A confrontation with Iran at some level appears to be a foregone conclusion. Presidential candidate John McCain has stated that there are scenarios that would necessitate the reinstitution of a military draft. Even with Obama and a Democratic Congress could the law of supply and demand leave them with no choice in the event of a military conflict?
Our troops continue be stretched thin all over the world. Are we one more conflict away from a draft? How big will the conflict have to be? Will we be at war with Iran over nuclear reactors? Will the “cold war” over the North Pole heat up as Russia builds up its Antarctic military defenses? The Antarctic is thought to hold 25 percent or more of the worlds untapped energy resources. Maybe North Korea will fuel up(unleaded of course) one of those Taepodong-1 missiles and lob one over the ocean at us. Wherever it comes from, my gut tells me it will be something different than we expected.
Is a military draft a political issue or a simple issue of supply and demand? Can we predict the future by looking at the politics and economics of past drafts?
The last time we saw a draft was the Vietnam War. The last soldier was drafted in 1972. The draft officially ended in 1973. Prior to that time, the draft was
historically a reaction to a specific military event. President Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Selective Service And Training Act of 1940 in response to the United States entering World War II.
Prior to World War II, the last draft was in response to World War I with the establishment of the original Selective Service Act, establishing local, district, state, and territorial civilian boards to register, classify, examine, and either induct and ship out or defer men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty for service in World War I. The draft was incredibly unpopular and volatile. For the first drawing 50,000 men applied for the very broad exemptions allowed by the first act. More than one quarter million eligible males failed to register at all. There were often mass roundups and arrests of draft dodgers.
The first national “conscription draft” was the Civil War. The North began conscription in 1863 when Congress gives President Lincoln the authority to require draft registration by all able-bodied men between the ages of twenty and forty-five, regardless of their marital status or profession. You were able to pay a fee to have a “substitute” fight in your place. You were also in the clear if you could cough up 300 dollars to the government. The corruption, politics and favoritism associated with the Civil War draft in part set off the New York City Draft Riots depicted in the movie Gangs Of New York.
The Confederate Draft was such a mess that it really never achieved the needed manpower infusion. There was massive non-compliance leading the Confederate states to begin conscripting slaves.
Prior to the the Civil War, the calling up of military was primarily reserved for state militias. The was often conflict between federal authority to call up the militias and the states willingness to comply. This was a particular problem in the War of 1812.
The constitutionality of the draft has been challenged several times. The first time was the very unpopular World War I draft. The United States Supreme court held that the draft was constitutional in the case of Arver v. United States. Lower court cases have followed Arver.
The current military stance is that there is no need for a draft even with any military recruiting shortfalls that may occur. It is the position of military leaders that a draft would actually decrease the quality of the average volunteer solider in the field. All branches of the military have in fact met or exceed their quotas for whatever that is worth. Is the fulfilling of a “peacetime” quota a symbolic and meaningless statistic?
People have been opining and predicting the need for a draft since the Civil War and the riots that followed.. Without exception it has taken a precipitating military event to bring one about. In my mind it is not a right wing versus left wing, Republican versus Democrat argument. There are so many variables and external forces that any prediction bases on political alliances and agendas is futile. I prefer to look at the constant economic variable that has driven world economies since pelts were being traded for food.
It is a very simple formula of supply and demand economics. In any economy external forces/events drive up or lower demand and supply. When demand increases and you don’t have the resources to increase supply, you make adjustments, re-deploy assets, lean out the supply chain. If demand keeps increasing sooner or later the only way to deal with it is to increase your supply by renewing production. Supply chain management is critical in the military on all levels in including the resource no war can be fought without. Poor supply chain management at Sears costs jobs. Poor supply chain enlistment management in the military costs lives.
How many events can our military respond to before the demand for soldiers outstrips our ability to bring in volunteers?
Our military leaders say we are meeting and exceeding retention and recruiting quota in our all volunteer force. That is really a meaningless statement unless we know the formula they use to determine quota. For example, we know that a percentage of the retention quota is being met through the military’s controversial “stop loss” policy. Many of called this policy a “back door draft”. When this is taken into consideration, the numbers do not appear to tell the whole story. It’s like Enron telling their employees they are kicking ass. Unless you know how they came to their conclusions, it is a false and very dangerous sense of security.
The military is a business. It is a poorly managed business. Sooner or later, you will reach a point where it makes more economic sense to force people to go than entice them with all kinds of incentives and bonuses. I have no idea where that point is. When it happens, there is not going to be a vote, a referendum, a debate etc. We will be told its coming and that’s that.
Will there one day be the new “Pearl Harbor” that will cause a massive “patriotic shift” in favor of a draft? I have no idea. Is it naive and “isolationist” to bask in comfort that it will never occur?
What do you think?
©2008 Brian Cuban











June 26th, 2008 at 1:57 am
*Correction* Brian “The last time we saw a draft was in 1973 at the end of the Vietnam War.”
Just as a matter of record, the draft ended in 1973. I don’t make a habit of public corrections, but this is an important fact of record. Wikepedia also has a great piece that covers the term Conscription or involuntary labor or draft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Manpower
The military draft is never a popular decision. In the 60′s when people were getting drafted during the Viet Nam war, some people rebelled so strongly, the burned their draft cards, some moved to Canada and disavowed their U.S. citizenship. I would imagine that would be petty compared to today’s potential draft. I can imagine people running off to college to get a waiver for the draft. I can see many people suddenly finding religion and objecting to war and becoming conscientious objectors.
I think what amazes me about the draft is everyone objects to it, and no one apparntly wants to go to the military, but we expect freedom. I hate to break this to everyone, but freedom isn’t free. We pay for it with our lives. If we have to have a draft, we may need to put border fences at the U.S.-Canadian border to keep Americans IN!
LewPs last blog post..Breakheart Pass on Encore Western Channel on 6-26-08!
June 26th, 2008 at 2:20 am
Lew: I stand corrected.
June 26th, 2008 at 4:27 am
I fail to see what the correction was…
Both say 1973…
June 26th, 2008 at 11:53 am
OK, I think I made the error. When I first read the story, it sounded as though Brian said the draft began in 1973 with some unknown date that it ended. After reading it again, I realized what Brian was saying and I believe he meant to say that was the last time we’ve seen the draft as when it ended.
Nothing else to say about it, let’s move along.
LewPs last blog post..And you thought the Olympics was all fun and games
June 26th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
This war isn’t about freedom. You still believe the BS that is fed to us over the boob tube? Ha. This was and still is about control of the middle east. NO WMD, NO Operation Iraqi freedom, no bin laden, and no 911. This operation was planned before 911, and was documented.
July 9th, 2008 at 5:54 am
We had a very large peace-time draft running from 1948 to the Vietnam War in response to the cold war. It came under attack only because of an unpopular war. There was no significant opposition to the draft until after 1967 when it became apparent that Vietnam was a quagmire and a lot of college students began to lose their exemptions. To blunt the opposition, Nixon switched to a lottery system and then abolished the draft when the US finally pulled out and ran without officially surrendering.
The problems we have to day with any kind of draft is the credibility of the government. Not very many people really believe that the US is threatened by anything more than an incompetent, badly-behaving cowboy in the White House who thinks he is being guided by Jesus.
Iran a threat? Ahmadinejad saw how North Korea made the cowboy kowtow to their demands and knows he can do the same. He is much smarter than Bush and Bush’s advisers know it. So do the Europeans. So I don’t think there is going to be a war with Iran.
But, after we get out of Iraq, I would support a peacetime draft and I think most American’s would. At least as long as we have someone intelligent in the White House. Most European countries have obligatory military service and it is not an issue because their governments are credible and most Europeans believe their governments are really serving them.