a start

Recently, Robert Gates complained of disconnect between the U.S. public and its military. Secretary Gates lamented that the burden of war and military service are borne by too few, especially since U.S. citizens no longer see military service as their duty. This has, in turn, led to ballooning costs for the department of defense in the realm of recruiting and retention as it competes for personnel on the open market. It seems to me however, that the problems emphasized by Defense Secretary Robert Gates have an outstandingly simple legislative panacea, compulsory service! The benefits from such a system of universal conscription are manifold and so wide-ranging, it’s appalling they have not been explored at greater length.

The most obvious of benefits is the reduced cost of recruitment and the larger percentage of the U.S. population that would contribute to American causes abroad. No longer would the department of defense be obliged to compete on the open market for talented individuals, a place where they, admittedly, cannot compete because of unique employment circumstances. Instead of offering potential recruits grand incentives and premium perquisites for enlisting, the Department of Defense could simply compel their cooperation and fill rosters through fiat at little or no cost. An added advantage would be the resulting redundancy of recruiting commercials; no more expensive casting agencies putting out advertisements for baton twirling extras and b-actor voiceovers, an indubitable way to reduce cost. Most importantly however, the era of multi-year deployments would certainly come to an end!

There are other important ancillary benefits to compulsory military service as well. Self-preservation, the most traditional of animal and human instincts, further evidenced by the general unwillingness of American humans to enlist even as paid employees of the U.S. armed services, would facilitate a greater interest on behalf of the voting public/military in their elected representatives under conscription. With such a vital interest at stake the electorate and its constituent parts have every incentive to ensure legislative fidelity and transparency. Such a renewal of civic virtue would surely delight the aforementioned congress-people that so often complain of constituent apathy. Imagine their relief when the piqued electorate requests: the denial of special interest, limits on appropriation, restoring the right to declare war to congress, and so on…

A conscripted electorate concerned with their own self-preservation gives rise to another subsidiary advantage, reduced military spending. Is there a better way to sustain a moribund organization than to cut its costs? These rational and self-interested conscripts would, through their elected officials, shift costs away from the financial black holes that are the conflicts abroad towards more sustainable and interest bearing investments. Imagine the domestic bureaucracies that could be created and sustained by a mere half of the defense budget! More importantly, the money that would normally be tied up in overseas deployments and soldiers’ savings, would instead be burning holes in the pockets of local bureaucrats; a true Keynesian multiplier.

A few unwilling dead is a small fee for the rehabilitation of the U.S. military and the restoration of civic virtue.