The moment the Iran situation gets out of control, there will be a draft, no doubt about it.
Andrew | 12.22.06 - 12:42 pm | #

Ain't gonna happen. Reinstating the draft is like trying to reduce Social Security -- it's the proverbial third rail.

Bush has said he won't do it, and I believe the GOP will hold him to it.

Whoever gets the White House in 2008 won't do it, because he'll want to be re-elected in 2012. Maybe, after 2014, a lame-duck re-elected-president faced with a sticky military situation might reinstate the draft. I think it most likely, though, that the then-president's party will keep him from doing that.

Your older sons will definately dodge the draft. (um, "dodge" as in "not be subject to") and your younger children will likely be post-draft age by the time the Feds work up the courage to reinstate it.

(Of course, This all goes out the window if Osama hits us with a nuke, and we decide to annex Dirkadirkastan.)
Francois | 12.22.06 - 12:49 pm | #

Who's going to be in control of congress come January?
Publius | Homepage | 12.22.06 - 1:44 pm | #

The answer, of course, is the Democrats. While they love to use the draft as a scare tactic, and some (like Charlie Rangel) might want to revive it to politically paralyze our ability to wage war (whether or not that's a good or a bad thing is a discussion for another day), the last thing they want to to reinstate the draft so that drafted soldiers can be sent overseas to fight. It was paranoia before to seriously fear a draft, it is tenfold more so since the last election.
Publius | Homepage | 12.22.06 - 1:50 pm | #

And, as another commenter pointed out, the congressional Republicans, desiring to win back the House and Senate sometime in the next forty years, would block any attempt to reinstate the draft were the Democrats to take their game of political brinkmanship too far. This is all assuming, of course, that Bush would be idiotic enough to want a reinstatement of the draft in the first place.

Short of a city being nuked, or Latin America arming itself, rising up as one, and marching on the gulf states while a newly militarized Canada attacks from the north, this just isn't going to happen.
Publius | Homepage | 12.22.06 - 1:57 pm | #

If we need a million straight-leg infantry sometime, we might draft again.

Barring that I don't think so. You cannot reliably train the unwilling to current levels of proficiency.
Ed the Roman | 12.22.06 - 2:27 pm | #

I suggest that the US follow the example of many European governments in the past.

Need more soldiers?
Recruit in the prisons.

Solves several domestic problems at once.

There is no reason to keep (mostly men) in domestic prisons for decades for general misbehavior, various thefts or possession of contraband, or other crimes that don't warrant the equivalent of a death penalty. Any state with a "three strikes" law should:
Stop building more prisons.
Offer to take them to some other country and give them guns.
Let them redeem themselves and serve society, instead of sitting on their butts watching Oprah.
Old Zhou | 12.22.06 - 3:29 pm | #

Media shenanigans.

"The test itself would not likely occur until 2009."

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Of course, if the Turks decide to invade Iraq because of the uppity Kurds, or if Iran refuses to back down, we may have a different story....
ShortRound | 12.22.06 - 3:34 pm | #

I don't believe Bush will call for a draft. If he did, it would spell certain doom for the Republicans in 2008.

But after 2008, once the next administration is in control, all bets are off.

I'm with Dorothy Day on this one: Forced military conscription is inherently immoral.

If I believe that our nation is truly in imminent danger, I'll be the first crying to sign up, old and fat as I am. But I'm much less enthusiastic about sacrificing my children for the wars of this current administration whose trustworthiness is dubious at best.
Mark S. (not for Shea) | 12.22.06 - 3:43 pm | #

Need more soldiers?
Recruit in the prisons.

Riiiight. That worked out so well for the Roman Empire.
Mark S. (not for Shea) | 12.22.06 - 3:45 pm | #

The Romans didn't recruit from prisons; they recruited from the barbarian tribes on the boundaries of the Empire (and later, within it).

If a politician today were to suggest recruiting from prisons, the leadership of the ACLU would have a stroke. And the military would never go for it--people who refuse to obey the laws of society in peace-time are the last ones you want to give a firearm to.
Dennis Mahon | 12.22.06 - 5:27 pm | #

Old Zhou,

My son is an M1 Abrams tanker with the 3rd Infantry Division and he's scheduled to go to Iraq early next year. Anyone who thinks you sould saunter into a prison, recruit a hardened criminal and make him a modern American soldier doesn't know anything - ANYTHING! - about the US military. I find the suggestion not only stupid, but deeply offensive to soliers and their families. And by the way, Mark S., I'm not "sacrificing" my son; he, like me before him, chose to serve his country. What have you done for your country lately?
Mark Gordon | 12.22.06 - 6:29 pm | #

If the draft is reinstated, women as well as men will be drafted this time. So it will be the concern of all parents and all children.
Sherry Weddell | 12.22.06 - 6:37 pm | #

I was in the military during Viet Nam, and so during the last draft.

Now I have two sons in the military, one Army, one Navy.

The military is much better without the draft. I think the powers that be know that. current and future conflicts aren't/won't be about using warm bodies; they will be about proficiency and technology.

Oh, and courage.
Michael Drollman | 12.22.06 - 7:05 pm | #

Sherry beat me to it - there is no doubt that 18 year old girls would be drafted and carted off.
Michaelus | 12.22.06 - 8:11 pm | #

No doubt the military much prefers a professional, disciplined force, and for good reason.

But there are weaknesses too in a professional military, and we've seen examples of them in these current conflicts. The country as a whole is neither politically nor emotionally rallied and committed. Our forces are overstretched. Less than one per cent of the population is directly engaged.

There are consequences, some of them already apparent or potential.

Can't we foresee circumstances in which conscription might be re-instated?
Pavel Chichikov | Homepage | 12.22.06 - 9:09 pm | #

Sherry beat me to it - there is no doubt that 18 year old girls would be drafted and carted off.

Which would make the whole thing even less politically viable.
Publius | Homepage | 12.22.06 - 9:12 pm | #

"Sherry beat me to it - there is no doubt that 18 year old girls would be drafted and carted off."

Of course I'm a fossil, but the idea of committing women to combat strikes me as bizarre and highly inadvisable. As for non-combat roles, even there we see a strain on family structure.
Pavel Chichikov | Homepage | 12.22.06 - 9:25 pm | #

Do we WANT the kind of Army the Europeans have? Where are all those Child-Sex-For-Food guys coming from, anyway?
Ed the Roman | 12.24.06 - 4:09 pm | #