Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
Ricks argues that it will make the people more engaged with the government and its activities, which he assumes will have a positive outcome. In general, more interest would produce higher accountability as the public demands greater fidelity on policies and the assumptions that underlie them.
Having lived and served a good many years when the Draft was operating -- as opposed to Ricks and others -- My observation was that did not occur. Given general US and world societal changes since that time, I would anticipate that to be a very flawed argument.
I disagree. The draft in the Vietnam War produced a great amount of resistance to the conflict, which was started under false pretenses, prosecuted using questionable methods and strategies, and did not result in favorable outcome for the United States. The so-called "small wars" of the GWoT have been greatly detrimental to the armed forces, including record rates in suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic and sexual abuse -- not to mention, the inability to produce a favorable political outcome for either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Uh, okay -- however, I have no idea with what you disagree. I agree with what you wrote there but I do not see how that negates the quoted statements from me. You'll have to clarify that for me...

I do agree with your statements as said but my sensing is that the rates of suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic and sexual abuse are not as high as during Viet Nam though they are higher than was true in Korea. I question whether such problems are engendered by societal or military factors.
End strength won't expand until we fix the gross budget irregularities and waste in the un-auditable Defense Department's spending practices.
I don't think your comment answers or even addresses Entropy's point but you and he can sort that -- I'll only point out that the Congress is a firm supporter of DoD budget opacity in practice if not in speech. They like being able to hide things there and they do so with great abandon. IOW, the gross irregularities of Congress need to be fixed before any remediation of DoD can begin.
It's not much better now. I've attended more memorial services for soldiers who killed themselves than those killed in combat ... So I really don't see how the AVF has produced a "better quality" service-member. People will be people regardless if they are drafted or recruited.
Speaking as one who was there way back when and has a Son serving today as well as two others who did serve earlier, it did and has produced a "better quality" service member. If you think they're mediocre now, you shoulda been around in the 50s and 60s -- much less the 70s when there was a major drop in quality due to sociological tinkering and a targeted draft -- of marginally capable folks. Folks who survived in the system due to its over emphasis on fairness and time in service to become the senior NCOs who did not train the NCOs in your unit who allowed your troops to sink to that state...
Ricks' point is that that system isn't working out very effectively.
He's-- for once -- correct but he's still attacking the wrong target. All his suggestion will do is allow the inept Politicians to give inept Commanders more troops to waste on stupid endeavors. We need to fix the Pols and fix the Command competence problesm; a Draft will do neither.
If we're concerned about the "general welfare" of soldiers, we wouldn't send them into unfavorable combat conditions regardless of how they were recruited into service.
That's an interesting statement. It's also specious. While I agree that methods of incorporation are irrelevant; once incorporated, unfavorable combat conditions go with the job.
It worked out quite well in the Civil War and the World Wars.
If by well, you mean adequately, true. If by well you meant anything better than adequately, I believe if you do some in depth research, you'll find it isn't so.
Ricks' argument isn't that a conscript force would be inherently more effective than an all-volunteer force (and I don't think the historical record demonstrates clearly either way), but that a conscript force would be aware of government policies in a democratic system and we could therefore (possibly) avoid the problems of an relatively unaccountable policy elite committing the nation to costly wars using a culturally isolated unquestioning professional military force.
In reverse order, US history says you're wrong; the Draft did not -- absolutely did not -- have that effect in the Civil War, WW I, WW II or during Korea and the entire Cold War period. I submit that to believe today would be different is delusional -- at best...

Lastly, the world historical record does demonstrate the superiority of a volunteer force; the US record does not for a variety of reasons but primarily due to the fact that today's volunteer force is operating under personnel rules designed in 1917 for World War I, tweaked a bit for World War II, not tweaked at all for the volunteer aspect and operating under many arcane rules foisted by a bumbling Congress to insure 'fairness' and 'objectivity' in personnel assignment and selection. We have not had since WW I a pure professional force operating under professional rules, we have had and have today a hybrid force that is neither fully professional nor fully directed service.

We should try to remedy that before we decide to use mass punishment of the innocent to fix something that said punishment will not fix. As I wrote earlier, this is classic attack on symptoms as opposed to causes...