Thinking about the draft

Public Interest, Wntr, 2004 by William A. Galston

IN the wake of September 11, the United States has undertaken a range of new and expanded military commitments, especially in Central Asia and the Middle East. The military occupation of Iraq is likely to last longer, and require larger forces, than civilian leaders in the Department of Defense had predicted prior to the war. The rising demands on U.S. military personnel, including lengthy overseas deployments and the increased risk of casualties, may well put pressure on current recruitment strategies. This is an appropriate moment, then, to review the military manpower decisions we made a generation ago.

The Vietnam-era military draft was widely regarded as arbitrary and unfair, and it was held responsible for dissension within the military as well as the wider society. In the aftermath of the military failure in Vietnam, the United States made a historic decision to end the draft and institute the All-Volunteer Force (AVF). On one level, it's hard to argue with success. The formula of high-quality volunteers and intensive training plus investment in state-of-the-art equipment has produced by far the most formidable military in history. Evidence suggests that the military's performance, especially since 1990, has bolstered public trust and confidence. For example, a recent Gallup survey of public-opinion trends since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 indicates that whereas the percentage of Americans expressing confidence in religious leaders fell from 68 to 45, and from 40 to 29 for members of Congress, those expressing confidence in the military rose from under 30 to 78 percent. Among 18-to-29 year-olds, the confidence level rose from 20 percent to 64 percent. These figures reflect public sentiment in late 2002, before the U.S. military victory in Iraq.

The end of citizenship?

These gains in institutional performance and public confidence are impressive and significant, but they hardly end the discussion. The organization of the military is closely related to larger issues of citizenship and civic life. And here the decision in favor of the AVF has entailed significant costs. First, the AVF reflects, and has contributed to the development of, what I call "optional citizenship," the belief that being a citizen involves rights without responsibilities and that we need do for our country only what we choose to do. Numerous studies have documented the rise of a highly individualistic culture in contemporary America. Many young people today believe that being a good person--decent, kind, caring, and tolerant--is all it takes to be a good citizen. This duty-free understanding of citizenship is comfortable and undemanding; it is also profoundly mistaken.

Second, the AVF contributes to a kind of "spectatorial citizenship"--the premise that good citizens need not be active and can simply allow others to do the public's work on their behalf. This spectatorial outlook makes it possible to decouple the question of whether we as a nation should choose to engage militarily from the question of whether I would participate in such an endeavor. In a discussion with his students during the Gulf War, Cheyney Ryan, professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon, was struck by "how many of them saw no connection between whether the country should go to war and whether they would ... be willing to fight in it." A similar disconnection exists today. Young adults have been more supportive of the war in Iraq than any other age group (with more than 70 percent in favor), but recent surveys have found an equal percentage would refuse to participate themselves.

Finally, the AVF has contributed to a widening gap between the orientation and experience of military personnel and that of the citizenry as a whole. This remains a contested issue, but some facts are not in dispute. First, since the inauguration of the AVF, the share of officers identifying themselves as Republican has nearly doubled, from 33 percent to 64 percent. (To be sure, officers were always technically volunteers, but the threat of the draft significantly affected the willingness of young men to volunteer for officer candidacy.) Second, and more significantly, the share of elected officials with military experience has declined sharply. From 1900 through 1975, the percentage of members of Congress who were veterans was always higher than that of their peers in the population at large. Since the mid 1990s, the congressional percentage has been lower than that of the general public, and it continues to fall.

Lack of military experience does not necessarily imply hostility to the military. But it does reflect ignorance of the nature of military service, as well as diminished capacity and confidence to assess critically the claims that military leaders make. It is no accident that of all the post-war presidents, Dwight Eisenhower was the most capable of saying no to the military's strategic assessments and requests for additional resources.

For these reasons, among others, I believe that we should review and revise the decision made 30 years ago to institute an all-volunteer armed force. I hasten to add that I do not favor reinstituting anything like the Vietnam-era draft. It is hard to see how a reasonable person could prefer that fatally flawed system to today's arrangements. The question, rather, is whether feasible reforms could preserve the gains of the past 30 years while more effectively promoting an active, responsible citizenship among all Americans.