End the All-Volunteer Force

[AmericanPride]

But that still leaves the problem, if it is one, of the American populace being disconnected from the military, not the military being disconnected from the American populace. The Americans as a whole can't be forced into reconnecting or sharing the sacrifice or whatever. They have to want to do it. Parts now seem more apt to serve than others, there are regional differences in rates of service and especially class differences in rates of service. Those differences are volitional. If those differences are to lessen no gov policy can do it. It has to be the decision of the people. Some things gov can't do.

The thing that I think is most problematical about the class differences in service is how the elite classes, those that go to the top 105 colleges the ivies especially, those that comprise the GS triple digits, the corporate board members, the media elites etc, don't serve hardly at all. They know nothing practical at all about the military or much about military history. Yet they are the ones who direct the military to go off and make war. And they are the ones who buy the latest tech or managerial fad like the revolution in military affairs. That is a problem, but again, one that gov can't solve.

Government policy, or the lack thereof in some cases, has a direct bearing on military readiness, culture, and capabilities.

This report concludes that the majority of military recruits originate from middle income neighborhoods. Barriers to entry (mostly education and criminal records) preclude many of the underclass, while the upper class have better things to do with their time (and lives). This does not mean that the middle class are any more patriotic or willing to serve -- it just means, they are the only ones eligible. This is problematic because (1) the middle class is shrinking while (2) the middle class also bears the greatest relative tax burden as the upper class and corporations have numerous tax practices available to reduce their effective rate. This is on top of stagnating wages since the late 1970s and wildly inflated costs in education, health-care, and food and fuel prices. This occurred simultaneously with the explosion of wealth and assets held by the upper 1 - 5% and a gradual decline in their top tax rate (from 90+% in the 1940s to theoretically 35% today).

Meanwhile, the defense budget continues to increase because its acquisition, maintenance, and personnel budgets grow without restraint. Of course, the solution for the Pentagon and Congress is not to enforce financial accountability and restrain wasteful spending, but to cut active duty end-strength, which means those same self-selected white southern-conservative middle class recruits, with their love of beer, fishing and Nascar, will bear a greater burden (the JCC estimates the world is more dangerous today than ever before; some good the GWoT did then...) while becoming increasingly isolated from the general public. That report I cited at the beginning writes off the Southern emphasis in the military's demographics as "Southern military tradition" but I think it more has to do with Southern states consistently ranking in the bottom rung in educational attainment and economic opportunity and its general conservative bent.

It's clear by these facts and figures that government policy (and in many cases, the lack thereof) has produced a situation in which we have a culturally isolated professional military force that is not representative of the national whole (Asians in particular are underrepresented). The draft is one method of correcting this demographic problem.

EDIT: There is also a general overlap between voting patterns and military recruitment (by state), and a general unwillingness across party lines to seriously address the financial irregularities of the DoD that lead directly to self-selecting recruitment practices within a shrinking pool of willing and eligible recruits. Not only are young Americans less likely to be physically fit, but they're also more likely to be non-White or mixed race, and to live in the western US. This is not to say these groups of people do not serve, but general trends indicate that they do so in smaller numbers (and they're less likely to vote Republican, the "national security" party). The problem I see, apart from the one carl identified about class division, but also cultural division since I very much doubt military culture is going to easily change in response to demographic trends in the US.