Sunday, November 29, 2009

Rummy versus Personnel Strength

I have posted on more than one occasion that Secretary Rumsfeld did not want the expense of the military personnel strength to interfere with his wheeling and dealing "business ways". Every service member in uniform, competed and interfered, by law, with his desire to execute his desires as freely as possible. How's that for a strong statement. Here's why I say that those in uniform competed and interfered, by law, with his desires:

In the private sector, if the CEO needs money for new equipment, he has several ways of getting it. One is to borrow, another is to increase sales, and another is to divert funds for one expense item to the desired purchase. Laying off employees and extracting higher productivity from the remaining work force, for example, allows the salaries and benefits not paid to be diverted to other corporate uses. Or, the employer can find a way to reduce individual salaries and benefits to diver the funds thereby saved.

In the US military budget process, there are three categories of budgeted funds that bear explaining:

1. The Personnel Account (PA). These are the funds specifically identified by Congress to meet the direct payroll and selected benefits requirements of the uniformed military. And, the monies in PA are virtually impossible to divert to other expense items. Unlike XYC Corp, the Secretary of Defense, or any other member of the Defense dept cannot simply reduce pay or the number of uniformed military at his discretion to divert PA funds to other use once a budget has been approved. Nor can money from other accounts be used to make up shortfalls in the PA. The jargon for this is that the PA is "Fenced".

2. The Operations and Maintenance Account (O&M). These are the funds with which the day to day operations of the military are conducted. Civilian payroll, supplies, repairs, contractor services, utilities, bullets, uniforms, and so on come from this account. Fund managers have a degree of discretion in executing these accounts. If you delay hiring a replacement civil servant, the salary not disbursed can be used elsewhere, within some limits.

3. Procurement Accounts. These are the funds designated to buy "big ticket" items, and quite often they have not only dollar, but unit quantity specifics.

Now, for every soldier on the payroll, a part of the Defense budget is and can only be used for his pay, allowances and certain benefits. Further, unless you want the people up in arms because you wouldn't provide food, uniforms and medical care for the troops, a certain portion of the O&M account is basically out of the Defense Secretary's control, as it must be spent to accomplish these ends, and every fellow in uniform requires food, uniforms, medical care, equipment, etc. In short, a huge portion of the Defense budget is "Fenced" to support the people in uniform, or is driven by circumstances to support the people in uniform. Even O&M funds that are, on the surface, available to support things of the Defense Secretary's choosing, are tied to personnel strength levels to a great degree.

One would be a fool to think that Congress is willing to write a blank check to the Defense Dept. Unlike XYZ Corp, that can try to increase sales to get more money to fund internal priorities/desires, DOD can only work with what Congress sees as the TOTAL expense level it will accept for the Defense Budget. If a SecDef wishes to spend 10% more on missiles next year, he very well may have to give up something in exchange, just a a CEO with no hope of increased sales/revenue must fore go an expense item to use that money elsewhere. But, unlike his corporate CEO counterpart, the SecDef cannot play fast and loose with the PA to meet his internal expense priorities.

Now, Mr Rumsfeld was seduced by technology to increase the "lethality" of the armed forces. One aspect of lethality is that each service member can kill more bad guys with technology than without, and the next logical conclusion (if you want to call it "logical") is that therefore, fewer troops can kill the same numbers of bad guys with better "toys". Now, in an auto manufacturing plant, technology can decrease payroll expense without reducing the plant output. But the DOD really has more in their mission than killing and blowing up things, and Phase IV is one of them, or at least the potential for Phase IV operations. But, Phase IV operations, by their very nature, are not lethality based, and are very manpower intensive. So, if you can avoid Phase IV responsiblities, you can reduce manpower requirements.

How antagonistic was Rummy toward manpower costs? Well, he openly expressed irritation that his budget had to divert his attention to and pay for "grocery stores, department stores and hospitals that no proper private sector employer had to provide". When reminded that the Exchanges were not supported by budgeted funds, they dropped out of his cross-hairs. To reduce the number of medical staff being paid out of the PA, we simply had their stateside billets converted to contractors paid out of the O&M accounts, adjusting staffing as necessary to manage the O&M dollars as he saw fit. Or, shifted patient care from military hospitals to nearby civilian hospitals to move that expense to the TRICARE (insurance) account.

Why the dependence on contractors in Iraq? Because one hires them on an "as needed" basis and pays them out of O&M funds. If the need for fuel transportation drops, reduce the contract requirements and spend the money elsewhere. GI fuel truck drivers cost the same amount whether they deliver fuel or not, and those PA funds cannot be shifted.

Now, as to what I saw as evidence that Rummy wanted to strip the military down to a "shock and awe" capability only? First, there was a numeric ceiling on the force for the invasion of Iraq. Now, any student of the military will tell you that personnel numbers are meaningless. Operational thinkers work with "Force Packages". There is a warfighting difference between 2,500 troops and a Brigade Task Force, and there are also different types of brigades, based upon the type of warfare (light infantry, armor, etc). "2,500 troops" tells us nothing about the capability of the resulting force. Yet, Rumsnamara was not going to entertain more than 250,000 uniformed personnel in theater, regardless of the force composition needs. Thus, significant and necessary combat service support units were left off the battle roster. Thus, the 3rd ID, for example, had difficulty getting rations when the operation lasted longer than anticipated, and contractor logistic support was not available. And this diddling with "non lethal elements" being left behind by design can be traced directly to SecDef.

To be able to really "conquer" an enemy and stand up, over time, a new state, requires, as GEN Shinseki so gracefully stated, many, many more soldiers than just invading and toppling the army and government of another nation. If we are to have a military capable of conquering another nation and properly occupying it, the size and type of Army Rumsfeld envisioned, small and lethal, but nothing else, will never get the job done. I'm not saying that we ever could have stood up an acceptable and functioning government in Iraq. What I am saying is that if it is possible, we did nothing to make that happen, and that nothing was by the intent and design of one Donald Rumsfeld.

So, we are not, nor never have been facing an "insurgency" in Iraq. What is going on there is no different that the chaos in New Orleans when the forces of nature kept the civil authorities from providing basic and effective public safety services. No police, fire, water, electricity, sanitation result in a break down of the social order and you end up with looting and other associated crimes. And like Iraq, some of the criminals were from outside New Orleans. The difference in Iraq is that after the total destruction of the elements maintaining the social order, the follow on structure was too little and too late. It's not an "insurgency" but a totally failed occupation.

62 comments:

  1. I've been lurking but don't really have anything to add other than to say that I'm glad that Charles is back with us again.

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  2. Good post Al, and you present a great analysis of where Rummy was coming from. I note from Wiki that when Rumsfeld was CEO of G. D. Searle & Company he downsized the number of Searle employees by 60%. For that he was lauded as the most outstanding CEO of the pharmaceutical industry by both Wall Street and the London Stock Exchange. This downsizing eventually led a loss in longer term profitability so the company was sold to Monsanto just five years later.

    But it seems to me that as excellent as this post was that it is wasted on us MilPub readers who number I guess somewhere around 20, perhaps less than 100 or so. Your post should receive a wider readership in Armed Forces Journal or Army Times or other publications of that genus (genera??). That is my opinion anyway. Although I am happy to see it here first.

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  3. "This downsizing eventually led a loss in longer term profitability so the company was sold to Monsanto just five years later."

    This is something that drives me nuts. How many times have we seen CEO's layoff people for the sole purpose of lowering overhead so they can avoid a bad quarter (and the subsequent loss in stock price).

    If I were king for the day, along with my amendment to limit congressional terms, I would institute a regulation making quarterly reports illegal and only allow public companies to publicly publish their earnings and forecasts once a year. This, IMO, would led to more strategic thinking in the business world, where CEO's are looking a year (or more) out, and not two months out.

    I won't fix everything, but I think it is a good start.

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  4. Al: Like Pluto, I can't really add much to what reads to me like a fairly accurate assessment of the former SecDef's goals. Again, tho, I think he was not so much seduced by techology per se - he killed several high-tech, high-cost heavy weapons early in his tenure - and to give credit where credit is due, he had no problem taking on the uniformed defense contractor whores (aka "program managers") inside the five-sided fool farm.

    I think his overall mission was to kill the "Powell Doctrine".

    He was part of the GOP cabal that missed the old days when United Fruit or Standard Oil could use the U.S. military as their strikebreakers and thugs, fucking with the internal politics of foreign countries. So he needed to "lighten" the footprint, particularly the Army footprint, so as to provide a more "useful" military to his master, Dubya, to do some shock and awe.

    Some sort of starship troopers force could do that, at least that was his idea. And had he bothered to actually take the time to train up some sort of Iraqi exile puppet army to take over the PhIV it MIGHT have worked, tho the example of Cuba and Nicaragua aren't convincing.

    But with his bizarre ceiling on bodies regardless of mission requirements?

    Vizzini would call it right; Inconceivable.

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  5. Al,

    Not sure if you timed your post with this article, but this was in the WSJ today about a Senate report discussing how troop strength in Afg led to the not capturing UBL:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125947253857168225.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories

    "More pointedly, it seeks to affix a measure of blame for the state of the war today on military leaders under former president George W. Bush, specifically Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary and his top military commander, Tommy Franks."

    Dems are blaming Rummy for not using enough troops to kill UBL, and the release of this report coincides with the imminent decision that will likely include a 35K troop "surge" in AFG.

    I have two comments:

    1. Funny how Dems were so against the "surge" in Iraq, but now they are pushing for Obama to do the exact same tactic.

    2. More in line with this post, the report implies (perhaps even states) that Rummy's philosophy as you described so well is the reason we are still fighting the war today in AFG.

    In Rummy's defense (just this once), I will say this. We lost UBL in Tora Bora NOT because we had too few troops. We lost him because a bad tactical decisions, the right amount and right kinds of troops were on the ground at the pivotal moment (to be truthful, perhaps too many of them, and that is why we lost UBL). Once those decision were made, we lost UBL (IMO forever). Adding more troops before Tora Bora simply wasn't possible, we got about as many troops in AFG as was possible in that short time period, remember AFG is landlocked. (there were Bde's from 101st, 10th Mountain, some Marines, 5th SFG(A) and Spec Ops). Any decision to immediately increase troop strength after Tora Bora would NOT have helped capture UBL unless the purpose of those troops was to enter Pakistan.

    So in most cases I won't defend the man, in this case, the Senate is out of its league talking about something that they don't understand (or more likely spinning it in a way to help them politically).

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  6. bg: I think part of the problem is that the Senate has no clue what the strategic objective was (and is) in Afghanistan. Partially because the Executive, both Bush and Obama administrations, has never clarified it (other than in over-the-rainbow terms) in order to maintain the maximum wriggle room, and partially because the Senate has lost whatever ability it ever had to think past the two-year electoral cycle.

    I have not read enough about Tora Bora to speak intelligently about it. There does seem to have been some fairly significant failures of command and control, along with some serious overestimation about the value of the local levies we were using. I'm not sure how much of these Rummy had a direct hand in.

    But IMO his real failings were as an overall war manager - which is what the SecDef is in time of war - rather than a warfighter.

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  7. Al-

    Excellent post on force structure. Rummy did bring his own particular "talents" to the neocon mix . . . But how does one explain our seeming inability to recognize, let alone deal with the aftermath? You have touched on this before . . .

    From a strategic theory perspective the best approach would be to compare what the force structure "should be" - that is based on our own fact-based "dialectic" estimate, that is threat-based analysis - as compared to the actual current force structure as we see it.

    Ideally from the traditional strategic thought perspective, the military should have been optimized over the last eight years (Jeeez that should be enough time even for a Republican ;-)>) to present the most efficient means, that is political instrument of the state. This "optimization" would reflect the radical nature of the supposedly existential threat the American people are sold . . .

    That's an approach.

    Also, just wished to point out Scott Horton's tribute to Phil Carter for any who may have missed it . . .

    http://harpers.org/archive/2009/11/hbc-90006150

    You'll notice that the link in fact has already been posted on this blog.

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  8. In 2001, although it was already clear that the new president was lacking certain, er, essentials, it seemed he might have at least put together a fairly decent national security team. Not only did we have a vice president who'd garnered rave reviews for his performance as SecDef during the GHW Bush Administration—and he did, you know—but we had a new SecDef who was finally going to kick some ass and force the Army into modernizing.

    So what happened? 9/11 happened. All of a sudden, these bozos—Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld—actually had to get out of the political and academic and actually do something for the nation. All failed. Bush turned out to be far worse than anyone ever imagined. Cheney apparently went insane after 9/11. And Rumsfeld? Yeah, he went nuts, too.

    But these aren't the only villians in the military play. Recall the RMA? Revolution in Military Affairs? RMA, rolled out by the Army in the 90s, was where the Army was going to put all of its old stodgy ways behind, was going to learn the lessons of the Cold War, and was going to become a hip, with-it service, one that took full advantage of the astounding advances in technology out there in civilian land. By the time Rumsfeld arrived, the Army had been living in the post-Cold War era for more than ten years and had been working at the RMA for more than five.

    So where was the Army in modernization ten years after the wall had fallen? Well, RMA really never happened. RMA was a lie. The Army, like a recidivist dope user, just couldn't shake its addiction to its old ways of doing business. What the Army never realized is that you can't embrace all of the hot new technology out there without also developing a new paradigm for your personnel and how they are hired and managed. In short, if General Halftrack is going to rely on enlisted people and junior officers to save his and the nation's ass through application of weird science, the good general may have to consider (1) whether his traditional force structure is still appropriate; and, (2) whether traditional command and control measures will work.

    Of course, General Halftrack never gave a thought to such considerations. Rumsfeld knew this. Rumsfeld took office with an abiding contempt for many military leaders. The truth is, the Army never made more than a halfhearted effort towards "revolutionizing" itself before Rumsfeld arrived; this made the service easy prey for an arrogant prick who'd been put in the driver's seat by a president who loved being "commander-in-chief," but cared little about actually doing any work.

    Then there was Franks. Let's not forget that a four-star general gave Rumsfeld all the cover he needed, in Iraq and elsewhere. Phase IV? Shit, Tommy didn't care. He had enough troops. Why should Rummy care? Tora Bora and bin Laden? Rumsfeld had generals who'd told him the force mix in Afghanistan was OK. And, yeah, it was, and they maybe could have nailed UBL. I'm with bg; don't blame Rumsfeld for this failure.

    Don't get me wrong; I think Rumsfeld is a skunk. All I'm saying is that a man in his position needs enablers and his enablers weren't just named Bush and Cheney. A lot of them wore stars.

    Just saying.

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  9. Publius: I recall that a big part of the "RMA" was the Future Combat System, the gee-whiz combination of real-time digital telemetry, commo gear, GPS, and "lighter-faster" maneuver elements, with things like the mobile gun system replacing the tank and GIs with all sorts of "smart weapons" replacing the standard rifle squad.

    Mind you, not much of this stuff hadn't even been beta tested, much less worked up in the demanding conditions that warfighting gear needs to function consistently. And a hell of a lot of it seemed to violate Heinlein's Rule of Combat: "The slickest gadget in the world is useless if someone can sneak up and bash you in the head with a club while you're reading a vernier."

    And, as you point out, Rummy got his props killing the old, heavy systems like the Crusader. The FCS mafia were his from Day One.

    And seydlitz makes a good point as well: in a sane world the "RMA" would have been driven by a thorough assessment of likely geopolitical threats. In the real world, the RMA was driven as much by procurement politics, crony capitalism and the chicanery of the Pentagon princes as by any real understanding of what the FCS would end up doing.

    One of the longest lasting toxins introduced by Rummy and the Bushites will be the hyperpoliticization of GO promotion system. IT's always been pretty obnoxious, but the Bushies introduced an overt partisanship that is likely to end up thinning the GO gene pool worse than it already is, and I'd have to say that our current crop of GOs is as bad as anything we had in 1860 or 1899...

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  10. Good points all. I should note that although Gen. Shinseki should rightly be commended for giving proper advice on Phase IV operations, he was the guy that actually introduced FCS and was the guy who decided it would be cool to give everyone a beret, which still doesn't sit well with some of my Army friends.

    I can't really add anything to what's been said about Rummy et al. - I think Publius most closely matches my thoughts.

    One big problem, IMO, that doesn't get discussed a lot is the personnel systems for the services and DoD. The most important part of those are the promotion systems which are screwed up and have misplaced incentives resulting in less than ideal senior leadership. I think it does pretty well up to about E-7 and Major, but after than things go downhill, especially at the Col/one star level. There are certainly a lot of fine senior leaders in out military, but too many careerists and incompetents make it through.

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  11. Andy -

    FCS as originally envisioned by Shinseki was truly a "Future concept. Having worked in aerospace at the time, I saw DoA literature that showed it as a small R&D program for possible fielding of some of the approved concepts in the year 2025. When Rummy arrived the program grew by billions and research got put by the wayside.

    Shinseki of course did introduce the Stryker Brigade Combat Teams into the Army, which was a damned fine decission on his part. It was an idea long overdue for the Army. Simiar vehicles had proved themselves in use by over a dozen foreign armies and by the Marines for a couple of decades. It was about time the Army caught up. It made those brigades much easier to deploy strategically by air transport.

    As for berets, I recall seeing an Air Force MP (AP??) wearing a blue beret back 40-plus years ago. And I think I have seen recent TV coverage of AF in berets. But shame on me and you for turning this post into another fashionista rant.

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  12. Ah, yes, the politicization of the flag ranks. On two or three occasions, Rummy formally suggested legislation the Congress to make GOs the equivalent of appointed members of the administration. He expressed, on the first pass, that no president should have to work with members of the JCS that were appointed by his predecessor, and thus wanted Title 10 amended to make the terms of these billets coincide with presidential terms and extendable, by the Executive, for the full length of a president's tenure.

    Second, he wanted to make the SecDef the main player in selecting officers for flag rank promotions, not internal service selection boards.

    Third, he proposed that once a flag officer was in a three star or higher billet, the SecDef could extend him in that grade and billet indefinitely without Congressional confirmation. This included billets within the individual services that are generally the purview of the service chiefs to nominate.

    Lastly, he wanted ALL officer assignments to the Joint and DOD staff to be SecDef vetted and selected. By all, that means officers of every rank. He did not like the services filling billets on these staffs based upon the services' determination of the best interests of the DOD. Thus, MAJ Snuffy could be nominated by the Army to such an assignment, but the final decision would be in SecDef hands. Or, SecDef could simply select an officer he wanted for these assignments without Service Chief concurrence or involvement.

    With each legislative request in this series of desired personnel policy desires, Military Times Publishing Co. raised a stink in their editorial pages, and Congress, in a rare stroke of responsible behavior, never let his ideas get beyond quick rejection in committee.

    Of course, Rummy moved quickly and brilliantly to advance sycophant flag officers or neutralize as many as possible who did not buy his new approach to war fighting. I am willing to bet that Little Tommy 4 Star still hasn't figured out that his willingness to buy the Rumsnamara approach to war fighting enabled the failure in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    As to the RMA itself, yes, we in uniform didn't do so great a job of that. Unfortunately, the seductive siren of technology led to many dumbass actions. Sadly, technology skewed thinking from how to support doctrine with technology to how to make doctrine fit technology. Issues that were thought to be able to be enhanced or improved by technology were moved into the foreground, while those that could not were left to wither on the vine.

    But back to Rummy. I think that he was truly frustrated in dealing with a military to which he could not apply private sector "fire at will" personnel policies. While he seems to have wanted everyone in uniform to defer to his own conclusions and way of business, probably the most perverted notion of what is "loyalty", his very refusal to consider, in any regard, sealing the victory in Iraq by a Phase IV plan, strikes me as one of the most disloyal acts of a Cabinet member in my memory. As time helps historians sort this period out, I am willing to bet that we will find that Rummy saw himself subservient to no one and no thing, to include the Constitution. The irony of it all is that while neo-cons may not want a truly independent judiciary, but in Rummy, they got a virtually independent SecDef, setting the tactics and strategy (or lack thereof) to suit his own goals.

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  13. Back in 1970, while we were putting Colonels through flight training, then COL, and flight student, John Vessey, another student COL and I discussed Nixon's commitment to ending the draft. Vessey was concerned for a variety of reasons.

    One, he was concerned about the payroll costs associated with making military service competitive with the civilian labor market. There were two prongs to this. First was an inevitable erosion of benefits as bean counters would argue that the military members could now afford to pay for what they were receiving in the form of benefits to offset low wages, and that the benefits lost would have much greater intrinsic value than the dollars saved. Second, he worried that as payroll costs escalated, pressures would arise to save dollars by reducing the size of the force, thereby causing a significant impact on capabilities.

    Two was the shift in demographics that an AVF would cause. Obviously, Nixon was pandering to the states that had significant antiwar feelings. The end of the draft would allow the residents of these areas to withdraw from involvement in the issue of military service long enough to become divorced from any personal investment/responsibility military force decisions. Additionally this demographic shift would deny the force the influence and benefit of valuable demographic groupsa in the ranks.

    Lastly, he worried that putting the full breadth of the populace outside any regular and continuing personal involvement with maintaining a military force would allow elected leaders too much latitude in making the initial decision to initiate hostilities, delaying negative reaction to less than wise choices until after the first shot was fired and a "Rubicon was crossed".

    Of course, Nixon chartered the Gates Commission to study the subject, and the death of the Draft is history. Of relevance to this thread is that Herbert Klein, who served as Nixon's first Director of Communications, 1969–73, recounts:

    Once in office in 1969, Nixon found he had made a campaign promise opposed by much of the top military brass, many of his supporters in Congress and his two top military-oriented appointees, national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, and defense secretary, Mel Laird. A very vocal volunteer force supporter was a young congressman from Illinois, Don Rumsfeld, who introduced legislation supporting the proposal; and while Senate and House hearings were held on his bill, nothing happened. Rumsfeld later joined the Nixon staff.

    So, to me, John Vessey was not only a pretty respectable Chairman of the JCS, we was quite the futurist!

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  14. Al,

    As my wife and I are products of the AVF, we don't think's it's so bad and I think a draft causes more problems than it solves.

    Personally, I would like to see a bigger reserve/guard force (one more geographically distributed than it is now) and a smaller active-duty force, but that will require changing some of our alliance commitments, not to mention getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I also think there should be a "war tax" as long as we have troops fighting on foreign soil. Politically impossible, I know....

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  15. Nady-

    To be an instigator, might I ask what problems a draft causes? Do you mean in making a war unpopular, as in Viet Nam? I think that if one checks timelines, Iraq became unpopular as fast, if not faster than Viet Nam. Or are you implying that the administration should not be swayed by the "Will of the People"? Or that it is better that a broad swath of the population have no immediate risk in the military adventures of their government?

    Not trying to put words in your mouth, just guessing as to what "problems" a draft might have.

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  16. Andy: The problem right now is that our RA is so small that we are fighting a lot of our foreign expeditions using AR/ARNG assets as galvanized regulars. Check any of the Guard armories around your home station. You'll find that most of the guys there have deployed two or three times if they've been in any length of time.

    This sort of thing just isn't conducive to having "citizen-soldiers". Someone who has been to war for a year or more two or three times in a 6-7 year period isn't a "civilian" in any sense. He's just a soldier on break between wars.

    No American can hold down a regular civilian job with that sort of military commitment. What has happened is that the AR/ARNG have to a great extent emptied out of the people like me, who were standard-issue middle or lower middle class Americans. They are now loaded with young guys in school, more-or-less full time soldiers and a handful of the oldtimers, mostly those who have government jobs on the civilian side that can't find a way to lay them off for their military service.

    Add to that that most Guard units are at 50%-70% strength as it is; Oregon had to cannibalize one of it's infantry battalions to field two for Middle East deployments, and my old artillery battalion is an open joke - not only understrength but incapable of firing FA Table VIII to standard because they have been off the guns for so long.

    So I don't think the "larger AR/ARNG - smaller RA" system would work...

    And the other problem a draft solves is that it actually improves the quality of the Army. By exposing a wider pool of potential soldiers to the service you find yourself with guys who wouldn't have joined up under VolAr conditions but who find that, once in, they like and excel at the work. Some of my best officers and senior NCOs in the early 80's were draftees. Don't believe the VolAr hype - the old draft wasn't just dope-smoking hippies fragging their leaders. It was good for the country and good for the Army.

    War tax? When the hell did we ever get away from the idea of paying for our wars, anyway?

    Christ we've gotten stupid...

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  17. Andy-

    Could you accept this:

    1. A fixed minimum percentage, perhaps 25%, of all recruits to the armed forces (active and reserve) would be selected by conscription. Not just the numbers needed to compensate for volunteers, but a minimum of 25% of all new entrants each year would be conscripted from the general population. Voluntary enlistments would be allowed as shown below, but closed when 75% of the necessary recruits was reached.

    2. In Jan of each year, all males who will be 18 years of age that year must register for the draft. Between that registration and the next January, those who wish, may volunteer for the fixed number of volunteer enlistment slots (active or reserve) for the next year, or enrollment in an available position in a university based military officer training program. The military officer training program will have a mandatory service obligation, to include enlisted service if a commission is not earned or accepted. Once the fixed number of active and reserve volunteer slots are filled, the enlistment program will be closed. Voluntary enlistments will be for 3 years (active) and 8 years (reserve). As is the case today, volunteers will be offered the incentive of some choice in branch of service, career field and active vs reserve, as best meets the needs of the services. Additionally, any fit citizen up to the age of 30 could also volunteer for enlistment or officer training, not just those in the "draft pool". Such enlistments would count against the 75% total, or could be used to meet personnel shortfalls due to attrition during initial training. If the 75% voluntary enlistment total is not reached, shortfalls would be filled with additional conscripts. Indeed, the volunteer slots could be even filled on a competitive basis, with higher GT/physical profile composite scores being accepted first.

    3. In Jan of each year, from the population of males who turned 18 the previous year and who were medically, morally (e.g. -no felony convictions) and intellectually fit, and had not already volunteered for service, a random selection will be made to fill the 25% (or higher) quota for conscripts. This random selection will be for both the active and reserve forces. Conscripts will serve 2 years (active) or 8 years (reserve), and will have no choice of branch , career field, active or reserve. No deferments will be allowed. If you are fit, you are subject to service.

    4. As was the case in the days of the Draft, pay and allowances for service members during the first two years of service would be "Three hots, a cot and medical care" plus a modest amount of spending money (salary). Competing with civilian pay would not begin until a service member had re-enlisted. Since we would be dealing with a very young cohort, the high bill of family benefits would be reduced. The pay level for the first two years should be low enough to discourage troops marrying, as it was during the former draft. Thus we would be establishing a two year period where the primary purpose is national service, not providing jobs that support a family. And a significant cost of a standing military would be avoided, financed, in part by the "sacrifices" of the population at large having to face the possibility of serving.

    I have not addressed females (this is not a discussion of that aspect of national policy) or doctors in the above. Both could be easily included in the computations.

    What the above would do is put the liability for initial military service on young men and families of every part of the population, not just those who "want to" or "need to" (as in a good paying job). Foreign policy decisions pertaining to military operations would have the same impact on every segment of the population. The Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Obama, Pelosi, Madoff, Buffett, Gates and Clinton families would face the same liability of providing a family member to military service as the rest of us.

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  19. My objection to the draft is that it is involuntary servitude.

    One can try disguise this with various legal obfuscations, but in the end it all comes down to forcing people to serve against their will.

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  20. "RMA, rolled out by the Army in the 90s"

    Actually, it was developed by a fringe geek department inside the DoD along with other thinkers back at the time of the Vietnam War and was a lot about the change from many shots per hits to one shot per hit. It was about precision weapons (instead of the extreme ammunition expenditure of the Vietnam War and even mroe excessive nukes).

    The first LGBs used over North Vietnam (to destroy a previously very tough bridge) was a kind of roll-out for RMA in practice.

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  21. Al,

    Considering I'm usually the instigator, I don't mind at all! However, my objections are different from the ones you listed. I have two main objections, which are:

    1. Fairness. Assuming for a minute that any kind of draft is politically possible, our venal politicians will inevitably carve out exceptions from service and those exceptions will go to the connected and powerful, especially considering the small numbers we're talking about (see below).

    2. I don't like the idea of creating what amounts to another class system within the military where one group gets better training, better pay, better benefits than another group. I don't see any benefit to that.

    Let's look at numbers. Approximately 3 million people turn 18 each year in this country. Looking at men-only, that's about 1.5 million potential draftees. About 250k personnel enter the military each year (180k enlist). If we look at your 25% proposal, that means ~63k draftees out of a pool of 1.5 million potential male recruits, or about 4% of the total (2% if women are included). That just seems too small a number to be anything more than symbolic.

    And what are these people going to do? With a 2 year commitment they won't get much in the way of technical training. I'm thinking of the Navy and Air Force here, where I have experience, and it seems to me they'll just end up with all the shit make-work kinds of tasks and won't offer much in terms of fighting capability. I'm assuming they would be infantry in the Army & Marines?

    I admit I'm biased against a draft outside of something like WWII so maybe I'm making a lot of bad assumptions.

    Also, under the system you described it would seem there is a pretty big potential to turn away volunteers. Once the 75% voluntary cap is reached you'd have people who want to join the military but can't and people who don't want to join the military but are forced to. That just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

    I do think your system could work with a much larger military, but I don't think a bigger military is affordable, necessary or advisable at the present time.

    Chief,

    All good points, but in my perfect world a larger Guard/Reserve and smaller regular force would serve as a check on the kind of adventurism we've seen in the last decade. As we are seeing, burning the seed corn can only last so long. Probably wishful thinking, I know....

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  22. So what you are saying is that our nation is better served if no one has a personal stake in war except those who are willing to fight in one and their families? I have had several young troops tell me that since they have volunteered and are fully willing to fight, the greater population should not interfere, but should support that willingness to fight and let them continue the war in Iraq as they (the military) deem best. So, is their view one where the military is an instrument of "The People" or visa versa?

    Additionally, a significant portion of those who have supported the war in Iraq wouldn't don a uniform as long as there was any other choice available. What stake do they have in the war? Bragging rights?

    And how does a larger Reserve force constrain adventurism? We have, without any serious national discourse, changed the reserve components from a strategic reserve to an operational reserve, tolerated by the masses because the reservists are "Volunteers", just like the active force and have chosen to do so. We just call them up in advance for the next adventure, or overstretch the active and then call up the "Operational Reserve".

    The drive to end the Draft was largely based on the difficulties the Executive faced in fighting a voluntary, "unpopular" war. What has always been interesting to me is the notion that "Will of The People" can be discounted when it comes to wars, especially those of choice. War is fought on behalf of and for "The People", and whether we like it or not, "The People" not only have the right to initiate war, they have the right to terminate it, and even lose it. But when 80% of the Young Republicans on college campuses espouse a pro-war platform, but intend to carry no personal risk when doing so, I worry about the course of this nation.

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  23. Actually, what I'm saying is there isn't an easy solution to the problem of getting the American people to take a stake in warfare.

    We have a nation of 350 million people, and about 1.4 million in active duty and another 1.4 million in the guard/reserve, so that's less than 1% of the population combined. What I'm saying is that drafting ~63k people per year for a 2 year committment isn't going to mean much in the end since you'd have, at most, about 150k draftees in service at any one time. I simply don't think that will generate enough of stake to affect policy much, but I could be completely wrong. This is, of course, even assuming a draft is politically possible at the present time and we both know that's not the case.


    I don't have a viable solution Al and I'm not sure one exists. The problem, in my view, isn't because of how we organize our military and therefore can't be solved by reorganizing our military. Hence the reason I labelled by own idea of a bigger reserve force "wishful thinking." The problem resides somewhere else besides military organization. Perhaps it's in our national character, I don't know.

    Look at France, for example. For a while they let draftees transfer from units going to a war zone (so much for having a stake!) and then they ended conscription altogether in 2000 IIRC. They also have, comparatively, a similar number of military personnel (about 1% of population). Despite these similarities they act very differently.

    I think there is one aspect of military organization that does matter and that is our supremely good logistics and infrastructure that allows us to support large numbers of US and allied troops anywhere in the world. We have the world's only true global military force. You want to get rid of military adventurism I think you have to get rid of that capability, and to get rid of that capability you have to, it seems to me, get rid of most of our conventional defensive treaties with our allies. See that happening anytime soon? Me neither.

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  24. Andy sez:

    "Look at France, for example...."

    I had some Legionnaires passing through Baidoa in 92 explain how the system works. Draftees are for the defense of France (proper), ergo you will not find them in their high speed units (as operators). If a unit that is typically designated for use in a foreign contingency sees the balloon go up, any REMFs attached can opt to stay in country. The service will then seek out volunteers to take their place.

    Another cool thing is that: if a legionnaire is faced with the prospect of deploying to his mother country; he does not have to go (though many do), and his career will not suffer because of it. The Us would sneer at this, expecting soldiers to ventilate their own people.

    Hey, that gives me an Idea: After the upcoming adventure in Iran and its' side effects all over the Gulf; Let's Invade Viet Nam (the second time as farce). We have all these Viet Americans in the services now, and they need to cleave with their brothers and sisters to let them know Wass'up with democracy.

    Just think, they could parley with the villagers and show how Spit-swapping COIN should really take place. Yeah, there are a few drawbacks. One, as Bill Lind says, US forces like to wander about until the bump and trip over the enemy (all newer and improved electronic people sensing gizmos notwithstanding); then, pull back apiece and let the almighty combined/coordinated murrican fires deal death. Well deal death, when the lawyers at HQ give the heads up. Well, when the drone that flies over the battlefield (that belongs to the lawyers) is supporting that particular mission, and blesses the fires.
    Well, when your sad assed, broke dick, chai sucking, repetitive visit to village leadership that turns into an X shaped ambush from hell even RATES any support whatso fucking ever.

    Well you get the point. Let's not allow a few potential pratfalls stop America from doing all war, all the Time....It's our number one export.

    Oh, never mind the draft: Max boot sez we shoul enlist furriners who wish to become Americans...sounds like a win-win to me. Besides, we can then seize the Spattlys or is that the Squatlys?

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  25. I know I'm coming late into this most-excellent coffee-clatch discussion. But I have to give Publius some huzzahs for this:

    Don't get me wrong; I think Rumsfeld is a skunk. All I'm saying is that a man in his position needs enablers and his enablers weren't just named Bush and Cheney. A lot of them wore stars.

    How true this was. And sadly, still is.

    SP

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  26. Andy,

    "What I'm saying is that drafting ~63k people per year for a 2 year committment isn't going to mean much in the end since you'd have, at most, about 150k draftees in service at any one time. I simply don't think that will generate enough of stake to affect policy much, but I could be completely wrong."

    This is where I disagree with you. On the surface, from a purely numerical perspective, you are correct. Only 150K people "feeling the pain", however, what about the other 50 million (total swag) who are eligible for the draft. How many people win the state lottery? 5 per year? Yet how many millions play because they feel they have a chance to win. Well, maybe only 150K "win" the lottery, but those other 50 million will surely feel they have a chance in winning and that, IMO, is the point. If you are afraid you or your loved one could be drafted, you have a stake.

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  27. BG,

    Even though it was before my time I look back at Vietnam. There were a total of 1.7 million draftees and almost 18,000 of them died, yet the war still lasted eight years. Our population back then was only around 200 million. Why would a draft today produce different results considering that there would be fewer draftees and fewer casualties?

    Now I'm fully expecting Publius, Al and the other Vietnam vets tell me I have my head up my ass over this one.

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  28. Andy, my point remains that it isn't about actual numbers, just like this entire "war", it is about perceived threat. We do crazy things when we feel that our way of life is threatened, be it a real or perceived threat.

    Why would a draft be different now? Fair question. My belief, is that the draft wasn't done right in Vietnam. Too many exemptions, too many ways out. Those in power, those with money and influence got out of the draft (the same people who had influence to change the policy). My idea of a draft today is a fair draft where there are no exemptions, and therefore that perceived threat is shared equally by all, not just those who have no power to avoid it. I too look forward to hearing from those who lived it about how the draft worked and how effective it was.

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  29. Andy:

    Which eight years are you using?

    Why did you say?
    "yet the war still lasted eight years."

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  30. My problem with the draft during the Vietnam era was that it was used as a club to induce people to enlist in risk-averse jobs - or like Bush Jr into non-deployable units. At the time, the Selective Service Systems Commander General Hershey estimated that the risk of the draft helped to enlist 11 million men into non-combat positions.

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  31. Andy sez:

    "My idea of a draft today is a fair draft where there are no exemptions."

    Ahh, Andy, ever the Shell Answer Man. No exemptions at all unh?....None? That must mean that the previous exemptions were cavalier?
    These "breaks" were probably ginned up by unthinking drones? Have you ever heard of the term "money talks, shit walks."? The latter term more resonant and true than in days of yore (see Citibank Goldman Sachs and company).

    Pray tell, wouldst thou grant us a boon, and reveal to your 'umble audience which exemptions your Lordship would allow to those cretinous enough to be brought before the Colors?

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  32. Andy

    What you have no experience with is that millions enlisted during the draft to exercise a modicum of influence over the branch and MOS they might fill. Further, a significant portion of the officer corps served because of the same situation, enrolling in ROTC, for example, to serve their two years as officers rather than privates. In fact, in my cohort, those who attended college and received an ROTC commission were more likely to have served in Viet Nam that those who enlisted right out of high school, as the enlistees were discharged well before 1965. I would note that of the 98 males in my HS class about 50% served in uniform, and that was a school in an affluent, "old line" NE bedroom suburb that rarely gets visits from recruiters today.

    The 11 million that Gen Hershey talks of are what would be "draft motivated" enlistments and/or entrants into officer programs. Many found that the military was a career they "enjoyed" and stick around beyond their initial obligation. My flight school class had a significant number of guys who chose flying over the draft, and many who were not contemplating an Army career went on to be excellent career officers.

    The decision making model of the 50's and early 60's draft was quite straight forward:

    1. You could take your chances and see if you got a draft notice and serve as assigned if you did, or go on your merry way if you didn't. Thus, you at least faced the risk of service.

    2. You could enlist or enter an officer producing program. Thus, you "surrendered" to the risk, but would have a modicum of control over the nature of service you performed.

    It wasn't until the ins and outs of deferments allowed the privileged to disproportionately avoid the Draft that the Draft itself became a major villain, not just the policy decision to pursue the war. These deferments were primarily a way to diminish the risk placed upon the more privileged sector of society, in hope that they would thus not oppose the war.

    The AVF was a way to make the avoidance of military service by the privileged an guaranteed choice. If one looks at the socioeconomic demographics of the AVF, the burden of service now falls even more so on the same folks that were "victims of the inequity of the Draft". We even admit that low unemployment is a significant barrier to recruiting, as people who can find jobs are not as likely to enlist. The net result is that the privileged now can avoid any risk of military service and claim the moral high ground when they do so. Please note that my hypothetical allows for no deferments for the physically, morally and intellectually fit. The potential for national service is the priority social need, not a secondary or tertiary one.

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  33. Comparing the practices of other countries to the US or trying to apply them in the US is ridiculous. First, from a purely sociological point, the US hasn't fought a "Home Game" since 1865, and thus our population has no idea of the horror of war. I drink coffee regularly with men just a few years older than I who suffered a foreign occupation and had brothers and friends killed fighting in the resistance, right here on this island. Some were expelled from their ancestral homes to quarter occupying troops. Others were met at the dock to have their catch of fish confiscated to feed the occupiers. Others had their harvests confiscated for the same purpose. It's a lot easier to send volunteers (someone else) to wage war on the homeland of someone else when you have never suffered the impact of war being delivered to your back yard.

    Second, if we are going to position ourselves as the "world's policeman and greatest power", a public policy decision, should not the public face the risk and consequences of such a selected role? The people of France or Germany or Spain or Greece, for example, do not elect our leaders and set our foreign policy, the people of the US did. So if we are going to accept the role of big kid on the block, what responsibility do "We The People" each accept when we take on that role? We have definitely structured our expeditionary military in a manner that any and all individual risk for public policy is voluntary. If a person can support a military expedition, and the attendant death and destruction, without the assumption of any risk, does that provide for rational, measured decision making? Especially when it is combined with a society that exhibits excessively egocentric, greedy exploitative behavior as one of its defining characteristics?

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  34. Ya'll might find this interesting . . .

    Parameters has made available all their old articles dating back to the early 70s.

    http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/1972/butler.pdf

    A view of the AVF when the draft was still in the process of being phased out.

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  35. Seydlitz-

    Thanks for the reference. If memory serves me, several of the "harmless" experiments of the MVA that the author justifies (beer vending machines in the barracks, topless dancers in the clubs, and long hair, for example) were later abandoned as prejudicial to good order. I remember the topless dancers quite well at Ft Hood, and the post commander who felt it harmless until his wife pointed out that NCO wives were employed in this capacity, to include the stag bar at the O-Club! Caused him to re-evaluate the practice and terminate it post haste.

    Interestingly enough, COL Butler was pointing out potential recruiting/manpower strains in fielding an Army twice the size as today and not envisioning a protracted war. And until the economy tanked,today's smaller Army needed to incorporate all of the less than desirable recruiting/retention practices he identifies and still didn't make goal for a few years.

    But most interesting, from my viewpoint, is his early statement, "The need to do something about the pressing social problems in our country, such as the plight of our cities, poverty, ecology, and education, is clearly evident. But our efforts to solve these problems may very well be wasted if our nation has no effective military force to support her national interest. Thus we must accept the premise that the United States needs a strong military force; and once this premise is accepted, the question then becomes how best to raise and maintain that force in a democratic society." My question is who is "we" and why must the "we" he identifies "accept the premise that the US needs a strong military". In a democratic society, "The People" retain the right to determine whatever "the People" desire, and that includes what kind of military force they wish to raise and maintain. One needs to be cautious that we are not using an AVF to subvert the "Will of the People", or at least blunt it by making the ramifications of a policy decision as remote to the population as possible.

    34 years after Col Butler's monograph, enough American voters found a war fought by volunteers drawn from less than 1% of the population distasteful enough to begin the process of tossing out the political party that initiated and supported that war. It wasn't the Draft that caused the problems the AVF was created to avoid. It was bad public policy.

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  36. Al -

    I have to fess up, as it was me and not Andy that denigrated General Hershey's solution of "draft-motivated". I respect your response. And I do believe we should have some form of draft. But I still have concerns about giving gold-plated assignments like the ones given to Bush Jr where he was guaranteed no deployment.

    mike

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  37. Aviator 47,
    Your cmts on force structure etc.. lead to my cmts , but they are off topic from where you guys are going. Pls excuse my diversion.
    If we look at echelons above corps and discuss Theater Army operations we must go in a big circle and then discuss the Division slice of support, both CS and CSS.
    This is where we will lose the next war since this is being sold out to the lowest bidder. Can anyone imagine a Red Ball Express of contractors trying to provide the tactical commanders at every level supplied with beans and bullets and all essential log support?
    I want to write about this but can't find any real official sources to illuminate my point, so I ignore this as a topic. But this is where we'll fail in a REAL war. How we play now it's fine in a play/phony war but it just won't float in the real deal.
    Just my 2 cents. All the other stuff we are talking is theory and management stuff but the essential organic slice of support is gone, gone , gone. Not very auspicious for future endeavors.
    jim

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  38. Aviator 47,
    Your cmts on force structure etc. lead to my cmts, but they are off topic from where you guys are going. Pls excuse my diversion.

    If we look at echelons above corps and discuss Theater Army operations we must go in a big circle and then discuss the Division slice of support, both CS and CSS.

    This is where we will lose the next war since this is being sold out to the lowest bidder. Can anyone imagine a Red Ball Express of contractors trying to provide the tactical commanders at every level supplied with beans and bullets and all essential log support?

    I want to write about this but can't find any real official sources to illuminate my point, so I ignore this as a topic. But this is where we'll fail in a REAL war. How we play now it's fine in a play/phony war but it just won't float in the real deal.

    Just my 2 cents. All the other stuff we are talking is theory and management stuff but the essential organic slice of support is gone, gone , gone. Not very auspicious for future endeavors. Boots on the ground are useless w/o laces.

    jim

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  39. This is Almost Drafted, checking in from Switzerland...

    First, the last time this topic came around, didn't someone point out that the military (in the person of Creighton Abrams, maybe? I forget...) tried to do exactly what's been suggested -- discouraging military adventures by putting in place the the current NG/Reserve system?

    That didn't work out so well. Maybe because the Bush-Cheney-Rummy team was more blackhearted than anyone could have possibly expected, and
    therefore guarded against.

    I'm for the draft, even though I was only 'almost drafted.' Yeah, it's involuntary servitude, which sucks, but there's a lot of precedent for the draft. The words "involuntary servitude" don't appear in the US Constitution. And the phrase "the Constitution is not a suicide pact" has been used for a long time -- not just since 2001.

    Mostly I think Al's scheme is a thing of beauty. But I would allow deferments. And I don't think there would be anything wrong with requiring 4-year commitments for the USAF and Navy instead of a 2-year commitment for the Army and Marines. Some people just don't like to wear green, excuse me, camo.

    When I once mentioned my desire for a draft to a young co-worker, he said, "What's in it for me?" I said what matters is what's in it for the US military services. He just looked at me blankly.

    But I would not have those 2- vs. 4-year commitments for the reasons that Andy put forth. I was in for 4 years, in a relatively technical
    field, and it was said that this gave me 4 years of experience. What it actually gave me was one year of experience 4 times. So I don't think most training in either the two- or four-year branches would be wasted operationally.


    Finally, there would have to be some kind of lottery to choose those subject to the draft. Let's say people get the equivalent of one lottery ticket.

    I would give 10 such lottery tickets to the draft-age children of US Representatives and Senators. Maybe it's unfair to visit upon the sons (and daughters) the sins of the father. But the Like the man said, when making ham&eggs, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed.

    Cheers,

    JP

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  40. Jim-

    Contracting is a very harmful outgrowth of the AVF. First, it was, as COL Butler writes, civilianizing tasks not perceived to be central to "core mission". Then it became a way to hold uniformed strength down with the attendant move of $$$ from the Personnel Account (severely fenced) to the O&M Account (much easier to play free and easy). Ultimately, it became a de facto onbjective in itself.

    However, far more worrisome than whether the contractors will deliver when the heat is on, contracting out support services has dramatically changed the relationship between a commander and his troops and their welfare.

    When I first took "The Oath" my food, billeting, supply, equipment maintenance, and primary medical care were the direct responsibility of and under the command of either my company CO or my Bn CO, and delivered by my fellow Marine. My pay was under the command of Division or installation commander. That's just some of the key functions, and they were immediate commander functions in garrison and in the field. Six years later, when I transferred to the Army, the same was true. Yes, "school house" situations departed from this at times, but deployable units did not.

    Now, we have a couple of generations of commanders who have never had the direct responsibility for these vital functions for their troops. They have never fed, housed, equipped, maintained or paid their troops. Is it any wonder that troops went off to war without vital or proper protective equipment, or under armored Humvees? Is it any wonder that no one on the active side of the Army foresaw the pay nightmares that mobilized Reserve and National Guard troops would face? It's real hard, once the shit hits the fan, to suddenly look after troop support issues that you have never had to address in your career.

    Further, once upon a time, soldiers "owned" their unit areas and their post. Now, they are virtually tenants. General appearance and maintenance of Stateside installations is tended by contractors. I had to laugh when the Ft Lewis Commander a few years ago said that retirement ceremonies would be curtailed because there weren't contractor funds available to mow the parade field! Wasn't his "fault" or "responsibility". The Congress wasn't giving the Army enough money for installation upkeep and Iraq. So soldiers simply stopped bidding a dignified sendoff to their retiring comrades in arms because contractor funds were lacking.

    In addition to your valid observations, Jim, the outsourcing/contracting of our military tasks has removed commanders and troops alike from some of the most sacred trusts in the military. And a major reason for this is the AVF.

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  41. jp-

    Actually, Jim answered, obscurely, your Abrams Plan question. Abrams sought to put the "Tooth" in the Active Army and the "Tail" in the Reserve Components. Since the "Tooth" cannot conduct major or sustained operations without a robust "Tail", mobilizing the Guard/Reserve would be entailed in any initiation of a possible major or prolonged adventure. Thus, a modest check on blind ambition or idiocy.

    But Mr Rumsnamara simply contracted out the "Tail", reducing the need for Reserve Component mobilization by what, some 80,000 per year. Lacking contractors, Army RC units would have been rotating in and out of Iraq almost as frequently as the Active.

    Clever bastard, that Rummy.

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  42. Lovely little snippet from Pat Lang:

    "My god, Perrino, why should Obama possibly care if any of these generals have been "alienated?" What he should want is that they should live in fear of relief from command for failure or insubordination. These are highly ambitious, overly political men who have been taught by fools to think they have a policy role."

    Heh.

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  43. Chief,

    That is a great snippet from Lang, one of his best I think.

    Al,

    I agree in principle with a lot of your points about the positives of the draft, but I simply don't think it is worth it after considering the negatives.

    And consider how the AVF provides limits on what Presidents can do because of the necessity to recruit and because of end-strength inflexibility. Imagine what Bush could have done if he'd had the draft! With Congress in the hands of the GoP it would be easy to create a much bigger Army for even bigger blunders - heck maybe enough that he might have taken Cheney's advice and attacked Iran!

    I don't want to give government that kind of power unless it's for the big-one. It's certainly power I wouldn't give government during peacetime regardless. If we had the draft right now I bet we'd be sending 130k troops to Afghanistan and not just 30k.

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  44. Andy-

    I would go back and look at why the draft was ended. The whole idea was to make it easier to wage a war (or other combat operations) without it becoming "unpopular" too quickly. It was not to create a better military. The Butler paper shows that the objective force was a Cold War level Army over twice the size of what we have now, and envisioned the Reserve Components as a strategic, not operational reserve. To bee quite frank, few of his underlying assumptions and predictions have passed the test of time. The paper was pure and simple apologetics for a policy decision the Army had no choice but to accept.

    As to what size force could be sent to Afghanistan, I would invite you to remember that after 4 years of LBJ's piddling around in Viet Nam, Nixon ran on a platform of withdrawal from the war AND termination of the draft to capitalize on popular sentiment against BOTH. And, you can't say, based upon US history that it is only because of no real and present danger of combat service, that the Draft plunked merrily along from 1948 until 1968. The Korean War did nothing exceptional to undermine support for the Draft. It was the specifics of Viet Nam that turned the people against the war and the Draft that made people serve in that war. The people began asking, "What the f**k are we doing, and why should we doing it in the first place?", and their elected officials and military could not provide clear and consistent answers. Fast forward to 2004, and we see the digitally enhanced version of the same screen play, only this time we are addressing two wars.

    While I hope I do not offend you personally, I must offer that you are changing the original underlying history, assumptions and objectives of the AVF to support the practice as it stands today. The AVF was to minimize the restraints of popular opposition to military adventures on elected officials by eliminating what they perceived as the major obstacle to a relatively free hand, the Draft. Of course, what we see today in terms of Iraq and subsequently Afghanistan is that the risk of involuntary military service is not the only cause of public opposition to a dumb ass war or poorly executed one.

    Now, while Nixon and Co wanted a more friction free hand at the trigger, GEN Abrams cleverly rewickered the composition of the force so that when the "tooth" was committed, it required calling up the reserve component "tail", which has historically required general public support. Read US history and see the difficulties the federal government had in calling up the state militias (the generally used form of conscription at the time) for combat service, to include the Civil War. Abrams saw calling up the reserves as a counter balance to the desired freer hand envisioned by the AVF. Yet, even with an AVF, the last administration had to lie and use sleight of hand, before the fact, to launch the invasion of Iraq. Even with the threat of involuntary service completely gone, it only took a couple of years for support of this war to go down the toilet.

    My point is that it is not a matter of how good a force we can assemble with volunteers. My question is whether we want a military force that the party in power, which is a transient thing that is not "God ordained and eternal", feels more constrained or less constrained to employ. And, should that constraint or lack thereof arise from "The Will of the People" and that Will alone? I vote for a more personally informed and involved consent.

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  45. Al,

    I would go back and look at why the draft was ended. The whole idea was to make it easier to wage a war (or other combat operations) without it becoming "unpopular" too quickly. It was not to create a better military.

    That may be true (I don’t know), but it is 35 years later and whatever the original intent, the AVF is what it is. I don’t think it’s turned out so bad.

    As to what size force could be sent to Afghanistan, I would invite you to remember that after 4 years of LBJ's piddling around in Viet Nam, Nixon ran on a platform of withdrawal from the war AND termination of the draft to capitalize on popular sentiment against BOTH.
    Yes, and how did that work out? The draft continued for four years and the war continued for almost six. IMO the draft did more to enable Vietnam than it did to end Vietnam. Without the draft, LBJ couldn’t have escalated nearly as much as he did. It took many years for the opposition to build up enough political steam to have an effect on policy by which time the “damage” was done. So when you say this:
    My question is whether we want a military force that the party in power, which is a transient thing that is not "God ordained and eternal", feels more constrained or less constrained to employ.
    I think you are missing my point that there isn’t much evidence the draft has constrained employment of military force. It certainly didn’t in Vietnam with LBJ. I don’t think it would have constrained Bush (but I’d love to hear a contrary argument). The reason for that lack of constraint is, I think, because draft-based opposition only kicks-in down the road when the war turns out to be longer and more difficult than what was expected or advertised.
    The constraining effect of the draft is also dependent, it seems to me, on the odds of getting drafted. I talked a bit earlier about the demographic changes since Vietnam and if the draft existed today, the odds of getting drafted would be much, much lower, hence less draft-based war opposition.

    While I hope I do not offend you personally, I must offer that you are changing the original underlying history, assumptions and objectives of the AVF to support the practice as it stands today.

    No offense at all! I said before I am biased toward the AVF. IMO how the practice “stands today” is much more relevant and important than the “original underlying history” etc. Whatever the origins or intentions of those who created the AVF, the military has moved beyond and outgrown that IMO.

    The AVF was to minimize the restraints of popular opposition to military adventures on elected officials by eliminating what they perceived as the major obstacle to a relatively free hand, the Draft.
    Let me ask you this: Which war since 1973 would a draft have prevented?

    Yet, even with an AVF, the last administration had to lie and use sleight of hand, before the fact, to launch the invasion of Iraq. Even with the threat of involuntary service completely gone, it only took a couple of years for support of this war to go down the toilet.

    Would a draft have prevented that? I say no, it wouldn’t have made a difference at all. I think a draft may shorten long, stupid and unnecessary wars, but I don’t think it will do much of anything to prevent them or constrain venal and dishonest leadership.

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  46. Part 1

    Andy "I think a draft may shorten long, stupid and unnecessary wars, but I don’t think it will do much of anything to prevent them or constrain venal and dishonest leadership."

    Finally, you have attributed a public benefit to the Draft!.

    As far as how long it took Nixon to end the Draft, keep in mind that he assumed office with 500,000 people deployed to Viet Nam, and to simply shut down the draft would have been damn near impossible without a true battlefield disaster. After all, his mantra was "withdrawal with honor". If you look at what he did upon taking office, he immediately began the draw down, instituted a Lottery for the Draft to try to take some of the inequality out if it, suspended all conscription in Nov and Dec of 1969. In short, he did move toward both withdrawal and the end of conscription continuously during his first term in office.

    Now, the AVF was never established for altruistic reasons. And, while we can speculate as to whether or not the presence of conscripts would or would not have influenced Bush's decisions, the fact is that at least two of his key henchmen (Darth Cheney & Rumsnamara) were of the original cabal that believed (and ideological belief trumps intellectual inquiry in the GWB years) that an AVF could be wielded freely without the threat of significant public outrage. Yet, lies were in the forefront, just in case, I guess.

    As to which war since 1793 might have been prevented, I claim no inside knowledge as to an answer, and to be intellectually honest, there is no way to answer that question. Are you saying that if no intellectually honest answer can be made and therefore the AVF is fully supported and the Draft is debunked?

    My point is that the AVF was created to reduce the restraints on the elected government. It is clear that the Bush administration perceived little or no restraints in terms of Iraq, at least domestically. When public support started going to shit, however, GWB & Co took every advantage to let us know that the "troops believed in their mission" and therefore doubters should back off. A second recurring theme was that the citizenry should support these brave volunteers, which was code for "support my war". As to the former, the Constitution does not place the authority to engage in and continue war in any way, however minuscule, on the belief of the troops in their mission. IIRC, the authority is placed in the hands of duly elected representatives of the people, who are subject to being terminated at specified intervals if the public so desires.

    It's nice that you are satisfied with the AVF, Andy. Of course, you have no choice, as "The People" gave their consent to an AVF rather than a program of conscription. I spent 13 out of 35 years in a force with conscripts, and we did just fine those first 13 years. Conscripts and those motivated by conscription brought a hell of a lot of talent to the ranks. We were never defeated on the battlefield. The war I served in with conscripts suffered the same fate as any other really bad foreign policy decision, but that fate was not due to the quality or lack thereof of the conscript enabled military.

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  47. Part 2

    Perhaps thinking that an AVF would reduce public reaction to stupid policy was bad policy in itself. Of course, we have no way to know, as there is no way to run a controlled experiment. What we do know is that the AVF has resulted in a very payroll expensive, piss ant sized Army that requires huge contractor support to cover it's TOE weakness, and is not large enough to occupy a third world country after we have toppled it's government and destroyed its military, even if such a toppling and occupation had been well advised, possibly doable and didn't raise the wrath of the population. Whether or not a doctrinally sound occupation could have accomplished anything in Iraq, the military wasn't large enough to conduct one. Again, we can toss out all the conjecture in the world as to whether an occupation would have made a difference, but we couldn't and didn't conduct one, and no controlled experiment is possible.

    So, for the supporters of wars of choice and unfettered military adventures, the AVF was an abject failure in achieving that objective. Be men and stand up and admit it. The sheeple may be slow on the uptake, but their reaction to dumbass conduct of war in the 60's and 2000's has been the same. They call bullshit, with or without a draft. What saddens me greatly is that so many members of my profession have allowed themselves to be willing shills in this whole self deception. You and your wife, Andy, were sent to war because GWB & Co thought that no one would care enough to pitch a bitch when willing volunteers were sent to kill in the name of "The People". OOOPPPSSS. Guess again, George.

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  48. And just to be an instigator, Andy...when you say "I don't think it's turned out so bad" I'd argue "How do you know?"

    Let's face it; the VolAr hasn't faced a peer foe. Ever. Draftee armies met in the Civil War, fought peer competetors in WW2, WW2 (and Korea, if you count the PLA) and Vietnam. In all five American land power, their naval and (post-1917) air support elements generally gave better than they got. You can argue that we didn't face the Kaiser's Army at it's best and never matched the German Heer in open battle but in general, the record of our conscript armies is pretty decent against comparable foes.

    Who does the VolAr have on it's battle streamers? Iraq? We saw what those poor sods were made of.

    Thre's no dubt our troopers are well trained. There's no doubt that we WERE technically and tactically far more proficient than anything else out there, and probably remain better than the Russian and Chinese main forces, which are the closest thing to peer competetors we have at the moment. AND we have an immense edge in air and sea power.

    But imagine, say, one of our ACRs having to go head-to-head with an Israeli armored brigade, or a dug-in Swiss infantry regiment, or a British armoured brigade. Or resurrect Rommel's 21st Panzer Division, give it six months to train up with Brads and M1s. Are we THAT good?

    The Brits thought their small professional Army was pretty hot shit in 1914 and 1939, too. Didn't turn out that they were all that. It was just that spending most of their time in the tules thrashing wogs made them look like world-beaters.

    Us..?

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  49. Al-

    I'm glad you liked the Butler piece. I thought you would.

    Howsabout this?

    from a certain young Captain . . .

    http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/parameters/1979/1979%20bacevich.pdf

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  50. Al,

    Finally, you have attributed a public benefit to the Draft!.

    The draft is not wholly negative and I don’t think I ever said it was. In fact, looking back a few comments I said this: I agree in principle with a lot of your points about the positives of the draft, but I simply don't think it is worth it after considering the negatives.

    I guess I have explained my position poorly, so let me start again. My position is that it doesn’t pass a cost/benefits test unless a draft becomes necessary for a successful war effort. So I think a draft is completely appropriate and necessary for wars (primarily large ones) where enough manpower cannot be raised through volunteers. I don’t think a draft should be the “default,” I think it is only appropriate for times when it is truly necessary. Therefore, I don’t think the draft should be used or seen as a tool to attempt to engender social goal or values on the American public. In my view that goal is a chimera. I also don’t think a draft is an effective tool for restraining or limiting stupid wars. There’s no evidence it’s been successful in doing that and I think there’s some evidence for the opposite conclusion. Without the draft, there never could have been 500k troops in Vietnam to begin with. Without a draft, LBJ wouldn’t have been able to escalate. So while I partially agree with this:

    My point is that the AVF was created to reduce the restraints on the elected government.

    …I’d also point out that an AVF limits manpower which is a restraint on policy options. So, at best, going to an AVF is trading one set of restraints for a different set. Additionally, the AVF isn’t something new – it’s what our country has had for most of its existence. Peacetime conscription like we had post-1940 was a departure from tradition.

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  51. Part 2

    It's nice that you are satisfied with the AVF, Andy. Of course, you have no choice, as "The People" gave their consent to an AVF rather than a program of conscription.

    Of course I have a choice since I am a volunteer. You think I would be better off if “The People” decided to give their consent and force me into a term of involuntary servitude instead?

    What we do know is that the AVF has resulted in a very payroll expensive, piss ant sized Army that requires huge contractor support to cover it's TOE weakness….

    That’s a recent development which gets back to your original post on Rummy. There’s inherent in an AVF that requires it be payroll expensive and requiring contractor support. It didn’t begin to become that way until the late 1990’s. As for “piss ant” sized, what’s the problem with that? I don’t think we need a bigger military and if there ever comes a day when we really and truly do need one, then we can institute a draft to make up any shortfall in volunteers.

    You and your wife, Andy, were sent to war because GWB & Co thought that no one would care enough to pitch a bitch when willing volunteers were sent to kill in the name of "The People".

    Well, that’s the bargain anyone who volunteers for military service makes regardless of whether a draft exists or not. And again, I can vote with my feet once my obligation is up. What can a conscript do? They would be sent to war by GWB & Co just the same.

    Chief,
    And just to be an instigator, Andy...when you say "I don't think it's turned out so bad" I'd argue "How do you know?"

    I don’t disagree with any of your points except to point out that in the Civil War the vast majority of combatants were volunteers. Also, I am not claiming that draft armies can’t perform well on the battlefield – I’m claiming that a draft is both unnecessary and ill-advised in peacetime or in circumstances when there are sufficient volunteers to meet military needs.

    And Al, that last point is what troubles me most about your proposal to conscript 25% of the force regardless of circumstance. I can’t think that it would ever be a good idea to turn people away who want to fight or join the military while, at the same time, forcing people to serve who don’t want to simply to meet some arbitrary calculus.

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  52. Andy: I think you are making the fundamental mistake of assuming that the good of the service is paramount. It isn't. If some people have to serve while some who would volunteer are turned away in order to benefit the republic, then that's what needs to happen. Somehow we seem to have fallen into this logical fallacy that the good of the military services is identical to the good of the nation. That has often been mistaken and in some cases has been diametrically opposed.

    The "arbitrary calculus" is designed to bring the military back into subservience to the People. Anything less is asking for a Caesar to roll the dice.

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  53. And I would add that to compare the volunteers of the Civil War - who joined to either preserve the Union or to fight for their independence - to the volunteers like me, who joined for some mild patriotism and for adventure and a paycheck comes perilously close to mockery.

    There really is no comparison. The closest you could come to our VolAr is to the army of imperial Britain, really. Different critter entierly.

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  54. Andy-

    You wrote: Therefore, I don’t think the draft should be used or seen as a tool to attempt to engender social goal or values on the American public. In my view that goal is a chimera. I also don’t think a draft is an effective tool for restraining or limiting stupid wars. There’s no evidence it’s been successful in doing that and I think there’s some evidence for the opposite conclusion. Without the draft, there never could have been 500k troops in Vietnam to begin with. Without a draft, LBJ wouldn’t have been able to escalate.

    As to engendering social goals or values on the people, that is not what I am wishing for our nation. What I am suggesting, no demanding, is that our elected officials need to engender the social goals and values of "We The People" upon themselves. What I find unacceptable about a major goal of the AVF was that it was to lessen the impact of the social goals and values on the decision making of elected officials.

    The fact remains that the AVF did not reduce public opposition to Iraq as compared to Viet Nam. In fact, one could find that opposition rose faster against the Iraqi war. Since these two wars were initiated at different times, in different contexts, and in to achieve different objectives (equally muddles) any comparison between a conscription and volunteer military becomes difficult.

    However, a major purpose of the AVF was to reduce public constraints on the employment of our military by our elected officials. As a citizen, I object to that. As a pragmatist, since the AVF has raised the payroll cost of the military dramatically and still didn't achieve the questionable (in my mind) objective of reducing constraints on elected officials, where is the "cost/benefit" improvement?

    To wage the war in Iraq, WGB used volunteers, reduced taxes and told the people to live the good life. And he still saw public support go down the toilet - rapidly. Now, I'm a funny sort of guy. I truly believe The People have the right (or as the political Right would say, "The God given right") to choose to wage or not wage any war as they see fit. Further, The People have the right to terminate any war as they see fit, and when they see fit. Any tool created to distance The People from the intimacy, responsibility and reality of a war making decision is, to me, counter to the very idea of a "Government of The People, by The People and for The People". The only reason we delegate the task to elected officials is to make the expression of our general will more efficient. Obviously, we can't hold referendums for this type of decision.

    Again, I offer that Korea did not result in the type of public outrage found in Viet Nam nor Iraq. And, Korea was fought with conscripts from a recently reinstated peacetime draft.

    The significant question is whether people were primarily protesting the Draft in the late 60's or the war. Is it not possible that the Draft was the more readily attacked symbol of the war. In those ranks of protesters were many people who were at no risk of conscription, yet they protested vigorously.

    Last, but indeed not least, I am not suggesting a draft imposed upon the people. I am suggesting that in the national discourse that should be encouraged as we try to learn some lessons from the past 8 years, that the concept of military service be addressed in a rational manner, to include our individual responsibilities in the decisions pertaining to war. And from that rational discourse, hopefully The People will direct their elected representatives to enact legislation that is more likely to include citizen involvement, awareness and responsibility in future decisions to wage war.

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  55. OOOPPPSSS The beginning of Para 5 should read

    To wage the war in Iraq, GWB used volunteers, reduced taxes and told the people to live the good life.

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  56. Chief-

    The "arbitrary calculus" is designed to bring the military back into subservience to the People. Anything less is asking for a Caesar to roll the dice.

    Bless you, son. You have such an efficient way with words!

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  57. Chief,

    I think you are making the fundamental mistake of assuming that the good of the service is paramount.

    That’s not what I’m assuming at all. This is all about the good of the nation and meeting the nation’s legitimate military needs. Way back upthread I mentioned that we probably need to examine our alliance commitments so that we can reduce our need for a large military in the first place.

    I think you guys are making an assumption that a draft is a good thing regardless of circumstances – that it is inherently beneficial. I disagree. We’ve never, to my knowledge, drafted people into the armed forces and turned away volunteers at the same time. The entire purpose of conscription is about raising military manpower and always has been – that is not an argument about the “good of the service” it is an argument about military necessity. I think you and Al are trying to turn conscription into some kind of social program in an effort to make government more accountable. That’s what your arguments point to since rejecting volunteers in favor of conscription can’t be justified by military necessity. So when Al says:

    What I am suggesting, no demanding, is that our elected officials need to engender the social goals and values of "We The People" upon themselves.

    I agree with him about our elected officials, but disagree that a draft is tool to accomplish that goal. I think it’s a completely inappropriate tool – a brutish cudgel that is dangerous to our democracy and unlikely to result in the changes we both want.

    The "arbitrary calculus" is designed to bring the military back into subservience to the People. Anything less is asking for a Caesar to roll the dice.

    Well, it seems to me if the military is potentially not subservient to the people then last thing you want to do is provide a a future Ceasar with the power to increase the size of that military by fiat and compel the people to join and give him allegiance. Most dictatorships use conscription as a means of control, which I don’t think is coincidence. While I do think there are benefits to conscription, I’ve yet to hear you or Al acknowledge any downsides much less how they might be mitigated. You don’t seem to see any danger at all. Your arguments rest on the assumption that a peacetime draft is inherently beneficial to democracy which I think is a questionable assumption at best. You are making what I see is a contradictory argument – that reducing individual liberty and giving the federal government the authority to compel military service absent military necessity will serve to protect the people from a Caesar. I think the opposite – I think it will enable a Caesar.

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  58. part 2:

    And I would add that to compare the volunteers of the Civil War - who joined to either preserve the Union or to fight for their independence - to the volunteers like me, who joined for some mild patriotism and for adventure and a paycheck comes perilously close to mockery.

    Well, if that’s the case, then why did you bring the Civil War into this to begin with? All I did was point out that the Civil War wasn’t fought by conscript armies.

    Al,

    What I find unacceptable about a major goal of the AVF was that it was to lessen the impact of the social goals and values on the decision making of elected officials.

    As I said before, intentions are different than results. Life is filled with intentions that don’t turn out the way one expects them too. You keep focusing on the intentions behind the creation of the AVF and not the results three decades later. In the end, intentions don’t matter – results do.

    Let’s assume for a minute you are correct and the AVF was re-created for the reasons you describe. Now, that raises a question: Did the results of the AVF match what was actually intended? As you have argued, it’s not possible to know if a draft would have made any difference with Iraq and Afghanistan or in any war since 1973, so the answer is “we don’t know.” You seem to believe the answer to that question is “yes” though you’ve said yourself it can’t be proved or disproved. So where does that leave us?

    The fact remains that the AVF did not reduce public opposition to Iraq as compared to Viet Nam. In fact, one could find that opposition rose faster against the Iraqi war. Since these two wars were initiated at different times, in different contexts, and in to achieve different objectives (equally muddles) any comparison between a conscription and volunteer military becomes difficult.

    You seem to make my point for me. You’ve said the intent of the people who wanted an AVF in the 1970s was so it “could be wielded freely without the threat of significant public outrage.” We still had public outrage so why is a full-time draft necessary?

    As a pragmatist, since the AVF has raised the payroll cost of the military dramatically and still didn't achieve the questionable (in my mind) objective of reducing constraints on elected officials, where is the "cost/benefit" improvement?

    First of all, Congress raised the payroll cost of the military dramatically and that is, again, a pretty recent development (over the last decade). Who is to say that Congress wouldn’t give high pay to draftee’s as well, particularly since there is a fairness argument (and probably a legal “equal protection” argument) for making draftee pay equivalent to “career” pay?

    To wage the war in Iraq, WGB used volunteers, reduced taxes and told the people to live the good life. And he still saw public support go down the toilet - rapidly.

    So why do we need a draft? Aren’t there other policy options that would make more sense?

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  59. Ok, I have to make my comments shorter - 3 parts is ridiculous:

    part 3:

    Any tool created to distance The People from the intimacy, responsibility and reality of a war making decision is, to me, counter to the very idea of a "Government of The People, by The People and for The People".

    If you believe the draft is a tool that will further that end, then why have any volunteer component at all? Why limit yourself to 25% and only 63k draftees a year which would hardly be noticed in a nation of 350 million? Why not make our military bigger – say 10 million, and make military service a requirement for everyone? Then you’d guarantee the People – all of them – would understand the intimacy, responsibility and reality of war decision making.

    Again, I offer that Korea did not result in the type of public outrage found in Viet Nam nor Iraq. And, Korea was fought with conscripts from a recently reinstated peacetime draft.

    Yes, however, a draft was a military necessity because there were not enough volunteers. Again, I have no problem with a draft when it is militarily necessary – like Korea, like WWI, like WWII. That’s what a draft is FOR in my opinion.

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  60. Andy-

    I suggest you go back and review the changes in the military pay system following 1973. For starters, prior to 1973, E-1 thru E-4 (conscript or enlistee) were not paid BAQ. Married personnel in those pay grades were not eligible for quarters, and simply received a modest allotment, a very modest allotment, that was sent home to Momma, along with a matching portion of his pay.

    The current entry level pay scales, as well as all higher grades have been elevated to make recruiting competitive with the civilian world. Further, barracks gave way to considerably more expensive dormitories, not out of human kindness, but to recruit and retain. There are many more changes involving significant increased personnel expense that are a direct result of the need to compete with civilian employment.

    The massive growth in the Personnel Account has been as a result of having to pay those dollars to recruit and retain the current force, and a major element is the recruiting salary incentives of the PA as well as a multi-billion recruiting budget.

    The current war required Stop-Loss and changing the Reserve into an operational force, lowered standards and a low end strength to conduct the war in a manner in contravention to doctrine, and probably therefore, a losing manner, in the overall sense. We have simply maintained a military sized upon what we can enlist and pay, not on any strategic need.

    The current wars have nothing to do with our alliances, and in many ways have made us incapable of fulfilling our alliances, so that argument is without merit. We have de facto altered those alliances by being unable to meet any additional commitments.

    At no point did I suggest, in any manner, something even remotely approaching universal military service. Rather, I was suggesting making national service a population wide liability.

    As to comparisons between LBJ and GWB, the former did not have to resort to outright lies to launch our involvement in RVN. Obfuscation began after the original thoughtful, but perhaps misguided decisions. A couple of years after the commitment was made. GWB lied from the outset, thus speeding the public indignation and opposition when the transparently false claims were continued, even in the light of positive refutation. While there is no way to see into a person's actual thoughts and considerations, there is little or no evidence that LBJ took the decision to escalate the war in any way as cavalierly as GWB.

    It is not those that oppose war that concern me, Andy. It is those that do support war, and do so not only at absolutely no personal risk, but as cavalierly as the bulk of the right wing did in supporting the latest adventures.

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  61. Al: "It is not those that oppose war that concern me, Andy. It is those that do support war, and do so not only at absolutely no personal risk, but as cavalierly as the bulk of the right wing did in supporting the latest adventures."

    Aha! Tiebreaker for me. Al and Chief, you've got to watch old Andy. He's gooood. But, IMO, Al put his finger on why I'm calling the game in favor of the draft supporters.

    Boy, I don't pay attention for a couple of days and you guys get a great thread going. Too late now for me to weigh in with any lofty thoughts; besides, you all have covered all of the bases.

    Andy, you're a compelling spokesman for the AVF, but ultimately, it's my sense that the AVF just ain't worth it. First, for a number of reasons, some of which revolve around money, and some of which have to do with who serves and who does not, the AVF is really an inferior force. There are actually no peer competitors in the entire world—no, not the Russians, not the Chinese, not anyone—but our vaunted AVF is really a hollow force. One word: contractors. This is not a full-service military.

    The second reason that the AVF isn't worth it is that the American people, going right along with their jingoistic politicians, are a bunch of imperialist war mongers. This nation does not deserve a hard corps cadre of patriotic citizens who are willing to die for the right of Joe SixPack to take out a subprime loan on a McMansion. It therefore seems that the least we should do as a nation is accommodate all of those "down home" Americans by giving their sons and daughters a chance to die for low interest rates and for exporting the American brand to all of the Wogs of the world.

    You may perhaps detect a bit of disdain for the American people. You would be right. They were the same during Vietnam. Anybody recall George C. Scott's speech at the beginning of "Patton"? The one about Americans loving winners?

    It's stalemates and the perception of losing that Americans hate. They don't give a shit if their youth dies. Just so long as they're winning. That's why I say let's spread the death around. So everybody can be a winner.

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  62. Al,

    When I came into the Navy in the early 1990’s things weren’t much different than you describe – at least in the Navy. Things began to change in the late 1990’s after the draw-down with new “quality of life” policies and additional monies to support them. Service, at least in the Navy, was pretty Spartan back when I joined, which is something that’s really changed a lot in the last decade.

    Regardless, I don’t see how that is relevant since you’d still have to spend most of that money if 75% of your force is going to be volunteers. And yes, a volunteer military is more expensive – it’s obviously easy to control costs with conscription since conscripts don’t have any choice in the matter.

    The current war required Stop-Loss and changing the Reserve into an operational force, lowered standards and a low end strength to conduct the war in a manner in contravention to doctrine, and probably therefore, a losing manner, in the overall sense.

    Yes, and those policies are not sustainable. Unlike conscripts, you can only abuse volunteers for so long. That’s a feature of any system that relies on volunteers.

    The current wars have nothing to do with our alliances, and in many ways have made us incapable of fulfilling our alliances, so that argument is without merit. We have de facto altered those alliances by being unable to meet any additional commitments.

    I never claimed the current wars had anything to do with our alliances. I claimed the size of our military (ie. End strength) does have to do with our alliances and if it were up to me I would reduce some of our commitments so we could reduce the size of our military.

    At no point did I suggest, in any manner, something even remotely approaching universal military service. Rather, I was suggesting making national service a population wide liability.

    I know you didn’t. I was merely suggesting that if subjecting the American people to liability for national service and saving personnel costs are such important goals, why settle for only a 4% draft risk for those males turning 18? That isn’t much of a risk - why not make it at least the 12% that was the average for Vietnam? Drafting 12% of today’s eligible male cohort would cover 3/4 of yearly accessions. This gets back to the point on demographics I made earlier. If you want the draft to really impact Americans to be politically relevant enough to actually affect policy, then you either need to have a much larger military or you need to convert the majority of the current force over to conscription.

    It is not those that oppose war that concern me, Andy. It is those that do support war, and do so not only at absolutely no personal risk, but as cavalierly as the bulk of the right wing did in supporting the latest adventures.

    I think there will always be people who are eager to send others off to war. Most of them are too old to be drafted. At best you might put some small portion of their children at risk. The right wing supposedly makes up about 20% of the population or about 70 million people. I fail to see how drafting a mere 63k people a year is going to have much effect on them, particularly since they are the most likely to take advantage of the inevitable loopholes and outs in a draft system.
    I’m sorry Al, but I still don’t get it and at this point we seem to be on different planes talking past each other.

    Publius,

    Thanks for weighing in. I think I’ve addressed most of your points above and elsewhere so I’ll only respond to this:

    The second reason that the AVF isn't worth it is that the American people, going right along with their jingoistic politicians, are a bunch of imperialist war mongers.

    If that is true then talk of a draft is wishful thinking. If that is true then this whole discussion is entirely and utterly academic – at least and until the warmongers overreach and volunteerism is greatly reduced.

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