I think your man, Ricks, is trying to meet his quota of words published...

If his belief is that if you have a substandard conscript army then the politicians would be more wary of committing to war then he may have a point. Then again the avoidance of military humiliation does not seem to factor into the thinking of US politicians - think Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan - to illustrate my point.

I have repeated many times that in the military it takes 15-20 years of commissioned service for an officer to reach the rank of Lt Col and command a battalion of 600 plus men. Yet there is no barrier (in terms of qualifications and experience) to become President of the US. The same with the various Secretaries and congressmen. This is probably the (main) source of America's problems.

When it comes to protecting the nation I go with the sentiments of George Orwell:

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
Now in order to achieve this first line of 'protection' we need to select the type of 'rough men' who will do their duty when called upon to do so... and not cobble together a force to reflect the composition of the nation and to hell with their competence as warriors... and to act as a brake on the whims of politicians.

Rather than avoiding (mostly small) wars because of the (almost) certainty of failure is it not more intelligent to have troops that are up to the task and use them more judiciously?

Conscription is or should be the last resort for a threatened nation.