[extropy-chat] Re: Fwd: Manditory draft for your child?

David Lubkin extropy at unreasonable.com
Thu Sep 30 00:39:48 UTC 2004


Trend Ologist wrote:

>There will be no draft...unless an emergency arises,
>and then the plan would be to conscript three or four
>million.

Is this your prediction or do you have evidence?

Why would they want one? How do you imagine a draft would be useful for 
today's military professional culture, weaponry, skillsets, and missions?

Current plans are to sharpen the military's edge -- keep the same manpower 
levels, but restructure skillset and positioning. From _Endgame: The 
Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror_ by Lt. Gen. McInerney and Maj. 
Gen. Vallely (p.139), which is representative of the ideas under discussion --

>It is true that our military is overstretched, and that our National Guard 
>and Reserve forces are overburdened. But we believe that this is not 
>because our military force structure is too small, but because it has been 
>given tasks beyond the waging of war. Secretary Rumsfeld already has 
>identified approximately 245,000 jobs across the Department of Defense 
>that could be outsourced to contractors. Our recommendation: outsource the 
>jobs, use the savings to improve the lot of the "trigger pullers," and 
>create new frontline fighting units while phasing out paper-pushing ones. 
>In other words, change the "tail to tooth" ratio so there is less tail and 
>more teeth.
>
>Personnel are the highest priced item in the Department of Defense budget, 
>so rather than reflexively expand the number of billets, the Pentagon 
>should make better and more efficient use of the current personnel levels. 
>... *Every* member of the armed forces should be combat zone deployable. 
>If they aren't, their function should be outsourced, or eliminated.

BTW, I find that examining the US military at its most competent provides 
useful insights on what we may see in other arenas in coming decades. For 
instance, our tanks (Iraq) and fighter jets (Kosovo) are lethal against 
opposing forces at ranges well beyond enemy detection, let alone their 
weapons' range. (All else apart, this was very upsetting for Iraqi tank 
commanders whose tanks were abruptly killed by an unseen foe.)

Imagine that kind of differential competence pervading and accelerating.


-- David Lubkin.





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