William S. Lind :collection (merged thread)

[AmericanPride]

Considering that this is the way the military was recruited prior to World War II, I'd wager that the country will survive. As soon as you look at the pre-wartime draft military you see this sort of thing. And as for small manpower? Simply not true. The cost per solider is obviously much higher, but in terms of numbers the army has indeed been much smaller than it is currently, and for most of its organizational history.

If you study the history of the military in the United States, you'd realize that what we're seeing now is a return to normal as it existed prior to the Cold War.

The issue here is that the pre-WW2 and post WW2 Americas are worlds apart. So in some ways we may be returning to historical norms in the long view of American history regarding the size of the force, but at the same time we are not returning to the pre-WW2 limited international engagements. Before World War II, there was no NATO, the US did not have combatant commands or bases in 100+ countries, or material interests in nearly every country around the world. Nor did the United States have a self-ascribed global police function as the centerpiece of the international political order. I don't think it's useful with these two different periods to use the pre-WW2 military as a baseline for measuring the current one.

EDIT: Also, let's talk about what 'normal' really is. It's been 237 years since 1776. It was 214 years between 1776 and 1991, 51 years of which included World War II and the Cold War (1940 - 1991). That's 23.8% of American history. Adding the 23 years between 1991 and 2014, the proportion increases to 31.2% of American history. So almost a third of American history has had a relatively large, permanent standing army. How long will it take for that to be considered the new normal?

[Steve Blair]

The issue here is that the pre-WW2 and post WW2 Americas are worlds apart. So in some ways we may be returning to historical norms in the long view of American history regarding the size of the force, but at the same time we are not returning to the pre-WW2 limited international engagements. Before World War II, there was no NATO, the US did not have combatant commands or bases in 100+ countries, or material interests in nearly every country around the world. Nor did the United States have a self-ascribed global police function as the centerpiece of the international political order. I don't think it's useful with these two different periods to use the pre-WW2 military as a baseline for measuring the current one.

EDIT: Also, let's talk about what 'normal' really is. It's been 237 years since 1776. It was 214 years between 1776 and 1991, 51 years of which included World War II and the Cold War (1940 - 1991). That's 23.8% of American history. Adding the 23 years between 1991 and 2014, the proportion increases to 31.2% of American history. So almost a third of American history has had a relatively large, permanent standing army. How long will it take for that to be considered the new normal?

My point is simply that we've been here before. Comparing the current reality with the artificial construct that was the Cold War isn't helpful, either. You need to consider that the military's current position of privilege is very much an outgrowth of the first Gulf War and lingering elite guilt about the way the Vietnam military was treated (in the aftermath of the Gulf War, at least...such feelings were noticeably absent during the 1980s and before). It's not a historical norm in the United States.

Popular sentiment has never really favored long-term external engagement. It could be swayed and to an extent justified by the Cold War, but once that ended popular enthusiasm faded (and I suspect a strong case could be made that it was fading during Vietnam). How much of your external engagement is really remnants of the Cold War? It's also interesting to note that the draft-era army was always considered something of an emergency force, and that its strength fell drastically in the 1950s. It was built back up for Vietnam, and then moved back to the more traditional (for the United States) volunteer force.

If you're going to talk about normal, you need some understanding of where that normal came from and if what you consider is normal is in fact something else. In the wider scope of American history (that two-thirds you mentioned), a large military (and especially one based on conscription) has never been considered normal by a fair chunk of the population. And for the bulk of its non-draft history (and even its draft history after the mid-1950s when deferments became more common) the army has never been especially representative of the population (either in the officer corps or the enlisted ranks). Very, very few of the issues you bring up are new, although the scale might be (although a compelling case can be made that the army that served on the Frontier between 1848 and 1892 faced many similar challenges in terms of distance, support structure, and very low strength).