of troops who may be mobilized for additional training should we need infantry for war or peace operations.

Recruits would need basic training, some advanced schooling for their skills, and civics education. This should take no more than four or five months. This will hardly be an onerous duty of citizenship. Of course, anybody could volunteer for any of the services as civilians do now for the higher pay and benefits of those services instead of doing the minimum draftee service.

Other skills might also be of use such as vehicle drivers, supply specialists, and other jobs that would allow individuals to fill out active units or augment them for war tasks.

For their term of Homeland Defense Corps reserve service, we could exploit online or distance learning for refresher training every three months to validate their training.

We could require two years duty maximum in the homeland defense reserves, or four or more for medic duty (if you get the easier, less dangerous duty, you should serve longer). Nor should such service be considered the equivalent of military service for benefits unless the troops are mobilized by a military service. We don't want this easier service to draw away recruits from the traditional services.

Establishing a new draft would mean we would have to gear up the training establishment to crank out graduates at a high rate without interfering with traditional force training. I don't know whether basic training should be integrated or done separately.

A draft with these attributes might have merit. It avoids foisting unwilling draftees on the military yet provides citizenship training with reasonable sacrifice and trains our people with actual useful skills should they be needed by the nation. Establishing such a draft-filled Homeland Defense Corps is worth a thought, anyway. And given that many of those calling for a draft are on the left, maybe it will silence those others on their side who bemoan the idea that our military recruiters visit high schools.

[NOTE: This is from the former Defense Issues category from my original blog.]