In The Washington Post, Dana Milbank argues for the restoration of compulsory military service in the United States in order to reverse a “gradual collapse of our ability to govern ourselves.”
In 33 years on the Hill, I never noticed any appreciable relationship between military service and understanding of national defense matters among Members of Congress. Dirty little secret: for most draftees, their military service went in one ear and out the other. They didn’t like it (historically most men have never liked military service), although they usually felt it was a necessary duty and were proud of it, and because they didn’t like it they had no particular desire to relive it or think about it much. For instance, only one-quarter of World War II veterans ever joined a veterans organization like the American Legion, VFW, Jewish War Veterans, and so on, and most of them didn’t stay active in the organization for a long time. Furthermore, when they do look back to their service, it has usually been between 20 and 50 years or more earlier, which can be highly misleading when dealing with current defense policies and issues. When Milbank states that having more Members with military service would change much of anything about politics and governance, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Robert L. Goldich retired from a 33-year career in the Congressional Research Service in 2005. He was the senior CRS military manpower analyst when he left. Bob is currently writing a book on conscription in history, from the first human civilizations to the present.
Image: U.S. Army
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Ryan Evans 
Misinformed is an understatement. Obviously he doesn’t understand the costs involved in just managing the draft system never mind the outfitting and training each new recruit just to have them leave in a few years. You’d also have to create facilities and jobs for all these people rotating through the service commitments. Then of course, anytime you have all that manpower and equipment there will be the constant push to use it someplace in the world.
If we had universal conscription, perhaps we would be less likely to engage in limited wars, or limit their scope and duration. To be generous, Iraq and Afghanistan were immensely costly, colossal misadventures with questionable outcomes. We have to become more circumspect. Perhaps our beer pong brain-damaged, socially stunted youth with their limited attention spans would learn their high school civics lessons and elect leaders with IQ’s higher than two digits if they knew these same inept leaders would commit their lazy 96 ounce Big Gulp lard asses to die in some Godforsaken Islamic Republic. Yes, the last sentence was a run on. Agree with you that a single enlistment doesn’t make for better policymakers or informed representatives – look at Hagel.
You may be right – but imagine the effect on policy if their own sons and daughters are required to be in uniform! I can’t imagine getting them more motivated to “get smart” on defense issues regardless of any history of prior service.
The brief bio at the end of this article mentions nothing about Mr. Goldich’s own military credentials. If we are to believe he has walked the walk of a uniformed service member and knows what he’s talking about, it would be a good idea to mention those credentials. Otherwise he’s the pot calling the kettle black. Being a military manpower analyst doesn’t make him a service member. If he has no military service his argument has little credibility despite its arguable validity.
Mr. Milbank is not saying that military service will better acquaint future political leaders with military or national defense issues. He is saying that universal military service will kindle an increased sense of national unity and shared experience.
I agree. My view is that universal military service would be bad for the military — just as it would be tremendously good for American society as a whole.
Mr. Goldich’s military experience, whatever it may or may not be, is not the point here. He’s not calling Milbank out for suggesting everyone be forced to do what he has not done, himself – that’s my job (ten years in the Navy, if you’re wondering), so there’s no hypocrisy in his post – that’s just a foolish charge leveled by those who wish to discount his words without having to address them.
As for myself, I see no good that would come from allowing the government to force citizens into servitude.
It would have been nice if Robert cared to substantiate his rebuttal, that is if the single paragraph he drafted even qualifies as a rebuttal. Heck, several of the comments addressing his response exceed the length of Robert’s retort. His thesis is basically, “reinstating the draft would be bad because I said so”.
Normally when people neglect to support their position it’s because they are unable to do so. Saying the military experience of veterans doesn’t inform their ability to understand national defense is like saying a successful executive’s experience doesn’t qualify him or her to understand business.
That said, Dana’s point wasn’t that veterans are better equipped to become public servants because of their military understanding, rather that the military instills certain qualities (ability to think and act as part of a team, appreciation for the devastation of war, etc.) that are virtuous when it comes to public service, and that if a broader cross section of society benefited from these experiences then our system of governance would improve. Not to mention we’d have a President and Congress that were a lot less willing to flex our military might knowing it would be their sons and daughters who would inevitably be in harm’s way.
Warfighting, a National instrument of last resort and a tacit admission of failure in our diplomatic process, has become convenient…perhaps even entertaining to some. When it’s “cyber this” or “unmanned that” or “someone else’s kid”, the psychological distance makes commitment of blood and treasure a no brainer.
Whatever the initial intent may have been, this is all about regaining a numerically significant portion of Congressional representation with SOME kind of skin in the game. Literally. Otherwise, stupid becomes the path of least resistance.
xoxo,
133 combat sorties in SOF, Retired.
I dont like the term universal conscription….I like the term universal service, in that young people after High School would serve there Country either in the Armed Forces, the NPS, the inter-city or in any one of a number of organizations that need man(women)-power to get things done……some like the CCC or the WPA from the 1930’s. There was a very recent article in Time, that talked about Veterans going to work in the strom battered midwest and how they had “found” themself for the first time since leaving the Armed Forces, it was a awesome article.
In the literal sense this argument thew writer is rebutting is total nonsense.
I can’t see anywhere in there a sticking point I can agree with here.
In abstract interpretive sense however, I do see something. In the 1960’s the conservative establishment was viewed with resentment by the youth and minorities and as these people grew to power there has been a great unconscious movement to instate a self undoing the element within the establishment.
There is a deep sense of disgust with this self undoing in people that love their country that wasn’t immersed in oppressive elements of that time frame.
Now the McArthyism and segregation movements are all but dead, we’re still stuck with this self loathing blight in america.
And at this point few really know just how deep this rabbit hole goes anymore. The political parties switched stances to get their way. The media and the lobbies supported and ignored the it to push their view of what they thought the best ending would be. The only thing that really is clear is that there is a maze of junk to weed through to get to the brighter tomorrow and people don’t agree how to get there because they don’t really understand the cray roots of the whole thing.
As a current journalist and former Army officer who served in numerous command and staff positions, and taught both college and grad-level writing, history, and leadership by assignment and as adjunct, I have long argued in my opinion columns that bringing back some form of the draft would be a good thing for our government’s effectiveness, and as a result for the nation as a whole.
In this sense I agree with Mr. Milbank. On the other hand, Mr. Goldich’s rebuttal is too brief to really have any teeth, and is not backed up by any apparent uniformed credentials of his own – at least that he let on.
A generation ago, nearly three-quarters of Congressional members (House and Senate) were veterans. Today that percentage stands at less than one-fifth, and falling. This was Milbank’s point, so well articulated by several posters above: Shared sacrifice and shared experience carries over to all walks of life.
Even if ideologically divided, veterans tend to work together toward solutions because of they all have that one common ground that no partisan rancor can ever scathe. There is a direct correlation between the percentages I mention above and the corresponding decline in agreement, civility, deal making and compromise seen in Congress today.
In addition, I would go one step farther than Milbank (and I have in previous published commentaries) to suggest that the President of the United States should always be a military vet. Period. It cuts all ways.
And with all due respect to other arguments, general national service is not the same in visceral terms as serving in uniform. Nothing like it. You have to have done the latter to appreciate why it is so different.
Keep in mind that members of the military often are called upon to perform humanitarian and “other than military” missions. The reverse is rarely, if ever, true or possible.
Telly:
Happy 2014! Thanks for your response to this post on our Hasty Ambush blog. It’s mission is stated on the Hasty Ambush page (http://warontherocks.com/category/hasty-ambush/) and is: “Hasty Ambushes are short, sharp, reactive pieces from War on the Rocks contributors. If the commentary section is for our symphonies, Hasty Ambushes are jazz.” So the whole idea is to be short.
Mr. Goldich was, for many years, the defense manpower specialist at the Congressional Research service and therefore well versed in issues related to the draft. He is also writing a history of military conscription that seeks to covers the entire history of human civilization.
For more War on the Rocks coverage on this issue in longer form:
http://warontherocks.com/?s=draft
Dear Mr. (soon to be Dr.!) Evans,
Thank you, Sir, for your thoughtful insights.
In retrospect, given the objectives – of which I was aware – of “Hasty Ambushes,” I shouldn’t have taken Mr. Goldich to task for the length of his commentary. For that I stand corrected and apologize.
I was, however, aware of Mr. Goldich’s career, which, by the way, is to be highly commended. My only point in mentioning his background was in no way an ad hominem, but rather a connection to the visceral nature of Mr. Milbank’s argument.
Having no way of knowing if Mr. Golich had ever served in uniform, I believe his presentation was commensurate with statistical and historical expertise in matters of the draft.
However, it didn’t seem to come from someone who had served in uniform for any appreciable time – and I could very well be wrong on that, with further apologies rendered if so.
Still, this was not a reply on Mr. Goldich’s credentials, but on agreeing with Mr. Milbank.
Someone who had served in uniform, I would hope, could see what Mr. Milbank was getting at and not take the argument to the side of statistical trends and arcania, but rather to the human side of the benefit of ideological opponents working together because they were once comrades in the same foxhole. And that, Sir, is fair game.
Stating that Mr. Milbank “doesn’t know what he’s talking about” might have been edgy on Mr. Goldich’s part, but it smacks of the business professor who never worked a day in the private sector. If he has served in uniform, then with all due respect, perhaps Mr. Goldich has forgotten the bonds forged in such service.
To an old soldier, his argument, not Mr. Milbank’s, comes across without the real human knowledge of the matter: what that past shared sacrifice among veterans means – not gained in a peer-reviewed field study, but by relying on each other in dire straits, for their lives.
Yes, Mr. Goldich gave us some credible episodic evidence in a selective way, but really never connected any of it convincingly to the reality of Congress today, and the brevity of the piece could be the real culprit here.
Case in point: I am not a member of any veteran’s service body, but I remain fervently proud of my service and connect immediately with other veterans when I meet them. I know scores of veterans like this; it is almost always common ground for working together effectively.
Anecdotal? Absolutely. But don’t doubt its validity for a moment.
I hope this provides a bit more clarification on my previous comments, and erases any doubt as to my respect for Mr Goldich’s honourable defense career.
Again, thank you, Sir, for the reply, and may you and War on The Rocks enjoy a most prosperous 2014.
Very Respectfully,
Telly Halkias
Telly: Thanks for reading and Happy New Year