A Volunteer Army: Pro and Con
Rabasseire, Henri
A Volunteer Army: Pro and Con We have received a number of communications from readers concerning the remarks of Henri Rabasseire in the May–June issue of DISSENT about the pro posals...
...The price paid by the draftee is beyond all measure...
...In writing my ten "theses" I was conscious of not writing about a utopia and of not dreaming about that future I hope to help in being born...
...In all such conflicts the neighboring and the big powers intervene because they cannot help being involved...
...At the decision of the individual, this two-year service span could be broken up into minimum six-months' stretches, with delays or postponements of a year or more in between...
...Comment by Henry Judd H H ENRi RABASSEIRE is right in his argument against a voluntary army and in reminding us that Marx "favored a universal labor service...
...Their lives are not ours thus to manipulate...
...Lenchek seems to take a similar position...
...and (3) it would be an army of blacks, based on racial exploitation...
...Their presence may induce healthy modification in the attitudes and practices of their superiors, but an opposite process inevitably is the more significant in its consequences for civil society...
...9) Many of the advocates of a volunteer army have dubious motivations and worse reasoning...
...Our failure to end this unjust war should not be reason to saddle our young men with conscription...
...The cure lies in the creation of some kind of national service system...
...We shall have to establish citizen control outside the army...
...Judd with the question: what do you do if the labor service does not produce enough applicants for defense jobs...
...Both intelligent reflection and historical experience lead to the conclusion that neither event will occur except under extraordinary circumstances, such as are likely to affect professional soldiers and draftees equally...
...For having conceded the principle of labor service, he has admitted that the state may coerce individuals to do distasteful or reprehensible jobs...
...One must not allow one's analytical abilities to be distracted by the Vietnam war...
...Military systems cannot be "sanitized...
...They were wrong—wrong when they wrote and even more wrong with respect to the present American situation, which so ineptly but concisely is called the "military-industrial complex...
...They should not be made to buy with their bodies the social control of the military that we of the left have failed to achieve...
...Each of these arguments deals with the question of the use to which the army is put...
...if we are to oppose such actions in the future, resistance to the draft cannot be the major stimulus...
...Hoffman takes so lightly...
...Choosing either an all-volunteer army or one with conscripts is only to trade off one set of evils for another...
...draft abolition could only increase existing military exploitation of black men and poor whites...
...It is in the nature of a labor service that some of its COMMUNICATIONS tasks may be unpleasant or even repugnant...
...This is the point I was trying to make, and in this connection I should like to expand on Points 6 and 7 which Mr...
...The normal threat of war in our age is of quite a different nature: China's threat to India, the Kashmir conflict, the Israeli-Arab war, the internationalization of civil wars in Africa, the Cuban missile crisis, the unsolved German question, etc...
...Comment by Allen M. Lenchek I I WANT TO ADDRESS myself to Points 4 through 8 of Henri Rabasseire's article "Do We Really Want a Volunteer Army...
...He was right...
...This is a peculiar statement, in the light of our Vietnam experience...
...were high enough...
...I concede that to exclude the present leavening of draftees and "forced" volunteers may exacerbate some of the evils of the army's essentially mercenary character, but it can scarcely produce any major change...
...or in any medical or hospital capacity of their choice...
...For this reason I would prefer to keep the universities in the "draft" status instead of isolating scientific defense work in army arsenals...
...Here the mercenary argument probably is correct: it is possible, by increasing the input of money, to train morons to invent all the war machinery the military wants...
...Tidy little interventions might be more likely with an allvolunteer army, but the real controlling factors are political conditions that are otherwise determined...
...What do you think the army is being used for now...
...A draftee army is the most expensive of all possible ways, not in coin of the realm but in human terms...
...BUT DO WE NEED a defense establishment...
...public discontent with conscripts being sent to die in Vietnam became extensive and politically significant only when there was wide dislike of the war primarily for other reasons...
...Henry Judd takes the socialist point of view, that a man must give some years of his life to essential services that would not become available but for some kind of coercion...
...I was writing for the purposes of the day where the question is to choose between the present system, a volunteer army, and a militiatype army...
...Comment by Robert L. Hoffman A A MERICAN ARMED FORCES today, including as they do levies of conscripts, do not constitute an army of citizen-soldiers...
...His humanity is negated by the denial of his freedom...
...Such offers are subject to the law of diminishing returns, and beyond a certain threshold an additional $100 per day will no longer increase the number of applicants, if the job involves killing...
...I deny this categorically...
...These are valid objections...
...COMMUNICATIONS Oh, come now...
...Of the country's troubles arising from the military system, few are primarily caused by conscription...
...Indeed, he is so sure that the state does not have such rights that he will agree to conscription (I was speaking of conscription, not of the draft) only if I can guarantee that it will prevent another Vietnam...
...there is no other way...
...Lenchek's predicament...
...On the other hand, elimination of conscription can accomplish little of what many of its advocates hope for: most of the faults of the military system are rooted elsewhere and are not so easily eradicated...
...In view of the enormous human cost of COMMUNICATIONS such a policy, it is incumbent upon the proponents of a draft to demonstrate that no alternatives exist and that a draft can guarantee success...
...Let me begin by stipulating that it is easier to control a draftee army...
...Finally, I had in mind that we are living, as Lenin said, in a system of states that produces its natural rivalries and alliances...
...I can think of some excellent contrary arguments...
...but do not forget that the armed forces are already accomplishing just these effects...
...It is even more naive, I think, to assume that enough volunteers would be forthcoming if only one were to raise the pay...
...While the establishment of such a system will not automatically reverse the condition of a distraught and disoriented youth and student movement, initiating a discussion about national service might be helpful...
...Let us review Mr...
...I agree that no particular army organization is an absolute guarantee against misuse...
...The United States can have a standing army less pernicious than the present one, but only if we weigh civil needs in balance against military requirements, as if the former were no less vital to the continuing life of the nation...
...Even so, I would deny Mr...
...Now I certainly cannot guarantee such a thing...
...8) Some intelligent and admired men have in the past "advocated the militia as the only means of assuring citizen control over the military establishment...
...You can even get that now, if you are a retiring senior officer ready to transfer from the uniformed services to the industrial branch of the system...
...Draft-age youths now are agonized and angry, and so are many of their friends and families...
...It should be clear by now that the Defense Department and its weapons suppliers need no encouragement to develop the techniques...
...They should not be made to pay with their liberty for our political failure...
...However, some of us think the costs prohibitive whatever the shape...
...Substantial antiwar sentiment would not have arisen if it had been a tidy little war, or a "victorious" one...
...Every one of these aims, however, can be achieved in a number of ways...
...What else could condottieri want, besides higher salaries...
...In sum, let us grant that a volunteer army is subject to greater misuse...
...Hoffman is right, of course—the only satisfactory alternative to the present system is (a) a COMMUNICATIONS society that does not go to war...
...I assume a state to which the individual offers resistance if he can no longer identify with its purposes and actions...
...However, consider the alternative, continuing the draft...
...there is little likelihood that we might see anything similar in the near future...
...All those who wish to opt out of military training would have that right...
...Once in the army, he may be asked to sacrifice his life in order to prick the conscience of the citizenry and thus generate opposition to a Vietnam war...
...Draftees and short-term volunteers can do little to affect the way the military system operates...
...We must, however, consider the following...
...no country, least of all ours, can safely permit so grave an illness to spread unchecked...
...there are admittedly a host of problems that would arise in working it out...
...Those who have served in nonmilitary capacities may be called up and asked to perform services only in keeping with their training unless they decide otherwise...
...But let not the imperfections of the good tempt you to exchange it for something bad...
...The restraints against their actual use in interna tional crises are operative no matter what the size and composition of the armed forces, as long as there is a substantial nuclear "deterrent force...
...For purposes of maintaining the equilibrium they need armies, but to limit the intervention and to restrain the military they need militias...
...It is not the model of the international situation today, but a freak...
...Since 1950, almost anything supposed to increase our "external security" could be successfully demanded by the Department of Defense...
...This is no argument...
...The crazy quilt of selective service laws and regulations is such that reduction of some injustices can only introduce new ones...
...it has ever more extensive and corrosive consequences for the whole society...
...It is also probably true that draftees would be less reliable in "beating down insurrection...
...Maybe continuing the draft would help lead to a reversal of our interventionist policy...
...I consider all three letters as genuine contributions to an essential debate, and most of their points well taken...
...the true objector will become the individual who refuses in principle to perform any type of service, military or nonmilitary...
...This leaves Mr...
...Hoffman is aware of this...
...Hoffman's assertion that we have a mercenary army...
...It is particularly ironic to hear this argument for a draft proposed by opponents of the Vietnam war...
...Even the war hawks may now have to realize that such "preparedness" must be greatly reduced, however less "secure" that makes us, if the nation is to survive...
...ALL IN ALL, introduction of an all-volunteer army may have some serious, unhappy consequences, though they are likely to be minor matters by comparison with other military evils and their causes...
...He is compelled to submit to the total dominance of the state, coerced into involuntary servitude...
...They may serve their two years (or any part of it) in either the overseas Peace Corps, or in the domestic Youth Corps or any branch of it (VISTA, antipoverty program, etc...
...On the basis of his philosophy, Judd must conclude that then the state must find some fair means of selecting and coercing...
...In view of increased sensibilities among the educated, and especially among the scientists who are exposed to public opinion at the universities, the cooperation of professionals in defense work is no longer assured unless the rationale of the required service is transparent to those enlisted and to their environment...
...Lenchek has not answered his own question, how a professional army would be made responsive to public opinion...
...As an aside, some of us also think the draft to be a "most humiliating form of using people's bodies for commercial purposes...
...I fail to see how our present system differs in any significant way from just this...
...It is here, I think, that the issue can be joined most sharply: those proponents of a volunteer army for whom Dr...
...Military service for one- or two-year periods will exist...
...b) no defense establishment...
...The trouble here is with civilian society, not the military...
...In short, the draftee is made a hostage to governmental irresponsibility...
...he thinks it is possible to have a society in which those who like war may be engaged in it, but others may not have to be involved...
...2) A volunteer army would press into service those who have no other way of earning their bread, a "most humiliating" way of using people's bodies...
...In truth, we can solve our problems with militarism only by having no armed forces at all...
...We have war-making for profit and lack of firm control of the military by civil authority...
...4) A volunteer army would be the "willless" instrument of its commanders, to be used by reactionary governments against the people...
...They are not subject to effective democratic control...
...Moreover, I had in mind the highly efficient specialist army that Germany has been able to build under the imposed restriction of 100,000 men...
...in fact he concedes my whole point when he writes, "public discontent with conscripts being sent to die in Vietnam became politically significant only when there was wide dislike of the war for other reasons...
...I only claim that the present system, even with its blatant injustices and other imperfections, has toppled one President and forced a considerable reduction in the level of fighting...
...Henri Rabasseire Replies L L ET ME SAY first that I am gratified to have provoked a thoughtful discussion...
...Mr...
...Because of this and because armies are controlled by professionals, the actual and potential evils of the military system can be significantly affected only in their secondary attributes by either continuing or abolishing conscription...
...Upon completion of this national service, all will enter a reserve formation...
...If we need a defense establishment at all, we should have one that is responsive to public opinion on all levels—of the draftee, the officers' corps, the defense workers, and the defense scientists...
...Maybe—and it is a thin hope— continuing the draft would help lead to a reversal of our interventionist foreign policy and its basis in popular anti-Communist hysteria, for the agonies of the conscriptive system strengthen and sustain antiwar pressures...
...This is not Dr...
...In a period of national emergency, the government shall have the right to call up those with military training...
...Clearly some of the opposition to the war in Vietnam derives from the fact that conscripts are being killed instead of simply "mercenaries...
...Of course, I would like to see disarmament to proceed, but in writing I had in mind a condition of world armament that even under the most favorable assumptions might exist in the next decade, i.e., far short of general and complete disarmament...
...They must not only show that it is impossible to avoid future Vietnams and to have civilian control of the military without a draft but that with a draft these goals are assured...
...Lenchek speaks would be satisfied if decent people were allowed to drop out...
...Point 4 suggests that draftees will refuse to carry out certain orders that volunteers would obey while Point 8 states directly what Points 5 and 7 imply, namely that a draftee army is more amenable to social control than a volunteer force...
...Where defense of the home territory of a nuclear power is at stake, any war involving large forces will be a nuclear one, and universal annihilation the virtually inevitable conclusion...
...Dr...
...COMMUNICATIONS In my view, the draft system is a major reason for the current disruption of American society...
...A Volunteer Army: Pro and Con We have received a number of communications from readers concerning the remarks of Henri Rabasseire in the May–June issue of DISSENT about the pro posals for a volunteer army...
...The dangers of push-button war are great, but their reduction has little or nothing to do with conscription...
...6) A volunteer army cannot defend national territory except through nuclear warfare, presumably because it is too small...
...Abolition of the draft is essential, but we are damned whatever we do...
...he is concerned only with saving individuals from involuntary servitude...
...Between the ages of—say-19 and 25, all American youth (I see no reason why this should not include girls) would be called upon to serve in a capacity of their own choice for a period of two years...
...If a war is felt to be unjust, people must be given an opportunity to resist, and they can do so only by refusing to be inducted...
...If you must have a "defense force," then you had better count the social costs more carefully and realistically than this country has in the past, and shape the forces accordingly...
...I also was writing without any illusion that disarmament negotiations might in the near future bring about anything better than a halt of the present race and a freeze at the present equilibrium...
...Combinations of these options may fill out the two years...
...I wish he had spelled this out in more detail as a possible alternative to our present system which is bankrupt and beyond repair...
...Under such a system, the present religious qualifications for conscientious objectors will be removed...
...Also, "Nixon is for it...
...In fact, he is not concerned with the political issue of an unjust war...
...Availability of draftees made possible the kind of intervention we have undertaken there...
...I argue that some styles have a relatively better chance of assuring civilian control than others...
...As is well known, Fourier thought of using children to clean the sewers because—long before Freud—he had observed that children love to play with dirt...
...In this respect, my correspondents are less than fair to my argument: they urge on me the insight that any army might get us into trouble...
...The result is a disease in the body politic...
...I would like to see some better explanations than I have yet heard why professional soldiers are worse than conscripts...
...The above, of course, presents but the bare bones of a national service system...
...But precisely this I wish to avoid...
...We are confronted with a real problem, i.e., one where neither side is likely to be right or wrong...
...Democracy and justice are quite incompatible with standing armies and the conditions they inevitably create in a society...
...I have pleaded for the latter, and I am sorry that some of my correspondents still confuse it with the present system...
...I think this is not desirable, nor can it be the attitude of responsible citizens...
...However, I am afraid that not all jobs have some perverse attraction for somebody, and it is naive to assume that at all times enough volunteers will be found for jobs involving the killing of people—personally I must confess that I would not even volunteer for a job involving the killing of animals...
...This is not simply another of those unfortunate evils men must sustain...
...The conscription system does not guarantee civilian control but it certainly is the only way to make civilian resistance felt...
...Each of the participants in the discussion concedes that something may be said for another point of view, and what is at stake here is really not the justice and feasibility of any particular style of army, but the basic conception one has of a citizen's duty to society and to the state...
...5) "A voluntary army is especially capable of being used in colonial wars, independent of the morale of the citizens and independent of any war aim or idea...
...at best, nations can only reduce their inherent evils to levels tolerable for the sake of defense...
...He does not assume that the state has the right to place a human being under discipline...
...10) Carrying the volunteer army idea to its logical conclusion would lead us to "farming defense out to commercial enterprise...
...Lenchek assumes a state which protects those who take no responsibility for its actions...
...Rabasseire.—ED...
...Though a deadly serious issue, the latter is just one of many manifestations of the selfdestructive practices into which our mania for military security leads us...
...Failing such a showing, they have no right to demand so great a sacrifice from our youth as long as there exists any hope at all of achieving these aims through alternative policies...
...Point 6 argues for a large army in order to further a particular, if dubious, policy but it does not make clear why a volunteer force could not be just as large if pay levels, etc...
...And if you want to win with Gandhi's methods, take care that your adversary is British...
...Elimination of conscription will not introduce a "mercenary army": we already have one...
...7) A volunteer army will encourage further development of "push-button war" techniques, which is dangerous...
...No mean achievement, and if "for example" were as much proof as the opponents of conscription seem to think, it would be quite telling...
...Each of the arguments cited involves the achievement of desirable aims: preventing the use of the army against its own people, preventing colonial wars, deterring aggression, stabilizing the international situation, and assuring civilian control over the military...
...An all-mercenary army may indeed be more dangerous in this respect, but with any army, denial to the state of this instrument of repression requires that soldiers rebel against their officers, or at least that they fail to act with as much force as ordered...
...Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is ourselves...
...Earning one's livelihood as a mercenary may be morally reprehensible, but the worst military acts are per formed by men because they are men, with their mercenary or amateur status hardly relevant...
...One point of merit Rabasseire does not mention can be developed from his contention that fewer youths would have opposed this war actively if they were not liable to be conscripted into it, and others might have been less agitated...
...The armed forces are run, and their tone and practices are set, wholly by professional career soldiers—mercenaries, if you prefer...
...But that is just a comment on the problem of popular passivity...
...Some of these communications follow, with a reply by Mr...
...Rabasseire's theses, here paraphrased and abbreviated: (1) A volunteer army is a mercenary one, the "most despicable form of defense establishment...
...There would have been little opposition either to service in the war or to the war itself if it had been more tidy and "successful...
Vol. 16 • September 1969 • No. 5
