And he can join up again, if not directly because of mandatory retirement age the with one of the many private military contractors (PMCs) that support in warfare zones. Because I think we’ve just about had our collective fill of older people claiming how important it is to go fight a war on the sketchiest of premises, talking about how important it is for Americans to serve and how much respect they deserve, and then completely ignoring the consequences and health impacts upon those who went to “do their duty”, notwithstanding the damage to the reputation of the United States by engaging in nearly-unilateral “regime change” exercises.
As @hajario notes, @Paul_was_in_Saudi is all about telling other people what to do with their lives and regulating their personal autonomy when it suits him. It would be great to see him present a thesis that he would actually back up with his own personal sacrifice.
The world is getting a lot more dangerous. Recent events show that the Long Peace may be near its end. Further, it is now obvious that our existing overemphasis on military stockpiles, manpower and general readiness has failed as a strategy to ensure peace.
It is better to address the causes that drive increased unrest than to attempt to suppress it by military means.
So I suppose the United States, and other nations ought to redirect resources from military efforts and toward infrastructural and quality-of-life programs.
The concept of a draft is horribly unjust and any attempt to implement one would be poorly-run. We can do better. I would propose a sustained policy of defunding for the armed forces with the budget savings used to establish universal healthcare, universal basic income, and a robust infrastructure rebuilding program focused on green energy to abate climate change.
Honestly, I do not see any political path to getting this done. Still, I suspect dumping $842 billion a year into the armed forces has never been the right approach.
Your thoughts?
(Else I be mistaken for a witless utopian, I am by no means a total military abolitionist. My intent here is to show that, absent compelling evidence, the premises of this argument do not demand the OP’s conclusions.)
Cite? For starters the war in Ukraine is anything but “smallish,” it’s the largest war fought on European soil since the Second World War. More importantly, would you care to explain what muscle in the US military has been deeply cut supplying Ukraine? Please be specific, which units have had to be disbanded, which units have had to cut back or cancel training to support Ukraine? With that in mind, explain how exactly your plan to draft warm bodies will solve these issues of alleged lack of supplies?
The only people alleging that supplying Ukraine would or was ‘dangerously depleting’ US stockpiles were those looking to make attention grabbing headlines, pro-Russian, or a combination of both. From the first days claims that the US was dangerously weaking itself by supplying so many Javelin and Stinger missiles and should stop supplying so many was transparent rubbish. The US could hand over every single Javelin and Stinger in its inventory if it wanted to and still have an abundance of ways to destroy tanks and aircraft. Handing over 80 or 2,000 M2 Bradley ODS’ that are sitting in storage in the desert isn’t going to do anything to weaken the US military. The reason they were built in the first place was to fight the Soviets in Europe.
Anyway, the idea is that if we got into a big war we might suffer massive losses. Ukraine is showing even with very accurate weapons, mass slaughter in war has not ended. Just as we need to be ready with huge amounts of material, we need to be able to sustain and replace loses.
Well we could avoid a major war by allowing Russians, North Koreans, Chinese or whoever to kill people with sledgehammers. That is certainly an option. Are you proposing that?