conscription and selective service

[tackattack]

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1.  I doubt there would be much savings.  Whatever they don't pay the soldiers would be pissed away on the military industrial complex in some other way.  Cutting the military budget produces the most conspicuous whining and our politicians can't stand up to it.

2.  While I see the benefit of an all-volunteer force it leads to two significant problems which cannot be fixed.  First, the burden of military service falls on a disproportionately small percentage of the population.  The rest of the population looks at them and says "you volunteered...don't complain."  This leads to point #2.  Conscription has the tendency of democratizing the armed forces.  I wonder if we would still be pissing away our time and money in Afghanistan if the soldiers were draftees.  Somehow, I think the political repercussions would have been too much.

Remember that the Romans went from a citizen army to a volunteer professional force.  It didn't work out so well.  In 30 years Sulla marched on Rome and "his" troops gleefully followed him.

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I agree that in some countries it breeds a thirst for war. And if the county if focused on expansion, full of infighting among the 1% and we kept a civil force to check the national force, I don't see that as being as problematic as Sulla.

I agree with your points on 2 and I have far more faith in the government than you to agree with 1, but that's for another thread.

So if you could trust that the people next to you wanted to be there because everyone does it (it's normalized societally) and it reduced spending would that be enough or do you think more benefit would be necessary?


edited: I was in the AF and contracting work still.