In the first article you mentioned, the guy at Brookings (no right wing think tank there) says it "doesn't matter greatly for now." So I'll side with the expert and agree. And you can blame it on Bush's foreign policy exclusively but, as also pointed out in the article, a strong national economy is giving young people more choices.

And what do you mean by the draft won't be in the form of mandatory service? Isn't that exactly what a draft is?

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"I learned from the example of my father that the manner in which one endures what must be endured is more important than the thing that must be endured"

http://myfirstironman.blogspot.com

Mandatory service means that everyone is required to serve in the armed forces (or some equivalent). The draft is a mechanisms for requiring some selected portion of the population for such service. Think current Israel vs. Vietnam-era US.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

And what do you mean by the draft won't be in the form of mandatory service? Isn't that exactly what a draft is?

Draft is a lottery, not all go - student deferments favor the upper/middle class. By mandatory service, I'm thinking of something closer what many other countries use - everyone goes.

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kangaroo -- please do not read or respond to any of my posts

Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying. Would you favor mandatory service requirements? I think its a good idea that's pretty much unfeasible. From what I can gather, we'd have roughly 20 million people between age 18 and 20 cycling through such a program at any given time. Seems too unwieldy to be very effective.

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"I learned from the example of my father that the manner in which one endures what must be endured is more important than the thing that must be endured"

http://myfirstironman.blogspot.com

Does like anybody actually read these articles past the headline. I wish my worst race were half as good as their worst year.

For the full year they missed recruiting goals by 7,000 out of a 1,000,000 man force. Keep in mind the goals seem to be tied to increasing the force by 50,000 to 1,050,000. Also keep in mind they are running ahead of reenlistment goals.

So, by my math it looks like they should expect to be short 0.7%, less whatever they pick up from strong reenlistment.

Note that Marines, Navy and Air Force are all ahead of goal. Note also they have been making their numbers the last few months.

Based on this you conclude the future looks dim? Are you sure it is the future that is dim?

RAND published an interesting analysis here:
http://www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG362/

The pdf is free.

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iambigkahunatony.com

"Seems too unwieldy to be very effective."

Aside from being unweildy, take a look around at a lot of the 18-22 year-olds out there. Do you really want them all required to serve? Do you really think we would retain the overall high quality we have now? The problem with any kind of mandatory service ina country like ours is that many won't want to serve and if forced, will serve poorly. Maybe if there was a tradition of mandatory service going back aways, but there isn't. Mandatory service just isn't a feasible option, and quite frankly, a draft isn't a good idea either, and it's not one I think we'll see any time soon.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

That's the nature of the army, they need numbers. Here on the Air Force side we were just recently trying to get rid of 15,000 airmen. And as far as the mandatory service goes, I think that could be a bad idea in most circumstances. I don't want some asshole who doesn't care about anything to be forced to work on the jet I have to fly around in.

I haven't heard any opinion from any military person in over 20 years that supports any kind of draft.

That closes the issue for me.

Left out of this picture is the fact that record numbers of Army personnel are reenlisting, negating the impact of low recruiting numbers.

And for the record, I don't think anyone with much military experience supports another draft. It would cost a huge amount of money, and would not significantly affect numbers for years to come.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

I don't think there will be a draft either unless Bush can manage an invasion of Iran or North Korea.

However, the US Army has lowered it's recruiting standards so all that crap about the higher standards in the all volunteer army should be stopped right now.



If there were a draft, make the underqualified do some alternative (instead of military service) under supervision for a longer period than the required service so quit making it sound like a draft would be the same as the previous draft.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2127487/


Further evidence that the war in Iraq is wrecking the U.S. Army: Recruiters, having failed to meet their enlistment targets, are now being authorized to pursue high-school dropouts and (not to mince words) stupid people.

This year the Army set a goal of recruiting 80,000 active-duty soldiers, but it wound up with just 73,000—almost 10 percent short. As a result, the Army Times reported this week, the Pentagon has decided to make up the difference by expanding the pool—by letting up to 10 percent of new recruits be young men and women who have neither graduated high school nor earned a General Equivalency Diploma.

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