Posted on 09/15/2014 7:16:41 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
As drones, cyberattacks and other high-tech developments change the nature of war, two prominent scholars argue that we must also rethink who fights our wars: the time has come, they say, to bring back the draft.
The article, "Universal Conscription as Technology Policy," appears in Issues in Science and Technology, a journal published by the National Defense University. The authors are Mark Hagerott — a distinguished professor of cybersecurity studies at the U.S. Naval Academy, who was cited by Foreign Policy as one of "The Top 70 Military Thinkers "— and Brad Allenby, President's Professor of Sustainable Engineering, and Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics, at Arizona State University.
Allenby and Hagerott base their argument on a contradiction inherent in today's military — technology reduces casualties, making it easier for U.S. policymakers to commit the country to war; yet technology is also increasingly complex, requiring more of the types of skillsets that we see in Silicon Valley startups:
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as the Predator, for example, separate the airman physically from the battlefield, thus placing him or her at far less risk. Protecting military personnel from harm is necessary and desirable, but it may also lower the social, political, and psychological barriers to moving from negotiation and policy to military engagement. We believe that broader social participation in the military could ensure an appropriate balance in democratic decisionmaking about when to make the momentous transition to military action.
At the same time, the accelerating evolution of technology across its entire frontier, driven by advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communications technology (ICT), robotics, and applied cognitive science, is challenging the adaptive capabilities of modern militaries. If the military is to be able to remain competitive globally in such a difficult and complex environment, conscription will be required to bring into the military a broader array of necessary skills. For example, cyberconflict poses not just a technological and geopolitical challenge, but also a challenge to internal military culture: The geeks that, feasting on Coke and Skittles, are fearsome in ICT capability are not the kinds of personalities that will be easily attracted to a traditional, strongly hierarchical, heavily bureaucratic, military organization. Nor do we expect that the institutional leaders, entrepreneurs, and change-makers who work with the geeks, and who understand the political sensitivities and social concerns about privacy, data management, open source, and the like, will be volunteering for military service. Not just cyberskills, but appropriate management skills, will be critical competencies for tomorrow's military.
The real question here is whether technology is truly a game changer. Allenby and Hagerott make some intriguing points, but they also echo existing arguments for bringing back the draft — arguments that span the political spectrum. For instance, Charles Rangel, a liberal Democratic Congressman from New York, recently stated:
Currently the burden of defending our nation is carried by less than 1 percent of the American population. The 2.2 million members of the armed forces in active duty, the National Guard and the Reserve have become a virtual military class that makes the ultimate sacrifice of laying down life and limb for our country.
Since we replaced the compulsory military draft with an all-volunteer force in 1973, our nation has been making decisions about wars without worry over who fights them. I sincerely believe that reinstating the draft would compel the American public to have a stake in the wars we fight as a nation. That is why I wrote the Universal National Service Act, known as the "draft" bill, which requires all men and women between ages 18 and 25 to give two years of service in any capacity that promotes our national defense.
Similarly, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank believes the draft could be the solution to ending the deep political divisions that have paralyzed the government: "Because so few serving in politics have worn their country's uniform, they have collectively forgotten how to put country before party and self-interest. They have forgotten a 'cause greater than self,' and they have lost the knowledge of how to make compromises for the good of the country."
Allenby and Hagerott acknowledge these arguments but up the ante, saying that the modern military fosters even deeper divisions than those that already exist:
These technologies have…. empowered a progressively smaller numerical group, such as a team sitting in a control room in South Dakota directing an unmanned Predator, that is potentially increasingly alienated from humanity, both the enemy it fights overseas and its fellow citizens, who have fewer and fewer connections with these isolated technocratic warriors.
[Universal conscription] would also expose many more people to the possibility of being drafted, thus giving them and their families a direct interest in national decisions about when to go to war. A well-designed conscription program can, therefore, reduce incentives for the premature resort to violence to resolve geopolitical differences. Simply put, if technology is making war too easy, the draft is one of the few ways to keep it hard.
And, they reason, universal conscription is a twofer, since it not only reduces the democratic deficit, it also reduces the deficit in skills:
Relying on a small volunteer elite to manage major technological revolutions across virtually all security domains is unrealistic; a self-selected volunteer elite, no matter how competent, will not reflect the skills and, more importantly, the perspectives, cultural competencies, and implicit knowledge embodied across the society. Will enough geeks volunteer? Will enough experts in finance, who can help protect critical assets from unrestricted cyberwarfare, be available and aligned with more-traditional military defense institutions?
Speaking as a member of the geek community, it's nice to be wanted. But the people that Allenby and Hagerott want to enlist for national security are the same ones who are valued in civilian society as key drivers of economic growth. Scooping up these innovators in the net of universal conscription would make the hard-sell of reinstating the draft even harder.
In fact, there's a rather dismal economic theory that the draft could motivate governments to reduce spending on expensive technology, especially when faced with the pressure for deep budget cuts. In 1850, the German economist Johann Heinrich von Thünen wrote: "In time of war we have no hesitation in sacrificing one hundred men in the bloom of their years to save one cannon... the production of the cannon is the cause of an expenditure of the state treasury, while human beings are again available for nothing by means of a simple conscription order."
You and I were both at Red Cloud, but I was there ten years prior to you. I know what you mean. I saw the attitudes when I was there. I just don’t believe it’s the best idea when it’s proven we can have a very successful volunteer military. Attitude means something, and sometimes what it means is the difference between living, and dying.
Do most developed countries have a 13th Amendment?
With all of the remote controlled high tech stuff, I say let the old folks who want to break things and kill people have at it as volunteers.
Tell me, then, how we had it in the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea, the cold war and Vietnam?
I think he had a sarcasm tag at the end of his comment.
Thanks for the memories. That MP directing traffic at the gate was me, but in 1966.
The PX up at the back of the compound had the absolutely best raised donuts, and fried chicken in the entire World.
Hey, if you want to compare national emergencies with an apparent shortage of drone pilots, or whatever they were gibbering about in this stupid article, knock yourself out. If you imagine for one minute that their draft would turn out patriotic citizens then you have not been paying attention. And S. Korea has a nut-job neighbor that has already invaded them once, so their situation is not quite analogous to ours, is it?
We have Southern neighbors invading us, last time I checked.
Did they have the “Bullseye Inn” back then, I think it was called that had their version of a Whopper or Big Mac called a Smuggler?
That is absolutely true and the people who would be running a new draft are the same people who are facilitating the invasion. The draftees would probably be manning welcome stations for our newest democrat voters.
That photo is from 1965, so right before your time.
So you’ve given up? Which country are you moving to?
I haven't given up anything. I just strongly disagree with you about a draft under this administration and today's circumstances.
The Bullseye Inn is not something I recollect at all. May have come about after I departed in February 1968. The usual EM clubs, NCO, and Officers clubs, but anything else you wanted was at the PX up in the back. We had the Kimchi Commanche Club at the 55th MP compound just over the tracks to the right as you headed into Uijongbu. The mess at the 55th was the absolute best. Lots of awards year after year. We ate well.
Please explain your flawed reasoning. How can you equate a volunteer to a mercenary?
I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1984. I spent 23 years serving this great republic. I sure as hell didn’t do it for the money. Two of my sons enlisted. One in the army and one in the Marine Corps. Again, money had nothing to do with it. You do a great disservice to those of us who have voluntarily given up the best years of our live to protect this country.
Draft all of the boys into infantry training first. Clean ‘em up and make men of ‘em. It would also lead to a revival of real conservatism.
> I think he had a sarcasm tag at the end of his comment.
: )
I am using the term mercenary to mean a paid professional army not an army of conscripts.
But yes, even mercenaries who are not nationals of the army they fight for are often better troops than conscripts. You see this clearly in battalions like the British Ghurkas or French Foreign Legion. These are units that do not fight for their county but are highly regarded and recognized for bravery good soldiery.
Would anyone enlist if they were not paid, regardless of how patriotic they are? Not under normal circumstances.
Perhaps you are reading a negative connotation into the word mercenary that I am not implying. The best troops, since Roman times have professional soldiers, not conscripts. It simply does not matter where a professional soldier is a national of the country he fights for or not.
I love your tagline and I agree with you.
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