Asymmetrical Information

Conscription is really only necessary in a pre-industrial agricultural society. Large numbers of citizens could not really volunteer under those circumstances because of the heavy burden it would place on their families. And there's a decent case to be made that it's ok, in democracies at least, for the state to force service for the greater good. However, in industrial societies, as long as soldiers get paid a competitive wage, it's feasible for substantial portions of the population to volunteer, so there's very little reason to have conscription. Except in the case of unpopular war mixed with mostly unaccountable government.

Anyone who bothers to think about the numbers for a few minutes will see that the draft is a ridiculous way to provide bodies for the military. Other than in all out war of the WWII variety. Even Richard Nixon saw that in 1968.

Today there are about 47 million Americans between the ages of 18-30, 24 million of them men. Prior to the end of the Cold War we had about 2.4 million people in military uniform, at the end of the Clinton Admin it was down to 1.3 million. If we need to increase the size of the military--which is why this is suddenly a political issue--to what it was under Reagan we can do that through recruitment. Easily.

Further, there is no way we could afford to use even the 27 million young people ages 18-24 as soldiers, sailors, airmen. So any draft would have to be a lottery. And all who "lost" would have excellent reasons to be embittered and poor military personnel. Just as with Vietnam draftees.

Here's a short article written by one of the economists, Walter Oi, who worked with Milton Friedman to provide the intellectual case for Richard Nixon's abolition (in 1973):

http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-29-03.html

Yet if it is political, what is the angle?

Who wins (or loses) with this?

After all you have people on both sides (Hagel, Rangel) supporting it.

GT,

The peace-at-any-price folks would be the only ones who would benefit from a reinstituted draft. I am of the opinion that if the Reserves had been used in Vietnam instead of rapidly expanding the draft, there would not have been as many protesters and the U.S. would have finished (and won) that war.

The military received a lot of pay raises in order to institute the "all volunteer force." The headaches of transitioning to the all volunteer force are now behind us, and we don't want to go through another round of headaches: the fundamental makeup of the military has changed, and we don't want to change it back. Here's what I mean. With the draft, you got a lot of college kids entering as enlisted folk so they would have to only spend 2 years on active duty instead of 3 years which they would have to do if they voluntarily joined as officers. You also got a lot of the lower socio-economic scale in the draft, i.e., high school dropouts, etc. At one point, we had to deal with 100,000 draftees (Project 100,000) who had relatively low IQ's (90-100) because of Congressional meddling. At one time, I thought that the disadvantages of dealing with the lower end of quality recruits was more than compensated by the advantages of the high end quality recruits, and I was concerned that the all volunteer force was eliminating both the high end and the low end. During the transition, I noticed that the jobs that the high end people had gravitated towards (the excellent supply NCO, the outstanding admin clerk, etc.) were being filled more and more by women. This was a problem only because of the then-prohibition against women in combat, and I was concerned that the organizations who deployed to combat would have to leave some of their key people behind. Fortunately, we got through that period without any major combat deployments. By the time GW I came around, the all volunteer force was in full swing, with excellent and extended training making up for the fact that the average person in the high-skilled MOS's (Military Occupational Specialty) in the all volunteer force was not as smart as the average person in the high-skilled MOS's in the draft force. The result was that the U.S forces did an excellent job in Kuwait and Iraq in 1991.

A political fallout of the combination of the all volunteer force and the reserve activation for GW I was the tremendous support for the troops. You could not drive around the neighborhood without seeing a service flag or the American flag on at least several houses on every street. Everyone knew someone directly or knew of someone who had a relative on active duty for GW I, and everyone was rooting for the home team. This attitude was completely unlike the treatment given to the Vietnam vets.

Reinstituting the draft would also be a practical problem in that many of the bases which would be needed to process and train new draftees have been closed. In addition, the draft does not produce trained personnel anywhere near as quickly as civilians assume. In reality, it would take one year from the resumption of the draft to the first trained combat ready troops being put in harms way. (I'm talking infantry here; more skilled MOS's have a longer training pipeline.)

As already noted by others, we are not having a problem recruiting. We could increase the size of the armed forces on a purely voluntary basis. I happen to think that we need to do that, because it is not fair to the National Guard and Reserves to have them on active duty for as long as their active duty counterparts! I don't have the current stats on reserve recruiting, but I suspect that entry-level recruiting in the National Guard and Reserves is lower than usual.

So as far as I am concerned, there are certain political reasons for wanting to reinstitute the draft at this time, and those political reasons have nothing to do with winning the war on terror.

So Hagel is Peace a any price?

No, Hagel is deluded.

He's got the idea that a draft would require "all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price", which seems to depend on the assumption that all of our citizens are less than 27 years of age. What a draft would actually do is require our younger citizens to pay the price, and allow our older citizens to get out of paying them enough to get them to volunteer.

Also, he's got the idea that it would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face." What this means is that we require sacrifices not because of the practical utility of those sacrifices on the battlefield, but because gratuitously punishing people is an excellent way to get their attention and support.

Our Army is 1/3 smaller than it was during the first Gulf war, and it was drawn from a smaller population. Surely we can duplicate that recruiting effort.

I was a factory worker in the upper midwest in the period 68-73. A single guy in that age group who lucked out in the lottery, I hung out with other single 20ish factory workers. And probably 80 percent had been draftee grunts, and most had seen combat in Vietnam. Didn't know any officers, very few non-coms or enlisted men.

The pattern, for good reasons and some bad, were for the draftee grunts to go to the front, in country. Experience and skills obviously more useful as REMF, oops,I mean logistics and command.

I never heard my blue collar veteran friends complain about the war, the gov't, the draft. Everybody got drafted, most went to Nam. Most came back. They weren't maybe great soldiers, but they stood and fought under fire. Most had nightmares. They all partied too hard for a little while, settled down, became good folks.

But they did all complain about those REMF "regular army" jerks who treated them like dirt and then watched as the draftee grunts went into combat. And watched as the boxes got loaded on the planes back home.

Say hi to your friends for me.

hi all,
"Conscription is really only necessary in a pre-industrial agricultural society."
i wonder how you explain conscription prior to wwi in industrialized europe? as unnecessary? and the fact that it is still practiced as national service n a number of countries. e.g., see http://www.c3.hu/~farkashe/english/stop.htm for efforts to stop it.

"If we need to increase the size of the military--which is why this is suddenly a political issue--to what it was under Reagan we can do that through recruitment."

this assumes, of course, that there is treasure to pay for the higher wages that would have to be offered across the board. since it is the case that soldiers will be trained to fight in wars, with a higher probability than usual of dying or being wounded, the wage would tend to be higher than it otherwise would need to be (compensate recruits for risk aversion premia). further, since the armed forces are not a monopsony, they will have to pay all their workers a higher wage. that is a lot of money. what was the "peace dividend" that we got via the clinton years? what, roughly 80-100 billion a year? http://www.csis.org/mideast/reports/PeaceDividendorUnderfunding.pdf

just guessing. my question is this: where will this money to pay for a large increase in "high productivity" workers (soldiers) come from? the president has made clear he would like more tax cuts...

[smile sweetly]...

is there a real alternative to the draft when i take into account economic issues? in a nutshell: i disagree with you megan--its not at all clear to me its about politics. the draft could well be about economics.

drafts are designed to shift the cost of the administration's policies onto draftees, who as private citizens, will be paid lower than expected real wages (for "doing their duty").

sure, it has all kinds of drawbacks (as patrick intimated), and i agree, it would take a year to get the first folks off the production line, but it can make sense as a policy, especially if you think that the administration has a desire/worries about opening up other "fronts" in the war on terror, later on. i don't know if they do, but a draft would be consistent with this goal, and with a goal of not worsening budget deficits (especially in a low tax/tax cut environment).

cas: Actually, this is Mindles' thread.

since it is the case that soldiers will be trained to fight in wars, with a higher probability than usual of dying or being wounded, the wage would tend to be higher than it otherwise would need to be (compensate recruits for risk aversion premia).

The physical wage is not the exclusive factor, though. Is is supplemented in other ways -- job availability, job security, and the ability to gain technical skills and experience that may later increase a soldier's employability when s/he returns to the civilian labor market.

With respect to the wage itself: In times of economic strength, it may cost more to recruit soldiers from otherwise-available pursuits; but at the same time, tax revenues will be higher. In times of economic weakness, the availability of military service as a means toward food and shelter can attract persons who might otherwise find the civilian labor market difficult to enter.

Now that my rant is off my chest. :)

If your unit soldier is so expensive to train and replace that a draftee is not cost effective, isn't it likely that you will take that expense into consideration when designing missions, tactics, strategy? Wouldn't it make sense to put a lot of resources into force protection that actually might be more strategically effective in blowing up stuff and killing people?

A famous line out of British empire days: "A professional army always costs more money and avoids casualties."

Sorry if that offends, none intended toward soldiers serving. All honor. But another famous line about war, from Lincoln:

"Get me a general who understands mathematics."

If Vietnam taught us anything, it should be what WWII taught us. And what Iraq is teaching us.

Quantity beats quality, in the long run.

One last point and I will leave, cause I am a hawk on this war and really PO'd about it.

"Takes 18 months to train a soldier"

Well, duh, for thirty years you were guaranteed grunts with six years of service, and a very low likelihood of a big war. So you designed a rifle with GPS and laser siting and night vision and a grenade launcher, and darn, takes 18 months to train a guy to use it. But he is one slick soldier when he gets up to speed. (Hyperbole admitted, but you get my point).

I have done the math because I wanted a draft. And if China or Russia attacked, we couldn't come up with a million man army in our wildest dreams.
WWII came up with 5 million with half the population in 2-4 years, but we would have to go nuclear.

This is not a good thing. Somebody has screwed up.

In a piece in the Hartford Courant, Frank Harris III issues this recommendation:

Since the president has been in the mood for a constitutional amendment, here's another: I move that there be a constitutional amendment that every president, before committing anyone else's sons and daughters to combat or a hostile situation, first pledge his own son and daughter to the war effort.

Regardless of age or occupation, a president's offspring should be pulled from whatever they are doing, sent to basic training, measured for a uniform and shipped out with a combat unit to the front line.

Yes, a tour of duty for the Bush twins.

It seems like a bad idea to me. But it's the concentrated essence of what Rangel is aiming at, I think.

"Actually, this is Mindles' thread."

my apologies to mhd.

hi anony-mouse,
"tax revenues will be higher."
the facts are very clear that tax receipts as a proportion of gdp are down right now. we have a large deficit, and it is getting bigger. so, though theoretically, i would like to agree with you, it is not the case, given the current policies of this administration. at no point has it shown any inclination to raise taxes to pay for this "war on terror" (rather it prefers to lower them).

"The physical wage is not the exclusive factor, though"
sure, i agree, but ceteris parabis, that is the case in all circumstances, for any person wanting any job anywhere. the question we could attach here is--at the margin what will the next individual do, when faced with choices. if there is a war on, at the margin, we will have to offer a higher real wage to get folks to fight, than otherwise, when compared with home-front jobs supporting the war-effort.

hi bob,
"we would have to go nuclear. This is not a good thing. Somebody has screwed up"

one question for you: why is this any different from past days? back in the cold war, america never renounced first strike capability against troops in the field. if the russians had come streaming through the fulda gap, it was always a plan to use field nukes because the russians & warsaw pact outnumbered nato troops. i agree that china attacking taiwan will present an interesting problem to the usa--but politically (at first)--will the us have the will to aid taiwan against an invasion-we would have to use nukes there, i think...

"why is this any different from past days?"

That has never been policy. Not sure how clearly stated but always been American policy to respond proportionately, only answering nukes with nukes.
No first strikes.

Well, around 1960 we had 2-3 million guys in uniform and probably 20 million more who know how to take an order and which end of the rifle to point. We had more response options.

"i agree that china attacking taiwan will present an interesting problem to the usa"

They would not do it, it is too tough a battle. (No transport). But I would like the option of a conventional war. As we are learning, you need a whole lot of men to *hold* territory. We currently don't have them, and can't get them.

If Syria and Iran attacked Iraq, we would bomb them a bunch, but we could not conceivably move into their countries. Not for years.

bob, I would wager that soon, if it isn't already being vigorously explored, that an energetic effort to develop technology to massively kill and disable people through non-explosive (including nuclear, of course), non-chemical, and non-biological means, will take place. It is simply a logical path. Ralph Peters, retired Army intelligence officer, wrote a book about 10 or 15 years ago titled "The War in 2020" in which this was a sub-theme. Microwave energy, nano-technology, or things that very few have thought of, will be used to kill or disable a lot of people very quickly, without violation of any existing treaties, while leaving infrastructure largely intact. So much for the end of history.

hi bob,

thanks for the reply. i found this claim interesting:

"That has never been policy. Not sure how clearly stated but always been American policy to respond proportionately, only answering nukes with nukes.
No first strikes."

i wonder how you reconcile your claim with this information?

"It was the United States that created atomic bombs, strategic bombers, thermonuclear weapons (H-bombs), MIRVed missiles, submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and cruise missiles. Since the inception of the atomic age, the United States has adopted a policy of first use of weapons of mass destruction. First use refers to a strategic doctrine that includes the possible initiation of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. Indeed, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles enshrined this policy in his 1954 Council of Foreign Relations speech in New York when he proclaimed "massive retaliation" that threatened to unleash instantly a strategic nuclear attack even in response to a Soviet conventional attack. This New Look of the Eisenhower administration was somewhat altered under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's Flexible Response, an ambiguous doctrine that NATO adopted in 1967, which appeared to emphasize a mix of conventional, tactical (battlefield nukes) and strategic nuclear war fighting capabilities. Yet first use remains under the Bush administration as nuclear doctrine and as a component of its radical strategy of preemption as contained within its "National Security Strategy" that was released in September. With the subsequent publication of its "National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction" in December, there is an explicit threat to use nuclear weapons even in response to non-nuclear attacks against nations other than the United States. Furthermore, Congress has authorized research in the 2003 Defense Authorization Act to develop nuclear "bunker busters," so-called Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrators (RNEPs) that could burrow deeply underground."
http://hnn.us/articles/printfriendly/1202.html

"As a practical matter, it would be difficult to the U.S. to forsake first-use because it would appear to be lessening its commitment to NATO."
http://www.fes.de/ipg/ipg4_98/artturner.html

director younger of the dtra last year on hitting hardened targets pre-emptively, with tactical nuclear weapons: "We want to use the minimum force to achieve the military objective, if at all possible with a conventional weapon. We do not want to cross the nuclear threshold unless it is an example of extreme national emergency."

"On June 18, Australia emerged as one of the few overt supporters of a 'strike-first' stance. According to Defence Minister Robert Hill, addressing senior military officials at the National Defence College in Canberra: "The need to act swiftly and firmly before threats become attacks is perhaps the clearest lesson of September 11, and one that is clearly driving US policy and strategy. It is a position which we share, in principle."
http://www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd66/66nr04.htm

please note that it was the russians who renounced a first strike, in any war in europe. made sense, they had more soldiers and weapons than did nato.

Well, golly cas, then i really don't understand why we had all those troops and tanks in Germany for all those years.

"there is an explicit threat to use nuclear weapons even in response to non-nuclear attacks against nations other than the United States."

Either that is crazy, or any who takes it seriously as opposed to proportionate response is crazy.

This claims we can nuke Lebanon if Hezbollah shells the Golan Heights. And that we are likely to do so. Cite away. I think we need an army.

Bob -
you persist in setting up these straw men - I'm guessing you don't like the idea that the good old US of A is one of the few countries not to disavow first strike. Personally I think the US policy makes good sense and is fundamentally more honest than the Chinese or Russian ones, since I doubt they would hesitate to use nukes if they actually thought it would further their interests.
Anyway, to answer your points: the troops in Germany during the Cold War were there to raise the stakes high enough that the USSR would believe our nuclear threat. If we had had no one on the ground we would have risked an invasion, as the USSR might well have doubted we would use our nukes in that case.
Your claim that the cited document somehow implies that we are likely to nuke Lebanon if the Golan Heights are shelled is ridiculous. It doesn't say 'in response to all non-nuclear attacks'. The occasions for appropriate use would be few and far between. But I should point out that one of the generals involved in the first Iraq War requested permission for a high-altitude nuclear burst to disable Iraq's electronics (he was turned down).

" since I doubt they would hesitate to use nukes if they actually thought it would further their interests."

You talk in these weird and vague tough guy generalities and complain when i wonder if what your words say they mean

whatever the heck "further their interests" means
if i applied any meaning to it, then it becomes "of course it didnt mean that, you ridiculous person."

i want to control the supply roads out of baghdad
and kill muqtada sadr. You go ahead and nuke him, since we aint got the troops to get him without leveling Najaf anyway

I feel so much safer having talked

bye

Anony-mouse: "The physical wage is not the exclusive factor, though. Is is supplemented in other ways -- job availability, job security, and the ability to gain technical skills and experience that may later increase a soldier's employability when s/he returns to the civilian labor market."

Absolutely correct. When I joined the Air Force, I was quite aware that I would be working harder for about the same pay as the lousy dead-end job I already had. However, I'd get about a year of training as an electronics technician and 3 years of experience, and come out qualified for a much better job. Single servicemen also got free room and board (worth slightly more than you paid for it), but didn't get the housing allowance that brought my paycheck up to somewhere near the minimum wage. As a married man, I got a bunch of other benefits, such as the best family medical coverage available anywhere. For example, when our son was born, the only thing the hospital billed us for was my wife's meals.

Just one thing didn't go according to plan - I wound up spending 9 years in the service and came out with an engineering degree, all paid for by the government.

I was 11 years old in Stuttgart in 1986. My stepfather was in USAF and many of our family's friends were also US ARMY or USAF. From what I remember, it was common knowledge of first strike policy, especially in the context of the "Fulda Gap" mentioned above. (Wasn't the Pershing tac-nuke developed specifically for this role?) The soviets had a lot of T-72s on the other side and the numerical superiority was more than a little scary to EUCOM.

bbartlog's analysis above is spot on, INMHO.

cas,

An industrialized society will have all the mechanisms and infrastructure in place to allow money to "stand-in" for a physical absence with a family. In a pre-industrial society you can't easily use money to plow a field or do chores on a farm. Most especially when the persons absent (males 18-30) are the ones who would typically do the majority of the hardest labor. More importantly, the obligations to a family in a pre-industrial setting are far more personal, far more critical to the family's well being, and far harder to give up. In an industrial, money based economy things are completely different. Most of the essential value to a family of a working parent comes from the money they earn doing work outside the home, not the labor they do for the family directly. Thus, it's possible for young adult men to work away from the home as long as they make a decent wage.

Now, industrialized countries are going to have a large surplus of wealth relative to basic needs. And, any reasonably popular, or unpopular yet unaccountable, government is going to control a sizeable fraction of that surplus. Which they can use to pay a competitive wage to volunteer soldiers. If a war is popular then there will be no shortage of volunteers for it and the citizenry will not balk at paying decent wages to those soldiers.

Some industrialized nations nevertheless retain military conscription. In some cases there are specific reasons for this due to unusual circumstances. Usually though it comes down to a small set of common reasons. First, draftees are cheap, if you want to maintain high force levels on paper at low cost, conscription is the way to go. This can be important in heavily socialized nations which need to squeeze non-welfare programs small to keep the benefits up. But that can produce very bad problems if the military is ever needed in battle. Second, some countries have traditions of elite rule, and forcing the public to serve in the military can be a part of that. This also ties back in with socialism in that when a state manages the average person's affairs very closely through deciding how large portions of a worker's paycheck ought to be spent, and providing education, housing, food, clothing, health care, and retirement benefits to large portions of the public, then government management of public participation in warfare becomes a natural and seemingly logical extension of all those things. Third, unpopular governments, especially while waging unpopular wars, absolutely require conscription, and preferably a lack of accountability to the public as well.

Some people will complain about the cost of all the training the military does, to see most of the people leave as soon as their enlistment expires. However, I think it's good policy for the military to overspend on training. We can't really predict our future military manpower needs - but when it became clear that a large army was needed, the USA has always been able to create the type that it needed (Civil War, WWI, WWII). To do that, you need an enormous training establishment.

Of course, you also need the will to pay what it takes to build that force. The one thing I can fault Bush for in Iraq is that he still hasn't started an enormous MP recruitment and training drive. We need a half-million servicemen on street patrol in Iraq, and we don't have them. They need to be good at staying alive in a hostile area, but cop skills (picking out the suspicious ones from a crowd of innocents) are more important than combat skills now. Bush could have started building that force two years ago, but he didn't and he still hasn't.

But if we'd started a big army buildup before 9/11/2001, we'd now have a big force of the wrong kind of troops and equipment. We might be well equipped to take out Somali warlords or wipe out Serb paramilitaries, but we wouldn't have the right force for maintaining order in a conquered country. Or we might just be equipped to beat the Soviet army in the Fulda gap, if that army still existed.

It's happened before. In spite of having a year and a half to learn by watching the Germans and Brits go at it, we started WWII with a whole lot of equipment that could best be classified as "targets", if not just plain junk. Tanks that were unfit to be on the battlefield with the German models. P36 Brewster "Buffalo" fighters that were slower in a dive than Zeroes were in a climb. Torpedoes with magnetic detonators that usually wouldn't explode when the torpedo passed right under a ship like it was supposed to, contact detonators that wouldn't explode if the torpedo ran head-on into the side of a ship, and depth control mechanisms that caused the torpedo to porpoise, often diving deep under the target. (What's really maddening about that is that the Brits and Germans had already gone through the same detonator problems.) Battleships that consumed immense amounts of fuel and other supplies but through two world wars never went into the kind of battle they were designed for.

hi robin,
i liked the post, and i offer an observation: what if we accept the fact that capitalist industrial society allowed there to be an ongoing surplus that could be invested in any number of ways. let us also accept that this allows us to have professional armies, as you have argued.

yet, professional armies were in existence before capitalist industrialism; i.e., 17th-18th century europe. they seemed to be a function of centralizing governments, rather than industrialism. further, the first european "draft", during the french revolution doesn't appear (to me) to be a result of an agrarian inability to muster treasure. my understanding is that a draft was a natural result of a desperate need to sustain the revolution against an actively hostile europe.

so, i like your post, but i am wondering if it captures only a part of a more complex phenomenon. for example, (not taking anything away from your thesis re scarce resources and welfare payments)one reason why a european country may favour conscription may be because that country has a history of socially acceptable collective action than might a country that is full of rugged individualists. the draft, in that instance is an institution that is seen as one that binds a country together (rather than rip it a part). especially if it has historically developed that way--and yes, i agree, its cheaper, and transfers costs away from the state and towards individuals.

In the late 40s, the draft was the 6-6 plan, 6 months active duty and 6 years reserve commitment. I was fortunate enought to have been a well trained RA when I went in, but when the reservists started being pulled back in and sent over, since they were in for only 6 months, the army often jerked them out of an already inadequate basic if they had any useful skills. That lack of training was deadly for may of them. They are not calling for a draft, now, to strengthen our military, only to bash Bush.
If I had known in 1950 what an asshole Rangel would turn out to be I would have let him freeze instead of giving up my place in the warmup tent to him.

Lots of intersting comments.

Conscription is really only necessary in a pre-industrial agricultural society. And, of course, most pre-industrial societies can't afford a big army (as Robin suggests in a later post).

Bob, Cas is right, the US plan for repelling a Soviet/Warsaw Pact attack on Western Europe always included the possibility of nukes. In general, we didn't plan to nuke cities except as a response to a nuclear attack, but the US always provided a "nuclear umbrella" for the rest of Nato. (The main reason we worked on the neutron bomb was to be able to kill Soviet troops on German soil without blowing up the Germans and their cities at the same time.)

Several people have pointed out the current training requirements as a problem if we reinstituted the draft. Obviously what would happen is we would move to a military system that could use relatively untrained grunts (again); in economic terms, we'd substitute labor for capital, and move towards a labor-intensive army from today's capital-intensive one. I have to wonder if such an army, even if it was two or three times the size of our current one, would be as effective.

Cas, the European armies of 17th and 18th century Europe were very small. The French instituted a draft because Napolean changed warfare to use huge "citizens" armies; arguably, this change lasted until 1950 or so. European armies haven't done much since, so it's hard to say whether things have returned to the "small professional" army model, or if the Europeans just don't want to pay for reasonable-sized armies.

Does anyone know what countries still maintain a draft? I know Israel and Switzerland do, but my impression is that pretty much everyone gets drafted there (ie, not a lottery system as we have had in the past). I think both countries have made conscription part of their national culture (sort of the way the US has with public school).

hi pj,
thanks for the feedback.

"The French instituted a draft because Napolean changed warfare to use huge "citizens" armies."

the order to institute the draft came before napoleon came to power.e.g., "February 24, 1793

Military conscription is decreed by the Convention, which calls up 300,000 citizen soldiers. Conscription is unwelcome in some regions, especially in the Vendee and in Brittany. It is one of the avowed reasons for revolts against the Republic."
http://www.unlv.edu/faculty/gbrown/hist462/resources/chrono.htm#1793

also, though i agree with the thrust of your comments re army size, army sizes were gradually increasing through the 18th century (from 15,000 to 45,000-100,000 troops depending on time--around 1750 and the state. e.g., http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/berlin/lectures/05Frederick.html

"The English had failed to re-enforce their army in Hanover, against which the French moved 100,000 men in the summer of I757. The English army, composed Of 45,ooo Hanoverians, Brunswickians, and Hessians, was under the command of the duke of Cumberland,...restored the morale of his defeated Silesian troops and, with 35,ooo men, attacked an Austrian army twice as strong at the village of Leuthen, west of Breslau, on December 5, 1757"

this gradual rise in army size was financed by a steadily increasing tax base, collected by more efficient bureaucracies.

"The growth of the population and economy was to feed the expanding army and war treasury. Frederick had managed to conduct twelve years of war without running up more than a negligible public debt. In 1740, the state revenues had been 7 million thaler, and 10 million had been in the war chest left by Frederick's father. In 1786, Prussia collected 23 million in revenues and maintained a war chest Of 54 million."

it took conscription--and the power of the state to clothe and feed them--to make it possible to sustain larger armies in the field (didn't have to pay them as much as professional soldier army, as well as the emergence of nationalism and revolutionary enthusiasm also played a role in helping the french to do this --even if there was resistance in part of the country to the draft).

germany has provision for national service. its written into the constitution.
"Article 12a [Compulsory military or alternative service]
(1) Men who have attained the age of eighteen may be required to serve in the Armed Forces, in the Federal Border Police, or in a civil defense organization.

(2) Any person who, on grounds of conscience, refuses to render military service involving the use of arms may be required to perform alternative service."
http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/GG.htm#12a

cheers

cas, I always assume that a few mere words can only ever approximate a part of any complex phenomenon, especially human history. Ultimately it all depends on what is meant by "necessary". I am of the opinion that, almost by definition, any industrialized nation which supports any specific war effort sufficiently to win the war through any means will also be capable of providing enough volunteers to fight. The tricky bit is figuring out what the historical evidence means, since it's possible for nations to use conscription without it being strictly necessary. I think I'm safe on general principles though.

IIRC, Great Britain did not draft soldiers in WWI, even though they had about as many men in uniform in relation to their population as France's. There was deep public support for the war and a lot of social pressure to join up, but actual compulsion was not needed to form as large an army as they could support. (Of course, the Brits also had to support the world's largest navy, and their numbers were augmented by colonials.)

However, the Brits routinely drafted sailors with the much more arbitrary mechanism of "press gangs" in the Napoleonic wars and earlier, and brought in a full draft for WWII. Possibly they were much more individualistic in the early 20th century than before, and certainly more than after 1930.

Hegal wants a German style draft with lots of non-combat options. In Germany you can help out in an old folks home if you are oppossed to military service, or work in a hospital, etc. Even if it degrades the military he feels the greater good is served by taking care of all of those other tasks and giving people a common sense of having served.

Rengel wants to recreate the anti-war fears since the anti-Bush protests haven't really gained any ground.

Either way the idea of forcing citizens into government service is a repellant abuse of civil liberties and anyone propossing such an act should be remembered by the voting electorate for their incredibly bad judgement.

This thread is quite amusing. However, the thought of another draftee Army is not amusing in the slightest. I will grant that the proponents of the draft are not traitorously seeking to undermine the strength of the US Armed Forces by DESIGN - it only an unintended consequence of their short-sighted, self-serving policies.

As a 27-year Amy veteran [in both enlisted and officer ranks] I state categorically that the CONSCRIPT ARMIES OF THE INDUSTRIAL AGE ARE TOTALLY USELESS AGAINST ARMIES OF THE INFORMATION AGE. In fact, they are so lacking in relevant combat power that there is no significant difference between Caesar’s Legions, Byzantine Cataphracts, Mongol Urdu [that's where the word 'horde' came from], Spanish Tercios, Jeb Stuart's Cavalry, Guard Grenadier regiments of the Russian, French, German or Austrian Emperors or even Guderian's Panzers. The combat power ‘numbers’ are just too small to be distinguished. Even the magnificent light infantry that General Giap sent southward back in ’68 would be utterly destroyed if they tried it again today. No brag, just fact.

Even though our current troops and vehicles LOOK sort of like the ones you saw in “Band of Brothers”, they are at least 2 orders of magnitude more deadly. And it is not just technology: the combat training of the modern private is better than what Lt. Robert E. Lee got when he came in 1829!

It actually takes about 24 months to make a good M1 tanker or Bradley infantryman: 16-weeks of OSUT [used to be called Basic], then we take the ‘croot’ and work him through 2 or 3 gunnery cycles, 3 or 4 field exercises at home station, hours & hours in the UCOFT simulator [the real secret of our ‘magic tank powers’, IMHO] and THEN we ship him out to Fort Irwin and let the OPFOR kill him about 10 times in biggest laser tag game in the world. Then he is issued a clue. At the Battle of 73 Easting, men like these in 4 M1A1’s killed 30 Iraqi tanks [that they ran into by surprise - few UAVs in GW One!] in about 2 minutes, with ZERO losses.

Now somebody is going to bring up guerrilla war, so let me add that the SOF guys have demonstrated that this works exactly the same way for “war in the shadows”. Ask the Taliban or ask around in Somalia where over 3000 local gunmen were killed in the 4 days following the “BlackHawk Down” incident [the press was not around, and “rule .303” was in force]. The locals in West Africa walk very softly around the SOF these days –with good reason.

I also point out that occupation troops that were hired from locals [with a few ‘John Company’ Officers and NCOs to stiffen the stalwart ‘Sepoys’] are proving to be quite adequate at holding down the REST of Iraq, while US combat forces crush the Jihadi-boys in their hideouts. This will only get better as time goes on.

Instead of masses of ill-trained conscripts, what we REALLY need for the War on Terror [which I think will be the ‘90-year War’ in the history books of the 22nd century] are more Army Intelligence Battalions with lots o’ linguists, [OK, I used to be one of those, too] and more Civil Affairs Brigades [we only have one!]. Both of these units require EVEN MORE training than tankers or grunts, so draftees are LESS THAN USELESS.

BYTW, “Quantity versus Quality” does tend to win in the long run . . . that’s why you WIPE OUT THE HORDE in the first 30 days of the campaign! Even the Communist Chinese Army is starting to figure this out, and is cutting troop strength and trying to increase “quality”.

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