Bring back the draft

Without a draft, we are given a great and dangerous luxury: we are, in the main, able to consign our war-fighting to a largely isolated force of brave volunteers. The military is a noble calling, and many choose to serve for many different reasons. Whether it is because of family tradition or because a recruit has few other options in life for socioeconomic reasons, the result is that the majority of Americans have little direct connection with the military.

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Without that direct connection, the politics of war are inescapably different than what they would be if the children of the most influential families in communities across America were at risk of being drafted to face fire at the front.

It is difficult to imagine that the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq would have been conducted in the ways they were (and still are) if a large-scale draft had been in effect in America since 2001.

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