The Founders’ wisdom

[Administrator]

The U.S. faces a number of difficult challenges in civil-military relations that carry with them profound effects on our national security. Among these issues are declining popular support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, growing isolation between the U.S. military and the society it serves, and unresolved disputes over the limits of executive authority. However difficult these problems may be, they are neither unprecedented nor insoluble.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2010/02/4384885

[Lex]

Paul makes a formidable argument. I agree to a large extent with the professional criticisms of congressional participation (or lack of) in the national security process contrary to what the founding fathers intended. They failed to provide the check to the ambiguous circumstances of our most recent conflicts. I also share the same frustrations as I deploy over and over echoing a feeling that we are too small of a force to bear this burden (are we? maybe not? maybe it's a policy-strategy mismatch). Where I think the argument went astray is going back to the conscription practices of the past. I would suggest the following points:

First, and most important, conscription is slavery, it directly contrasts the right to individual freedom (also a fundamental tenant of our constitution). As fair it may sound to some in the overstretched military, it is not the answer.

Second, the nature of conflict and presumably future conflict requires professional soldiers. Conscripts, even those acquired through an elite conscription act (Joe Haldeman reference), will likely not provide the necessary skills and expertise for the wicked problems of the future. You could argue that you could have a professional corps, yet who would want to serve amongst the oppressed (refer to point one)

Third, political infeasibility, no politician (except for a few like Charles Rangel) would support conscription. A Sisyphean task considering who provides congress their power.

I would suggest a closer examination of where we failed in policy and strategy through the application of national power for unachievable ends. If anything, create an elite conscription act that puts the talent into the DOS...(not that they don't have talent, just give them more).

Regards,

Lex

[tbswitzer]

With respect to Lt. Col Paul L. Yingling’s article “Dereliction of duty”, I must take issue with a few of his points regarding military funding and manpower. On these two points his arguments are not germane to his central thesis and are in fact wrong. According to the Congressional Budget Office, our spending on defense as a percentage of GDP reached a record low of 3.0% in 2000 and despite heavy commitments to two wars our defense spending is still well below the average of the last four decades (5-6%) . Certainly the sticker shock produced by a program that exceeds seven hundred billion per year is understandable and the Department of Defense is not immune to waste and excess. However, considering the above, paying 3-5% of our yearly income for national security does not seem off the mark especially considering the excellent value we receive in return.

The fact that we are paying for our military with “borrowed money”, as Yingling put it, does not reduce the efficacy of our national defense. We are going into debt to pay for a war that hopefully our children will not have to fight. It does not seem excessive to borrow from a future generation that will undoubtedly be wealthier and enjoy higher standards of living than us so they may inherit a more peaceful world. In my point of view, the projected future layouts for social entitlements and the culture of fiscal irresponsibility by our elected leaders should be the ire of his anger. To the extent that our Congress has failed to address both of those issues, I agree with Lt. Col Yingling’s central argument.

To the question of conscription, we fully diverge in thought and belief. I would urge Lt. Col Yingling and the readers to read Warner and Asch (2001) for an excellent review of the post-Vietnam volunteer military in terms of economic efficiency. To lift a few of their most salient points, it is neither cheaper to maintain a conscripted military nor is it “fair” in any sense of the word. True, we can get away with paying conscripted soldiers lower wages to reduce costs but all we accomplish is the introduction of a hidden “tax” to the non-volunteer soldier. The individual soldier would then “pay” in the form of opportunity cost and time. Not only has the conscript lost the opportunity to pursue their education or other economic opportunities, they won’t even receive a market clearing wage for their service. The heavy burden of paying for this public “good” shifts from the collective to the individual. How exactly will this make people more “invested” in national security matters when society pays less for it? To whom exactly is this fair?

To the idea of targeted conscription based on desired skills such as language and cultural abilities, I ask: What would the secondary effect be on the labor pool? Knowing that students would be at a high risk of being drafted, would more or fewer of them decide to enroll in Middle Eastern or Chinese studies at top universities? Introducing risk, uncertainty, and higher personal costs will undoubtedly dissuade people from acquiring the very skills that we highly value in the market. These talented individuals are desired by international businesses to help us break into emerging markets. I don’t think we need to cede more ground to our foreign competitors by decreasing the labor supply of culturally savvy people and skimming off some percentage for ourselves. Instead, if we do truly need them then we (the taxpayers) must do what every other business does; compete.

Regarding costs, Warner and Asch point out that between 1965-1975 the percentage of the defense budget dedicated to personnel costs hovered between 30-37% as overall spending on defense was around 7%. As I pointed out earlier, both defense spending declined to about 3% by 2000 and despite a very competitive labor market, personnel spending declined to around 27%. This means that we spend less of our national income on our defense budget and even less on our labor pool. A quick calculation based on FY2009 DoD Green Book data, shows that our personnel spending today is an even smaller 20.2% of the total defense budget. Turnover of military personnel has declined from 21% to 15%, saving money in training costs and allowing us to increase the overall levels of human capital in the military.

Finally, since we have both led troops into combat, I would remind Lt. Col Yingling of the deleterious effect of having people in the unit who “don’t want to be there”. Despite the best efforts of commanders, officers, and NCOs there are always a very small percentage of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines with poor attitudes and low motivation. Would that percentage go up or down under conscription? Could we even imagine leading a unit where 5%, 10%, 20% or more of the members were like that? In my opinion, that is exactly what would come from draft system originating under circumstances that were less than exigent. Milton Friedman, no fan of the draft himself, popularized the maxim “there is no such thing as a free lunch”. This still holds true today.......tbs


http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/112xx/doc...ic_Outlook.pdf
Warner, John T and Asch, Beth. 2001. The Record and Prospects of the All-Volunteer Military in the United States. Journal of Economic Perspectives V.15 N2 p169-192
http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbu...Book_Final.pdf

[Bob W.]

Paul, Truly a thought provoking article. I am a fan, by the way; a few years ago when I was deployed to Afghanistan, I sat on the roof of our OPCEN one Sunday with several captains, smoked some cigars ,and we discussed your “Failure” article at length (at least until we ran out of cigars!)
I agree with your point that Congressional oversight of the military had been poor for several years, although I believe in recently it has improved; however, I strongly disagree that a conscript Army would improve Congress’s diligence. Furthermore, I do not believe that a conscript Army would be efficient or effective, nor do I believe it would it would achieve many of the effects you laid out. I also think some of desired characteristics of the conscript Army you describe are at odds with each other as well. I will address some, but not all, of my reservations about changing the current system here.
Paul, the central argument in your article is that Congress and American society as a whole would take a more vested interest in foreign policy if the US relied on conscripts, rather than the current volunteer force. Unless you are advocating a dramatic expansion of the military (your article doesn’t specify) the military is still a small segment of American society as a whole, and assuming that people are still allowed to volunteer and serve alongside the conscripts, how dramatically different will the impact be, especially when you factor in the status quo, where National Guard units from all around the country have been mobilized and fought in Iraq/Afghanistan? I agree that if more people think they could potentially deploy to combat, they would pay more attention to what’s going on in the world; but would the probability of serving in uniform, or deploying to combat, dramatically change the way American people look at foreign policy by several orders of magnitude? I am unconvinced. And why would a conscript Army suddenly create a dramatic impetus for Congress to take their Constitutional role more seriously? I inferred from your article that if there were more sons and daughters from wealthy/privileged families in uniform, you believe that this would suddenly change Congress’s behavior. Again, if the draft was applied fairly, how dramatic do you think the impact would be on Congress’s decision making? Factor in the status quo, where our National Guard units deploy to combat from communities across America, many of which are staffed by political/business leaders from wherever they originate. You believe that conscription would be a powerful incentive to get the government and public to rigorously participate in national defense/policy issues; I am unconvinced that when you factor in national guard deployments with the active duty force, the effect created via conscription justifies dismantling the current system.
You also wrote that a conscription system would ensure “the burden of war should be felt equally in every community in America” ; however, you later declare that the brightest and most talented should particularly be singled out as well (“for whom much is given, much should be expected”); these two thoughts are at odds, are they not? And if the draft specifically targets the latter group, will it truly be fair? If your intent is to create a military dramatically more skilled and educated than the current force, will it truly be representative of American society? Additionally, do you have faith that the current U.S. government would devise a bureaucracy that was truly fair, or effective at identifying people with specific skills, conscripting them, and putting them in a position to maximize their potential that is significantly better than what is currently in place now, where volunteers for the most part choose what they want to do in the military?
You also refer to the deficit spending required to fund the military right now, and state that a conscript force would be less expensive. I disagree, and did not see where you demonstrate savings in the article. Assuming the military stays the same size it is right now, but employs conscription rather than relying on volunteers, how exactly is it going to be less expensive? Right now a private makes about $1500 a month, an E4 with three years about $2100, so I do not believe you can achieve cost savings via the payroll. You deride “exorbitant bonuses” in your article, as well. My understanding is that the Army will spend about $465 million on bonuses this year, which these days is sadly little more than a budgetary rounding error. Assuming that a conscript Army still requires a professional NCO corps, you will likely need at least that much bonus money, if not more, to incentivize good people to stay in to train, enforce discipline, and lead people who are not serving of their own accord. I also assume you are not going to decrease officer pay, or any of the incentive pays out there either, right? There are also large societal opportunity costs to a draft that is fairly applied. A second year med student conscripted for three years due to language skills to serve in a PRT would lose three years of being able to practice medicine, perhaps more, and would not be able to earn a doctor’s wages, and pay some patriotic doctor’s taxes as well! Wouldn’t it be better empower the current system to recruit the doctor’s brother, who’s also fluent in the language but dropped out of college and doesn’t know what to do with his life yet?

As a closing thought Paul, didn’t the American public sent a resounding message to Congress in the last two elections that it is extremely interested in foreign policy and military affairs, and the behavior of its representatives?

[Paul Yingling]

Bob,

Thanks for your terrific response to “The Founders’ Wisdom.” Your very well thought out response is an indication that I didn’t make my case well enough, and I hope you’ll permit me a ‘mulligan.’

You object to my argument on three grounds; first, that conscription would not dramatically change our strategic behavior; second, that there is a contradiction between conscripting elites and creating a representative force; and third, that I have not demonstrated the cost savings of conscription.

Regarding your first objection, I pointed out in the article that the run-up to WW II is very instructive. When President Roosevelt led the country into war, he asked congress to impose conscription, raise taxes and declare war. In the summer of 1941, the conscription bill passed the House by a single vote. In the fall of 2002, the House passed the authorization to use military force in Iraq by 163 votes. This disparity in outcomes has nothing to do with the strategic stakes of the respective conflicts. Rather, it’s the result of bypassing the Constitution’s legislative checks on the war powers of the president. When Congress bears no responsibility for raising forces or declaring war, it is much less rigorous in exercising its oversight responsibilities.

Your third objection on cost is closely related to this first point. The war in Iraq has already cost us $700 billion, and its final cost may exceed $2 trillion. Had we adhered to our Constitutional system of war powers, the war would never have happened and this money would never have been spent. Focusing exclusively on the price of labor ignores the costs that come from fighting unnecessary wars. Tbswitzer makes the same error in his post by assuming that there is no correlation between the manner in which the force is raised and the manner in which it is committed to war. The Founders, all careful students of history, knew better and wisely placed the power to raise armies and declare war with Congress. The necessity for popular oversight of executive war powers was well understood by Enlightenment thinkers. In Perpetual Peace (1776), Immaneul Kant makes the same arguments on popular oversight of war powers as Madison and Hamilton later make in the Federalist Papers.

Your second objection is related to a supposed tension between a representative force and one drawn from elites. First and most importantly, the most privileged Americans have largely been absent from the AVF for the last 37 years and from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan for the last decade. If they are slightly overrepresented in the future, that outcome could hardly be considered unfair. Second, as I stated in the article, I favor expanding the size of the Army to meet our commitments, and the AVF has proven incapable of accomplishing this goal. The indicators of this failure are found in the Army’s inability to meet its dwell time goals and the rising human cost of the war, measured in suicides, PTSD, and other stress related issues.

Finally, the results of the last two elections have not produced an increased willingness to pay the costs in blood and treasure necessary to fight today’s wars. The Army is still too small, the burdens of war are still borne by too few, and no political leader has stepped forward to ask the public to serve or sacrifice to remedy these failures. While I appreciate your kind comments on the ‘Generalship’ article, that argument was an easy one to make. The public and the press are always ready to hear about malfeasance in high places. However, as defenders of the AVF are anxious to point out, the public does not like it when leaders ask them to pay their bills or fight their wars. Nonetheless, the task of leadership is often to point out the difference between the pleasant and the good.

Thanks again for the chance to clarify points that I should have made better in the original article.

Best,

Paul

[Dordhs]

I have always thought it a great shame that the club went for a black sword.

The sword of St Paul is red - aesthetics is the only reason ever given for the change which means the left hand side of our club emblem has no real meaning, unless you look at its heraldic symbology, in which case, from

[Bob W.]

If [the wealthy] are slightly overrepresented [via forced servitude in the military] in the future, that outcome could hardly be considered unfair."

Thanks for clarifying some of your points, Paul. I do take strong exception to your perception of the (at least initial) role of elites within your proposed conscription system, as well as your use of two data votes (Congressional Votes on military issues) a half century apart to justify drastically changing our current system.

First, comments on elites. Any conscription system that by definition is overcompensating for perceived previous inequities would be anything but fair to those who, in the present, are now subject to it. That seems like the type of argument that the chavistas make to fire up the masses in Caracas. Should my son, who turns ten this year, be pulled out of his Electrical Engineering studies at MIT and impressed into government serve in PRT Tehran in 2020, just because there aren't that many Ivy league north easterners rotating through PRT Asadabad these days? I'd argue that if there is someone willing to do the job willingly, my son should stay where he is, get a degree, and work as an engineer somewhere in the U.S. (maybe fixing our outmoded power grids). People provide service to their country in different ways, Paul; a person who risks his or her future on developing a business or practice, or spends years developing critical skills in medical/engineering fields, is as valuable to society as those who opt to serve in the military. Economically, does it make sense to draft a pre-med or engineering student (whose services are in equally high demand in our society), disrupt their lives, and deprive society of their talents not to make the military better, or because of mass mobilization due to a WWII style crisis, but merely to force Congress to perform its constitutional duties?

And can you imagine the "planning board" that is tasked with determining where a conscripted Army, initially manned with a disproportionate number of highly skilled elites, should best serve? It could end up looking something like this.

In any case, the elites are going to be too busy subsidizing the healthcare of the rest of America to participate in your "conscription to right past wrongs inflicted on the proletariat" scheme.

Beyond the elite/equality argument, you used two data points on Congressional votes a half century apart to argue that a draft would compel the legislative branch to perform it's constitutional role more effectively; here are a few more to muddy the waters a bit:

1. Gulf War 1: The votes were 52-47 in the U.S. Senate, and 250-183 in the U.S. House of Representatives, authorizing use of mil force in the first Persian Gulf War. There was no draft at the time.

2. Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964) Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of this resloution (I believe it was 416-0 and 98-2 in favor) which gave Pres Johnson authorities to use military force in Vietnam; there was a Draft, and at the time, the Cold War military was a considerably larger proportion of American society than it is today.

The votes declaring war on Japan, Germany, and then the other axis powers were unanimous, or nearly unanimous, as well.

Post Script: You also stated that you think the current military is isolated from the rest of American society, and I wondered why you think that?

[Gemsa]

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[Gemsa]

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[Nannyw]

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