But but, they are doing badass ads with white guys in army again !! So they want to start a big war with draft !!
Nah though seriously, I find this draft argument very cringe. Even worse, is when it is used in online gender war debates to decide who has it worse between men and women.
Enslaving the young men of a country to fight and die for their government is morally wrong. Also, I will always trust that the US government wants war, and will lie to the public to get it. That is the behavior that they’ve demonstrated. To believe it would be different this time seems very naive.
If the US government wants war, they'll stick to what they've done for the last >50 years and only use volunteers to avoid public backlash. Or even better, they'll use other countries as battering rams in proxy wars
Without the draft, it seems unlikely we can achieve stated goals in Ukraine.
It's certainly possible that the people in Washington won't be stupid enough to do a draft rather then abandon those objectives, but they also might be that stupid. You can search your history books for examples of very stupid foreign policy.
Why take the chance? What objective are we seeking worth such a potential outcome, whatever its odds?
The draft is ultra-unpopular. Whichever party is seen to even be proposing it is going to get destroyed electorally for it. I mean, it might be the only issue that would cause me to vote Democrat, if Republicans were the ones pushing it, and I don't think I'm unusual in this regard.
Both parties could coordinate to implement it anyway, but I just don't think that's how politics works right now. Maybe if there's another "Era of Good Feelings" and single-party (presumably Democrat) dominance, but we're far away from that era at this moment, and time is running out for Ukraine.
Sure, but you're really talking about domestic policy -- the degree to which you demand sacrifices on the home front in pursuit of an unpopular war against a distant threat.
I don't think there's a precedent for enacting conscription in such a context. The US was able to maintain conscription in the context of Vietnam, which wasn't nearly as unpopular in its early stages as sending large numbers of troops to Ukraine would be, and even so it ended up killing conscription for good.
I think the status quo is very relevant here. Conscription is currently a radical proposal, and the opposition party wouldn't be able to resist the urge to score tons of political points by attacking the other for pushing it. For the US to lose a foreign intervention on behalf of a corrupt Eurasian client state is now a well-established precedent, it's basically the norm at this point. The American people are much more prepared to accept another such loss than to accept conscription.
You would need a very popular, bipartisan war to justify bringing back conscription, after which the foreign policy establishment would have a free hand to blow it again in another unpopular war. But I don't see such a war happening this century; I don't think Taiwan applies.
I personally support conscription and oppose this other option. Nonetheless, I think conscription is too politically unpalatable to Americans to bring back. Hence, I see the Roman option as a possibility (and one I oppose)
Just for the record, this is an actual bipartisan bill "Courage to Serve Act". So yeah, it's much closer to fruition than reinstating the draft.
Though it technically doesn't apply to illegals, but at some point that's a matter of semantics: if the government says you're not illegal, then you're not illegal, however dubious your status might have been prior. A lot of people we think of as "illegals" because they behave like illegals, are technically "asylum-seekers". A status that could easily be expanded rapidly.
I don't think we end up with units that are formally Spanish-speaking. Most likely there's a bilingual NCO who is informally in charge of those with poor English skills. This is often how, for example, roofers operate in my area. There will be a monolingual white American good-old-boy who owns the company and focuses on drumming up business, who hires a bilingual Hispanic foreman that mostly runs the crew of monolingual Hispanics of dubious immigration status. Just apply that to the platoon level.
But but, they are doing badass ads with white guys in army again !! So they want to start a big war with draft !!
Nah though seriously, I find this draft argument very cringe. Even worse, is when it is used in online gender war debates to decide who has it worse between men and women.
Enslaving the young men of a country to fight and die for their government is morally wrong. Also, I will always trust that the US government wants war, and will lie to the public to get it. That is the behavior that they’ve demonstrated. To believe it would be different this time seems very naive.
If the US government wants war, they'll stick to what they've done for the last >50 years and only use volunteers to avoid public backlash. Or even better, they'll use other countries as battering rams in proxy wars
Without the draft, it seems unlikely we can achieve stated goals in Ukraine.
It's certainly possible that the people in Washington won't be stupid enough to do a draft rather then abandon those objectives, but they also might be that stupid. You can search your history books for examples of very stupid foreign policy.
Why take the chance? What objective are we seeking worth such a potential outcome, whatever its odds?
The draft is ultra-unpopular. Whichever party is seen to even be proposing it is going to get destroyed electorally for it. I mean, it might be the only issue that would cause me to vote Democrat, if Republicans were the ones pushing it, and I don't think I'm unusual in this regard.
Both parties could coordinate to implement it anyway, but I just don't think that's how politics works right now. Maybe if there's another "Era of Good Feelings" and single-party (presumably Democrat) dominance, but we're far away from that era at this moment, and time is running out for Ukraine.
Agreed.
But lots of very unpopular very stupid things have happened in the history of foreign policy. War is inherently chaotic, that's why we avoid it.
Sure, but you're really talking about domestic policy -- the degree to which you demand sacrifices on the home front in pursuit of an unpopular war against a distant threat.
I don't think there's a precedent for enacting conscription in such a context. The US was able to maintain conscription in the context of Vietnam, which wasn't nearly as unpopular in its early stages as sending large numbers of troops to Ukraine would be, and even so it ended up killing conscription for good.
I think the status quo is very relevant here. Conscription is currently a radical proposal, and the opposition party wouldn't be able to resist the urge to score tons of political points by attacking the other for pushing it. For the US to lose a foreign intervention on behalf of a corrupt Eurasian client state is now a well-established precedent, it's basically the norm at this point. The American people are much more prepared to accept another such loss than to accept conscription.
You would need a very popular, bipartisan war to justify bringing back conscription, after which the foreign policy establishment would have a free hand to blow it again in another unpopular war. But I don't see such a war happening this century; I don't think Taiwan applies.
It's a low probability high cost event.
When leaders get themselves in holes, they often throw meat at the problem. These things can escalate quickly, beyond anyones control.
I ask again, why are we in a situation where such is even possible? What are we trying to achieve that is worth such a risk, whatever its probability?
I guess I'm asking for some humility and empathy.
I think the more likely route they'll take given recruitment problems is to recruit illegals and grant them citizenship in exchange for service
I personally support conscription and oppose this other option. Nonetheless, I think conscription is too politically unpalatable to Americans to bring back. Hence, I see the Roman option as a possibility (and one I oppose)
Just for the record, this is an actual bipartisan bill "Courage to Serve Act". So yeah, it's much closer to fruition than reinstating the draft.
Though it technically doesn't apply to illegals, but at some point that's a matter of semantics: if the government says you're not illegal, then you're not illegal, however dubious your status might have been prior. A lot of people we think of as "illegals" because they behave like illegals, are technically "asylum-seekers". A status that could easily be expanded rapidly.
I don't think we end up with units that are formally Spanish-speaking. Most likely there's a bilingual NCO who is informally in charge of those with poor English skills. This is often how, for example, roofers operate in my area. There will be a monolingual white American good-old-boy who owns the company and focuses on drumming up business, who hires a bilingual Hispanic foreman that mostly runs the crew of monolingual Hispanics of dubious immigration status. Just apply that to the platoon level.