Wiseacre
Retired USAF Chief
I think we should recruit about 30% of that 200,000. If we were unfortunate enough to have to fight in a declared war, that's when the draft would kick in to supplement those recruited.
So draft about 60,000 of the 200,000? For why, what purpose? How do you decide who gets drafted, you're talking 60,000 out of a couple of million or so eligibles who come out of high school every year. What if a guy doesn't finish high school, does he get drafted or not? Might be an incentive to drop out and not take the risk if you don't want to go. How many people will get drafted and not go? You're going to need a force of people that we don't have now to go find and prosecute 'em, right? I don't know, these guys want to volunteer but couldn't get in, but these other guys didn't want to go and they got put in jail. PR nightmare.
I simply see no reason whatsoever to draft people when you've got enough other people who will volunteer. If I'm not mistaken, the US stopped accepting volunteers at some point during WWII, everybody had to sign up for conscription and took their turn coming in when their number came up. Had too many people at once maybe. But in those days EVERYBODY wanted in, or almost everybody, those who didn't were not well received by the public. Not the case today, we don't have and likely will not have another world war to fight against somebody like the Nazis. There's a lot of guys today who don't want to serve, like in the 60's and 70's.
I see no savings if the total number of new recruits every year remains at 200,000 and the total force remains at around 1.5 -2 million, whatever it is. There's a whole host of problems that come with installing a draft, and no real benefit at all. Look, if you want to reduce the force and eliminate some bases and cut back on weapon systems, that's one thing. I can see it myself, if you could keep the politics out of it and let the military decide for itself how to cut back. After all, they're the ones who know best what is needed and what ain't. Part of the reason for the bloat is because some freakin' senator or representative somewhere wants to save jobs for his district, and it's both repubs and dems who do that.
No. Recruit 70,000.
Draft if we are in a declared war.
Otherwise, keep it at 70,000.
Okay, so you want to reduce the current number of recruits down to 70,000 from 200,000, right? And then increase that number by instituting a draft if a declared war occurs. That means you've got 130,000 fewer newbies coming in every year if there's no war, which means in 5 years your total numbers are cut in half, because you have to shape your numbers in each successive rank to manage the lower ranks.
The real issue becomes what happens if after 5 years you get into a declared war. No war, no problem, but it one does come along you're gonna have a problem cuz you can 't institute a draft to build up your numbers AND train 'em to be proficient, AND equip 'em with the stuff they need in a short timeframe. The old days when you gave a kid a gun and told him to keep his head down and shoot somebody are gone forever. An awful lot of those draftees are going to come home in a bodybag, but hell, at least we saved some money.
Or maybe you think we'll just send the volunteers over somewhere to fight the declared war. Yeah right, you guys go fight and die, but the draftees won't. Yeah, that'll fly real well, how many volunteers do you think you'll get after the 1st war is over? Hell, how many would re-up in such a system? I suspect your retention rates will go all to hell, who'd want to stay in a military that sends you off to war but not these other guys? Fuck that, I'll do my 3 years if I'm unlucky enough to get drafted.
Right now the military says they can fight 2 wars at once, under your plan they really couldn't fight even one, not for long anyway. If I was 18 again and under your scheme, I might volunteer to do 4 years if the benefits were good enough, but I wouldn't re-enlist and stay longer. Your concept would destroy the effectiveness of our military serrvices; yeah you can save some money, but you better not get into a war.
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