The Myth of National Service

U.S. Army Paratroopers deploy from Pope Army Airfield, N.C., on Jan. 1, 2020. Capt. Robyn Haake/U.S. Army/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Every few years, someone doom-writes an article about the need to bring back conscription, commonly known in the United States as the draft.

The arguments in favor usually revolve around two concerns.

The first is that the U.S. military, currently an all-volunteer force (AVF), cannot entice enough qualified young men and women to serve, leaving our armed forces undermanned and “hollow.”

A second, larger concern is that the lack of national service—that is, some kind of obligatory public service in which all young men (and presumably women) participate—is somehow deleterious to the nation’s social fabric. National service is seen as a mechanism to bring together young people from across the country’s various economic, racial, and social spectrums, mix them together, and help them understand their common values and goals.

This is the model of the “citizen-soldier,” idealized in the minutemen of the Revolutionary War. And this has supposedly been lost with the rise of a warrior caste of professional soldiers.

Max Boot, a military historian and Washington Post columnist, quotes a retired U.S. Navy admiral: “The AVF has led us to become the best trained, equipped, and organized fighting force in global history. But we have drifted away from the citizen-soldier model that was such a part of our nation’s history.”

The answer, of course, is to bring back national service and make it mandatory for all. While this is a nice sentiment, it is based on a lie. What’s more, a return to the draft would be injurious to our armed forces.

In the first place, the United States has never had a military based on the “citizen-soldier.” Up until World War II, peacetime soldiering has always been a small-time affair, comprised of professional troops. During the 19^th century, the U.S. military never totaled more than 40,000 men, except during major conflicts (such as the American Civil War or the Spanish-American War). During those periods, the U.S. military would expand quickly, usually through voluntary enlistments. Following the cessation of hostilities, it would just as quickly shrink back to a small core of professional soldiers. After the Civil War, for example, the U.S. Army declined from over 1 million men to just 26,000 soldiers, primarily engaged in campaigns against Native Americans on the Great Plains.

Moreover, the draft has been a rarity in the United States, never the norm. Before 1945, it was used only three times: during the Civil War—where it provoked anti-draft riots—World War I, and World War II.

A U.S. Marine (R) cradles his M1919 Browning machine gun at Peleliu during World War II. Public domain

Even in wartime, conscription was never universal. During World War II, for example, relatively few men eligible for the draft were actually called up: out of 50 million registered, only 10 million were inducted into the military. This is why the United States has always used the term “selective service.”

In fact, true national service in the United States only existed from 1948 to 1969, and even then, just on paper. All men aged 18 to 25 were supposed to serve in the military for 21 months. Nevertheless, during the 1950s, few men were drafted, due mainly to cuts in defense spending, and many were released early from service.

During the Vietnam War, the draft remained a selective service, with many exemptions or deferments for marital status, having dependents, or attending university. Former President Richard Nixon’s “draft lottery,” introduced in 1969, was no more universal or fair. And since the draft never fell equally on all eligible men, it created considerable social and political unrest at home and morale and disciplinary problems within the military.

But suppose we brought back conscription and made everyone, male and female, serve one year in the armed forces. It still wouldn’t necessarily produce the best soldiers or give us the kind of military we need most.

In the first place, where would we put all these conscripts? Every year, 4 million men and women turn 18, yet the U.S. military has only 1.4 million uniformed personnel. Even if half were exempted or permitted to do civilian service (and where would they all go, and at what cost?), this is still more recruits than the U.S. armed forces need.

Moreover, a year is hardly enough time these days to adequately train the kind of personnel needed to fill out a high-tech force like the U.S. military. More likely, national service would result in many under-trained, mostly useless conscripts that the military—especially the U.S. Army, which would get most of them—would be happy to be rid of.

Around the world, conscripts have shown their declining usefulness. Russia has performed poorly in Ukraine mainly because it relied on poorly trained, morale-plagued conscripts. And press-ganging thousands more Russian youths into the military isn’t going to help much.

In fact, most countries that once had national service have either abandoned it or created hybrid systems, such as in Sweden, where young men (and women) can “volunteer to be drafted.” Other countries, like Taiwan or Finland, have periods of national service as short as four or six months.

In sum, national service is no silver bullet. It won’t solve the U.S. armed forces’ readiness problems or mend social ills, and it won’t, all by itself, produce a better military. In fact, it may even dilute our military’s strengths. Militaries are supposed to do only one thing: defend national sovereignty and national interests through the use (or threat) of arms. It does so by being a true meritocracy and attracting the best talent, regardless of race, gender, or sexual identity.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.