In a rather alarming article in last week’s issue of The New Yorker, Steve Coll reports on an appearance by General Richard Cody, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, before the Senate Armed Service Committee. "The current demand for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the sustainable supply, and limits our ability to provide ready forces for other contingencies.... Overall, our readiness is being consumed as fast as we build it. If unaddressed, this lack of balance poses a significant risk to the all-volunteer force, and degrades the Army’s ability to make a timely response to other contingencies."
This is pretty alarming news. Basically the general is saying that we don’t have the forces to respond to other crises posed by Iran or North Korea or Canada, for that matter. And when he says these conditions threaten the all-volunteer force, well, you know what he means, don’t you?
The resumption of the draft.
As it turned out, Cody testified about a week before Gen. David Petraeus appeared to talk about how things are going in Iraq. Petraeus, you’ll recall, described the country as a slow student--okay in some places, needs work in others. He was non-committal about when troops would start to leave. But here’s what you have to keep in mind.
It doesn’t matter how long he thinks they need to stay. If you believe Cody, there’s just not enough soldiers to maintain current levels for long.
Unless there’s a draft.
Which may turn out to be the way we end this war that no one wants and that the government won’t end. This idea was very well expressed by the actor Tommie Lee Jones this month in an interview in the magazine O2138. "We had the draft in ’68, we had a bullshit war, and it ultimately ended," said Lee. "And there were terrific repercussions throughout the government. The Bush administration has escaped those repercussions because the American people have a way to turn their head and say, `It doesn’t really affect my family. My daughter is in no threat of having her legs blown off. My son is in no threat of coming back with no face, no ears, no nose—because he didn’t volunteer.’ If somebody were making them incur those risks, the votership might change radically."
So as you listen to the candidates this year, keep this in mind: we can end the war, or we can continue the war, resume the draft, have a lot of our kids killed and maimed, and then end the war. Our choice.
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Comments on this entry:
This comes as no great shock to me. And yet it is somehow. I think about the time I heard promises that there would not be a draft I knew it was coming.
My son is not of age, yet. If they try to come after him they will have to deal with me first.
Jammie,
ASeveral things you miss and misconstrue. First foremost, there really is no one in the Military that wants people around who don't want to be here. The discipline problems alone are something no one wants.
As far as avaialable forces, all branches of the Military are making 100% of their recruiting quotas. The problem or unsustainable part is with the current authorized Military strength. All branches are at 100% of their authorized manning. Congress sets that. The Army (worst quality of life, least glamourous) may be doing it through bonuses, but they are doing it. And even with the bonuses far cheaper than a draft.
BTW there was a draft all the way from 1940 till 1973.
This post crystalized my feelings perfectly about the resumption of the draft. A newly established draft system, with no exemptions for either gender or class, would go a long way toward reevaluating which battles are really worth the fight. And it could serve as a solution to other problems such as crime and gang violence by instilling into young people a sense of pride of ownership in the land they were born in, and of true patriotism rather than the faux, photo-op brand of patriotism propagated by so many American flag lapel pins.