Stratfor provides an observation on the draft which they think no one will ever accept, but from a sociological standpoint I would not be the least bit suprised to see an active draft of adult GenXers 10 years from now. But unless the circumstances were dire I would oppose it.

To me, I think the deal with the draft is that if you can't get people to volunteer to sign up for the fight, you're fighting the wrong war. Its not about social equity. Its about the right of people to make their own choices about their lives. In WWII everyone was ready to serve. They had a draft for technical reasons but no one was bitching about non-volunteer soldiers having poor morale. Vietnam, on the other hand, was the wrong war.

Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report - November 21, 2006

A Fresh Look at the Draft

By George Friedman

New York Democrat Charles Rangel, the new chairman of the House
Armed Services Committee, has called for the reinstatement of the
draft. This is not new for him; he has argued for it for several
years. Nor does Rangel -- or anyone else -- expect a proposal for
conscription to pass. However, whether this is political posturing
or a sincere attempt to start a conversation about America's
military, Rangel is making an important point that should be
considered. This is doubly true at a time when future strategies
are being considered in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the available
force is being strained to its limits.

The United States has practiced conscription in all major wars
since the Civil War. During the Cold War, the United States
practiced conscription continually, using it to fight both the
Korean and Vietnam wars, but also to maintain the peacetime army.
Conscription ended in 1973 as the U.S. role in Vietnam declined and
as political opposition to the draft surged. From that point on,
the United States shifted to a volunteer force.

Rangel's core criticism of the volunteer force is social. He argues
that the burden of manning the military and fighting the war has
fallen, both during Vietnam War conscription and in the volunteer
army, for different reasons, on the lower and middle-lower classes.
Apart from other arguments -- such as the view that if the rich
were being drafted, the Vietnam and Iraq wars would have ended
sooner -- Rangel's essential point is that the way the United
States has manned the military since World War II is inherently
unjust. It puts the lower classes at risk in fighting wars, leaving
the upper classes free to pursue their lives and careers.

The problem with this argument is not the moral point, which is
that the burden of national defense should be borne by all classes,
but rather the argument that a draft would be more equitable.
Rangel's view of the military and the draft was shaped by Vietnam
-- and during Vietnam, there was conscription. But it was an
inherently inequitable conscription, in the sense that during most
of the war, deferments were given for students. That deferment,
earlier in the war, extended to graduate school. As a result, by
definition, the less-educated were more vulnerable to conscription
than the more-educated. There were a host of deferments, including
medical deferments, and the sophisticated could game the system
easily. A draft, by itself, does not in any way guarantee equity.

During the final years of the Vietnam-era draft, the deferment
system was replaced by a lottery. This was intended to (and, to
some extent, did) reduce the inequities of the system, although
sophisticated college students with low numbers continued to find
ways to avoid conscription using the complex rules of the Selective
Service system -- ways that the less-educated still couldn't use.
The lottery system was an improvement, but in the end, it still
meant that some would go into harm's way while others would stay
home and carry on their lives. Basing the draft on a lottery might
have mitigated social injustice, but basing life-and-death matters
such as going to war on the luck of the draw still strikes us as
inappropriate.

The switch from deferments to the lottery points out one of the key
problems of conscription. The United States does not need, and
cannot afford, a military that would consist of all of the men (and
now, we assume, women) aged 19-21. That would create a force far
too large and far too inexperienced. The lottery was designed to
deal with a reality in which the United States needed conscription,
but could not cope with universal conscription. Some method had to
be found to determine who would and would not serve -- and any such
method would be either unfair or arbitrary.

Americans remember World War II as, in many ways, the morally
perfect war: the right enemy, the right spirit and the right
military. But World War II was unique in that the United States had
to field an enormous military. While some had to man truly
essential industries, and some were medically disqualified, World
War II was a case in which universal conscription was absolutely
needed because the size of the force had to be equal to the size of
the total pool of available and qualified manpower, minus essential
workers. Unless it suited the needs of the military, no one was
deferred. Married men with children, brilliant graduate students,
the children of the rich and famous -- all went. There were still
inequities in the kinds of assignments people got and the pull that
was sometimes used. But what made the World War II conscription
system work well was that everyone was needed and everyone was
called.

Not everyone is needed in today's military. You might make the case
for universal service -- people helping teachers and cleaning
playgrounds. But there is a fundamental difference between these
jobs and, at least in principle, the military. In the military, you
might be called on to risk your life and die. For the most part,
that isn't expected from teacher's aides. Thus, even if there were
universal service, you would still be left with the dilemma of who
gets to teach arts and crafts and who goes on patrol in Baghdad.
Universal conscription does not solve the problem inherent in
military conscription.

And there is an even more fundamental issue. During World War II,
conscription, for just about everyone, meant service until the end
of the war. During the Cold War, there was no clear end in sight.
Since not everyone was conscripted, having conscripts serve until
the end of the war could mean a lifetime of service. The decision
was made that draftees would serve for two years and remain part of
the reserve for a period of time thereafter.

Training during World War II took weeks for most combat
specialties, with further training undertaken with soldiers' units
or through combat. In World War II, the United States had a
mass-produced army with plenty of time to mature after training.
During Vietnam, conscripts went through basic training and advanced
training, leaving a year for deployment in Vietnam and some months
left over after the tour of duty. Jobs that required more complex
training, from Special Forces to pilots to computer programmers,
were handled by volunteers who served at least three years and, in
many cases, longer. The draftee was used to provide the mass. The
complexities of the war were still handled by a volunteer force.

The Battle of the Bulge took place 62 years ago. The Tet Offensive
was nearly 39 years ago. The 90-day-wonder officers served well in
World War II, and the draftee riflemen were valiant in Vietnam, but
military requirements have changed dramatically. Now the military
depends on highly trained specialists and groups of specialists,
whose specialties -- from rifleman to warehouse worker -- have
become more and more complex and sophisticated. On the whole, the
contemporary Army, which historically has absorbed most draftees,
needs more than two years in order to train draftees in their
specialties, integrate them with their units and deploy them to
combat.

Today, a two-year draft would be impractical because, on the whole,
it would result in spending huge amounts of money on training, with
very little time in actual service to show for it. Conscription
could, of course, be extended to a three- or even four-year term,
but with only selective service -- meaning that only a fraction of
those eligible would be called -- that extension would only
intensify the unfairness. Some would spend three or four years in
the military, while others would be moving ahead with schools and
careers. In effect, it would be a huge tax on the draftees for
years of earnings lost.

A new U.S. draft might force the children of the wealthy into the
military, but only at the price of creating other inequities and a
highly inefficient Army. The training cycle and retention rate of a
two-year draft would swamp the Army. In Iraq, the Army needs
Special Forces, Civil Affairs specialists, linguists, intelligence
analysts, unmanned aerial vehicle operators and so on. You can
draft for that, we suppose, but it is hard to imagine building a
force that way.

A volunteer force is a much more efficient way to field an Army.
There is more time for training, there is a higher probability of
retention and there are far fewer morale problems. Rangel is wrong
in comparing the social base of this Army with that of Vietnam. But
the basic point he is trying to make is true: The makeup of the
U.S. Army is skewed toward the middle and lower-middle class. But
then, so are many professions. Few children of the wealthy get jobs
in the Social Security Administration or become professional
boxers. The fact that the Army does not reflect the full social
spectrum of the country doesn't mean very much. Hardly anything
reflects that well.

Still, Rangel is making an important point, even if his argument
for the draft does not work. War is a special activity of society.
It is one of the few in which the citizen is expected -- at least
in principle -- to fight and, if necessary, die for his country. It
is more than a career. It is an existential commitment, a
willingness to place oneself at risk for one's country. The fact
that children of the upper classes, on the whole, do not make that
existential commitment represents a tremendous weakness in American
society. When those who benefit most from a society feel no
obligation to defend it, there is a deep and significant malaise in
that society.

However, we have been speaking consistently here about the children
of the rich, and not of the rich themselves. Combat used to be for
the young. It required stamina and strength. That is still needed.
However, there are two points to be made. First, many -- perhaps
most -- jobs in today's military that do not require the stamina of
youth, as proven by all the contractors doing essentially military
work in Iraq. Second, 18- to 22-year-olds are far from the most
physically robust age group. Given modern diet and health regimens,
there are people who are substantially older who have the stamina
and strength for combat duty. If you can play tennis as well as you
claim to for as long as you say, you can patrol a village in the
Sunni Triangle.

We do not expect to be taken seriously on this proposal, but we
will make it anyway: There is no inherent reason why enlistment --
or conscription -- should be targeted toward those in late
adolescence. And there is no reason why the rich themselves, rather
than the children of the rich, should not go to war. Or, for that
matter, why older people with established skills should not be
drawn into the military. That happened in World War II, and it
could happen now. The military's stove-pipe approach to military
careers, and the fact that it allows almost no lateral movement
into service for 40- to 60-year-olds, is irrational. Even if we
exclude combat arms, other specialties could be well-served by such
a method -- which also would reduce the need for viciously
expensive contractors.

Traditionally, the draft has fallen on those who were barely
adults, who had not yet had a chance to live, who were the least
equipped to fight a complex war. Other age groups were safe. Rangel
is talking about drafting the children of the rich. It would be
much more interesting, if the United States were to introduce the
draft, to impose it in a different way, on entirely different age
groups. Let the young get on with starting their lives. Let those
who have really benefited from society, who have already lived,
ante up.

Modern war does not require the service of 19-year-olds. In the
field, you need the strong, agile and smart, but we know several
graying types who still could hack that. And in the offices that
proliferate in the military, experienced businesspeople would do
even better at modernizing the system. If they were drafted, and
went into harm's way, they would know exactly what they were
fighting for and why -- something we hardly think most 19-year-olds
really know yet.

Obviously, no one is going to adopt this crackpot proposal, even
though we are quite serious about it. But we ask that you take
seriously two points. Rangel is correct in saying that the upper
classes in American society are not pulling their weight. But if
the parents haven't served, we cannot reasonably expect the
children to do so. If Americans are serious about dealing with the
crisis of lack of service among the wealthiest, then they should
look to the wealthiest first, rather than their children.

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