The Military Draft: An Unwise Solution

The Military Draft: An Unwise Solution

The United States of America's military is currently involved in two major wars with U.S. opposition in Afghanistan and Iraq. All though both of these efforts can be said to be in the clean-up stages, many more soldiers will be needed to stabilize the regions, to provide police work, and to fight the insurgencies that have risen in opposition to the invasion of U.S. troops into foreign lands. The current presidential administration states that to adequately deal with the problems of post-war Iraq and unstable Afghanistan the United States needs to increase the number of active-duty soldiers serving over-seas. Top officials in the administration have said that a reorganization of the military is already in progress, and it will create more combat regiments, but the quoted additional 25,000 new military participants needed per year can hardly be met through these minor reorganizations. In addition, recruiting numbers are at their lowest in over ten years ("All Things Considered", NPR News Source.) Many feel that the reenactment of the military service draft is inevitable because it is the only way to come up with the astounding number of new troops needed to finish the jobs started in the Middle-East by George W. Bush and his Republican administration. If increasing the size of the military is inevitable, then the draft is the wrong way to go. Aside from the moral objections that many Americans have to a draft, there are major logical fallacies in the reasoning that a draft would benefit the military, America, or its interests abroad; therefore, the draft should not be reenacted to increase the number of the United States' combat troops.

The most obvious problem with a military draft is that it creates soldiers that do not want to go to war. Currently our army is volunteer-only, and no one can be forced to enlist if he or she does not want to. This maintains our army as efficient and dedicated to its goal with its members being committed and personally connected to the well-being of American interests. These voluntary soldiers are the best kind of soldiers because they believe in what they are doing. Generalizing slightly, they are willing to give their lives for this country and the missions that it takes on in the world. If a draft were reenacted, this would not be so. Upon forcing citizens to enlist, our military would quickly decline in morale and ability and would probably be less effective than it was with fewer numbers and more commitment. A group of people who are morally or logically opposed to war - to war in general or to the current war specifically - would make terrible soldiers because the nature of being a soldier is to put your life and personal interests on the line to support a cause. Without personal determination and belief that a cause is right or just, the adequate effort to succeed in war can never be fully given.

Evidence of these formerly-mentioned consequences was apparent when the draft was instated in 1969 to aid the American effort in Vietnam. The quantity of soldiers increased, but the quality of their efforts decreased. Many soldiers who were drafted refused to go. Some made efforts to stop the war from the inside, and some even sabotaged their own troops. This was because many of the people drafted to fight felt that it was not their war, and that they had no real interest in its outcome. These examples of the detrimental effects of the Vietnam draft should be enough evidence to show that the draft does not work.

Many say that the draft is justified because every American has to cooperate in the shared sacrifice of a nation at war. They believe that, as citizens, all Americans have the responsibility to personally relate to the military goals of the U.S. and to take on a part of the burden, but military service and war have never been of equal interest to all. Where do the distinctions lie between equality in society and equal responsibility to participate in war? In the American historical sense, the draft has never been a fair lottery, as many proponents have called it. In the first civil war, for example, a wealthy man could buy his way out of the war for three-hundred dollars. This marked the beginning of upper-class citizens finding ways to have their war fought by the poverty stricken, the middle-class, and the minorities, all though almost all of the interests of victory affected mainly the wealthy upper-class.

One must also consider the issue of women or homosexuals in the military and their respective equality in society. Can equality really ever be realized if