REVIVING THE DRAFT

...It lends itself to textbook military strategy, war maps, and computer simulations...

...Two proposals may well be part of the current debate...

...CBO believes it would be unconstitutional...

...One major premise — perhaps the major premise — of the all-volunteer military is the Total Force concept...

...But when both sides have nuclear weapons, and would be almost certain to use them in such a large conflict, any talk of a world war lasting for years — or even months — is as hollow and artificial as plans for a Soviet-American mounted cavalry battle...

...The Reserves, 50,000 short of authorized strength, are having trouble recruiting, and their fighting ability is suspect...

...Pro-military liberals feared that the volunteer army would become "professionalized" and "isolated" from American society...

...National Service, it is claimed, could help to solve these problems...

...The "isolated professional military" of liberal nightmares was largely in being anyway, and the "democratizing" effect of the draft was a myth...

...but no one can say just what it is...

...The military still has 2.1 million troops stationed around the world...

...It would, at least, be an invasion of privacy, and it would sharply increase Government power...

...It is also hard to say what all this means...

...This would give Selective Service a month to reconstitute itself, conduct registrations, classify registrants, and begin to induct them — an almost impossible task...

...The most potent objection to National Service, however, is that it would involve an unprecedented interference in young lives...

...To understand these rather mercurial shifts in military requirements, one must enter the bizarre world of Defense Department mobilization planning...

...The draft debate remains, as it has always been, a symptom of a much greater illness...

...Congress, which has been far too ready to exaggerate the military's "weakness" and "lack of readiness," may not think so, at any rate...

...Robert A. Seeley is the editor of CCCO News Notes, a publication of CCCO/A n Agency for Military Draft Counseling...

...American casualties in the first sixty days could run as high as 500,000...

...First-year attrition of new recruits is down from a high of 40 per cent to less than one-third...

...The peace movement feared that the draft would soon be back, for the U.S...

...The Pentagon claims that it can "manage" them without conscription...

...Defense Secretary Harold Brown, while taking no position on registration, has begun to echo the hawks on key military issues, and is now on record for signing up women if there is a new registration...

...The volunteer military's problems are no worse now than in 1972, and in some ways things have improved...

...Binary nerve gas, "smart" weapons, napalm, and the macabre anti-personnel weapons used in Vietnam could all come into play...

...Congress can understand it, and, unlike a Vietnam-style intervention, it is politically acceptable to talk about it...

...they also predicted that it would be "unrepresentative" — that "too many" blacks would enlist...

...policy as a whole...

...The power to induct would still require new legislation...

...A lot of the new recruits are black, but a recent RAND Corporation study shows that this has occurred not because of the volunteer system but because more blacks are passing enlistment examinations than in 1972...

...Only one — providing "better computer support, improved new standby registration procedures, and a new management system" for Selective Service — does not involve peacetime draft registration...

...For an agency which since 1975 has literally done nothing but push papers and fight for its own budget, Selective Service today seems a real threat...

...Young people would be required to register and then choose among two years of military service with benefits, one year of civilian service without benefits, and gambling on a random draft...

...Thus the draft went into "standby" status, and the induction authority expired on July 1, 1973...

...It is not clear whether these problems can be solved on current assumptions about force size, force composition, and military mission, without some kind of conscription...

...A simple return to the old draft system is unlikely...

...Confronted with the long-range manpower problem of the 1980s, Americans might become less likely to question the institution of new inductions...

...The Nifty Nugget war would be a vicious, highly destructive affair...

...With both the Defense Department and Selective Service participating, Nifty Nugget plugged a big European land war into military computers...

...The National Service coalition (for want of a better term) is an odd mix'Conscription is not the only solution to the manpower problem' ture, ranging from conservatives worried about "undisciplined youth" to liberal social engineers like Harris Wofford and Theodore Hesburgh...

...And here is the draft again...

...Other proposals, not yet embodied in bills or Congressional studies, would simply require a year or two of "service...

...active duty forces would be nearly wiped out in the first weeks of fighting...

...Representative Paul McCloskey, California Republican, has introduced a bill to create a national service program...

...The public was glad to be rid of a hated Vietnam-era symbol...

...No less than five studies on the draft were commissioned by the President and Congress during 1978...

...Registration and classification ended in 1975, making the draft system into a planning agency only...

...For men (and possibly women) who oppose registering at all, it could mean prosecution and imprisonment — as it could also for those who were merely apathetic or uninformed...

...Between fiscal 1978 and fiscal 1990, the number of seventeen to twenty-one-year-old men in the United States will decrease by 17 per cent...

...Worst of all, registration would be a step toward new conscription...

...None of this has come true...

...In a war, this means that the U.S...

...It would not establish a National Advisory Committee, nor place Selective Service under the Defense Department...

...Sonny) Montgomery, Mississippi Democrat, would mandate 100,000 or more inductions over the next five years...

...Conscription is not the only solution to the manpower problem...

...But this year the flap seems more serious...

...Although it would begin to mobilize at the outbreak of hostilities ("M-Day" or simply "M" in Pentagonese), the draft would only begin to provide replacements after some months...

...Current U.S...

...The conclusions — hardly surprising — were that a lot of U.S...

...It would also prohibit the President from suspending registration for more than ninety days, and then only once in a year and for the purpose of revising the registration procedures...

...This was the war assumed for Nifty Nugget 78, the largest mobilization exercise since World War II, which ended in mid-November 1978...

...Nor did it prevent military planners from choosing a drawn-out European land war as their model...

...S. 226, introduced by Senator Robert Morgan, North Carolina Democrat, is the Senate version of H.R...

...There has been some noise about the draft at budget time every year since 1972...

...Debate during the 1980s may soon come to focus not on whether there should be conscription, but on what kind there should be...

...Next year's budget request is $9,825 million — up from last year, but not enough to finance peacetime registration...

...The unofficial reasons for the end of registration were many: among others, budget constraints and pressures from within Congress to eliminate Selective Service entirely...

...R.A.S...

...Service, either military or civilian, would be voluntary...

...The Selective Service regulations have been rewritten in the last five years, but to remove inefficiency, not injustice...

...1901), introduced by Representative G.V...

...Recruiters have, for the most part, met manpower quotas...

...This would make the draft once again a part, albeit a small part, of American life...

...It would almost inevitably be accompanied by massive publicity: radio spots, posters, perhaps even television ads and mailings with electric bills...

...But the official rationale was a change in military strategy...

...Pentagon officials have been talking about the same "sudden-breaking, intense (conventional) war of long duration" since the early 1970s...

...By itself, of course, registration would not force people into the military or make possible another Vietnam...

...Where at present the military recruits about one in four eligible men, by 1985 they will have to recruit one in three just to maintain current force levels...

...Commissioned by Brown two years ago, the study opposes resuming inductions, but concludes that Selective Service could not meet Pentagon requirements in an emergency...

...Three factors make National Service attractive to its proponents...

...But the peace movement may have been right after all...

...Modern conventional weapons are far deadlier and more accurate than those used in either previous World War...

...Competition for eligibles — particularly from colleges with declining enrollments — will be stronger than it is now...

...The proposals H.R...

...usually it dies quietly...

...Advocates claim great things for National Service, but in fact the costs would far outweigh the benefits...

...That world, largely unknown to the public, is a science-fiction sort of place where Soviet tanks drive across Europe to the North Sea in five days, and the attack could come any minute...

...Few observers believe that this is likely within the next few years...

...AWOL rates average about 330 "incidents" per day, down from more than 400 a year ago...

...Recruiter malpractice, always widespread, is probably no worse now than before, though more of it is being exposed...

...23 (The Military Registration and Mobilization Assessment Act of 1979), introduced by Representative Charles E. Bennett, Florida Democrat, would require the President to order a new registration by October 1, 1979...

...National Service would be horrendously expensive: the Pentagon estimates $23 billion, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) $30 billion...

...In effect, however, Pentagon planners have chosen to support a larger standby draft system...

...There is, for one thing, more of it: cries of doom, not only about the draft, but about NATO and the Warsaw Pact, mobilization plans, the "decline of the West," and so on...

...Since the President could, as the law now stands, simply order a registration, the Administration's position is crucial...

...But the draft would not solve them...

...Not all favor a compulsory program...

...In addition, major social needs remain unmet...

...The military could use more women, make more use of civilian contractors for non-combat work, and change benefits to make enlistment more attractive...

...The recruiting problem of the 1980s is easy to state...

...Among those most closely concerned with the military, however, joy was less than unbounded...

...Its inequities were too glaring...

...S. 109, introduced by Senators Harry F. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat, and Sam Nunn, Georgia Democrat, would require a registration within 120 days after it was enacted...

...That the projected war is a "worst case," and considered highly unlikely in the real world, did not prevent the Government from releasing the results of the study to the press as though the Soviets were preparing to attack tomorrow...

...But a new registration would be dangerous...

...A recent Defense Department study of recruitment and the draft (America's Volunteers, December 31, 1978) takes a less hysterical view...

...Or they might turn to compulsory national service...

...They would then receive "counseling" about opportunities in the military...

...Pressure for new registration stems rather from more intractable problems: The Reserves are short of troops...

...Representative McCloskey's national service bill would make the service all but compulsory...

...The draft system cannot reconstitute itself fast enough...

...As long as the United States has 2.1 million troops under arms, as long as it must be "Number One," as long as the Pentagon insists on planning for wars which are possible only in the War Room and on the computer — keeping the military at full strength will be difficult...

...It would be surprising if the creaky old Selective Service System did not show up as a weakness...

...military was still huge, and the draft law was still on the books...

...These are serious issues, and the volunteer military has much to answer for in broken promises and ruined lives...

...Those who do not, however, often do not understand the pressures which might easily change a large-scale program from voluntary to compulsory...

...All of this, say the prophets of conscription, creates a potentially disastrous manpower problem, which in turn creates the draft problem...

...This, and the previous assumption that NATO would have little warning of an attack, is the reasoning behind the Pentagon's new concern about the draft...

...In October 1977, the Pentagon again changed its mind and went back to the thirty-day deadline...

...The Pentagon is already moving in some of these directions...

...The administrative problems beggar description...

...Continuing to induct would, in any case, have been politically difficult in 1972...

...The military would take about 600,000 youth per year...

...Almost certainly they would end up working directly under the Government — not an attractive prospect...

...The private, non-profit sector probably could not absorb them...

...Another bill, (H.R...

...This requirement was then changed to 110 days...

...On paper, at least, Total Force made mobilization in a crisis "manageable" without an active peacetime draft...

...All this brouhaha is ironic because there is in fact no crisis right now...

...troops would be killed and wounded, there would not be enough Reserves, and the logistics of the war would be difficult...

...The President has asked for a supplement of S1.7 million to the fiscal 1979 draft budget...

...Secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander, however, has come out in favor of registration...

...The Administration has followed its usual path...

...Right-wing Congressmen thought that the concept simply would not work...

...The scenario fits well with nostalgia for World War II and current hand-wringing over NATO...

...Force quality is better now than in 1972...

...23, S. 109, and S. 226) would not merely finance, but require, new draft registration...

...And, in the long run, there is a manpower problem whose effects on recruitment are uncertain...

...Military planners in 1977 simply assumed less warning and more casualties than they had in 1975...

...the others — 3 million or more — would have to be placed in jobs, supervised, and paid...

...Thus National Service, a program in which young people are "encouraged" or required to spend a year or two in civilian work or in the military, may become once again a live proposal...

...King proposed that all youth be required to register and take medical tests...

...23 would also amend the Privacy Act to allow Selective Service access to Social Security and school records, and other currently private files, for names and addresses of young people...

...Until 1975, the Pentagon had said that it would need draftees within thirty days of M-Day...

...In a tense world, it would be a belligerent act...

...The President would be required to report on registration plans by June 30, 1979...

...It would establish a National Advisory Committee on military medical personnel and place the Selective Service System under the Defense Department...

...would use active-duty troops first, then the Reserves to provide immediate replacements...

...One, called "minimal coercion," was developed by Professor William R. King of the University of Pittsburgh in 1977...

...And, at the end of November, Joint Chief of Staff General David C. Jones spoke on "Face the Nation" in support of standby draft registration...

...At bottom, however, the solution to the manpower problem lies with U.S...

...Three bills now in Congress (H.R...

...Nifty Nugget can only provide aid and comfort for those who want to bring back peacetime draft registration...

...The manpower problem will make military recruiting difficult, yet youth unemployment — which ought, in theory, to make recruiting easier — is likely to remain high...

...It recommends five options as worthy of serious discussion...

...If the projected war is "sudden-breaking" enough, and the projected casualties high enough, the computer will conclude that the United States needs to plan for faster mobilization...