Privatization of military

[hostler]

The mandatory service will enable the nation to call upon trained and in some cases experienced soldiers from a large pool quickly for defense if needed. Training takes time we may not have. That is why I support it.

Two words,,, Inactive reserve.
That is the exact purpose for the inactive reserve period that is tacked onto active duty contracts.

 

[vonn]

Talk about the draft and mandatory service had me google selective service requirements and they are still there. Don't know what is required to reinstate the draft,will check later.

 

[medic15al]

Two words,,, Inactive reserve.
That is the exact purpose for the inactive reserve period that is tacked onto active duty contracts.

The IRR is indeed used for that, but the available personnel is much too small for emergency use in a large scale crisis. And getting smaller as their 8 year commitment is up and enlistments are down.

Total call up of active, National Guard, and active reserves would take long enough as it is, Then reactivation of IRR and other essential retired persons, would take a great deal of time. Then factor in training the draftees.

 

[hostler]

The IRR is indeed used for that, but the available personnel is much too small for emergency use in a large scale crisis. And getting smaller as their 8 year commitment is up and enlistments are down.

Total call up of active, National Guard, and active reserves would take long enough as it is, Then reactivation of IRR and other essential retired persons, would take a great deal of time. Then factor in training the draftees.

Lets consider what "emergency" is.
Is anything that happens in the middle east an emergency for our country? Is anything that takes place in North Korea an emergency for us? To me an emergency is a direct or impending incursion on U.S. territory or personnel. Anything else falls under the category of "we'll help if/when we can". I'm pretty adamant that people should not be forced into service for "if and when we can" assignments.

Examjples, WWII was absolutely an emergency, WWI was an impending emergency, Korea and Vietnam, Gulf war, Iraq, Afghanistan and all other *** countries in that region were "if and when we can".

 

[medic15al]

Lets consider what "emergency" is.
Is anything that happens in the middle east an emergency for our country? Is anything that takes place in North Korea an emergency for us? To me an emergency is a direct or impending incursion on U.S. territory or personnel. Anything else falls under the category of "we'll help if/when we can". I'm pretty adamant that people should not be forced into service for "if and when we can" assignments.

Examjples, WWII was absolutely an emergency, WWI was an impending emergency, Korea and Vietnam, Gulf war, Iraq, Afghanistan and all other *** countries in that region were "if and when we can".

I was referring to an imminent invasion of homeland and WW2 type emergency, not an overseas limited area action.

 

[hostler]

I was referring to an imminent invasion of homeland and WW2 type emergency, not an overseas limited area action.

Even with the current sad state of our politics and patriotism I have full confidence that if the U.S were invaded there would be an abundance of volunteers with experience and fortitude. Our weakness would not be personnel, it would be our lack of industrial complex to support those personnel.

 

[medic15al]

Even with the current sad state of our politics and patriotism I have full confidence that if the U.S were invaded there would be an abundance of volunteers with experience and fortitude. Our weakness would not be personnel, it would be our lack of industrial complex to support those personnel.

I agree 100%!

The amount of leftists and younger people who have no sense of duty or loyalty would also concern me. I expect most of those would turn on us.

 

[ChuckS1]

I'm still floored by the acceptance of our supply system paying thousands of dollars per truck on thousands of trucks per week to the Taliban enemy for their "protection" of our supply trucks.
Why would either side want to stop a war reduced to a balance sheet and profitable to both sides, with our taxpayers and volunteer military footing the bill.

U.S. trucking funds reach Taliban, military-led investigation concludes - The Washington Post

Here's something you might get a kick out. After retiring from the Army, I worked for a major defense contractor on a contract that provided RFID tracking hardware and software for the US Transportation Command. We had RFID readers all along the convoy routes from Karachi, Pakistan, into the US bases in Afghanistan, among literally thousands of other places. Given a transportation control number (TCN), we could tell you where that box was anywhere in the world, what shipping container it was in, etc. Think of it as FEDEX or UPS tracking on steroids. Anyway, it became pretty obvious when containers were being "diverted" by the local Pakistani truckers, since we could see in near real and real time where containers were that had the GPS RFID tags. Aside from the real concern that container contents were being stolen, there was also the concern that they might be booby-trapped and then allowed to go on into Afghanistan. So, one of the main users of the tracking software was the USAF which would send Hellfire missile-armed drones to the "diverted" container locations. Didn't take long before we saw a significant drop in "diverted" containers. Eventually the bad guys figured it out and we had to make it harder to remove the RFID tags, but even so, it was pretty effective.

 

[Ματθιας]

I was referring to an imminent invasion of homeland and WW2 type emergency, not an overseas limited area action.

I seriously doubt there will ever be an invasion of CONUS or a WW2 type conventional warfare. It'll go nuclear long before there'd be enough time to assemble/mass the forces or it'll be a case of saber rattling with a resolution like the Cuban Missile crisis and over in a matter of weeks.

What I do see is endless wars/military operations in third world countries like we've been involved with since Korea.

I don't see a bunch of outside threats, but I do see a bunch of internal ones civil unrest. We're seeing it play out in big cities in western europe and the US.

 

[islandguy]

Call it privatization if you will. Call the private soldiers contractors if you like. Those willing to engage in combat in return for pay are properly known as mercenaries. A mercenary's loyalty is owned by the employer, not by a nation, not by an ideology.

This could prove to be a very dangerous idea.

Didn't work for the Romans, and as we all know, history repeats itself: "How the "Roman" army came to be composed of barbarian (a.k.a. mercenary) troops of an often renegade nature is in many ways the story of Rome's fall. It is the story of a people who seemingly lost confi­dence in themselves, a government that lost control of its army, and an army that lost control of its soldiers. It is a story of ambition, but also of miscalculation and finally failure."

 

[islandguy]

Even with the current sad state of our politics and patriotism I have full confidence that if the U.S were invaded there would be an abundance of volunteers with experience and fortitude. Our weakness would not be personnel, it would be our lack of industrial complex to support those personnel.

I agree, but I would expect that the majority of those volunteers would be aged 40+.

 

[carpriver]

I enlisted in the Air Force in 1966, right out of high school. Like other have said I to was a poor student and a smart *** kid and I was not going to get to college, My life was not going to go any place until my military service was complete. I learned I was stronger then I thought, I learn drive, how to motivate myself, how to get along with others and work on a team, I learn pride, My service was worth it price I paid. I server in Viet Nam and am a cold war vet. The pride I felt when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down. for a while the world was safer. I would support a draft; the military has a way of taking boys and making them into men and weed out those that are not to measure up.

 

[typetwelve]

I'll say these two facts...andI believe it sums my stance on the topic nicely.

Fact A: As time goes on American companies are gaining more and more power to do what they like, when they like, how they like.

Fact B: Companies don't give a good **** about the UCMJ.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

"Cheating in the Marine Corps" ? The Marine who told me that cited drivers training.
In the Army ?-can you say "body count".
"What's the difference between the Army and the Boy Scouts? "
"The Boy Scouts have adult leaders."
The problem with the Draft was that it provided the Army with quality enlisted men who were too often BETTER than their superiors-more intelligent, more mature, better educated-more hard working. And honest.

 

[TomkinsSP]

Is it even legal for the US to provide and cover mercenaries in another country?

I am not a lawyer, but both the State Department and DoD are already doing just that.

 

[Golddollar]

And for the record, I strongly support a mandatory draft for all young people. I've personally seen how military service almost always changes people's lives for the better, and I believe the extraordinary American successes of the 1950s and 60s were due largely to the widespread military influence created by the WWII draft of over 10 million men. After the war, most of those now skilled and disciplined young men returned to the civilian workforce and pushed America to its greatest successes. The lazy, self-centered nature of young people today would evaporate if they did a stint in the military, and America might actually have a chance of being Great Again.

Just to start out, I was never in the service. The closest I got was the second year of Air Force ROTC. I will try to stick to matters I feel confident I know something about. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

I wanted to throw out some points to ponder in this discussion:

1. During World War II, 16 million people served at one time or another in the Armed Forces. That was about 11% of the total population. Can the Armed Forces handle an influx of 33 million people passing through over say, 5 years (trying to approximate the ratios for World War II with the present day population)? That means paying, feeding, clothing, housing and training them. Would the taxpayers be willing to foot that bill?

2. If there is "universal" military service, where would the Amish, Quakers and members of other recognized pacifist religious groups go?

3. For those who found a positive direction in life from their military service, bless you and thank you for your service. For some people that doesn't work out, otherwise military facilities would not need brigs and stockades. I got some of the lowdown on this from a friend who was an attorney in the Judge Advocate General's Corps in the Marines. He used to defend Marines who got into trouble and he told how he counseled defendants about the path they would go down if they didn't change their ways and get off the self-destructive path. To my friend the progression of trouble, if unchecked, was as predictable as clockwork.

I am not offering any commentary. I will leave that to everybody else.

 

[TomkinsSP]

^^^I never served in the armed forces, I joined the PD while in college and served for over 20 years. Just a few thoughts on the subject...

1. We could expand the definition of service to include non military service to the nation. Even so, the percent of citizens serving would not need to be anywhere as high as during WW2. (Don't forget we had confascatory tax rates to pay for the war.) If an objective of compulsory service is to ensure that the military can 'cherry pick' the excess is an advantage.

2. During WW2 those with Consientious Objections to fighting were trained as medics, today's military has even more positions where there is not a need for weapons (technology, communication, transportation come to mind.)

In addition if the definition was expanded, there would be additional National Service jobs that would not be objectionable to a pacifist per se (communication, construction, maintenance, firefighting (including wild fire fighting), transportation, paramedics come to mind.)

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

I'd like to see a re-militarization of the military. In recent years, too much of "It's just a job", people enlisting for the family benefits, a summer camp atmosphere in Basic Training, singles expected to sacrifice for the married, etc.

 

[Whitwabit]

My question is .. WHY !!!

When we have the best armed forces in the world ..

 

[hkcavalier]

I'm just a poor dumb mustang Army lieutenant, and I'm strongly against a peacetime draft.

We still have the draft, technically, it's called the Selective Service. And if it's ever needed, you may want to run for the hills, because it's WWIII.

Vietnam was the last "cannon fodder" war for a number of reasons. I'm (perhaps obviously) too young to remember firsthand, but I believe I have a good understanding as to why our national mentality shifted. In short, we don't need scads of short term, unmotivated lower enlisted---we already have plenty of them WITHOUT a draft. What we need is to retain those mid-career enlisted, warrants, and commissioned officers in which so much has been invested.

The mercenary phenomenon is simply politics. It's not because they are better or more experienced. While historically inaccurate, King Edward I in Braveheart understood the concept quite well: Use up the Irish.