The failure of the military to meet its recruitment needs in both the regular service and the reserves and National Guard is a very threatening problem, as is the declining standards of recruit. The vote more than four years ago in Congress on reinstating the draft was not only a farce but a shameful display of cynicism. If there is anything we can learn from history it is that professional armies are a danger to democracy and freedom. Our National Guards and Reserves are depleted in both personnel and equipment, seriously affecting our states' ability to respond to national disasters. Bush's two architects of this situation are Rumsfield and Cheney who made their careers privatizing the military.
After the Punic Wars the Roman Senate could not convince the Assembly of the people to vote for war, the people were so tired of its consequences. The Senatorial Party was only able to trick them into war with Philip of Macedon, claiming he was about to attack Rome. But the Senate connived to achieve their aims not with a traditional vote to raise an army by conscription. Instead the people resisted and the vote was to allow for the first time private armies to be raised with paid soldiers from the proceeds of the war. This situation led to the creation of independent forces which obeyed their leaders and not the government, and then to civil war for control of the government.
While most arguments for the draft focus on the issue of fairness, we must consider the future of our republic and the corrosive power of a professional army. The history of the British army alone should stand as a strong argument against them. The British government of the 18th and 19th centuries gave rights to various corporations (like the East Indian Company) to raise armies and maintain forts in lieu of taxes (think here Blackwater today). The result was corruption, pillage and neglect. The power of the corporations sapped the strength of the military with a thorough corruption both in promotions, use of commands and expropriations of military stores. Mistreatment by corporate agents and their military governors brought rebellion in colony after colony. By the end of the 19th century this system had left the British military in shambles and British power in ruins.
The draft may be inconvenient but if properly applied it is a fair and safe means to defend the country. Arguments for the need for a rapid response military for the 21st century are specious. It is better that we think first and then respond later. Speed will not make us either more effective or wiser. In both the Balkans and Rwanda in the 1990s, inaction not reflection characterized the West. In Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq speed has resulted in a harvest of destruction and no solution. Our citizen army forced our leaders to reflect and to prepare. Reports, like that by the New York Times recently of rising incidents of rightwing, KKK and Nazi group organizing in the military and by militant Christian racial separatists, is also a troubling part of this "new army."
The most absurd statement of the 21st century has been Rumfield’s, "You go to war with the army you have not the one you want." Only the unprepared go to war without the army they need.
Niccolo Caldararo
Dept. of Anthropology
San Francisco State University