End the All-Volunteer Force

[gute]

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.

This might be true.

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.

The draft was well in place before Vietnam and our involvement lasted more than 10 years of which about 5-7 years was large scale ground combat. Casualty rates were much higher and I believe at one point injured and killed had reached 1,000 per month. Yet, with all those conscripts it still took us ten years get out. There is no doubt in my mind that if we were taking 1,000 killed and injured a week in Afghanistan and Iraq there would be a hell of a lot more people screaming for us to come home.

End strength won't expand until we fix the gross budget irregularities and waste in the un-auditable Defense Department's spending practices.

The military is big enough - matter of fact it probably should get smaller.

It's not much better now. I've attended more memorial services for soldiers who killed themselves than those killed in combat -- and my unit had a number of soldiers washed out due to drugs and felonies, as well as some in regular legal or financial trouble. Don't let the military commercials fool you about the general quality of the service. These trends are clearly visible in the record suicides, domestic and sexual abuse crimes, divorces, and alcohol and drug abuse (and related offenses). 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.

How would you what's better - did you serve in a conscripted army? And the rates - higher than Vietnam, after Vietnam, after Korea, WWII - how do you know this?

Ricks' point is that that system isn't working out very effectively.

How does he know he never served.

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.

Agreed.

It worked out quite well in the Civil War and the World Wars. 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.

Draft riots were common in the Civil War and many a well to do man paid others to fight in his place.

I agree with the comment about unaccountable policy elites, but many a volunteer soldier has questioned the policies. Conscripts questioned the policies during the Vietnam War, but they still served.

Senator Gary Hart wrote a book about going back to a militia - interesting read.