How and Why the Draft Will Come Back

[UPDATE-Early 2004: The original article which describes the underlying factors which are building pressure for a return to the draft is below this update, posted in early January, 2004.]

    One other continuing task here at Quaker House has been monitoring the growing strain on the US military, a force that's being stretched too thin in an ugly, pointless war. As casualties mount, the stress on military families is intense. One unintended result is among other things an increasing prospect of a return to the military draft. Other groups have recently commented on this overstretched condition, including the Century Foundation at www.tcf.org. 

    Government officials insist that a draft will not be needed; but there have been so many falsehoods emanating from official quarters about matters of war and peace, that the credibility of such pledges, in our opinion, is not high.

    To illustrate this growing pressure, we created what we call the DRAFT-O-METER, a graphic measure of our sense of how close we are coming to a return of the draft. Before 9-11, for instance, the odds were very low. Since then, they have begun to rise.

Almost every time I visit a group to talk about peace work, some persons ask about the draft -- is it coming back? When? My answers to these twin questions have been: I think so, to the first; but a guarded, I don't know, to the second. (If I really knew the future, I'd be in the stock market.)

But in the past month, various items of data have combined to bring this process into sharper focus. the outlook.

Here's what I now foresee:

In the near future--

1. if we're still bogged down in an Iraqi guerilla war. (And/or involved somewhere else as well.) And

2. If the current US regime has been returned to power in the 2004 election, with similar or stronger support in Congress;

3. Then I predict the push to revive the draft will come in the 2005 legislative session.

Why? Because for a second term president, the first year of that second term is THE time to propose actions that will be the most difficult and controversial.

(For those who remember or have read about it, Lyndon Johnson rammed through all his major legislative programs in the parallel year of 1965, after his election to a full term.)

2006 is a congressional election year, so that won't work. (Lyndon Johnson's activist drive stalled out in 1966.) And after that, lame-duck presidents in their last two years typically lose leverage with Congress and the public rapidly, especially if there are cumulative scandals coming to fruition (and the current regime has many such that are slowly ripening).

And by then, the stress on the existing US military will be at the breaking point, or beyond. It's not far from that even now, as we hear every day at Quaker House.

And should we add to this scenario two more IFs, namely: 1. a further terror attack (real or imagined) on US "homeland" territory; or 2. A new invasion or war with another country (Iran? North Korea? Some other nation?) Either of these would measurably increase the odds favoring the renewed draft scenario.

For those (Friends or others) who oppose a return to the draft, I propose that they/we begin work NOW to make a "pre-emptive strike" against it, working quietly to gather other supporters into loose alliances which will prepare to wage all-out political warfare against it in the campaigns leading up to 2005 (demanding that congressional candidates go on record against it in advance, etc.).

If we permit ourselves to be caught unawares in the 2005 crunch, I fear it will be too late.

History says the prospects of effective political opposition are substantial. The World War Two draft bill passed the House by a single vote. Even in 2005, with a re-elected president riding high, a return to the draft will be highly controversial; so the fight will be worth it.

But keep in mind this caveat: even if 2005 passes without a draft, the threat will still remain. The US military will still be overstretched. The pressure to close the gap between the "supply" of troops and the available soldiers will still persist. Further, the draft is an issue which does not cut cleanly across party lines: In the past, Democrats voted for the draft, just as did most Republicans. Under the pressure of war hysteria, why wouldn't they do so again?

And then if the draft returns, the same groups can turn almost on a dime to revive the large-scale campaign, involving Quakers and others, of draft counseling, and the smaller but important underground railroads smuggling rebel draftees out of the country. These were among the high points of  peace-antiwar witness in the Vietnam years.

It would also be a good idea for concerned Friends and others to read up on the experience of COs/resisters in the Vietnam era, which I think is the most useful model. Here are two books of particular value:

Friends in the Vietnam War, published by Pendle Hill, edited by your humble servant. There are many amazing and instructive true-life stories here.

Second, In the Service of their Country, by Willard Gaylin, Viking, 1970. Gaylin, a psychiatrist, conducted in-depth interviews with many imprisoned Vietnam-era war resisters, to chart the effects of this form of resistance on them and their communities. (The upshot: strong personal/community support made all the difference.) Excellent, sobering stuff.

My conclusion: if you are against the return of the draft, the time to get ready to stop it is NOW.

[NOTE: The article below was first written in early 2003, before the second U.S.-Iraq war began. While much has changed since, recent events have only reinforced the basic points and the forecast presented here.]

I

There was another flurry of press interest in the possibility of a renewal of the military draft over the Christmas season at the end of 2002.

Rep. Charles Rangel of New York announced he would introduce a draft bill to ensure that there would be "shared sacrifice" in the event of new wars. Rangel’s bill, the text of which is not available at this writing, joins one introduced in 2001 by Rep. Nick Smith of Michigan. Smith’s bill is HR 3598, The Universal Military Training Act of 2001.

Smith and Rangel make a very odd congressional couple: Rangel a black urban Democrat; Smith a white Republican from a farming district. But their rationales are remarkably similar: Rangel asserted that only one member of Congress today had a son in the enlisted ranks of the military; Smith noted that the percentage of Members of Congress with any military experience is diminishing rapidly. Rangel added that he hopes a draft which affected the sons of politicians would make them less cager to support new wars; Smith hoped it would provide young Americans of diverse backgrounds a unifying common experience.

Does such a parallel effort by two so different congressional figures portend an early return of the draft, which ended thirty years ago, in the near future?

By itself, I don’t think so: Rep. Smith is a baekbencher, and his bill has gone nowhere. Rangel is better known, but as part of the Democratic minority, he likewise carries little weight with those who move legislation.

But that’s not the end of the story. Indeed, as far as gauging the prospects for a return of the draft is concerned, I think Congress is one of the last places to look for useful insights.

II

A better place to search for clues to the prospects for a draft is away from Capitol Hill, across the Potomac River toward the Pentagon. After all, the Defense Department is the agency which would run the draft, and make use of the conscript soldiers. And if the draft is to return, it will be DOD lobbyists who do the heavy lifting.

But do the masters of the Pentagon want the draft back?

The first answer appears to be an emphatic NO. At least that’s the word from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. "Absolutely not," he told interviewer Larry King in December, 2002, in one such declaration. I believe he was and is sincere in this declaration. There would appear to be a number of reasons for this antipathy:

For one thing. Rumsfeld believes draftees aren’t necessary. He appears supremely confident that the US military forces are currently large enough not only to fight two major wars at once, but also to carry out lots of smaller covert missions as well.

For another, draftees are both expensive and a lot of trouble. Rumsfeld doubtless remembers the Vietnam-era difficulties that were sparked by draftees.

On a philosophical level, Rumsfeld is an anti-big-government Republican, at least in theory. And big government doesn’t get much bigger than the draft. (Before you sneer at this, remember that it was Republican Richard Nixon who ended the draft the last time.) And more quietly but just as sincerely, Rumsfeld, like the rest of this administration, will stay far away from any program that would intrude on the privileges of its key constituency of affluence. The egalitarian "sharing of sacrifice," which advocates like Rangel and Smith would hope to achieve is the farthest thing from this administration’s mind.

This last is not, however, merely a partisan jibe: the nation is now on its second draft-dodger administration, and Bill Clinton was no more interested in such a hazard to the sons of his peers.

Nevertheless, Rumsfeld’s NO to the draft is not the end of the story either.

Why not? Because of the persistent forces of supply and demand. For all his bluster and swagger. Rumsfeld does not control them, and they are diverging ever more sharply.

III

This divergence can be illustrated by the following simple chart, below:

The grey line on this chart approximates the supply of US troops over time. In all services, they total about 1.4 million. Fully augmented by reserves, they could go up to about 1.8 million; but such an increase would put severe strains on the military system, strains that are already evident. Thus this increase is marginal, and the line is close to flat.

The solid line is a projection of the growth in demand for US forces over time. It assumes that each potential new major military threat, combat operation, or occupation in the "war on terror," will increase the demand for these forces significantly.

Such threats not only include foreign operations (wars in Iraq, Korea, or elsewhere), but also responding to domestic attacks, and the need to secure the innumerable points of "critical infrastructure": ports, dams, borders, airports, nuclear plants, etc. This demand is already quite close to the supply, and in my view is likely to outstrip it in the not-too distant future.

This increase in demand will also be affected by overall US strategy. As enunciated by the administration in the fall of 2002, America has declared its intention not only to defend its short-term interests, eradicate terrorist enemies, and export its values, but also to act to prevent the emergence of any potential rivals.

No matter how you slice it, such a program of U.S.-enforced world hegemony and domestic security portends huge military undertakings. My guess is that we are only beginning to get a sense of its scope and implications, not to mention the cost.

Moreover, the Pentagon and White House are setting off on this new imperial venture with a force that is substantially reduced from the early 1990s. From the perspective of anti-militarism advocates, it was a signal achievement of the Clinton presidency that it cut US military troop strength by close to forty per cent.

Clinton made these cuts, however, without any parallel reduction in the extent of American military commitments, which were already world-wide. the result was what labor union organizers would call a "speedup," requirements for the troops to do more and more with less and less. One result was a dramatic rise in the stress on military personnel and their families. The stress drove many GIs out of the military, making "retention" a constant struggle.

There is other fallout of this condition, such as very high rates of domestic violence in the military.

Now, of course, the Bush administration has ratcheted up the demands on the forces several notches, in both defensive (e.g., anti-terror, "homeland security") and offensive (world hegemony) terms. But Rumsfeld has thus far adamantly resisted proposals from within the military to increase troop strength. That’s why, in terms of our chart, the divergence between demand and supply seems likely to widen steadily over time.

Predictions about the future are of course speculative; but none of these concrete factors is imaginary, or unfamiliar to the Pentagon leadership. So what are Rumsfeld and company going to do about them?