When Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., discussed his feelings on the draft earlier this month, the subject began to dominate the headlines. House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi’s rejection of the idea eased fears that the newly-elected Democratic majority might try to actually revive conscription. Reinstating the draft would be a horrendous idea for several reasons, and just the discussion of the topic underscores the importance of paying attention to national and international affairs to ensure that this sort of legislation does not get passed.
To begin, reinstating the draft is unnecessary. The current deployments—while they are, in some cases, stretching our military—do not necessitate the type of growth that a draft would bring. There is such a thing as having too large a military, and we should be careful to avoid that. Our current setup, however, allows those who volunteer to become specialized and makes for a smaller but highly skilled force. In addition, while recruiting numbers had taken a dip in recent years, most of these problems have been resolved, and recruitment is mostly meeting requirements. Also, maintaining the volunteer status of the armed services ensures that those deployed are there by choice. When people are forced into the military, it does not always work quite as planned.
When Rangel discussed his opinion, part of his logic was that mandatory service for all would help to equalize things along the economic spectrum, saying that if members of the federal government were faced with the possibility of their family members being deployed, we would not have invaded Iraq. Whether or not you agree with this logic, it is worth stating that we should not be reinstating the draft to make members of our federal government think more critically before making a decision to send troops into combat. This is among the most important matters for the government to decide, and they should not need any additional motivation to make such decisions judiciously. If the situation comes to a point where they think they need a draft to maintain troop levels, perhaps the better solution is to drastically rethink our deployments instead of starting down a horrendously slippery slope.
