Caught up in the draft
As published in UPI by Bob Barr

Monday, November 01, 2004 at 9:00 AM

The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly against legislation to reinstate the use of the draft to fill its military ranks. The vote was, of course, nothing more than an interesting bit of political maneuvering, orchestrated to embarrass a handful of liberal Democrats who were making off-the-wall political statements that Bush had a "secret plan" to reinstitute the draft.

The bill never should have been taken seriously; the possibility of reinstating the military draft, as a necessary response to problems in filling the ranks of our armed forces, should be.

The doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against terrorists has taken root in U.S. foreign policy. Such a policy brings with it a heavy cost in manpower, equipment, infrastructure and money. Making a bad situation worse, these commitments come on top of existing priorities, not in lieu of them. We still will have to guard the demilitarized zone in Korea, police Afghanistan and maintain staging bases in Germany.

Secondly, major cracks are appearing in our all-volunteer military. Beginning with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and continuing through the 343rd Quartermaster unit that recently refused to follow a direct order, the Iraq conflict has exposed real fissures in military discipline and culture. After more than a decade of extended deployments, our volunteer military -- particularly Guard and Reserve units -- is beginning to respond negatively to being taken for granted. Unlike career military personnel who are steeped and trained in a command culture, non-career reservists and Guard personnel are merely on loan from a civilian culture that is increasingly egalitarian and risk-averse.

Moreover, and of longer-term concern is the fact that U.S. society itself is losing the core values that inspire young adults to enter the military in the first place. Contrary to popular opinion, most volunteers do not enter the military for monetary incentives. They do so because they truly believe in the U.S. ideal and want to defend their country. As these values diminish in society as a whole, the job of filling ranks through a voluntary process will become even more difficult.

Take, for example, the school district in Washington state, in which more than 500 parents signed forms barring military recruiters from even contacting their high school aged kids. Walk into any civics class (if you can find one) and see how little emphasis is placed on patriotism, duty and loyalty. Look at how shabbily many employers treat reservists when they're called up for long and repetitive tours of duty. The simple fact is that for many people in the United States, patriotism is a quaint notion that belongs in history book discussions of 1950s culture.

Add these factors together, and what do you get? First, we will see such stopgap measures as the use of private contractors to handle military duties. Eventually, this system will break down, however, because a person will only do so much for money alone and civilians cannot be forced by a military commander -- no matter how high-ranking -- to perform tasks they don't want to perform. Next, we may see the use of military forces of allied third world countries in an essentially mercenary capacity.

Already, we are seeing signs of significant difficulty in filling the military ranks. Our armed service branches realize declining recruitment would set off a potential avalanche of events, so they've worked hard to keep numbers up this year -- to no avail; the National Guard missed its goal by 10 percent. There are serious questions as to whether recent, all-out recruitment efforts have sapped resources from future years to meet short-term goals, and in so doing merely postpone a crisis. There are also concerns that standards have been lowered. And, there is no doubt that all of the services are being forced to devote an increasingly large number of their personnel to recruitment drives rather than direct military tasks. Many former military personnel have responded to call-ups under special programs with a high level of resistance, which may be a harbinger of things to come with Guard and Reserve units.