The Draft: A Villainous Company topic
As for taking a shot at the draft, there are some things I would like to write on.
There’s the hostile influence area, such things as Scott Thomas B, having a negative effect on the US military. It cannot be termed military sabotage so much as political sabotage. Which would make the military more of a political weapon with all its dangers. Thus these area has to be dealt with separately from the other draft consequences. The more people you feed into a matrix, the more chances that this matrix will destabilize. You can see it happening in the borders to the south, you know. It is not natural, in a sense though, because it is being influenced by Leftist policies, philosophies, and anything else of an inimical nature. Whatever natural problems or disagreements might arise, military discipline can solve, but we are not speaking of simply natural occurences and natural human problems. Rather we should expect to see problems created solely so that the Left may benefit from them. Such things as making laws and requirements that Petraeus and Bush must give a report, and then criticizing them based upon the fact that they are following what you made them do. We can be assured of that.
Second sphere is an exotic adaptation to the draft. America’s security can be supplemented by foreign troops. The British did the same with the Gurkhas, in a similar fashion. There’s nothing stopping the US from using sepoys and auxiliaries from outside the United States, under the command of American officers and NCOs. This would enlarge your manpower base phenomenally. We already have sources of reliable and loyal warriors to recruit from. The Kurds are very similar to the Gurkhas, and the Kurds have had past and current dealings with the US, in a manner which might suggest that they would be interested in such a mutual alliance of convenience.
The building of any new army or expansion of current forces would take time, as Cass pointed out. The US Army saw the consequences of not using local auxiliary forces in OIF 2003. The SF and SOCOM saw the benefits of using local auxiliary forces in Afghanistan, Enduring Freedom. Perhaps it is time for the American President to think on such lessons learned and paid in blood.
The third area involves, to my mind, the concern over the disruption of the American social fabric and traditions. The draft seems to be motivated, aside from you know, by national security, national pride or fears over decadence, and the need to conclude wars more decisively by allocating more resources to wars.
The Left are already kicking out as many ROTC and JROTC programs as they can, in order to be free to indoctriate your children as they see fit. Other methods are in place, I am sure, to supplement such actions. The military, as it is currently constitute, can accomplish the task of revitalizing the civilan population through re-education, patriotism, pride, and honor. However, after that we have to ask ourselves what does the military then need to provide such things as it currently now does? The only answer that came to my mind was simple, “more wars”. In order for the warrior and soldier cadres of the US military to remain vital, they must accomplish their purpose and their purpose cannot be to appear in parades, sit around peacekeeping, and doing whatever militaries are expected to do in peacetime. If that was what could revitalize America, then Clinton’s 8 years would already have accomplished much of such.
People often need a purpose in life to perform at their maximum. And it is a rather ironic case that we are almost at the point where soldiers and protectors have achieved their mission for America. Is not the point of the protector to ensure that in the future there will be such prosperity and peace that there will be no need of more protectors? That in essence the soldier fights for a time in the future in which he will not be needed? Are we then not nearly at this point, in which because of American sacrifice in the past, America can currently maintain their security without requiring the same things now as was 50 years ago?
However, as we well know, peace is not eternal. Nor is this the end of history. The debt paid by previous generations eventually starts increasing again, if payments are not made. Unlike social security, Americans have paid for the prosperity and peace of future generations, rather than the current generation paying for the upkeep of the previous generation as is true with Social Security.
9/11 revitalized some of the purpose of America. So we see the paradox again. Making people safe, takes away the purpose to which requires the study of war. When people are not safe, then they have a purpose, if only of common survival. I don’t think this paradox can ever be solved, since it isn’t as if it is a Gordian Knot that can be cut. It is a link that binds humanity that cannot be cut.
Perhaps history has some lessons ot teach on this. Often though, I settle on leaders as being the pivotal turning point either way. Good leaders can send us down one path while bad leaders can send us down on the opposite, only to swing back a few decades or centuries later. The 2nd Punic War and the losses inflicted on the Romans by Hannibal, reminds me of the vitality of a republic as well as the cost of having citizen/drafted soldiers fighting a professional army. The cost is in blood, likely as not the blood of citizen soldiers. And yet the Athenian story of Marathon is also instructive, that regardless of the mantles that citizens take on when they become soldiers, the civilians back home are just the same as they always are and were. People should look up the true story of Marathon. For the Athenian hoplites had won a battle against the Persian invasion (the one before Xerxes and Thermopylae) and needed to send a runner back to the city to tell them that they had won, so that when they see Persian ships on the horizon without word from their brothers and husbands, that they would not instantly surrender to despair and depression. It would be a fine moment in irony had Athens (with walls manned only by those that could not mobilize with the Athenian hoplite army, such as women, boys, old men, etc) surrendered to the Persians after the Athenian hoplites had won a great victory. For you see, neither the Tet Offensive nor Petraeus’ surge are new episodes in history, simply rehasing of the old.
The Role of Phidippides
The Athens, vastly outnumbered, desperately needed the help of Sparta’s military base to help fend off the attack. Time was short, so the Athenian generals send Phidippides (or Philippides) a professional runner to Sparta to ask for help. The 140 mile course was very mountainous and rugged. Phidippides ran the course in about 36 hours. Sparta agreed to help but said they would not take the field until the moon was full due to religious laws. This would leave the Athenians alone to fight the Persian Army. Phidippides ran back to Athens (another 140 miles!) with the disappointing news. Immediately, the small Athenian Army (including Phidippedes) marched to the plains of Marathon to prepare for battle.
The Battle of Marathon
The Athenian Army was outnumbered 4 to 1 but they launched a suprise offensive thrust which at the time appeared suicidal. But by day’s end, 6400 Persian bodies lay dead on the field while only 192 Athenians had been killed. The surviving Persians fled to sea and headed south to Athens where they hoped to attack the city before the Greek Army could re-assemble there.
Phidippides was again called upon to run to Athens (26 miles away) to carry the news of the victory and the warning about the approaching Persian ships. Despite his fatigue after his recent run to Sparta and back and having fought all morning in heavy armor, Phidippides rose to the challenge. Pushing himself past normal limits of human endurance, the reached Athens in perhaps 3 hours, deliverd his message and then died shortly thereafter from exhaustion.
Sparta and the other Greek polies eventually came to the aid of Athens and eventually they were able to turn back the Persian attempt to conquer Greece.
Cronkite and PillowC’s crowd may be seen as our Phidippides, except they aren’t dead while others are and they aren’t really telling people news that would benefit us.
However, let’s get back to the subject. In which I would like to highlight the Roman losses in the 2nd Punic War with Carthage. Rome lost a substantial portion of their military age men to Hannibal. Hannibal’s tactical abilities and use of cavalry allowed him to destroy, not defeat, several legions sent against him. There are three notable battles: Battle of Trebia, Battle of Lake Traismene, and Battle of Cannae.
I once knew of a site that provided more accurate breakdowns in the military forces of such battles, but the link is not readily available, so I am using wikipedia. In order of chronological order, Trebia cost the Romans about half of their force of 40k. Light on cavalary, as the Roman Legions tended to be infantry based. Lake Trasimene cost the Romans 40k out of 40k. Some numbers out of the 40k drowned. Rome’s military was not professional back then, and were still based upon the fact that citizens brought their own armor and weapons. Organized into hastati and triarii lines (forgot the second name actually).
The Battle of Cannae composing of 16 Roman and allied legions, which 16X5000 would be about 80k.
70,000 killed (Polybius)
50,000 killed (Livy)
Hannibal lost a handful or so, a mere few hundreds or a thousand or two max, per battle. Yet the Romans kept levying for more troops and more decisive engagement of conflict. Fabius, a dictator elected for 6 months, tried to avoid a decisive enagement with Roman forces, much as insurgnts try to avoid US Army and Marine forces, but the Roman citizenry disliked such untraditional methods of war. They would far prefer to meet Hannibal out on the field and have a Cannae, in a way.
The unique vitality of Rome, in that they kept fighting and fighting, regardless of the number of defeats and panics they received, is a curious trait of republics and what not. Hannibal offered Rome surrender terms and also an exchange of prisoners of war (in return for ransom given that Rome didn’t have many if any Carthaginian POWs), but Rome refused. Hannibal’s grand strategy would have shattered any lesser foe, certainly France would have caved very soon after the first battle if not before it. I often find a mirror image of Rome’s vitality during America’s WWII. Good citizen soldiers that wanted to do their duty, but were slaughtered because of an incompetent and unprofessional officer/political class. The same applied to Hannibal too, you know. His “friends” back in Carthage didn’t want to send him any supplies at all, since they hoped that Rome would take care of this little upstart for them.
Rome’s 2nd Punic War pretty much hits the point home that a citizen army may eventually win, but it will only do so because of catastrophic mistakes learned from early on. Same for Vietnam and WWII and Korea, in fact. A professional military, like Hannibal’s army, may in fact win all the battles and lose the war at the end because of any number of variables. Yet Vietnam shows us that you don’t need a professional military to win all the battles and lose the war. The lesson I derive from such is that it doesn’t matter if your army is drafted or professional, if you lose a decisive engagement then you are screwed. It doesn’t say much about “how to re-vitalize” civic awareness, since Athens and Rome never really did “re-vitalize” such, not in the long term. However, it does show what can bring the vitality of citizens out in the open, meaning a common enemy and the binds of nationalism and patriotism.
Often the price for national unity is national sacrifice. But it is not the sacrifice of doing your duty to your country, no, often it is the sacrifice as occured in Cannae or Trasimene that unites a nation in blood and sorrow. Everything has a cost, something cannot come from nothing. It seems to be as true for human endeavours as energy in physics.
People should be aware of such things and consequences when they call for a draft. No drafted army can ever defeat a professional one on an even basis, except by blind luck, human destiny, or great leaders. Vietnam showed that even with a draft, it didn’t stop people from being divided, now did it.
There were divisions as well in WWII, yet people sublimated their own petty desires for a chance at ultimate victory. So it is a very chaotic scene in which we look upon, when we take draft and professional armies engaged in national conflicts. A draft may mean national unity or it may mean there has been so many mistakes and lives lost due to it, that people have no choice but to band together or surrender in shame. A professional army may mean little mistakes made, yet a disconnected civilian population. Yet what is true for a professional army may also be true for a drafted army. So it doesn’t seem to make much difference all in all.
Perhaps history simply erased them and their complaints from the rolls with the ultimate victory. Perhaps that is an explanation for why the draft is popular at times, because they don’t remember hearing what the Left and isolationists said during WWII. Or perhaps Americans, Leftists or not, no longer believe that “ultimate victory” is ours to grasp or even that it should be grasped. That is a problem that I don’t think history has the answers for, since history has never really had a time like ours, in which wealthy and decadent folks can pursue self-destruction protected by the very things that they wish to destroy: liberty, loyalty, honor, unity, harmony.
For dark, personal reasons, many people could not resist this chance at cruelty. There were the intellectuals who demanded aggressively if we believed in war and asked across our dinner tables did we relish the idea of being the widows of dead heroes? There were men of peace who fulminated against destruction and argued that no idea was worth fighting for that leveled Casino or Dresden….There were the newscasters who, after the fourth Martini, swore with something akin to professional pride that the war would last another eight years….
Cassandra’s original post, which inspired this.
UPDATE:
Grim had some discussion over that aspect, Wolf, in his comment section.
This basic distrust of government is not Bush’s fault. It will not be repaired by some future administration, no matter how wonderfully “competent” it may be.
The truth is that the system itself has exceeded its capacity. New government-based programs are doomed before being written; they may be enacted by some Congress of 2009, but they will fail. Our system is already too big and too complex to function coherently. It may stagger on, until the financial crises posed by the pensions and Social Security force a scaling back of Federal activity. Once that happens, no one will trust government with anything on which they might actually depend for survival. They will remember how it handled the last things they entrusted to it.
For the future, we will be looking more and more to private actors. This is good, in the sense that it means an end to the system that produces Americans accustomed to being treated like children instead of responsible adults. It is bad, in that it means serious challenges for our society in the medium and long term.
“Bush” is currently serving as a magic talisman for those on the left who don’t want to face this reality about government, about its destructive size and complexity. That talisman protects them from thinking deeply about the issue: they can pick out two or ten things they think he should have done differently, and say that would have made all the difference.
The real problems are far starker, and far larger, than any man or his administration.
UPDATE: I’d like to point out that the Katrina example is only an example. The problems extend to all areas of government operation. Consider Iraq, which Dionne also does.
It is normal to blame Bush here as well, and Dionne follows the usual script. We’ve all heard how there was no “Phase IV” planning, etc. And in fact, Bush is really responsible, but not (or not only) for the reasons normally cited. The problem appears to be that State and DOD had competing visions for postwar Iraq, and their attempts to plan and devise were derailed mostly by competition between different branches and factions within the government. As a result, we got a cobbled-together CPA in which it wasn’t terribly clear — even while it was running — who was really in charge.
It has taken years for this to improve, and only through painful experience has it done so. Major General Cone in Afganistan says that things are finally ironed out there, through the building over years of personal relationships that allowed them to establish memoranda of understanding between the agencies.
Bush is personally responsible for not forcing an interagency settlement before the Iraq war; but we see it was also a problem in Afghanistan. It is also a problem in the Katrina case. It’s a problem everywhere the government tries to do anything — or rather, it’s two problems, the ones described above. It’s the problem of agencies that are either in bureaucratic competition, or are legally forced to insist on requirements before they can consider cooperation; and, it’s the “chess-problem without the board” problem. You find yourself blocked at several points, and you can’t quite see what the problems are, or talk to exactly the right person who can straighten it out.
Link to Grim’s topic on government
Eric,
Drafting the police is an idea I’ve not heard before, but I think I’d like to hear more about it. I share your concerns, as you know, about our militarized police forces (the real ‘standing army’ that the Founders were wary of was the one that would be used against the citizens, after all).
I’m also wary of the domestic spying apparatus in general; although that is not a topic directly related to gun control.
I do think, though, that militia service is an idea whose time has come again (if indeed it ever left). I’ve often thought that if I were elected sheriff, I would start what amounted to a citizens’ militia — invite any interested citizen who could get a firearms’ license here in Georgia to come out and train with us at our range, patrol with us, form and coordinate (armed) neighborhood watches in their community, etc.
A tight relationship between organizations like that and the police would establish a common peace and order probably more effectively than either could alone: the militia to establish and enforce the order on a day to day basis, and the police to come when called, arrest those accused of crimes, and see that their rights were protected during their trial.
If crime is the issue, “a well regulated militia” seems to me to be a big part of the solution. You need the rule of law element as well, so that the militia doesn’t step outside its proper (and quite Constitutional) role. But you then don’t need a lot of the “modern” police forces we have, and the country would be better for it also.
Grim | 09.04.07 – 6:16 pm | #
UPDATE:
I rewrote some parts of my conclusion and added in some anachronistic comments from WWII.
Explore posts in the same categories: History, War
Sake White 
September 11, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Having dealt with the tail end of the draftee era in the Army, I can safely say that instituting conscription would be a disaster for morale and training readiness.
As uncharitable as it sounds, that is probably the intention of the supporters of that position.
A vast horde of completely amateur military historians always points to WWII as an example of a draft that worked, but conveniently ignores the reality of the situation: the draft was only used as an input control mechanism to a) not let more men in than could be handled by the existing training base and b) keep up manpower in sectors of industry deemed to be crucial.
The other key data point to remember is that almost no draftee solider went overseas in WWII without 18+ months of training in a unit!. In fact, the only division in the ETO that broke that rule was the one the was shattered in the Battle of the Bulge. The Viet Nam era practice of sending individual replacements overseas with 16 weeks of Basic & AIT was nothing less than insane, by the standards of WWII [which had happened only 20 years prior].
All of the hot air about “everyone must share the burden” is nothing more than the usual neo-socialist twaddle from people who want us to lose this war. We military types have placed ourselves between the “war’s desolation” and our nation for precisely the reason that we do NOT want the rest of you to experience warfare.
September 12, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Thanks for the info
September 14, 2007 at 12:08 am
Instead of a draft for military service, how about a draft for national service reserves doing civil reconstruction, disaster assistance, fighting forest fires, rebuilding homes, border and coast guard auxiliary service, police auxiliary service, and so on? Have linguistic requirements. Pair it with the volunteer military for civil projects in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in big disasters like the Indonesian tsunami.
September 14, 2007 at 1:18 am
Updated in reply to your comment, Wolf
October 14, 2007 at 9:20 pm
I am a Canadian so perhaps I shouldn’t comment but I will regardless. After all we were a real country once!
World War II saw 16.1 million Americans serving (11.6 percent of the population.) Six million of those troops were volunteers, the rest were drafted. During the 1950-53 Korean War, 5.7 million served (27 percent were draftees), while during the Vietnam War (1965-73), 8.7 million served (20 percent were draftees.) World War II was an outright victory, Korea something of a stalemate, and Vietnam a defeat (whatever the reason).
It would seem that as the percent of volunteers rise so does your likelihood of losing the war! I am not arguing this, but logically if you are going to look at the draft vs the all-volunteer army then look at its track record. The Confederate army was on average of higher quality than the Union army. During your Civil War, the South drafted white males, making up about 20 percent of all Confederate soldiers. Men were drafted in the North, but this accounted for around 6 percent of the total number of Union troops. By the beginning of 1940 there were 100,000 men in the Waffen SS. There were 36,000 who had been drafted and 64,000 volunteers. The Waffen SS served one of the more evil regimes in modern history, but they can hardly be called substandard soldiers. The volunteer army HAS NOT performed better than the draftee army anywhere other than in officer evaluation reports. On the battlefield where it actually matters the results are much less clear.
The rising use of Private Military Companies (PMCs), AKA mercenaries, as well as civilian military employees for military needs such as transport, logistical support, even intelligence work as in Abu Graib would suggest that the all-volunteer army is past the point of breaking. It is broken! Only the immense wealth of the American Republic is hiding this fact.
If you take the kings silver you do the kings bidding! An army that has members drifting into PMCs is not IMHO a trend we ought to encourage. Over time an all-volunteer army is likely to develop a culture that is very much out of tune with the Republic it is supposed to serve. It really cannot be otherwise as those who are called upon to make sacrifices will not look with kindness on those for whom sacrifice means missing their favourite television episode. When this happens the army is likely to opt for the executive who cuts their paychecks rather than the fat slob worrying about who’s going to win American Idol. IMO it is not such a bad thing that the Average Joe should be forced to take war more seriously, if for no other reason than that he might find himself in it.
The difference between having a volunteer and a draftee in the foxhole is not one that has been noticeable in most wars. The difference between well-trained soldiers and those who are poorly trained is considerable. I for one wouldn’t want a Liberal in the foxhole beside me unless it was to throw him out of it, but when the bullets start flying things like that are going to be the least of your worries.
October 14, 2007 at 9:50 pm
It would seem that as the percent of volunteers rise so does your likelihood of losing the war! I am not arguing this, but logically if you are going to look at the draft vs the all-volunteer army then look at its track record.
Usually the more people involved in a war, the less easy it becomes to stop that war. When a full nation’s military aged males are mobilized, it becomes impossible to stop the war because then people will demand vengeance and revenge for the deaths of their fellows in great enough numbers to actually topple governments. The Palestinian territories are a good example of what happens when nearly the entire population is involved in warfare directly and indirectly. They don’t stop fighting, that is the result. They can’t stop fighting until they win, to be more exact.
Korea and Vietnam could be stopped in mid kill because of both the nuclear threat and balance of powers with Soviet Russia as well as the fact that the entire nation wasn’t at war, therefore it was easier to stop such wars without final victory. Even still, both Nixon and Truman paid the political price for failing to provide America for final victory.
Also the trend tends to be that inexperienced militaries need large draftees and new volunteers, which creates high casualty battles early on. These high casualties inevitably create a patriotic response from the nation suffering those casualties, resulting in more of a degree of Total War.
The Romans lost hundreds of thousands of their people to Hannibal and Carthage. They never surrendered though, they simply recruited new legions to replace what they lost and eventually won the Second Punic War by hitting Carthage.
The volunteer army HAS NOT performed better than the draftee army anywhere other than in officer evaluation reports.
Your performance standards are based upon politicians and general officer actions. Such is not the prefered standard of performance for armies.
The greatest American actions were undertaken by voluneers. Flight 93. The Raid on Tokyo after Pearl Harbor. The American “mercenaries” that fought to defend China from Japanese air raids, through basing airplanes in friendly Asian locations.
Without the animating fighting spirit to try to attack and win, no army can achieve ultimate victory. A volunteer army already has this esprit de corps in raw form, they don’t need to develop it with time as drafted armies do. Drafted armies need experience, tradition, and belief to become effective. Volunteers bring a much needed accelerated advantage to these military necessities.
The rising use of Private Military Companies (PMCs), AKA mercenaries, as well as civilian military employees for military needs such as transport, logistical support, even intelligence work as in Abu Graib would suggest that the all-volunteer army is past the point of breaking.
I suppose that in your view, the fact that America didn’t even have an army to be broken nor the option of civilian contractors for use in WWII meant that things were working better. Just because you have something, doesn’t mean it is broken, and just because you dont have an army and have to lose thousands of people to rookie mistakes, doesn’t mean your army performed better just because the US sacrificed enough soldiers for ultimate victory.
Over time an all-volunteer army is likely to develop a culture that is very much out of tune with the Republic it is supposed to serve.
George Washington had to deal with volunteers on a 4 year contract, which started to end before the war was over. He had to convince them to renew the contract or have most of his army disappear. While such things have their problems, I don’t think you have a very solid foundation from which to speak concerning how volunteer armies are a danger to the Republic. Such things are myths created by propaganda apparatuses to paint a picture of the US as being vulnerable.
The difference between having a volunteer and a draftee in the foxhole is not one that has been noticeable in most wars.
As you have noticed, we’re not talking about fox holes, we are talking about general officers like McClellan, Petraeus, and MacArthur along with politicians like Roosevelt, Truman, and Bush.
The difference between volunteers and draftees, mattered quite a lot to Lyndon Johnson, MacArthur, Petraeus, and so forth. Some because of the political advantages or disadvantages, others because of the higher quality esprit de corps of volunteers.
October 15, 2007 at 1:15 am
[The volunteer army HAS NOT performed better than the draftee army anywhere other than in officer evaluation reports.]
Ymarsakar said; Your performance standards are based upon politicians and general officer actions. Such is not the prefered standard of performance for armies.
Could you elaborate on your meaning here? Is not the standard of measurement for an army victory in the field? Why else do they exist if not to prevent wars, and win them if need be?
This may be apocryphal, but it seems relevant. Concerning an exchange between an American army colonel and a North Vietnamese colonel a few years after the war ended. The American colonel told the Vietnamese officer that they both knew that the U.S. forces in Vietnam never lost a single battle. The North Vietnamese colonel allegedly replied, “You know, that is probably true, but it’s also irrelevant.”
Ymarsakar said; Without the animating fighting spirit to try to attack and win, no army can achieve ultimate victory. A volunteer army already has this esprit de corps in raw form, they don’t need to develop it with time as drafted armies do. Drafted armies need experience, tradition, and belief to become effective. Volunteers bring a much needed accelerated advantage to these military necessities.
Long service professionals are what bring this quality to an army and volunteers do not guarantee that as Vietnam showed. The performance of the largely volunteer US army in Vietnam was not greatly superior to that of the largely draftee army in World War Two. The US army in Vietnam (2/3rds volunteers) never came close to approaching the quality shown by the Waffen SS (2/3rds volunteers) who had a very similar number of draftee’s. Long service professionals who constitute the core of an armies high readiness units is obviously a good idea, but conscripts can fill out these formations and do very well in the field. In World War One the German General Staff rated eight American divisions as excellent to superior. Of these, six were National Guard Divisions. The Israeli’s are a case in point.
Ymarsakar said; I suppose that in your view, the fact that America didn’t even have an army to be broken nor the option of civilian contractors for use in WWII meant that things were working better. Just because you have something, doesn’t mean it is broken, and just because you dont have an army and have to lose thousands of people to rookie mistakes, doesn’t mean your army performed better just because the US sacrificed enough soldiers for ultimate victory.
The object of war is not a pile of skulls! It is national victory. The Spartans were simply the best. They lost in the long run because of the elitist way their army was constituted and the underutilized Helot population. The actual number of Spartans dwindled steadily as time passed. The performance of an army in the field is only one part of a much greater equation. An army that is qualitatively not as good, but has the support of its civilian population will defeat a superior enemy who lacks such support. In a minor brushfire war, or a war against a weak opponent such as Iraq a somewhat less capable draftee military would be more than adequate. In a major war the all-volunteer army would be totally inadequate. If Iraq is now straining the army there is no way in a major conflict it could remain on an all-volunteer basis.
So you have an army that cannot fight a major war and one that even now, in a minor war, showing strains in recruitment and lack of personnel that is being made up by PMCs and civilians. This is an army designed for peace not war!
You say ‘No drafted army can ever defeat a professional one on an even basis, except by blind luck, human destiny, or great leaders.’ The point is that they will not be on an even basis. A draftee army given the same financial and human resources will devastate a long-term professional army. This was shown in the American War of Independence, French Revolutionary Wars and the following Napoleonic wars. We need to design an army capable of fighting a major war and being rapidly increased in size, as any major war is likely to be fought and won or lost with what we have on hand or can rapidly acquire. We may not have the years of lead-time the US had in World War Two. Canada went to war in 1939 with little in the way of a military. It took years for us to make up for this neglect. That may not be adequate in any serious conflict. The US had several years up until December of 1941 to rapidly increase their military. Spending years to get the military you should have had, may be years we don’t have next time around.
This ties into the idea of using foreign auxiliaries. The idea of using foreign auxiliaries is a bad idea, not because it wouldn’t work, but because it would.
“A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), “The Contest in America.”
A drafted army forces the people to carefully consider what they believe is worth fighting for. It requires the Average Joe to be a Citizen not a Subject. If we wish to retain a Republic or Parliamentary Democracy we need Citizens with which to it. Foreign auxiliaries are too easily turned into a tool of empire and are beholden to the men who pay them. Kurds, Russians, or Mexicans will look to their own best interests and those interests will not be those of your Republic. Already too many officers and men in the US military come from traditionally military families and regions (your Praetorians). Rome was once a Republic of Citizens and became an Empire of Subjects. It has many lessons for us and the use of foreign auxiliaries was one of them. It may be that things have gotten to the point where the populace cannot be relied upon to defend themselves, but if that point has been reached then are they really worth defending?
Ymarsakar said; George Washington had to deal with volunteers on a 4 year contract, which started to end before the war was over. He had to convince them to renew the contract or have most of his army disappear. While such things have their problems, I don’t think you have a very solid foundation from which to speak concerning how volunteer armies are a danger to the Republic. Such things are myths created by propaganda apparatuses to paint a picture of the US as being vulnerable.
George Washington won and it was Lord Cornwallis who surrendered. Lord Cornwallis was the one utilizing foreign auxiliaries in the form of Hessians. Ask the Roman Legions or the Ottoman Janissaries about what happens when an army loses contact with the civilian culture. The results can be seen in South America and elsewhere in the modern world. We are simply arrogant to believe this could never happen here, and that is a mistake your founding fathers didn’t make. They did not trust the government to always hold our best interests at heart. Are they propagandists for some current political bloc? They lived under a government who utilized foreign auxiliaries and a long service army that ignored the wishes of the colonial population as well as its own British Parliament. Volunteer armies are a danger to the Republic!
October 15, 2007 at 3:04 am
Is not the standard of measurement for an army victory in the field?
There’s tactical victories like what Hannibal achieved, which proves that the professional military, also known as the all volunteer force, is many magnitudes better than a drafted army. There are strategic victories, which involve politicians and generals while tactical victories usually only invovle generals and officers. Then there are skirmishes and small actions which usually determine the value of NCOs and lower level initiative.
A war contains all of that and cannot be distilled down to one standard of victory or loss, since that would only apply to a very small part of the army at the top. Thus an army should not be judged by its performance standards in such a small limited fashion.
Long service professionals are what bring this quality to an army and volunteers do not guarantee that as Vietnam showed.
Vietnam showed that civilian morale broke before the military morale, which shows that the civilians are the weak link in the chain.
Vietnam was still a war using drafted soldiers. Whether volunteers showed anythng, had to be limited to the units that were volunteers.
In World War One the German General Staff rated eight American divisions as excellent to superior.
Why do you use performance and paper readiness reports as if they are the same thing, and then do not define what you mean by performance? Are you comparing casualty ratios between Vietnam and WWII?
This was shown in the American War of Independence
No, it wasn’t. The Americans paid dearly before they could finally field a force that wouldn’t be slaughtered in the field by British regulars.
The logistical constraints partially forced the British to withdraw, but wars are won for more reasons than simply whether your army is better or more numerous than the other’s.
We need to design an army capable of fighting a major war
There is more than one kind of war and there are many different ways to fight any particular war. The amount of force that can be applied to a conflict is determined by the limitations set upon both sides. You speak about the American military being stretched in Iraq, yet you ignore the fact that half of the world’s armies combined couldn’t do half as well in Iraq. And not just because they would be too busy fighting each other over perks and lootables. A major war depends upon who you are fighting, and thus training of armies depends upon who you think your opponents will be. An army designed to fight one opponent will be defeated when presented with a different opponent. It is the simple tradeoffs of training, in which you cannot train an army to handle every opponent by training it to handle one opponent.
A major war is in a sense, only one kind of opponent in that it ignores guerrilla warfare, psychological warfare, and various other derivations of war that can be used by an opponent to turn a major war into something else. The Cold War might have been seen as a preparation for a major war, yet it is those very preparations that slowed down success in Iraq, for those preparations were not designed to fight a guerrilla war. The same will be true for a guerrila army, in that they can be trained to fight in guerrilla fashion but won’t be able to defeat a conventional force. The only way to provide an army with an ability to defeat both types of opponents of whatever nationality, is to give that army real battlefield experience in both types of wars and against foreign enemies of one stripe or another. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, both requirements are met. You speak of training to meet the next war, Iraq and Afghanistan are the training fields to allow America to deal with any potential future conflict. The US Navy is the weak point, but that is only because neither AQ, Afghanistan, nor Iraq had a blue water navy for the US Navy to blow up.
It is a weak spot, that is irrelevant to armies, that the Chinese sees and is exploiting.
Spending years to get the military you should have had, may be years we don’t have next time around.
5 years of mountain, guerrilla, foreign insurgency, counter-insurgency, and conventional operations in Iraq and Afghanistans are quite sufficient to weed out command problems, training problems, and doctrine problems. It is great for logistics training and marksmanship as well.
Yet you see such things as breaking the army. For every ounce of sweat you save on training, you will cause the army to spill a pound of blood.
It has many lessons for us and the use of foreign auxiliaries was one of them.
Not even the United States can maintain order around the globe without help.
Volunteer armies are a danger to the Republic!
Volunteer armies are citizen armies in the United States. You act momentarily as if they are Praetorians, then in another moment you speak as if the volunteer armies are foreign auxiliaries. Such things are inconsistent.
about what happens when an army loses contact with the civilian culture.
That’s already happened given that the military has higher morale than the civilians who think that the military must be protected given that it is “broken”. And such disconnection has occured precisely because individuals don’t want to be drafted and they don’t want to volunteer. You cannot stiffen spit, and if people don’t wan’t to do something then they will make sure that they will avoid doing it. You can get some of them with punishment, but not all.
Even half the military brass, seemingly, believes that the military is broken. So you have a civilian disconnection, a military disconnection, and factions everywhere. Just as in Rome before the fall.
Allow me to remind you that the US Constitution was formed on the basis of foreign auxiliaries, given that there was no standing army and thus the federal government had to call upon state resources and militias. A collection and alliance of states, each with their own laws and traditions, formed an army. Now you would deny that such unity born of adversity is a benefit to the Republic?
October 15, 2007 at 4:38 am
The problem with trying to separate an army’s actual performance in the field and its objective capabilities is that any measurement becomes subjective over time. It is dependent on the prejudices of the army itself, and the men we face in battle are rarely going to be so accommodating as to share those prejudices. The training cycle can become easily corrupted by political requirements, institutional prejudice, and a concentration on the frivolous. I prefer to utilize actual performance in war as a standard of measurement as it tends to be far more reliable and includes all the other factors that contribute to victory or defeat.
The Israeli’s and Hezbollah in Lebanon are a case in point. If Hezbollah had tried to fight the Israeli’s as the Israeli’s expected they would have been rapidly eliminated. They were able to force the Israeli’s to pay a price for victory that Israel could have paid, but was unwilling to. This would have involved conduct and civilian deaths on a scale that Israel was unwilling to inflict. The enemy acted in the most logical way to secure victory, but the Israeli’s never saw it coming because it did not conform to their own expectations. This does not mean that the Israeli units were badly trained or that the evaluation reports were fraudulent. It means they trained for a war that didn’t happen. The same is true in Iraq. Victory is easily possible, but defeat is almost certain.
Of course civilians are the weak link in the chain. They ARE the nation. Wars are won in the will. The nation will always break before the army does.
‘In World War One the German General Staff rated eight American divisions as excellent to superior.’ The point is that it is our enemy who is in a far better position to know who has discombobulated them who is the one making this observation.
Ymarsakar said; ‘You speak about the American military being stretched in Iraq, yet you ignore the fact that half of the world’s armies combined couldn’t do half as well in Iraq.’
Half of the world’s armies aren’t in Iraq! There is a very good reason for that. They saw what your government chose not to see. The list of insurgent wars lost by the western powers is a long one and the victories thin on the ground. Many of the European powers were reluctant to invade Iraq the second time around despite being there when George Bush Senior asked them for assistance in 1991. They knew that an occupation of Iraq was going to be as easy as any number of other such occupations had proven to be. Algeria, French Indochina, Vietnam, Cyprus, Yemen, Kenya, etc. Choosing not to take that ride into the Valley Of Death with the Glorious 600 is not a sign of incompetence.
You make a very good point that Iraq does serve a useful purpose in giving the American army a force of blooded Officers and NCO’s. I do think however that it has shown some serious flaws in the assumptions used by the US military, both strategically and tactically. This revelation should be taken advantage of and addressed IMHO.
Ymarsakar said; “Not even the United States can maintain order around the globe without help.”
No one is going to maintain order around the world and it will destroy your nation if you make the attempt.
Ymarsakar said; “Volunteer armies are citizen armies in the United States. You act momentarily as if they are Praetorians, then in another moment you speak as if the volunteer armies are foreign auxiliaries. Such things are inconsistent.”
The point is that over time volunteer armies have a tendency to become mercenary in nature, serving their political masters rather than the nation they spring from. The US military even now has members who leave US national service and take up service with the PMC’s. What is the difference between what he was doing last Thursday in a US Army uniform and today as a PMC? The differences between mercenaries and volunteers can easily become blurred and with increased reliance on PMC’s, and the proposed foreign auxiliaries, this will accelerate.
Ymarsakar said; That’s already happened given that the military has higher morale than the civilians who think that the military must be protected given that it is “broken”. And such disconnection has occured precisely because individuals don’t want to be drafted and they don’t want to volunteer. You cannot stiffen spit, and if people don’t wan’t to do something then they will make sure that they will avoid doing it. You can get some of them with punishment, but not all.
Then don’t do it! That is one of the major points of a draftee army is that they can only be used for wars that the people want to fight. This means that dreams of empire must be left behind. It is not the job of the military or the government to be telling civilians what they should or should not be doing with the nation! What exactly would stop a less than scrupulous government in 15 years or so from utilizing those PMC’s and Kurdish auxiliaries in maintaining order after…(fill in the blank)…on American streets? If there is only a run down shadow of an army left with political appointees holding all the major positions (sounds like Canada’s army!), who’s going to stop them?
October 19, 2007 at 11:48 pm
This was from over here at Confederate Yankee. The point really is that the all volunteer military is not the cause of the degradation problems plaguing either America or the American military.
November 17, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Hello
What do you think about this? When it happens?
November 22, 2007 at 12:01 pm
I’m not sure what you mean. The draft hasn’t happened in America.