The above quote by Vladimir raises an important question, namely, how should we man the walls?

Questions for debate:

1) Is Vladimir's conception of a part-time military workable?

2) What are the potential downsids to this approach?

3) What are the potential upsides?

No. We need a professional standing army and a significant reserve. The idea that the military men and officers are loyal to each other “and commanders” is not accurate. Those in the military take an oath to uphold the Constitution – not just the orders of “commanders”.

No fully trained and easily deployable force when you need it.


None that i can see. Although I would not be against universal 1-2 year military service.

1) Is Vladimir's conception of a part-time military workable?

It seems doubtful. The military should be as professional as possible, under civilian supervision. (Just as we need as professional a police force as possible, under the supervision of civilians.)

2) What are the potential downsides to this approach?

Some people -- probably most people -- are not suited for military service. (I certainly am not.) With an all "amateur" army, you will have less professionalism. The potential for abuses of the deadly force of the military would be higher. (Imagine, if you will, an armed police force of "amateurs.")

3) What are the potential upsides?

I think the intent of this proposal is to avoid the possibility of making the military an isolated, elite group which might abuse its vast powers. This is a laudable goal, but a better way of doing it is simply to assure that the non-military government always has the final say as to what actions the military will take. (Not the moment-by-moment and day-by-day details of military action, of course, which are better left to the professionals, but such decisions as when and where to fight.)

For all these reasons and more, I strongly oppose mandatory military service. It's bad for those who are drafted, it's bad for the military, it bad for the nation. In a genuine emergency, on the level of World War Two, you will have plenty of volunteers.

(Imagine giving someone a firearm and sending her out to be a police officer against her will. Not a very pleasant scenario, is it?)

This is a good analogy, and consider in particular not that conscript's (I'll call her Sally) personal feelings but the effect on society at large of having a police force comprised entirely of such people. Even a person who might have otherwise chosen a career in law enforcement would be loath to do so if he/she would be surrounded by such people. Would "Sally" above watch "Sam's" back? How would you like to be the person encountering hostilities with Sally? As a citizen, would you feel more or less safe if an all-conscript force enforced the law? I doubt somehow that this would result in a more capable force, nor would it discourage abuses, or be somehow "better and safer". I am rather confident that such a force would be far less likely to get the j-o-b done. Hello mob rule, goodbye law enforcement.

I agree with almost all of what you said above, but must disagree about the "plenty of volunteers" for major engagements on par with WWII on the basis that I am hard pressed to think of any nation involved that wasn't either taken over or forced to conscript during this time. When the chips are down it's all hands on deck, but that isn't optimal, it's simply survival.

1) Is Vladimir's conception of a part-time military workable?
Not for a country with the extent of military commitments we have. If we drop all commitments around the globe and have a force with a readiness level on par with the third world and equally professional, sure it could work.

2) What are the potential downsids to this approach?
We would lose superpower status with the loss of our professional military, and the map of the world might change a bit.


3) What are the potential upsides?
The population at large would be forced to pay the price more personally for the martial decisions of those they elect to office. We would be far, far less likely to perform any type of military engagement for any reason. That could be very good or bad depending on the situation.

1) Is Vladimir's conception of a part-time military workable?

Sure, it's called the National Guard. Guard units have been deployed to Iraq and I've not heard of any performance problems. But then I don't know everything either.

2) What are the potential downsides to this approach?

No special forces units, I suppose. It's hard to imagine a part-time Marine, Ranger or Seal. It'd still cost a boatload of money too, but I won't get into that.

3) What are the potential upsides?

Soldiers could earn enough money in the civilian sector to live better. That might lead to budget cuts for the military, but I doubt it.

Conceptually, it can work. Practically, nothing's gonna change. The present system is entrenched and the general population doesn't have a problem with it.

I'm okay with 2-year mandatory service to country, but it has to be either military or civilian service. Gotta have that choice because not everyone is cut out to be military. This might eliminate civilian contractors. It would give high school grads some real-world work experience before heading off to college or whatever the direction becomes. I probably would have opted for motorpool in my day, some kind of mechanical/electrical thing.

1) Is Vladimir's conception of a part-time military workable?

Please note that, as reflected in my quoted words, I advocate a military composed primarily of people with jobs in the civilian economy. I would advocate that the typical unit be composed mostly of such people, with a cadre of full-time professionals, mostly officers, senior noncoms, and senior technicians. It would seem that a few units, e.g. elite commandos, would have to consist mostly of full-time professionals. There would be regular periods of military service for the entire unit. When required for active duty, the balance of the unit would be called up and perhaps receive some more training before being shipped out. Basically, the whole military would look a lot more like the present Reserves.

Of course it is workable.

2) What are the potential downsids to this approach?

The proposal really goes along with a re-design of U.S. foreign policy.

Mrs. Pigpen correctly observed that a military of this kind would not be a very good one for projecting massive military force across the globe; not, at least, unless there were a fairly high degree of national unanimity that truly vital national interests were at stake in some given case. We probably could not maintain our present complement of 12 aircraft carrier battle groups on this basis, for example. Just as a guess, we might be able to maintain, oh, three or four.

If you look at the actual uses made of military power since 1945, or at any rate since Korea, you will see that essentially never has the U.S. applied military force for defensive purposes; and I would argue that the national interest was hardly at stake in any involvements after Korea (and possibly not even there -- the important thing there was to protect Japan, which was more or less our ward at the time). I would argue indeed that the main purpose served by these military involvements was to ensure the dominance of Western and particularly American commercial interests around the globe. It would be much better for the nation and for the world if essentially none of these military excursions, that is Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, Vietnam, Genada, Panama, Yugoslavia, the First Gulf War, and the invasion of Iraq, had occurred (I might make an exception for the First Gulf War, but if I did, I would argue that the kind of military I that propose, in combination with the allies the U.S. enjoyed there, could have pulled off the defeat of Iraq just about as easily as actually occurred). It would be better if substantially fewer U.S. troops were stationed in the Middle East, Korea and Europe; and it would be better if we had a military suited primarily to more legitimate purposes of homeland and territorial defense as opposed to the "defense" of alleged "vital interests" overseas.

Particularly since the breakup of the Soviet Union, there is a rather weak case for the U.S. being able to project vast military power overseas.

I am not advocating isolationism; I am not advocating complete abstinence from overseas military involvement. But I am advocating a much less militaristic foreign policy; a policy where, when push comes to shove overseas, the bulk of the responsibility for fighting falls on U.S. allies and U.S. support is primarily, not necessarily exclusively, logistical. I belive that history since WW-II demonstrates that unless the enemy is extremely puny, wars waged without major involvement of significant regional allies are unlikely to be successful anyway.

It is not true that under this proposal the U.S. would cease to be a superpower. It is false to assume that the basis of U.S. power in the world is primarily military -- it is primarily economic. In any case I as I have said, I am not advocating total abstinence from the overseas use of U.S. forces. But ultimately, it should not be the purpose of our republic to maximize its power in the world, military or otherwise, but to use what power we possess toward those purposes that are necessary and good, and to engage in war only when there is no other reasonable course. Are those who live in small or weak nations are somehow less good than we are? Is it our nation's power that we should be proud of, or the uses to which it is put?

3) What are the potential upsides?

As I have said, I believe that a wholly professional military is a threat to democracy. Ted observes that our military members swear an oath to defend the Constitution; well, they swore similar oaths in Greece, in Chile, in Argentina, in France, essentially everywhere that a military coup was pulled off or attempted. When a military coup was attempted in France at the time deGaulle was preparing to withdraw from Algeria, it was the elite units, the parachute regiments and the like, that supported it. It was the draftees that resisted it.

Also I think that the existence of such a military is a temptation to our leaders to engage in a militaristic and adventuristic foreign policy. And not only to our leaders; it's sickening to see how ordinary citizens now advocate air raids on foreign countries just because the government has villified them, as if there were no instruments of international power besides aircraft carriers -- and as if we should trust people in Washington to decide when a given group of foreigners is worthy of death.

The national interest should be at stake, and their should be essential unanimity about that, not a mere 70% majority as there was in 2003 about Iraq, before the U.S. engages in massive overseas military operations. Significant U.S. military operations should demand the involvement of mostly ordinary citizens. My proposal does not necessarily imply a draft, although I would not oppose a draft.

It is worth being able to send an aircraft carrier battle group and a brigade of marines to support a threatened ally; it is not worth being able to marshall three aircraft carrier battle groups, an entire marine division, and several army divisions to wage unilateral war on short notice anywhere on the planet. It is not worth the money in the first place; the foreign basing of these "ready response" armadas is not worth the drag on U.S. foreign policy; and this excessively aggressive mode of interracting with the world is unuseful to our national interest.

Finally I appeal to tradition. The citizen as soldier and minimal foreign commitment is explicity and precisely consistent with the vision of the founders; a highly professional military and vast foreign commitment is explicitly and precisely inconsistent with it; and the very good reason for that is that the former is much more in keeping with the principles of American freedom and democracy than the latter is.

I don't believe that the link between economic power and military might is that arbitrary. Historically the two have always been intertwined. For rough instance, without the historical presence of US forces in South Korea, Japan, ect, those economies would look markedly different today and I believe ours would as well. Security issues have a direct impact on our economy (and everyone else's). Look what happened right after 911.



That's the bone of content of course. I'm hard pressed to disagree with the above but we might define "necessary and good" entirely differently and even if we agreed the intervention in one third world country or another would be "good" who exactly would volunteer for that duty, as would be required under said proposal? I'm sure we'd find volunteers to hang out in Belgium doing such "good deeds" but not many so willing to go on the ground and camp out in Somalia or Lebanon and dodge bullets for humanitarian convoys.

Of course; I don't think I said the link is arbitrary. I just said that the real source of our power is our big, wealthy econonmy. That gives us the ability to have this huge professional military, but we could spend those same dollars in ways that might be much more useful to our power and influence in this world. Or it could be that our economy would be much more robust, and our power in this world much greater, if we simply did not spend these resources but let them stay in the private sector. I am often amazed how many supply-side, free-market advocates also advocate a huge military, since these positions are inconsistent from the point of view of their economic effects.



I am not certain just what you mean by any of these cases, but whether these particular applications of military power have been for good or ill is debatable. I would not disagree that having defeated Japan, it was necessary to occupy it.

I'm an economist by profession, and I can attest that the longterm economic impact of building a wing of fighter jets or equipping a tank battalion is essentially the same as that of paying people to dig a big hole in the ground and fill it back up again. You inject money into the economy, but you do nothing to increase the stock of productive equipment. The same is not true when you spend the same resources on roads, bridges, health care, education or fundamental scientific research; since these inarguably increase the nation's productivity. Now if you simply must have a wing of fighter jets or a tank battalion to defend the nation, well and good; but building and maintaining more of these things than the nation needs is a very serious drag on longterm economic growth. I would argue that the nation would be substantially wealthier and more productive today if it hadn't been spending so many resources on the military over the past 50 years. That assumes that the nation would have survived, but I think that there's a very substantial presumption that it could have done with a significantly smaller military all the while, while at the same time avoiding, say, Vietnam.



Naturally you have to have sufficient incentives to get enough people to participate in the military, whether it's a professional one or the kind I envision. Certainly patriotism and a concept of civic duty should play a role, but at the end of the day, you either have to pay people enough money or draft them, and it's more efficient to use price incentives. You perhaps could make a good case for paying troops more money, possibly a lot more, if they draw difficult duty, but this really is inessential to the issue being debated here.

But I would envision a reserve-type system where the benefits of participation in the reserves were sufficient to attract the necessary part-time labor supply.

A civilian army implies draft.

No actually, you could do it with a reserve type structure and sufficent payments for reserve service, possibly structured by military specialty, to elicit adequate labor supply.

I'm positing an army of persons whose main life is in "the World," as we used to say, but who pull active duty sometimes.

1) Is Vladimir's conception of a part-time military workable?

2) What are the potential downsids to this approach?

3) What are the potential upsides?


This is an extended version of what I term "the Powell doctrine" that came about at the end of the Cold War when a number of career officers and enlisted were "riffed" out of the service in favor of the National Guard and reserves. Works great in peacetime, but there are some problems with it....

Not too long ago I happened to be close to an Arbys at lunchtime and I'm an Arbys junkie. So, I stopped in for lunch and ran into a Major in the California National Guard who had recently returned from extended deployment in Iraq. We struck up a conversation while we were waiting in line (apparently there are a lot of Arbys junkies in Southern California) and ended up sitting down at one of the tables together to eat our lunches. One of the things he told me was that he was having trouble finding a job. Nobody wanted to hire him because they were afraid he could get called up any time and they'd lose an employee that they'd trained and that they were counting on to do the job. Now it's great that a number of employers out there say they will support their employees that end up going to active duty and having to leave for awhile - "Their jobs will be waiting for them when they get back", but the dirty little secret is that these employers would prefer not to have to do that in the first place. So, they tend not to hire people who are members of the reserve or National Guard. According to this Major I had lunch with, this is a real problem.

So, I think Vlad's idea is not practical.


Aquilla

This concern as well can be addressed by adequately structuring incentives -- and this applies just as much to today's guardsmen and reserves as it does to my proposal. The government could offer employers tax breaks, or direct subsidies, corresponding to the military members that it hired.

Also with regard to your anecdote, it might be worth observing that the degree to which the National Guard and Reserves have been called to active duty is very great since the invasion of Iraq. What is it, close to half the time on active duty for many troops? My proposal does not imply that reservist would normally spend quite that much time on active duty. So the current reluctance of some employers to hire these people is not necessarily what it would be under my proposal.

So I think the reluctance of employers to hire reservists is a small, and readily obviated, objection to my proposal.

Well, that might help with the financial aspect of the problem, but it doesn't do anything to address the fact that if one of your trained employees leaves, you are down a body and you need to hire and train someone else. to do the job while they're gone. Then, when they return, you could end up over-staffed. You want the government to pay for that too?




Are you saying that your proposal would necessarily reduce this country's ability to fight a protracted war and thus there wouldn't be one? It that the real reason behind your proposal?



Where I come from it's always been a good idea to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. I don't think your proposal does that.


Aquilla

Agreed. There is also the issue of response time. If a soldiering is a full-time job, the soldier is already at work when needed. Much faster than informing the boss that you have to leave early to repel an invasion or head out to war.

Before addressing the debate questions, I believe it's incumbent upon me to answer this scurrilous characterization of our professional soldiers. The main loyalty of every soldier I've served with, as well as every sailor, marine, and airman I've known, is to their country. I don't doubt that there are some out there who have a different primary loyalty, but I've never encountered them. It is a fair characterization to say that most military members immediate loyalty is to each other. That is a good thing, not bad, known as "unit cohesiveness", something the military strives to build. Doing so improves military effectiveness.

Finally, our troops are ordinary citizens. Half of them spend no more time in the service than most college students spend in college. The vast majority of our troops come from the same high schools as the rest of us, have family, relatives and friends "in the world", and look forward to getting out.


Questions for debate:

1) Is Vladimir's conception of a part-time military workable?
Not really. Even if we did withdraw militarily from our overseas commitments, the requirements for our

• Nuclear forces always at 100% readiness
• Naval force readiness cycle (3-6 months working up followed by 6+ month deployments) in concert with our global naval deployments
• Rapid reaction forces
• Extensive and intense training to maintain combat readiness
• Extensive and intense training to initially learn then master both one's military speciality and leadership

make Vladimir's idea impractical. The idea of a primarily citizen army was attractive to our Founding Fathers as well, but they found it to be unworkable and implemented a professional military and navy.

2) What are the potential downsids to this approach?
Ask the Iraelis why they don't have a "primarily part-time" military. Too many threats don't give one sufficient time to call out the Guard. The vastly increased disruption on our economy that mobilization would entail would risk our leaders being unwilling to mobilize until its too late. Our foreign policy options would be limited. Military readiness will suffer as troops have insufficient time for individual and unit training.

3) What are the potential upsides?
The vastly increased disruption on our economy that mobilization entails would result in our leaders being less willing to embark on foreign adventures.

A pretty clear take on this is found in one of Rummy's answers: "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." As a result, its wise to do everything you can to have the Army you want... especially since you don't always have the option of choosing when you go to war.
As an economist by profession, you surely understand the economic value of locks on the door and insurance. If one's home is never broken into, and one never has to make a claim against the insurance, then the money spent on them could just as well have been tossed into your military's "big hole in the ground" and buried. Ditto for all the money spent on police. Yet, for some reason, no reputable economists looking at the way the "World" (as you so quaintly put it) works would say that you should forgo the door locks and insurance, or eliminate the police. Also, you fail to account for the substantial economic benefit that we have received from miltary R&D. The argument that we would have made the same advances falls short, as the clear history of technology reveals that enormous advances go hand in hand with warmaking, and preparing for war. I'm not arguing that the advances wouldn't occur, only that they'd occur much slower. (Do some research on the history of penicillin.)

Assertion without support. There is only, to my knowledge, one nation in the entire world that has a military structure of the sort you envision. That nation is Switzerland. Surrounded by friends and mountains, conveniently playing the role of, well, Switzerland, methinks that the differences are so profound that its not a useful comparison.

With a radical change in our foreign policy to a hardcore neo-isolationist stance, your theoretical system could be implemented for the Army, under the assumption that our Navy would give us sufficient time to mobilize Vladimir's Reserve. The training and readiness demands of the Air Force, combined with its current structuring, means that there'd actually be little change in how they are structured, although the neo-isolationist position would allow for force reductions, especially in the Military Airlift Command (or whatever they're called these days.) Ditto for the Marines, who would comprise the bulk of the Rapid Reaction Force.

Then you've never been a reservist looking for work. Even back in the halcyon days of the Cold War, being in the Guard and/or Reserve worked against a person. Any employer looking to hire you would have you gone for two weeks+ every year, in addition to your normal holidays and vacation time. If the employer was a M-F 9-5 kinda guy, then he was saved the scheduling hassles a weekend employer faced when dealing with Weekend Warriors.

I disagree. We have had tens of thousands of men stationed in Europe, Japan, and South Korea since 1945 for good reason. Until 1990 it was to protect Europe (and South Korea) and you can bet if we were not there the SU would have been far more aggressive up through 1990. You cannot have a part time army “stationed” anywhere but home.

Certainly we will have a large presence in the ME for the foreseeable future – not to “to ensure the dominance of Western and particularly American commercial interests” but to protect our commercial interests, our allies like Israel, and insure the supply of OIL so vital to our 12 trillion $$$ economy.

Over the next few decades we will have to watch China and Iran as well as keep an eye on North Korea as well.

Today we have the best military we have ever had – far superior to the heavily conscript army that fought in Vietnam – lets keep it that way.




We agree here Vladamir. Its time for the US to be involved overseas ONLY when our vital interests (economic and military) are at stake. Time to let the rest of the world deal with messes in Africa etc.





I see no leaning in this direction here . Never has been – which is not the case in countries where the military has ruled in past ears – such as France, Chile, etc.




I disagree. With a population that has primarily never had a course in economics, can’t find most countries on a map, and often could care less it would be extremely dangerous to run foreign policy by consensus votes.

And what do you consider a “consensus”? 90%? Never happen.

And forget a draft unless it is a majot world war.

These problems are just what financial incentives would be designed to offset. Government of course, pays for all costs of the military.


No, I am simply saying current experience is not a reliable guide to what the normal demands on a mostly-reserve military would be. Certainly a military structured as I have suggested would be able to fight a protracted war. But as I have said, this kind of military envisions that we will not fight major protracted wars overseas except in support of regional allies already engaged in conflict.

I have already explained the reasons for my proposal.



They say that where I come from, too. But obviously, all the wars fought by the United States since 1945 have been discretionary. It is hardly as if the homeland or the territories lie now, or have lain since 1945, under direct military threat. Just because it is wise to prepare in case someone attacks, we must have a military sufficient to defend them. We don't need, however, a military of the current size and scope, just for territorial defense and occasional support of threatened allies. The military that we have is clearly designed to threaten any potential target that the government may designate, anywhere in the world. I suggest that that is not only unnessecary, but that to rely upon such threats (as with the threat to "bomb Iran") constitutes very counterproductive foreign policy.




That point is highly debatable, but I will refrain from doing so because it is moot. Since the Soviet Union no longer exists, there is scant reason for a U.S. military presence in Europe (if indeed such a need ever existed). South Korea's ground forces are quite strong and sufficent to defend the South from the North. If not, that is something the South should look to. But I do not rule out that the U.S. would give assistance if the South were attack, or even that the U.S. would have some troops stationed in the South if that were really necessary.


You can station the cadre and the equipment overseas and conduct your training there as well. You can also rotate units in foreign locations as they are called to active duty. It is true that maintaining a foreign military presence would be more difficult with the kind of forces I proposed, but as I have argued, it's highly desirable for the U.S. to limit its foreign military involvements to cases where our allies have actually been attacked.



Dear Ted, "to protect our commercial interests" has historically been the same thing as "to ensure the dominance of Western and particularly American commercial interests," and in any case, there is scant difference between these formulations. I don't disagree that the U.S. has interests worth protecting, but fundamentally, the security of territories over which the United States is not sovereign will have to rest with those powers that are soverign there.

You and I will have to disagree that a U.S. military presence in the Middle East is necessary to prop up any of those powers. You think it is, I don't. Israel is a topic for another debate, but I will just say that its welfare and survival are of very little consequence for the United States.



We will, but these countries are by no means a current threat to the homeland or the territories, and they do not take a theatening stance toward any of our allies. So it is not as if we have to keep an armed presence athwart their borders. If a foreign power ever attacks a U.S. ally, then the U.S. should lend a reasonable degree of support. But again, the main responsibility for the defense of, say, Taiwan must rest with the Taiwanese.



Yes, and just see all that it has gotten us!

I disagree on the word “dominance” here but agree with you in general. We are not “dominant” in Europe or Asia we are in many cases not even competitive – the fact is we are the worlds biggest “customer” for goods and will be until passed soon by China. Our military does not sit in Europe to protect Walmart stores or Mobil oil stations – but we do need to protect the world oil market because a significant drop in production for any reason would sernd the price sky high and bring recession here.

We are a 12 trillion $/year economy and say a 15% drop in activity due to severe recession would cost us – 1.8 trillion $ a year.

As for Israel I agree with you but the reality is the political power of their support in the US (esp. among Democrats) is literally unstoppable.



It “got us” the fall of Iraq in 3 weeks. The fact that we blew it later in not relevant. A strong defense is required – but I agree keeping them in the country where possible is the best use of them now.

We will have to stay in the ME to protect oil.

1) Is Vladimir's conception of a part-time military workable?
I don't believe that it would work in the scope that he has proposed. I would have some support for scaling back forces from Europe and Korea, coupled with a slight downsizing of the active duty numbers, while increasing Reserves.

2) What are the potential downsides to this approach?
A small cadre, as Vladimir suggests, would leave us without the institutional knowledge base that keeps our current force professional and capable. We live by doctrine, on paper. But what keeps soldiers alive and mission ready, for the most part, are the unit SOP's and battle drills that are conceived, and then handed down to new soldiers through the years, through training and deployments. A cadre, or trainers, cannot keep and disseminate all of this to new units comprised of new soldiers, on a scale to keep the military professional. By professional, I am not referring to careerists, I'm referring to the high standard of conduct and readiness.
Guard and Reserve units do a good job, plugged into the gaps where needed in the order of battle. But based on my experience and that of my wife (who was Active, then went Reserve) these forces are usually at the lowest state of readiness, morale and discipline. This stems quite a bit, I believe, from the lack of unit cohesion.
I'm no economist, but I wonder.....does it cost more to keep a rationally sized professional military, at a high state of readiness and capability, than it does to constantly mobilize and train most of a military structure when needed? Keep in mind that the cost I'm referring to is not always counted in dollars, but also lives.

3) What are the potential upsides?
Not really seeing any.