Why conscription is bad

Greater incentives and possibilities for lateral entry — the hiring of mid-career civilian professionals at ranks commensurate to their private sector experience — may not only bring valuable skills to the military, but would increase opportunities for civil-military dialogues. In addition, a recent article published in Armed Forces and Society suggests taking steps to reassert nonpartisan norms in the military; this could reduce tensions associated with the distance between the military and society by strengthening a culture of military abstention from politics.

On the civilian side, enhanced civic education may be more effective. A greater effort to seriously educate the population about the military as a profession, its expertise, and its proper role in society could go a long way toward its demystification. Conceptualizing service to the country as strictly military only reinforces an unrealistic idealization of those in uniform and the dangerous belief that they are the only ones who can solve national problems.

Military service is undoubtedly among the most profound forms of service to the nation. But the answer is not forcing more people to make the great sacrifice that military service entails. The rights associated with citizenship should not be contingent on mandatory military service. While there is much room for more research into the domestic political consequences of military recruitment policies, to equate military service with citizenship is to advocate for a drastic deviation from American historical practice and values, with little if any benefit as a result.

Such a shift in the definition of citizenship would only create a further wedge in an already divided society — between those who would inevitably be declared exempt and those who are not, as well as between those who support such a transformational new policy and those who do not. There are other, less divisive — and less risky — ways to address the problems created by over-reliance on a limited military caste. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not reflect the position of the Department of Defense, the United States Army, or the United States Military Academy.

Image: U. Max Margulies. It is important to maintain a link between society and the military. But that link is not so tenuous today as some assert, given the important role of the National Guard and the reserve in overseas missions. A major restructuring of the Army is underway. But even after the reconfiguration is completed, the role of the reserves will remain important in any future operation of significant scale and duration.

The often-heard assertion that policymakers have become casualty-insensitive is exaggerated. Only half a decade ago the nation was purported to have the opposite problem: an extreme oversensitivity to casualties that prevented the U. This helped fuel a perception of U. Someday, we could have a crisis that would require more serious consideration of the draft.

The most likely cause would be an even more severe over-deployment of the all-volunteer force, particularly in the Army and Marine Corps, that led to an exodus of volunteers and a general perception among would-be recruits that service had become far less appealing. Clearly, a sustained period of high casualties in Iraq or elsewhere would reinforce any such problem as well.

In contrast, a volunteer system allows potential recruits to shut down a conflict by simply refusing to sign up. During the Iraq debacle the military found recruiting to be more difficult for both active and reserve service. Moreover, heavy reliance on reservists spread the burden of the war, multiplying antiwar feelings. Anyway, with the military requiring less than five percent of those turning 18 annually, few sons or daughters of the elite would end up in uniform, let alone in danger.

Those with superior credentials, and especially influential parents, often end up in safer specialties and locations. There is little reason to expect Congress to take its responsibilities more seriously if a few more members had children in uniform.

Sometimes advocates of compulsion seek to make service universal by joining civilian and military programs. It would be far easier to find and instruct people to fulfill the variegated tasks required through the marketplace, as we routinely do for other essential civilian tasks.

The general argument that a military draft is needed because there are too few personnel for too many tasks treats manpower needs as fixed.

They are not. Wars of choice are, indeed, matters of choice, not necessity. Today American armed forces operate more like the praetorian guard for a global empire than a citizen corps safeguarding a democratic republic.

Most of what the U. Nor need Washington fight endless wars in multiple Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries with at best tenuous relationships to American security. Conscription should be recognized as an additional expense of the American imperium, and thus another reason to expect other, often populous and prosperous, states to protect their own security. The government possesses no greater power than conscription, to send people off to fight and die.

No such circumstance exists today or is likely to emerge in the coming years. Conscription should remain but a bad memory from past terrible wars. Live Now. Compulsion was essential to such proposals. In , the Committee for the Study of National Service declared:. International comparisons also fire some American imaginations. Millions of young people serve social needs in China as a routine part of growing up, many [are] commanded to leave the crowded cities and to assist in the countryside.

Castro fought illiteracy and mosquitoes in Cuba with units of youth. Interesting combinations of education, work, and service to society are a part of the experience of youth in Israel, Jamaica, Nigeria, Tanzania, and other nations.

But current national service advocates similarly seek to transform society. But in practice it is dangerous nonsense.