Can I be in charge of a privatized IRS?
Demand USA government pay its loans from the IRS?
Demand and collect or confiscate non-loop holed taxes from corporations, Amazon, Alphabet, war-profiteers, and banks?
Put taxes paid by incomes over $500,000 on line for all to see?
End shell companies?
End rich family trusts that bequeath fortunes to grandchildren, thus avoiding wealth taxes?
Oh, so much can be accomplished with privatized government! Just let me in on America's wealth, please?
1
Absolutely. Bring back the draft.
But plug the loopholes first. And draft all women, in addition to all men, of a certain age, no exceptions.
Watch our collective national passivity to endless regime-change wars disappear overnight.
4
America has already PRIVITISED the army. They are labelled PRIVATE CONTRACTORS. Most of them are ex-solders. These are the most vicious killing machines - psychopathic killers. These have no CODE OF CONDUCT. Their deployment gives America deniability for the 'CRIMES' against humanity that these contractors commit.
Examples of such American killing machines are DynCorp, Blackwater, etc
Also, these Private armies operate (with American government knowledge and acceptance) in foreign countries.
1
So much to say about this. Yes, there should be a requirement for national service of at least 2 years. In the days of the draft, we were slave labor. Starting army pay in 1966 was about $90 gross (before taxes) a month. It worked out to 10 cents an hour, less than 1/10 of the minimum wage ($1.25/hr. at the time). It was about service and sacrifice. We trusted our government then, even if we were skeptical about the Vietnam war. Our fathers and some mothers had served in WWII so we were raised with some sense of national duty.
What many people today don't realize is that opposition to the Vietnam war grew slowly. Those of us in service realized that the rich and privileged bought doctors & psychiatrists to get their teenage sons out of the draft. Awareness of the U.S. class structure began to develop. Kids in college got a 4-year deferment as undergraduates. Politicians and other "leaders" didn't question the war until 1968.
With the end of the draft, the MIC and conservative thinks knew that future wars would cost a lot more money. Yet, they discovered that the U.S. population didn't complain if their kids weren't involved. And that has proved true. Now, we're in numerous, regime-change wars. Many men who didn't serve then pursued their own agenda in corporations and government. Now, many of them are pro-war, often to serve their own agenda of war-profiteering.
We can't go on this way. Most of the U.S. population, especially the Veterans, have been betrayed.
1
Closing in on 20 years in uniform and this future OP-ED is spot on. The American public is disengaged as a whole from its adventures overseas without any consequences. War tax? War bonds? Nope, just a bill to come due for future generations. Short of being a military family (which is >1% of the US) nobody has any skin in the game on these never-ending wars. The cycle stops with me, my three kids will not serve if I have any say.
52
Outstanding article. It brings to light what many of us feel but could not put into words.
"Does that mean bringing back the draft?" Of course not....says Brooks.
But I say otherwise...it was a mistake to eliminate the draft. It makes it much easier for the US to enter world "problem areas" (aka, wars) when parents know their kids will not participate.
By having shared responsibility, Americans, and parents in particular, will keenly question why the US seems to be in constant wars now...instead of just paying lip service to our heroes and perhaps posting a bumper sticker.
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@Maison I've long wondered if it's feasible to create a two-tier draft--one tier for direct military service, the other for alternative service directed at what Buckminster Fuller called "livingry" (as opposed to "killingry").
Now, I'm not naive enough to believe we can exist without a military centered on weapons, strategies, and tactics of war. There are bad guys in the world who only respond to force. But, we certainly have been neglecting the creative, helping side of life, where young people could be enlisted to serve as construction workers, medical assistants, teachers in parts of the world in desperate need of those things. Couldn't the good will engendered by such a thing help prevent us from having so many enemies in the first place?
Perhaps I'm simply being a foggy idealist, and today's youth are incapable of bringing a message of peace and creativity to the world. What do the rest of you think?
12
@Voter Frog This is a brilliant article, and the idea of a two-level "Service" to the country is excellent, too (the military, primary; civilian, secondary? probably!)
Unfortunately, given what is happening in the Senate as I write, none of this matters. The Scattered States of America is in the process of (dis-)formation, and in 10 years, there will be few left who remember the United States of America.
12
@Voter Frog
Many European nations that have compulsory military service allow the option of a civilian style volunteer service doing non military stuff.
1
The most on-point piece of political sarcasm I've read in ages!
In World War Two, people fought whose last names were Bush (a senator's son), Kennedy (a millionaire ambassador's son), and even Roosevelt (sons of presidents). Back then, the draft made it incumbent on our leaders to be careful what wars were fought, where we were sending our children, and what risks we were exposing them to.
Not now. The all volunteer services get most of us off the hook. It's an updated version of the Civil War gimmick that let you pay someone else to serve in your place.
By the way, who was President Reagan Ronald?
2
As a veteran that served in the cold war era, we need the return of selfless service to return to the hearts and minds of our society. This is our country... key word "our."
Serving from the perspective of growing up in ranching it was easy to see those that could step right into the fight and those that had to learn. Americans are proud people but we somehow forgot we are here because of those who fought bravely and died for what they believed in, "America." Time we start the college tuition form with have you served? Want a home loan with a better rate, have you served? Want to serve as a politician, have you served? Reward those that keep our country safe and send the rest a letter, back of the line if your not brave enough to go to the front of the battle-period! How is it that we decide on a budget surplus of the military and have never served a day to understand what that money means to real soldier. All politicians and lobbyists must serve in the military, your service to country entitles you to federal service of equal time in duration -no exceptions.
1
Okay, so I'm old. But my army fed itself. clothes itself, repaired its own vehicles and was, essentially, a small town in action. Now, if I'm not mistaken, all of that is outsourced and I have no idea why, other than to make 'independent contractors' rich The old-fashioned way turned out chefs, bakers, mechanics and individuals who learned a trade while serving.
What was so wrong with that system?
5
More truth than poetry here.
Max Brooks know our history.
Our wars became ‘their wars’
And who cared.
[Good to see they unionized]
Excellent food for thought. Thank you.
Another veiled rehash of the leftist argument to abandon professionals and bring back the draft, hoping that draftees will somehow cause executives more care in deploying troops. Unfortunately, this has zero basis in history and the unintended result will be returning to the amateurism of 58,000 dead in 15 years of war instead of the current 7000 in the same time frame. This stale argument is occasionally dishonestly promulgated by people who know better, often in pursuit of a professorship in a liberal college.
@Robert L Smalser
"...the amateurism of 58,000 dead in 15 years of war instead of the current 7000 in the same time frame..."
Please be more specific. Are you comparing 1990-2005 vs 2005-2020?
And what kind of 'dead' are you talking about? Just US draftees and enlistees? Does it include the mercenaries (i.e. contractors?), let alone the 'enemies'?
30 years!!! so you accept that war is our national pursuit? When is the last year we weren't at war? Does that say something?
When it comes to war, amateurism should be an ideal.
. Sounds like another veiled rehash of the leftist argument to abandon professionals and bring back the draft, hoping that draftees will somehow cause executives more care in deploying troops. Unfortunately, this has zero basis in history and the unintended result will be returning to the amateurism of 58,000 dead in 15 years of war instead of the current 7000 in the same time frame. This stale argument is occasionally dishonestly promulgated by people who know better, often in pursuit of a professorship in a liberal college.
I have never heard a mandatory year of national service being proposed by anyone who was young enough to be forced into it.
Privatizing health care was a huge mistake.
My beloved brother Bob Tyler was delivered in 1952 for $1.50 plus 75 cents for 2 nights
I inherited the handwritten receipt from my Mother.
Yet, as the successful as an attorney he became, his sudden death at 56 became a $28320.00 ‘invoice’
Thanks to Nash-Vilians like Rick Scott, Bill Frist and Phil Bredesen, that created ‘Healthcare Companies such as HCA, Humana, And a Host of others that promised better care for less money....
I am Witness to HMO crisis, firsthand with some of the very souls that bought all hospitals, metro and rural, not to deliver babies, but to deliver profits to Belle Meade Billionaires
Nothing like seeing Rick Scott drinking cosmopolitans at The Boundry’, and watching Phil Bredesen depart the Bellvue Waffle House in a Tesla...
2
Scarier than zombies--because zombies don't really exist, but Max Brooks' perils are all too believable. Especially since our current POTUS believes that U.S. troops stationed around the world should be paid for by the countries in which they're serving. The sooner we can eject the commander-in-chief, the sooner we can get back to a more rational--or at least a more American--way of doing things.
1
The left really wants to bring back the draft? We've gone through the looking glass or the left in the US has gone completely insane. From this op ed, the others in the series, the 1619 project and the comments in this post, the evidence points to the latter.
"We might have told them “thank you for your service,” but what we really meant was “better you than me.”"
I'll admit that this sums up my sentiment when people utter these words to me. It is like they are giving themselves absolution for taking a free ride.
3
Bring back the draft, for everyone.
1
The US military is our largest socialist program, a threat to world peace and the worlds largest polluter.
Our misguided imperialism and run-amok militarism hasn't only destroyed nations like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Venezuela, but our own as well.
We haven't fought a "good war" since 1945.
America has become a War Machine.
It should make all Americans ashamed that we have earned that title.
We have been involved in costly wars for decades now, and responsible for the deaths of millions of civilians, millions injured, and millions are homeless.
We have been called the biggest terrorists, and are hated around the world.
Extremism raised its ugly head, because we gave them the reason to wage a war against the very nations that bombed them, and used our attacks on Muslim nations, the excuse to recruit desperate, angry youth mad that we have destroyed their nations. It is a shame that we never take any blame for what we started, and we keep doing it.
Worship of the military is surely modern America’s most cringeworthy and repellent aspect. The war hero is the American equivalent of the medieval saint.
Get shot at by some primitive, soon to be obliterated savages and you can live large on your war stories for the rest of your comfortably pensioned days.
But there are no wars for the US military to fight these days except those they create themselves.
5
I blame the boomers.
1
Before 2050, we’ll see Chinese aircraft carriers and destroyers sail into the Golden Gate. Since 2020 California has been devasted by decades of drought, wildfires, two massive earthquakes, and an intractable homeless problem resulting from huge wealth, income and opportunity gaps. Thanks to continued under-investment by PG&E, the power grid in much of the state is fragile and subject to hacking by foreign powers. Unreliable power adds to California's woes .
General disorder caused by a severely degraded environment, social polarization and ethnic “unrest” prompts the Chinese government to send troops to protect the “interests” of ethnic Chinese, which now make up a majority of the California population.
The US is powerless to stop the Chinese after they have brought the economy to its knees by strangling the supply chain of everything needed for basic assembly of the electronic components and mechanical parts needed for civilian medical care and agriculture, and defense and arms production.
With the national power grid hacked and inoperable, military satellites neutralized by the anti-satellite technology, and the US military in disarray, the Chinese sail into San Francisco Bay, and deploy their troops with virtually no resistance. Within two months, the newly installed State Legislature declares its independence from the United States and becomes the first Chinese colony in North America. Privately, our government braces for a similar effort in Washington state.
1
If I were to write about the American military in 2050, it would be more along the lines of troops mobilized outside Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as the white minority government attempts to retake the renegade states of the newly formed nation of Pacifica.
As a liberal I have one thing to say… by all means, bring back the draft.
2
Another squirrelly idea from Milton Friedman. When will people figure out that the so-called invisible hand of the “free” market is controlled by a set of narcissistic brains that are unified in groupthink?
1
Meanwhile, Global Warming? Fix that or this scenario matters not one whit.
1
You forgot to mention the dissolution of NATO in Trump's second term.
3
Bonds, Current controversy and "Their ripping us off". Bahahaha. Our current situation speaks to our future in enumerable ways.
Global Economy? Is this first? A United World? Bahahahaha. Religion has already spoken to this by the "Religious".
Military Privatization? Consider the Consequence; GOOGLE, Microsoft and "Ruble" ridden Facebook without oversight.
It's nice to exercise the imagination; Truly. But, let's not get carried away................
From the headline I thought this was about the present day, when we have "contractors" doing everything from KP to machine-gunning.
2
President Miller ... is that current WH advisor Stephen Miller? Scary. Touché, Mr. Brooks, touché.
2
War is bad. It's even worse when most Americans don't realize there are people behind the statistics. A couple of weeks ago, I read an article where we had 3 servicemen killed in Afghanistan. I remember responding, am I supposed to feel bad? Outraged? Sad? I don't feel anything...and clicked onto the next page....
This "Fiction" article made me think of all the people affected by conflict. I read that 200k to 300k people are being displaced in Syria because Russia and Syria are bombing an area that is suspected of having ties to the resistance. I remember thinking, am I supposed to feel bad? Outraged? Sad? I don't feel anything...and clicked onto the next page.
Then a new thought swept across my tiny brain: Haven't I heard of that happening in Syria before? I had! Not once, but several times. Maybe I'd read that before. Is this a repost? Perhaps reposted for the 100th time? Because I'd read it SO many times in the past, it became... a rerun. But it WAS NOT a rerun. If it wasn't a rerun, and I just heard it again for the even the 50th time.... quick math here....10 to 15 MILLION people have been affected here.
The point I am having a hard time getting out here is this: Until the Chinese (or Russians, or N Koreans, or Iranians or...) come marching down my little street here in Anywhere USA, it doesn't affect me and therefore it's up to someone else to worry about. Closedown my local Starbucks however, and we're talking WAR!
2
You publish enough dubious op-eds from the present... Why these op-eds from the future? If you think such things as privatizing the militayr -- Halliburton are happening currently then name names.
Yes, capitalism - Wall Street and the Fed in lock-step -- why not call for a rise in interest rates -- something real - a return to the luxury tax- something real instead of making up stuff- like we' don't have enough money for Medicare for all.. No we don't if MDs prescribe medications that cost - out of pocket 67$ instead of 17$.
You can teach reading, but you can't make the horse drink!
Off topic, but to me this is absurd.. like much of what is going on in this land of ours.
The opening paragraphs sound just like the present reality...war all over...and in both scenarios, to quote 'it's all about the benjamins'.
How about, to quote again we just "study war no more"?
Surely there are better methods of population control.
Rome fell to its foreign-born mercenary armies, and Machiavelli knew that a prince could rely on local raised troops to protect the land they tilled. Brooks makes a good point here. When you hear in the news that a "contractor" was killed or injured somewhere in the world where we are slinging bullets on behalf of some petrochemical company be sure you know what a "contractor" is: a mercenary.
150
@Dave G
Exactly correct. "Contractor" is one of many euphemisms our government and business interests use to obscure what they are doing throughout the world.
47
@Dave G
I have yet to see any information about the "contractor" killed in an attack on the U.S./Iraqi base in Iraq, that led Trump to have Gen. Suleimani assassinated. I strongly suspect that "contractor" was a mercenary and the higher-ups are unwilling to admit it.
3
I agree. I was drafted in '58, hated to go, but my time in the US Army changed my life. I became more serious, understood more about America and got back to serious things. The draft kept a lot of kids off the streets, taught them some sort of trade for many but above all a great sense of patriotism.
Many economists justified the elimination of the draft by arguing it was a waste of human capital, but i believe that argument was a simple justification of their own biases.
I say bring it back. If there aren't enough military slots, make it two years of public service at military pay. It would get a lot of kids off the streets for two years during a formative age and maybe reduce some social problems...
130
@henry Exactly which 'street kids' are we talking about?
3
@henry
The lives of many other Americans who were drafted were also changed....by ending them.
My son will be drafted over my dead body.
4
@Lives in the Misery Ozarks Its every 18 year old who isn't gainfully involved in work or school
1
Is the notion of the nation state dying/dead? To be replaced by the borderless corporate state whose only fealty is to profit. And war is a money-maker. So, maybe it's already happened.
93
@Cody McCall call that the "Corp-Aphate"
justsayin.....
3
@Cody McCall
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Government
I watched a documentary last night that was presented at an independent film festival. It followed former soldiers who had served multiple combat rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 til the present.
Once again, I was struck by how many of these men were from rural areas. All but one had a southern/rural accent and bad grammar. No matter how long it had been since they left the military, they still cursed "like sailors", chain smoked, and used military slang in regular conversations while conducting their daily business. Many were still living with their parents.
They uniformly spoke of struggling with suicidal thoughts or of former friends from their units who had already succumbed to theirs. Many struggled with alcoholism or drug abuse.
I couldn't help but notice that they represented a particular demographic -- rural and the poor. I was a military wife for four years during the Vietnam war and accompanied my husband, including overseas in Asia. There was much much more diversity in the ranks than I see now. That film just confirmed it some more.
Maybe if the burden were shared more equally, we'd be more cautious about engaging in military "adventures".
95
@Entera the bulk of military recuits are from the middle class. 18% are from the lower socioeconomic classes (less than about$34k per year), and 17% and from households with income above about 81K. The remaining 64 percent are from middle class.
Here are the statistics from 2016:
https://www.cfr.org/article/demographics-us-military
1
@Mary
Be careful...the stats you cite are for Neighborhoods NOT Households. Also, consider that young people from "middle" class families might find their economic opportunities limited so they are "forced" into the military. Recall how vice president Cheney remarked he had "better things" to do than serve in the military.
2
@Maison well of course all those things are taken into consideration. But, most of them do come from the middle class, and have for decades.
I served for four years. That experience taught me to teach my children to never join up. There was once a dream called America and it died a long time ago. My children will not kill nor risk limb, eye, nor life for this 'country.' Perhaps when the 1% join up, or send their children, then mine may look into it. Other than that: "better you than me-" I mean, "thank you for your service."
63
@MC I wish I could recommend this multiple times!
5
I consider my DD-214 a document to be kept alongside the deed to my home soon to be returned to me by the bank as a release from my obligation to it.
We all have an obligation to our country and should be willing to pay it in full whether in military service or through community support in one of a thousand ways.
Just as there is no free lunch, there should be no free ride at Amusement Park America.
2
@Doug McNeill
OK...as long as that service is in the deserts of Arizona...or the jungles of South Florida. We have no obligation to serve the interests of the oligarchs of this or any other nation just beccause they trade in dollars.
Bring back the draft, and include women. If you have no understanding of "service", how can you possibly make a decision about how it works, how it should work, and how it will work. During WWII, my grandmother served in the WAC - and she was already a grandmother twice over. My father served, my brothers and I all served. If this is really your country, then you owe your country something in return.
10
@Jean Boling we have a draft militarty in norway. Its no good. You get unmotivated fat folks too often
"Thank you for your service " has bothered me for years and I just couldn't pinpoint why. The comment that what it really means is "I am better than you" hit home. As a Vet I appreciate it when another Vet makes the statement since there is a bond but from a civilian it seems hollow,thank you for making it clear to me. P.S. I do not think people making the comment realize this and are not intentionally being rude in any way,it is not the voicing but the reception that is at play here.
9
@DE Tom this is something that my father and I have wondered about for years. Both of us are of the opinion that we don’t like it, it is uncomfortable. My father was in 30+ years and remembers the Vietnam-era treatment of vets and I remember the pre-9/11 treatment, so all the seemingly 180° attitude change rings hollow. I know people (& attitudes) change but this one just doesn’t sit right. I tell people I’m not a vet ofttimes rather than receive their “thanks,” and as I am an amputee that tends to throw them off-track a bit. It just seems easier to avoid them than to encourage them I guess?
2
@Buddhist Waltz
Thank you for this reply I was hoping to not be offensive but did want to know if others felt the same way. I too am pre 9/11 and my father was in WWll. I didn't serve four years in the Army for other people I did it out of a sense of duty and do not need to recognized for that, we all have a role in this country, I just thought that was mine at the time. And , Thank you for your service...I mean that:)
3
An excellent nod to Rachel Maddow's "Drift." I read that book in Afghanistan in 2011, and witnessed the curious world of military outsourcing first hand both there and in Iraq. We would do well to steer the nation back from Brooks' dismal forecast and return to the ideal of the citizen-soldier.
3
As a guy who has worked in Corporate America for well north of 30 years, I remain amazed at the people who believe it is some wellspring of efficiency and brilliant decision-making.
Like government, corporations are run by people. Often they make mistakes--big ones. Mistakes in strategy. Mistakes in execution. Mistakes in reading the market. Mistakes in communications. Mistakes caused by sheer greed. When these mistakes are big enough, corporations lay off many workers, reduce the quality of their products and services to cut costs and, in the worst case, go bankrupt. We seem to have already forgotten the results of the tech bubble bursting in 2001 and the near collapse of the banking system in 2008.
Case in point: If you were an Air Force fighter pilot, would you feel good today about flying a Boeing fighter jet after seeing their Supermax fiasco?
And government does not require a 25% or more profit margin on top of everything it does. That profit margin is paid by the taxpayer.
There are many things that private corporations can do well. But like the government, which is also run by humans, they are far from perfect.
9
@Jack Sonville I taught business in colleges around the world and I will definitely agree with you there! How many textbooks are there called “International Business Blunders” and how many stories of “oops” moments are in all those books? A lot! But thankfully they don’t start wars or famines or encourage genocide, so let’s keep those mistakes more in the entertainment/business area and not the world history/government area.
1
@Buddhist Waltz
Oh, but they do...start wars and famines and encourage genocide. Sometimes intentionally.
Yes, ending the draft may have been seen at the time as the tactically correct decision but it has clearly proven to be a strategic failure. But let's not only restore the draft; that's not enough in today's and tomorrow's worlds. It's too slow a process when a decision is made to activate the draft process. Rather, let's institute universal military training with perhaps a minimum term of service thereafter. For those who may not qualify for military service, a form of universal national service should be established. The social and political benefits are obvious and detailed by many informed observers (and veterans) will be more than worth the effort and expense. Moreover, those values extend throughout the lives of every participant and reach all quarters of our society. The military or national defense and security value of a ready force of an already trained population of people is clearly evident. Other nations do this; we can and should too. Absent this type of action we will continue to encourage societal division and detachment. We also encourage a professional warrior force seen by too many as other than courageous volunteers and more as an armed force that can be controlled by political factions and leaders and a corps of military leaders who may choose to challenge civilian and political leaders and constraints. These dynamics exist now. It's time to address them and return to the fundamental principle of the citizen-soldier.
15
@MikeBoma
Significantly, our Constitution did not establish an army. Only the Navy. Our founding fathers feared a standing army, and did not want one. So they allowed for the raising of militias in times of need, and provided for the right to keep and bear arms so that the militias would be armed. I could launch into a whole lecture about the ramifications of this, but won't. I am retired Navy, incidentally, and don't own a gun.
2
Reagan never said that, at least the spirit and intent of what he said isn't what Republican operatives fed to the masses.
Reagan never said, "Government is the problem", on a broad scale. He was talking about gov't being the problem in one instance with one policy.
The media knows this. Any media that doesn't probably doesn't care anyway. The media needs conflict because conflict sells.
The media is in it for the money. Twisting a phrase to morph it into something else with a different meaning is profitable.
Americans don't appear to care, either. Americans want entertainement. If their entertainment comes at the expense of truth, Americans are okay with thatr. At least enough for it to be profitable.
And now, in 21st century America, you can get all touchy-feely if you can afford it, but in the United States of today, money comes first. Lie, cheat, or steal, it doesn't matter how you get it. Once you have enough money, you can get away with anything.
But the thrill is gone. Or it should be. Because once you have so much money you "can get away with it" there is nothing to get away with.
How can you claim you got away with it when you have so much money there is no one who is going to come after you even if you shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue.
1
@Peasant Theory I agree with most of your post but you are wrong about Reagan. He did say that.
"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem."
from https://www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/reagan-quotes-speeches/inaugural-address-2/
He did believe that big government is a problem.
13
@Vet24 Correct Vet. In fact, here's his entire quote from that speech: "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem. ... Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it. ... The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much."
3
@Apathycrat
@Vet24
Ah, you had me thinking my source had been wrong. But it wasn't. I watched the speech. At 6:48 Reagan says, "IN THIS PRESENT CRISIS, government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem".
As I said in my post, what he said has been altered to give it a new spirit and intent. People have made money by altering the truth. An entire political party is now using it as the basis to carry out a subversion campaign against our government for decades. (Yeah, I know, no one wants to talk about that!)
Notice to in the additional quote you provide, Reagan says, "If it stops moving, subsidize it". Republicans get great joy on demeaning and stigmatizing individual people for having the bad luck to fall into the predicted cracks ion the "free market" system. While with the other hand, Republicans provide individual corporations billions of dollars in subsidies and various freeloader programs to live up to the mantra: "Privatize profits, socialize loses".
Lastly, one quote could well telegraph the Republican strategy to take what many Americans have worked for and paid for all their lives: privatizing Social Security, Medicare, and other social benefit plans. After pushing through tax cuts for the people who need them least, Republicans plan to take what Americans have paid for who need them most.
I welcome robust debate. Please read the Declaration of Independence and compare conditions that warranted its signing & a war to conditions today.
2
There's no way a private could possibly cost any more than the current bloated one we have. They get tons of freebies and benefits that are literally unheard of in the private sector. All for just sitting on some base in Louisiana not doing anything.
3
@Monsp I recommend you do a tour at Fort Polk before you characterize a soldier there as "not doing anything."
1
@Monsp So, do you think the military is overpaid?
1
@Monsp
"...no way a private could possibly cost any more..."
At cost plus it could !
Good ol' American ingenuity, says otherwise.
1
Who is the author’s “We” in his claims “ in statements like “In 1950, during the First Korean War, we broke with a tradition going back to our revolution”? The author’s fiction is not his history. It’s not even history. Boot wasn’t even an American citizen during the Korean War. Otherwise he would have not made the claims about middle-class anti-Vietnam demonstrators protesting the draft lottery of working class poor because they could not tolerate the death of the working class casualties. There were many draft deferments for college students, including people like Trump with a health claim (his was “a bone spur in a foot”), but women, health science majors, and Dean List students were usually exempt from the draft.
1
@Bayou Houma Max Brooks is the author, not Max Boot.
This imaginary scenario left a step out. Specifically, the current administration's decision to start renting current enlisted soldier's to "allies" willing to pay for forces stationed on their soil. Once we all get used to the idea that we can subsidize the defense budget this way, the progression to an all contractor military is likely to accelerate.
11
@Matt
Cool! We'd be a nation of mercenaries...as if we weren't already.
1
Umm....many of the functions of a military are already privatized.
All weapons are built by private companies.
You had private contractors using weapons in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Pentagon doesn't actually do much for itself any more....everything is outsourced except the actual people wearing the uniform.
10
There is actually a serious chance USPS will be privatized this year, never mind "science fiction"
3
@ml Yes, and Betsy de Vos's brother has already pitched it to Trump enticing him with the notion that he would then have a private army at his disposal to do whatever he wants. This is even scarier than the impeachment joke the GOP gave us in the Senate. It would no longer be science fiction but science fact, and scarier than any science fiction tale you could come up with.
13
"Ah my country! In thee is the reasonable hope of mankind not fulfilled."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
3
We've been underestimating the cost of military action and overestimating its efficacy since, what, WWII.
But even worse is that our culture is now knee jerk militaristic. We don't look at wars rationally. We look at them as expressions of faith, of toughness and mettle, and as a proxy for goodness.
14
@Yeah
We now finance our wars with 'invisible debt'.
If we had to tax the electorate and get them to buy War Bonds to pay for our wars they would be far fewer and far shorter.
11
@cynicalskeptic
We would have far fewer wars if the war-loving Congressmen and Presidents had their sons and daughters serving in the armed forces.
1
More private contractors have died in Iraq and Afghanistan than US military personnel. We are well on our way to mirroring Rome's collapse.
Perhaps the best 'solution' is to simply STOP FIGHTING UNNECESSARY WARS.
17
@cynicalskeptic I agree 1,000%! Further, soldiers/marines, sailors, and now even pilots are largely obsolete for protecting us.
Instead, we need economic power/allies, diplomatic clout, cyber-warriors, comms experts, AI specialists/system programmers, advance network engineers, etc... of which the Spentagone has just a few (as they are hard to attract, retain and exploit.
I think it's time we eliminate the career military except for a few MOS' as those listed above, and a few senior officers for base continuity.
1
This is a provocative take on where we could be heading with military service, but I was disappointed Mr. Brooks limited his mention of Eric Prince to the controversial training business venture he started in China last year. If any individual is fodder for speculation on a privatized U.S. Army, it would be Mr. Prince, the founder of the company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide. What about the disastrous actions of some of Mr. Prince's Blackwater "security contractors" during the Iraq war? The infamous Nisour Square shooting spree resulted in two federal convictions of the five Americans accused, with defense lawyers arguing they were just shooting back in a theater of war. It was the reality of Mr. Brooks' line "immunity from not only war crimes but all crimes under U.S. law."
The Iraq and Aghanistan Wars introduced the public to the concept of troops for hire, with hundreds of millions of dollars paid to Blackwater. Now, according to the NY Times, Mr. Prince is lobbying the Trump administration to use private contractors in Afghanistan to aid in the potential withdrawal of U.S. troops. It would seem a more realistic scenario of the corporate takeover of U.S. military security might be a multitude of Prince-like entrepreneurs, each looking to grab a share of the action, instead of the more Hollywood style mega corporation controlling everything.
18
An unlikely scenario for the next 30 years!
Russia and the US will be inconsequential military powers, with big bombs moldering in storage depots, and old-fashion ICBMs corroding in abandoned submarines and derelict aircraft carriers.
We'll be part of the Belt and Road trade infrastructure. We'll send our extractive and agricultural products to China, and receive, in return, manufactured goods and trillion-renminbi subsidies.
Don't sell short the nation that, in less than 2 weeks, can build a thousand-bed hospital and, in less than 20 years, a score of megacities replete with freeways, underground metros, and high-speed intercity railways.
In the next 30 years, China will continue building, the US will continue quarreling and posturing, and Russia will sink into a frozen political mudhole.
12
"Ending the draft in the 1970s might have seemed like a good idea at the time." I have consistently opposed this move since its inception.
Well, it would have been had we decided that there would be no more Vietnams. But the All-Volunteer Army has resulted in nothing but endless wars. The big difference seems to be that we're no longer fighting in the jungle were we can't see the "enemy" (note: the Vietnamese, now unified, are our friends), but can clearly inflict casualties on tens of thousands of civilians all across the Arab world, if not directly, then by the war-mongering that we have enabled.
In a society that is increasingly divided, there is little common sense of purpose or identification with most of our fellow citizens. Youth owes nothing to a society which gives them many more benefits (opportunities are much more dependent upon family connections) than their parents ever knew. Our soldiers increasingly come from the same community and families. Those who fight are more likely to have fewer options than their more well-to-do counterparts. Those who fight are more likely to return as "volunteers" for a second, third and fourth tour to combat hot zones.
Bring back the draft and/or equivalent national service. Men and women both (ERA?). A good way to grow up a little more, to learn hands-on and social skills. Make American citizenship valuable again and don't hire mercenaries or bribe illegals to fight our battles with that same promise of citizenship.
25
@Chevy Agree, wholeheartedly. There are many benefits to a draft and/or national service. The opportunity to serve with other Americans from different areas would do us all some good and go a long way to heal the divide heaped upon us by the politicians. I think my service in the Navy broadened my perspectives greater than college or my subsequent corporate career.
12
@Chevy
Bring back the draft and whenever there is a war-- require that every member of Congress spend three months in the war zone annually until the war is over.
4
The chance of having a draft again are zero. All of this talk of bringing back the draft or allowing for national service is just whistling in the wind.
2
The lack of draft and participation of the broad public in our endless wars only serves, as Mr Brooks points out, to segregate our soldiers and their experience from the rest of the country. It creates yet another us vs them that we cannot afford. Especially at a time when the military industrial complex is left to continue draining the nations coffers. If the draft were reinstated, our current war(s) would be over in a heartbeat. And that observation from someone who does believe in a strong modest military.
29
The wars we will be fighting are asymmetrical. Our military is so obtuse and bureaucratic, they did not glean that nugget from Viet Nam. Erik Prince (and I am not a fan) is selling to the highest bidder now because of the legal problems he faces in the US over Blackwater fighting the kind of warfare our troops are not trained for and are incapable of. In the early and mid 2000's I met many kids who were home on leave from Iraq or Afghanistan. When I asked them why they joined, the answers were "the only job I could get here was delivering pizza" and "the sign up bonus." Some said they needed the money for college. There is a small hard core in our military of people who excel at what is essentially guerilla warfare and when they muster out, companies like the former Blackwater give them the jobs that they find satisfying. War is a dirty business and rules of civilized engagement no longer apply and haven't for over 50 years. Anyway, it is a moot point - future warfare will be AI-driven. The AI "soldiers" won't care about a union and they won't need one to enslave us.
3
@Eli When warfare is fought by AI-driven bots, you can kiss your freedom goodbye. AI is a program. As a former programmer, I can tell you that whoever writes the algorithm and base code decides what the program does--and does not do--and has the ultimate control.
We must NOT let AI get out of the box. And no, I don’t have AI-driven internet devices controlling anything in my home, at least, not the commercially available ones. The moral of this story is: do not wish for or enable what you don’t understand and control.
8
I was with Mr. Brooks until the end, when he said that a draft isn’t necessary to avoid the “contract army” we have created. Many of the problems Mr. Brooks identifies would be addressed by a draft.
A draft means that wars affect everyone in the country and everyone has a stake in avoiding them. It means that the army is composed of young people from all over the country, not just small enclaves where military families have grouped themselves around military bases.
There is no anti-war movement in America because there is no draft. It also means that the military has become one of the constituencies of the right-wing in which militarism is a tradition. The absence of a draft contributes to political polarization. If Trump’s impulsive instincts cause a war or if he is dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, will the authoritarian instincts of the professional military implement his wishes? A draft army would not participate in rounding up American citizens considered “the opposition.”
Mr. Brooks imagines a dystopian future. In fact, he is not sufficiently pessimistic about the short- term consequences of a "contract army."
21
Artificially intelligent robots, in the form of space missiles, cybersecurity daemons, etc... will be the new warriors.
Two caveats:
1) Climate Change
2) If we continue with the central idea that everything must be resolved by force (military, economic, etc.) we, as a species, might be done for good.
It would be sad if the conquest of the Universe were only possible via the total destruction of the "other", whomever that might be.
The current occupant of The White House and his family is the best argument I can think of for instituting a mandatory one- or two-year national service requirement for young people. It could be military, could be Peace Corps, or AmeriCorps, or some equivalent.
I was swept up in the last draft and spent 1970-71 in the Army. While it was probably not a choice I'd have made on my own, I can't deny it re-shaped my views of my country, the diverse people who comprised it and my obligations to it. I became a more sober-minded, interested and involved American because of it.
31
My state is currently scrambling to deal with the pending closure of a for-profit prison, which has had myriad problems and deficiencies. Most can be tied to the corporate mantra of cutting costs by cutting corners.
Private enterprise has no place in essential government services. At least not so long as “maximizing shareholder value” is their only ethical principle.
42
The privatization of public services and functions manifests the steady evolution of corporate power into a political form, into an integral, even dominant partner with the state. Sheldon S. Wolin, Democracy Incorporated
Hessians R Us, aren't they?
7
On a related note, there is a bill before Congress to de-fund the Peace Corps, assuring that we are more ignorant of issues beyond our borders.
28
@SDG
Why spend money making friends when corporations can make money killing them with drones?
Privatizing the United States Army Was a Mistake, for whom? For the GOP puppet masters and their politicians, it has been incredibly profitable. Is it any different than privatizing any of our other public institutions?
10
Granted the draft system in the '60s was open to abuse and tampering, but I suggest strongly that, had there been a draft in place, the various presidents since Vietnam would not have been so cavalier with pursuing their carte blanche/open checkbook military ventures
As "flaming liberal" Vietnam veteran I say, if you want more liberals in the military, bring back a universal draft with very limited deferments, enforced sufficiently so that even a Donald Trump would have "served"...
USN 1967 - 71
Vietnam 1968
30
"Privatize all profits and socialize all costs" has been a fundamental Republican mantra for decades. When all you have in your hands is unrestrained greed, then everything and everyone looks like "profit."
21
It is closer than you think. For the first time the Association of the US Army magazine “Army” this month had a full page ad on the inside back cover wanting Special Forces soldiers to get out of the military and become CIA Paramilitary mercenaries.
13
And it all started on February 5, 2020 at the trial of Donald Trump when the senate voted out democracy.
23
Certainly thought provoking. The creep of contract combat forces -- initially under the guise of personal security teams -- has grown worldwide. Add to it the movement towards near 100% military contracting in the areas of technology -- think IT, AI, ML -- and the current uniformed military have little to no internal capability to maintain or even use their own advanced systems without massive contractor support. The line between civilian and uniformed military is so blurry in some areas that we ought accept the fact that the real warfighting military now includes both uniformed and deployable civilians in near equal numbers. Its time we rethink what all this means. Even better, we ought re-think what the term "war" really means. Although our last declaration of war was in 1941, the fact is we have been at war many, many times since. The rise of contracting war makes it all the more necessary that we reexamine the definition of military service and use of military force.
12
@JTFJ2 Agree, this was a solid thought piece. Glad the NYT published it; wish there were more discussion of these topics.
4
The writer apparently does not appreciate that the US Army has already been privatized. By "privatized" I mean directed by private interests. Moreover, the Army is only one part of a larger branch organization within the Pentagon/DoD. A more probative question would ask if indeed the Pentagon itself has been privatized. It no longer functions strictly under civilian control, while public law legislation, such as the US Patriot Act, have blurred many lines of separation and distinction among combat, intelligence, and executive functions. Mr. Brooks cites September 2001. That is precisely the event, codified in the GWOT (Global War on Terror) that has quietly transformed defense strategy and control, while undermining Constitutional protections across several of its dimensions. As the Middle East "Deal of the Century" announced by Trump and Netanyahu last week in Washington demonstrates, private special interests are deeply embedded in otherwise assumed US public sovereignty.
4
The U.S. Constitution only authorizes a permanent Navy and specifically prevents Congress from funding an Army for more than two years.
The last time the U.S. followed the Constitution and Congress declared war was June 5, 1942.
At a minimum, those in Congress should not appropriate funding for war, when it un-constitutional.
As well, in our modern world, where the U.S. population has "no skin in the game" when we send our troops overseas to fight, we should institute the draft. I suspect that if we did, George W. Bush would not have been able to invade and occupy Iraq. When you think of the last time "we won the war", besides successfully pushing Sadaam's army out of Kuwait, it was WWII. The Korean War ended in stalemate. All the other wars since WWII have not been "military successes".
6
@ejr1953 You must be talking about how Congress is given the power"To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;" I think the workaround here is that there's a new budget every year.
1
@Robert David South We haven't even had that in more than a decade.
3
I had to laugh when the problem was unionized soldiers. In what political state would the country have to be in if it allowed a union to grow? Reagan decimated collective bargaining which destroyed the ability to achieve living wages for a large portion of the United States of America.
18
@JT Of The IBEW That was silly. The more realistic scenario would be the big private contractor demanding a renegotiation on the eve of battle.
@JT Of The IBEW
"... In what political state..."
Imagine the IBEW, with guns !?
(not needing them, is beside the point)
This article appears to be from 2050 or so... lightyears away from where we are now, in terms of technology.
It posits that the military has been outsourced to human contractors. It's more likely that by 2050, most of the military will be outsourced to AI and robots.
The battlefields of the future will not be governable entirely by humans, because enemy AI will make logistics and strategy so complex that only AI could be deployed to make sense of it.
More than likely, 99% of wartime casualties will be sustained by civilians—since no one would be in the military.
I'm glad I was born in 1963.
5
This is merely the path taken uncountable times by Empire. The most widely know example is Rome. The Republic utilized citizen armies which had limited service terms and who could go home for the harvest. As the Republic grew the army took up more and more of the country’s life. In the Late Republic the citizen model could not fill the military’s appetite and so the Marian reforms kicked in effectively creating mercenary armies. So followed Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, and finally Octavian with the end of the Republic. So goes Empire. So goes the United States.
16
@C. Neville That's a little reductive. Rome didn't switch from public to private armies because having a publicly funded military was too expensive. They switched because wealthy landowners had bought up nearly all the farmland in Italy, and used slaves to work it, leaving nearly the entire free population of the country moving to cities and looking for work.
If they Marius hadn't eliminated the land requirements to serve in the Army and opened up the profession of "soldier" to anyone willing to sign up, they wouldn't have been able to field an army at all due to lack of bodies meeting the requirements.
5
@Samuel : Exactly. Then as now the new “soldier” was generally from the poor and had little investment in the state. He worked for his general, from whom he understood his pay came from. The extreme wealth came from the expanded territories, much as ours comes from dominating economic spheres. All common trends.
1
I never thought Mr. Brooks could scare me more than he did in World War Z...but he just did.
What have we done to our country????
5
I once told a long-time boyfriend, some 40 years ago, that I thought that war would become obsolete. He was 13 years older than me. HC became a dentist because his neighbor and a dentist family friend advised him on staying in school to avoid the draft during Vietnam.
He may have been right about war. Books and movies always present warring well into the future. The whole Space Force farce thing that Trump is branding seems beyond stupid.
Space around this planet is fragile. Orbiting debris is a threat to all the critical satellites we all, the whole planet depend on.
It's suicidal to attempt war or force in Space. Peace and cooperation without any kind of force is to the benefit of the survival of the planet.
I confess I couldn't focus on and fully read and comprehend this article. I hate the prospect of war so much and I think we have so many pressing issues managing the planet and all inhabitants that any wars anywhere on earth are sucking resources and our health beyond sustainability.
I hope still that wars will become obsolete and unthinkable.
2
@Anne They will increasingly be fought by robots.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."
- Ambrose Pierce
15
@Thollian
God fails again. We’ve had plenty of wars, but Americans remain largely geographically ignorant.
Anyone think Trump could find Ukraine on an unlabeled map?
Bierce.
1
@Thollian That's funny. And accurate. Ambrose Pierce was a real talent.
Reading some of the comments confirms my fear that we have as a result of endless presidential wars lost much of our civic virtue. The founders were always afraid that we would lose our civic virtue and it appears that given the ease with which the citizenry can be manipulated that we have indeed lost it.
Further, we appear to have crossed the Rubicon on presidential powers. Perhaps we should start reading the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
2
@LES Nope. Decline and fall of the Roman Republic. The Empire is just getting started.
1
@Pundit
The empire will be short-lived. Our lousy education systems will see to that.
What a great thought-experiment! and prophecy, too!
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter....
The Scattered States of America is in the process of (dis-)formation, and in 10 years, there will be few left who remember the United States of America.
3
I recall living next door to a defense contractor in Northern Virginia.
After a party, where he handed out actual, illegal Cuban cigars, I asked what he thought of the Clinton administration's military downsizing.
He smiled, blew cigar smoke into the air, and told me his company was making more money than ever replacing military people with his lower-paid workers.
They are entrenched.
9
The obvious solution is to embrace the 2nd amendment. This part. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State"
@HL Militias could be useful in defending the mainland, but explain, in this scenario, does a militia march on Quebec City?
Be honest, militias were created to hunt down runaway slaves and return them to their owners. They were never a serious counterpart to the standing Army or even the guard.
12
@k2isnothome
Yet we vanquished the German and Japanese army without a large standing army. We don't need a large standing army. We can draft it.
This is a "duh" column.
Ending the draft was a colossal mistake. It freed all but needy Americans from service and insured quiet in the streets during our countless wars since.
Ending the draft was a boon to Congress which, in 1970 as now, was filled with careerist opportunists long on patriotic bombast and largely devoid of integrity.
When I enlisted in the Army in 1963 draftees brought with them into training and deployment a healthy skepticism, and the refusal of those in the draft line to contribute to America's war crimes in Vietnam helped bring that grotesque conflict to an end.
Honor? Duty? Service? Dismiss such platitudes. We have seen time and again since 1970 and particularly in the Trump administration that top military officials are pompous mediocrities, always willing to bomb another village in return for a star or a bar.
We are the bad guys. The American flag has become as reviled in many parts of the world as the swastika was for my generation. We represent brutality and crude self-interest, and the end of the draft effectively stifled the healthy dissent that might have slowed the slide into acceptance of Machiavellian ethics.
20
@John Briggs
Machiavellian ethics have been replaced by Trumpian ethics ("after Trump, everyone else comes first").
Amazingly scary. I would add only one short statement. Where the author says "People were sick of seeing poor kids sent off to combat while rich and middle-class kids (remember when we still had a middle class?) duck out of harm’s way." Add: "fraudulently and could from now on just let the 'others' go without any guilty feelings"
3
Yes, I've always thought the unity of the United States was based on two share life experiences: universal public education and universal draft service in the military. In my lifetime I've seen both of these institutions attacked and undermined from both the right and the left.
There are solutions:
- support (=taxes) public education so that it is the first choice of everybody other than religious cults and wack-jobs.
- introduce universal public service with a military option and a civilian service option.
I have many reservations about Israel, but the one thing you can see for sure is how these two policies have produced a high-degree of healthy patriotic attitudes among the majority of Israeli citizens.
8
@KCox I'm 26, and I've heard some other people of my generation discussing support for a theoretical environmental civilian service corps, or even a civic engineering/public works corps, which seems to be in line with your civilian service option.
Picture an adequately funded, non-military, federal civic service organization of people engaged in mass ocean plastic cleanup, reef protection and restoration, invasive species tracking/removal, habitat restoration, helping farmers mitigate fertilizer runoff, etc. It could include on-the-job scientific and practical skills training, and could even dovetail with a program training people to assist with repairing the woeful state of our national infrastructure (critical given the increasing rates of natural disasters and cyberattacks).
I know it's a very pie-in-the-sky dream, but if this program existed, I'd join in a heartbeat.
7
@KCox
I would add,and central, reliable, somewhat regulated broadcast information system.
FCC negligence and tech "innovations" have limited our ability to have a common knowledge base or a central point to pivot from - or even a greed upon set of facts....
I agree, mandatory service with lots of non-combat options would benefit everyone, and also mitigate the perception the free college isn't earned (yes, I am adding free higher education to the mix - it would make service time easier to commit to, I think, plus I support it in general)
2
The great danger in the near future is that one of Trump's children is elected to the presidency and does what George W. Bush did: start a war to seek vengeance against someone who threatened his father. Disinformation has gotten much worse since the Iraq warmongering of the early 2000s.
5
Draft Senator sons
Make Presidents lead us into the fray on horseback with swords
Perhaps we need worldwide EMP to reset technology
Something may happen, sooner than we think
The Sky is falling
cough cough
2
@Lost In America Nope, would do no good. The Romans did all those things and their Republic was pretty warlike.
1
@Pundit
War is what we do, never stopped anywhere
1
This is an excellent paper. For starters, I’m in favor of bringing back the draft. But please know: it wasn’t just the poor who served. As a blue water vet with two Vietnam campaign medals, a darn good percentage of those who enlisted (including me) as well as those drafted were part of the middle class. The ones who weaseled out were the rich. The middle class was over there fighting big time.
12
@Peter In the mid '80s, my 5th grade English teacher showed our class pictures of himself fighting in Vietnam as an 18-year-old. It had a big impact on us as a class to see pictures of him with an M-16 in his hands and to feel the intensity of his emotions as he described the experiences.
4
@Peter the bulk of the people who enlist are from the middle class. This is from 2016 so may be a bit dated:
How affluent are enlisted recruits?
Most members of the military come from middle-class neighborhoods. A neighborhood affluence study found that the middle three quintiles were overrepresented among enlisted recruits, while the top and bottom quintiles were underrepresented.
Neighborhood affluence for 2016 enlisted recruits:
Up to $38,344: 19%
Between 38,345 and 80,912: 64%
Over 80,913: 17%
A family making $40,000 to $80,000 isn’t “middle class”, whatever that’s supposed to mean these days, in most states.
My Mom lost her first husband in Feb. 1945 in Europe, my dad's younger brother was also killed in Europe. I served four years in the middle 70's. The politicians lied to us about how well Vietnam was going and they lied to us about Iraqi WMD's. We now have troops in Saudi Arabia protecting the richest family in the world. My two grandkids will not serve if I have any say about it.
16
A "volunteer" army (perhaps "mercenary" is the more accurate term) can be dispatched on ill-considered political whim to various pseudo-trouble spots around the globe and no one raises an eyebrow. After all, that's what the soldiers are paid to do, right? The crowds back home welcome the fallen heroes' flag-draped caskets, grand patriotic speeches are made, and the general citizenry can relax, knowing full well that they have no skin in the game... let the professionals take the hit while we slurp beer and watch American Idol or whatever in the comfort of our living rooms.
I recall during Phony Iraq War Number One when the media was excluded from battle zones (for their own safety, of course!) and a group of reporters was ushered into a screening room to watch a high-tech missile destroy a "bad guy" bunker... the reporters rose to their feet applauding and cheering. War had been successfully turned into a video game, a spectator sport. So much for the so-called liberal media!
A return to the draft, combined with some form of compulsory, universal national service, might help people pay a little more attention to how our government governs & how decisions are made, instead of blindly voting for idiots spouting simplistic soundbites. The foregoing assumes that we are intelligent enough to separate fact from fiction... I sadly realize this may be the Achilles Heel to my argument.
5
@John Wilson As a Midwesterner with several family members serving currently, please never call our volunteers, our kids, mercenaries. They are not drafting kids out of high school as mercenaries. Believe me, there is plenty of "skin" in the game as is. Maybe its been a while but selective service is still a thing. All men must register within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Now they say there is no draft, but you must register for selective service. They are not currently drafting people to fight, but believe me, they are ready to start calling numbers anytime they need to.
1
This is no more unbelievable than saying the words "President Donald Trump" Lets hope it stays fiction.
4
This is not fantasy. 40 years ago, when the Navy issued an RFP for Naval Tugs at Pearl Harbor to replace, man, and operate the Navy's old boats, I wondered what might have happened on that fateful Sunday if such a system had been operative at that moment. " Hello Mr. Jones. This is Admiral Short. Get the tugs over to Battleship Row immediately . We are under attack" Sorry Admiral, it's Sunday and the boys are off.
3
How does the traitorous Republican party and all of their followers that wear, “I’d Rather Side With Russia”, fit into this scenario? The mercenaries will probably be run by Republicans, since they’re all about money and power before ethics, morals, and country.
10
Bring Back Decimation!
In the Roman Army when legions were rebellious or cowardly, etc., ten percent were randomly chosen and executed (by the other 90 percent of their legion).
Let's start at the top. Every time the incompetent politicians and Pentagon types get us into another one of their incredibly stupid wars, line them up and execute ten percent of them. By now there would be hardly any of them left. But, I'd bet that if there were a real threat to our country there would be plenty of people willing to volunteer for emergency service.
4
What's good for Milo Minderbinder, is good for the country!
2
Middle-class Vietnam War protesters did not demonstrate to save the lives of working class youths. They were mostly protesting the war to save their own lives.
Nearly 50,000 University students and middle-class draft dodgers during the War ended up seeking asylum in Canada to avoid the draft lottery, which threatened middle-class white privilege with either jail or military service. The irony was that anti-War middle-class leaders recruited working class and minority youths, just like the Pentagon, only the protesters used them in street clashes with the police.
Later Presidents like Ronald Reagan ended the universal military draft service requirement since it provoked too much middle-class hostility precisely because it leveled the privileged class chances of survival in wartime, for example, generating disruptions in campus R.O.T.C. programs.
3
Slowly but surely, the military will become as immune from citizen oversight and control as President Trump seemingly has become. THAT will be dangerous. As we have seen, it has become easier and easier for the U.S. to get into military conflicts around the world. A draft would put a damper on the enthusiasm that Chicken Hawks in our government have for promoting eternal wars.
There is only one reason the Vietnam War finally came to a close, and that is protests on college campuses around the country. These students who were subject to draft did not want to become cannon fodder simply to enrich the Military Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us of.
6
Military is already privatized. Its all about the money and military contracts. As a Vietnam vet I was all to familiar with KP and latrine queen duty. I asked my recently discharged step son about KP and latrine queen duty in current military. He did not know what I was talking about. I live near Ft Benning, GA and recently read an article about employees at Ft. Benning. Article stated that there were about 44,000+ jobs at Ft. Benning, about 22,000 were military jobs, and about 22,000 were civilian employees. If other military bases have about the same military, civilian/contractor mix, I can not imagine how the military could effectively deploy a group with a 50/50 military/civilian mix.
10
Mr. Brooks,
Interesting writing but, I think, your future missed the part of history about China and Russia sailing into NY Harbor and the Houston ship channel simultaneously in 2027.
After the United States spent nearly 80 years invading various countries around the world to maximize corporate profits, the entire world held a UN resolution to invade and occupy the USA to stop the carnage.
Donald Trump Jr. was on a call with Putin in Russia who ordered him to stand his armies down, and, he agreed.
In 2050 Americans were fully ensconced in the cocoon of Dictatorship, Don Jr's son.
Supported by both China and Russia.
And so it went for the modern Sparta of the world.
7
I fully agree with other comments here that this article is misplaced. The United States has already privatized a large part of its military. So, we are not talking about what would happen thirty years from now. "The future is here"!
9
@Eddie B. the people that do the fighting, killing, and dying are not privatized.
Reality is puzzling and weird enough (especially when it comes to policies and decisions of our government).
Do we really need to add to our confusion with this kind of exercise?
For me at least, it makes nothing clearer. I realize armies play "war games" and it helps them consider options and uncover weaknesses. This does not help me as a NYT reader.
2
@AJ This article was not meant to help you, or any reader for that matter.
On the contrary.
1
The whole debate is moot. The entire nation is mercenary, not just the armed forces. I'm referring to the entire military-industrial complex and everything tied to it, including both houses of Congress. Why else would the nation defend terrorists and alienate friends for short term gain?
Why else would the nation bomb, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, while leaving Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe alone?
Why else would the nation befriend the nation most responsible for 9/11, not to mention every subsequent Islamic atrocity, while demonising Iran and Venezuela?
Come 2050, the United States will find itself fighting bigger wars, this time for self-preservation, because the mercenary strategy will have weakened the nation while China shoots ahead in every sphere of science and industry.
The question that will be asked in 2050: Was the cheap oil really worth it?
33
My children are never enlisting in the armed forces, even if there is a draft. Time to ask the question "what can your country do for you" rather than "what can you do for your country".
Tomorrow will save itself. Violent weather and mass starvation should take care of most of the human population over the next couple of hundred years. Once we are back to a sub 1billion population, the human race may be able to chart a more sustainable path forward.
10
@Trumpette I guess you missed the whole point about being part of something bigger than yourself. You sound as if you owe nothing to your neighbors, culture and country. How sad.
4
Not sure about you but this sounds like a pretty good scenario to me. The United States is not involved in useless wars, and others are playing peacekeeper. Sino Russian invasion of Quebec is a little bit of a stretch though.
2
And a comment from the future:
When the US privatized its military, it created an industry; an industry that, like any other industry, needed to grow and expand its market. The companies that became active in this industry needed to make enough money to make its investors happy. Obviously that was not possible without a few on-going wars. So, each company had to change its "marketing department" into a department dedicated to starting wars. And, to out do George Orwell, they called the new department "The Peace Department" or TPD.
To start wars, TPDs hired many Russians who were already trained in hacking computer systems, spreading misinformation, and creating divisions and animosity among various nationalities within multi-national countries. They hired ex-CIA agents to assassinate top political leaders. They paid bloggers and Social Media experts handsomely to spread rumors and start demonstrations. They trained sharp shooters to take strategic positions on demonstration routes to be able to shoot at both police and demonstrators.
So, today that we have so many wars involving US and its private companies, no one should complain. We knew exactly what we were doing. And if today other countries are trying to start war inside the US, we should remember that we are simply sewing the seeds that we planted.
9
When we speak of 'all volunteer Army', it is incumbent upon the author to identify the actual reason which is the angering of the American mom and dad public. We are philosophically against war and the bombing of hospitals and public, .....recall the 100 day of Baghdad aerial terror campaign directed exclusively to the unarmed citizenry......as long as it is a distant and unknown campaign. By opting for the 'all volunteer Army', the selection is preferentially for college experienced adults. These adults are then further screened for adaptability for foreign bases to further the military's goal of a cosmopolitan Army more EU than home-grown American.
The US military has taken advantage the ephemeral glow of all things American to emplace military in distant lands careful not to make them overtly military by bring in troops from the US homeland bases when bodies are needed on site. The goal, of course, is to adopt like minded personas as to be not American from over there, but American from the same college and speaking the same language as the country. We automatically like things like us. Psy 101 in use after its successful deployment in global media.
So, the Volunteer Army is selective, exclusive, preferential, and elitist. Another psy-ops with a global objective.
1
@katesisco Its obvious you haven't served nor know anyone who has. There is no globalist cabal in the US Army, I know- they can't identify the EU on a map.
4
@MC Yeah, he clearly hasn't me a grunt lately.
2
@katesisco you would do well to study the demographics of what level of college enlisted personnel have. Here it is: The vast majority of enlisted personnel (92%) have completed high school or some college. This compares with 60% of all U.S. adults ages 18 to 44. Fewer than one-in-ten enlisted personnel (7%) have a bachelor's degree, compared with 19% of all adults ages 18 to 44.
The right to strick can be excluded, and should be, from contracts for essential services. If an illegal strike occurred, the state National Guards would be mobilized and the strikers would be punished. These steps have been taken before, and can be taken again.
1
The British Royal Navy did have a "strike." It was also called the Invergordon Mutiny of 1931, when the Government of the day tried to save money by reducing the wages of seamen.
We already have privatized important parts of the US Army. That is how so many mercenary companies fought the Iraq and Afghan and Syrian Wars for us, and we don't even admit some others they fought in for us, like in Libya -- we had "no troops" there, right? Just some contractors and "CIA" people.
What do our Special Forces people do after they get out? Many go right back to what they were doing, for a lot more money, all from the same DoD budget for the same wars.
This isn't the future. It is our past, not even just recent past.
9
I love Max, and most of this is delightful, but the idea that there will ever again be a strong union of workers, much less in 2050, is fantasy. Much more likely a draft will be reinstated, involuntary servitude with private multi-national corporations rather than the government setting the absolute law. There will be no such thing as vacation, time off, or sick leave.
8
Bear in mind the DoD instituted a lottery as they eliminated deferments. The lottery was based on man power needs and thought to be fairer than not. If you number was at or below the cut line you went - otherwise you didn't.
@D Unless of course, you had the money to pay a doctor to provide a fake diagnosis (like bone spurs) to get out of the obligation.
14
Nice platitudes, but I don't see any parents pushing the armed forces as a post-high-school option anytime soon. Which perplexes me as 70% of armed forces jobs aren't even combat arms, and the post 9/11 GI Bill is an excellent way to pay for college.
Worried about college costs? Suggest the military to your daughters and sons. We need more soldiers, airmen, and sailors!
2
@Gideon Strazewski
I know of a family that did just that, and both son and daughter enlisted. One went on to college after nine months of active duty and a Reserve commitment. She enlisted in December and enrolled in a Big Ten university in September.
2
@Gideon Strazewski Just curious, did you or your children opt for the military? I suspect not.
@Gideon Strazewski you are correct. Today's GI bill is generous, and the military can be a good option for those so inclined. In fields such as aviation, nuclear power and electronics, the training is excellent, along with other fields, and can be a real help for finding post military employment.
The draft was the single most powerful reason for the protests leading to the end of the Vietnam war.its end is one of the most
bitter examples of unintended consequences of the late 20th century:
Because every male was subject to the draft, everyone was fully immersed in it like WW2. Unlike WW2, (@15 years prior) the moral imperative of invading, fighting and bombing the Vietnamese in order to try to stem the spread of Communism-didn’t match up with us having been bombed at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Consequently the people protested the forcing of young men to go to Vietnam to fight an immoral war.
Ending the draft was supposed to be a check against the government being able to force young men off to fight immoral wars. In fact, it had the exact opposite affect: The sad truth is that people hardly care one way or the other because neither they nor anyone they know is in harms way-and those few who, are asked to be..
In effect, our military has become a mercenary force, to be pretty much used at will without any real worry that the people will protest.
I never thought I’d live to say this, but forcing all young people to be eligible to go to war, will likewise force all of u to contemplate
the morality of our collective decisions on which wars are worth it.
20
@Nmb The draft was destroyed in the Viet Nam era by rich people buying deferments for their bone-spurred sons.
3
@Nmb There was also a backdoor draft of the George W. Bush presidency, when they forced people to re-enlist. It allowed GWB to maintain higher numbers of enlisted people without all of the protests of the Vietnam era. And of course it certainly didn't result in stopping the Iraq war. It got some negative publicity in the press, but the resistance was quiet.
1
@Kyle you are referring the Stop Gap. In the United States military, stop-loss is the involuntary extension of a service member's active duty service under the enlistment contract in order to retain them beyond their initial end of term of service (ETS) date and up to their contractually agreed end of active obligated service (EAOS).
They were not forcing reenlisting, they we extending their obligated service.
1
Not only should the draft be brought back, but direct descendants (children, grandchildren) of at least 10% of the congress need to be in the military. We have 535 representatives and senators, which means at least 54 representatives/senators must have at least one child/grandchild in the military.
This is personal. My draft number was 67. I joined the Navy submarine service to avoid becoming canon fodder in some jungle 10.000 miles away from here. You know the one.
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@oldBassGuy
How do you know that 10% of their descendants don't already? About 20% of Congress has served, it would not surprise me at all that a sizable number of their offspring is/has served.
@oldBassGuy the 116th Congress has less than 18 percent who have served in the military:
96 total veterans in the 116th Congress.
30 are Democrats, 66 are Republicans.
19 will serve in the Senate, 77 will serve in the House.
48 served in the military after 2000.
21 served in the military in the 1960s or earlier.
19 are first-time lawmakers.
7 are women.
50 served in the Army, Army Reserve or Army National Guard.
17 served in the Marine Corps or Marine Corps Reserve.
17 served in the Air Force, Air Force Reserve or Air National Guard.
13 served in the Navy or Naval Reserve.
1 served in the Coast Guard.
In the years following the Vietnam War, nearly three-fourths of lawmakers had served in the military.
2
Machiavelli described why citizen armies are better than mercenary ones. The argument is still relevant.
The volunteer military almost ended the anti-war movement in the 1970’s. The impact of war tends to matter most when it’s personal.
18
This is very good, and it is itself a sign of what is wrong with us that the author has to adopt a fictitious vantage point a generation or two in the future in order to articulate what needs to be said right now.
We can't look the truth right in the face any more.
15
I have been told that US Navy ships now could not get underway or perform their mission without the private contractor personnel aboard to operate and maintain much of the sophisticated equipment on board. These private employees are paid many times what the military person sitting beside them makes. If true, we are not far away from this scenerio.
22
@Jack Robinson Don't worry, by then we'll have AI weapons, you know, war and killing by pattern matching. What could go wrong then since they won't go on strike, but they will strike based on their own decision engine.
2
@Jack Robinson Jack, you are right on one account. It is a certain type of ship that uses private contractors to only perform maintenance on equipment. This ship hasn't been used operationally, however. US military personnel are still the operators. The Navy is coming to the realization that this is unsustainable and is backing off on this construct.
And just an FYI, for the Navy, it is cheaper to do it this way. You don't realize how much it costs to pay a Navy Sailor... even though the money in their pocket when they get their paycheck isn't as much as what the contractors get. You'll need to factor in their training, medical, dental, entitlements, food stipends, and benefits when they get out of the military. When a contract ends the government is done with those personnel. When an enlistment ends that's just the beginning of the cost to the government.
3
@Jack Robinson not operational ships normally speaking. Only when they get new gear oftentimes the contractors will sail with the ship to train the sailors. On my three ships the contractors were few and far between, but did once in a while after new equipment was installed, and they conducted training.
1
I've always enjoyed Brooks' writing. This op-ed from the future was interesting and fun to read, but it took away some of my worries about aging. If I make it that far, I'll be 80. I wonder if I'll recognize the place.
Some of Brooks' thoughts here remind me of Starship Troopers (the book!). It seems fairly common for future sci-fi to envision authoritarianism/fascism. I thought one part was quixotic, disregarding the accumulated evidence of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan (have you read WAPO's Afghanistan Papers yet? If not, why not?)
"The best way to prevent wars is to understand why they happen. This will lead to fewer wars and give us the assurance that if our fellow citizens are going to risk their lives for us, then they need to know, that we know, that every other option has been exhausted."
4
Such a hopeful piece. I didn't think we'd make it to 2015!
6
Wait, Quebec seceded by 2050? Talk about burying the lede.
8
Don't reinstate the draft, eliminate the military, the US military hasn't won a war since WWII and they hardly did that alone. Maybe they'd fare better if they just dropped the defense budget on the enemy, skip fighting altogether, win the Battle of the Bucks. Maybe not, the military and CIA managed to misplace eight or nine billion in Iraq.
Regarding privatization, doesn't anyone get it? If you pay me to kill an enemy, what's my incentive to kill myself out of a job?
It's like drug companies, what's the incentive to cure cancer, there's billions in treating it. Or that other great American Institution, the DEA, if drugs are legal, guess who's out of work?
12
@Dasha Kasakova This post is really quite extraordinary. Who do you think won the Cold War?
As for your "logic ": You think drug companies have no incentive to cure cancer because they make money from it. But actually, if a drug company develops a cure for cancer, it does not stop making money from cancer, because people keep having cancer and buying their drug.
2
The trend has been obvious in recent conflicts with private security contractors ( mercs) and lots of services that troops used to do contracted out. Of course, the term "feather merchant" comes to mind from at least as far back as WWII. the term sutler was the Civil War equivalent of cheap and nasty civilian supply. the Navy had more than it's fair share of suppliers of inedible preserved meats and such. Take away Inspectors General, and efforts to control corrupt government contractors and you have a more immeadiate and very beliveable scenario. Think the Navy's "Fat Leonard" fiasco.
5
Selective history. You left out the part where, tired of our endless wars, we went all out for isolationism- and allowed the extreme elements of Islam to combine with the Christian right, the ....Hindu exclusionary elements, to bring back a global theocratic Inquisition. The subsequent revolutions so depleted the ranks of young volunteers and (in some countries) draftees, we had no choice but to outsource to the willing and well-funded.
Grant the pay raise. And, thank the corporations for their ...service.
7
OK, Max.
In this country, with its perversion of an economic system, privatizing anything is a mistake.
Yet we persist.
We let corporate farmers run families off the land and then sell the land to, oh, China.
We privatize water with no idea how to keep "the poor" hydrated in an age of $2.00 pints.
As you point out, we privatize the army, we privatize the bidding process, we privatize oversight of contractors, we privatize logistics, privatize soldiers and weapons and medical care for the wounded and now we're the world's biggest, most expensive, and among the least effective military behemoths.
We privatize education and drop like a rock in literacy, ethics, history, understanding of society and culture. Science in America is a literal non-starter.
We privatize and subsidize religion before we customize it and cram it down the throats of the people in the name of some custom-designed God.
But, back to basics: we privatize water...people are going to die.
We privatize education and are becoming the lowest of the low, that is to say the stupidest and most unsophisticated among "developed" nations.
We privatize workplaces and have no foresight and no solutions other than to free corporations of responsibility for their employees, their communities, their country. In an age when corporations speak openly of dumping up to 90% of their "human workforce", we have no plan other than to blame workers.
So yes, privatizing the military is something of a largish blunder.
23
@oogada Our food is mostly privatized and globally sourced, so we clearly are starving. Most jobs (but barely true anymore) are private, so I guess we're all unemployed and poor. We privatize housing so we're all homeless. We privatize energy, so I guess the lights don't go on. We privatize transportation, so I guess we're no longer mobile.
If monopoly is bad for corporations -- which can only achieve that status by government imposition -- why would you think government is the answer?
1
@David
You one funny guy...
Let's save ourselves debating extreme statements nobody is making, shall we?
No one is recommending "government", whatever vile thing you mean by that.
What I'm saying is we need Capitalism.
You know, that Adam-Smithy-thing with "competition", "responsibility", "paying fairly for what you consume", "free markets" all that moon-fairy-hippy-dippy stuff you hard-nosed American "the business of business is business" types dismiss with superior-sounding snorts of contempt.
Monopolies, by the way, are bad for everybody, especially business.
What I want from government is what every theorist and founding father of capitalism demands is essential for a sustainable economy: rational, rigorous, reliable regulation. Without it we end up here.
The fact you think we're in a good place, and government regulation makes you sick to your stomach is hard evidence of how very far off the path we strayed.
It can't last. It won't. Obviously.
Given your lack of understanding you have much work to do on the business/economy front, but I'd appreciate it if you could invest a little time improving your snark/sarcasm.
To your bizarre rhetorical mike-drop: We're the richest people ever and a third of our children have no idea where their next meal will come from. Homelessness is epidemic. Jobs are disappearing, not paying as corporate super-stars predict eliminating up to 90% of the "human workforce" in decades. You're eating your seed corn.
1
@David "If monopoly is bad for corporations -- which can only achieve that status by government imposition -- why would you think government is the answer?"
Government doesn't exist to make a profit, let alone to make it its top if not only priority, and its executives don't get to set their own salaries and bonuses through a rubber-stamp board of directors.
1
Is this really fiction? or a veiled warning that we're already down the rabbit hole with our military contractors?
I see this as the logical conclusion to allowing the likes of Erik Prince to remain free while we know with all certainty that he helped the Russians thwart democracy in 2016. When he and his employees are allowed to remain free after committing murder of innocent civilians who had the misfortune of living in a war zone. This is also the logical conclusion of a country that elects men like Donald Trump who pardon war criminals and strip those who tried to hold them to account of their military honors.
44
@snarkqueen It goes way back, even in this fiction, to the period after WWII when Americans no longer engaged with war. Eisenhower gave the clear warning, but many thought a more powerful federal government was the answer.
3
@David
Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex, not the federal government. Unfortunately, it seems the m-i complex now owns the government. Maybe its the 'free' market that needs to be reined in.
The lack of the draft, especially during the run up of the Iraq Invasion or 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' removed the debate as a kitchen table issue where everyone would have skin in the game to an elitist parlor game. It exposed the now in established youth that resisted Vietnam and the draft as a selfish self centered cohort. They failed the nation when they were needed again-no personal skin in the game this time around, they passed.
2
For all attempts and purposes it is already a mercenary army.
The guys from WW2 had many fewer problems after the war because they knew what they were fighting for and were justified.
8
It's difficult to disagree with everything, or even most things here but it's hard to see the forest for the trees here. I served, it made me tremendously proud to do so but in a good economy more Americans (perhaps rightfully so) prefer a simple and happy life with enough money to make that possible. A career in the military isn't for most and nor should it be. So focus let's focus on a couple of your points.
1. Try not to fight wars you don't need to. BTW not as simple as it sounds, but investing more in a really well trained State Department (and then LISTENING to them) would be a nice start.
2. Stop pretending private security like Blackwater wasn't really just a way to hide military expenditures and keep our stupidity out of the headlines.
3. A smaller well equipped and well trained military might get the job done if we aren't asking them to fix economic and diplomatic issues. But it also means better oversight on veterans' support. Of course suicide rates go down when issues that cause it are dealt with professionally - not by social media go-fund-mes.
Oh yeah, we never really minded an extra dollar or two in the paycheck. Just don't confuse that with why we serve. Once again it was my pleasure.
22
Compelling. I hope you're wrong.
2
I am a vet. I came from a middle-class family. I joined the military after screwing up in college. My Dad fought in WW2. I enlisted and was inducted into another world, made up of poor people, Chicanos, Blacks, Asians, all of whom I had to get along with. It changed my view of the world and our place in it. If our 'leaders' risked their children when making political or strategic decisions, if they had 'skin in the game', would we still be in Afghanistan after 18 years? Remember how terrible the British were during our revolution because they hired Prussian soldiers to do their fighting? THE DRAFT , THE DRAFT, THE DRAFT.
39
Rome began its decline when it turned to the ever increasing use of mercenary's. And it was the mercenary's who took out Rome.
26
@mark l Repeatedly.
1
"By nationalizing narcissism, should we have been surprised that all our major turn-of-the-century breakthroughs had absolutely nothing to do with current events?"
Okay boomer.
1
This is a thought-provoking column, and most of those thoughts are uncomfortable. When I enlisted in the Army after graduating from college back in 1970, my basic training platoon was highly diverse racially, economically, educationally, experientially, and even to a degree in age. We quickly learned that each of us brought something different to the table and that making use of our differences made us better together than if we tried going it alone.
That's a lesson seemingly lost these days when everyone clusters in their own enclaves of similar people thinking similar thoughts, raging agains anyone who sees things differently. Mandatory national service might help overcome this, and re-activating the draft might be the place to start.
23
@John Yes, force is generally a good solution to make people better citizens. You do recall the last draft resulted in mass protests and violence in the streets. And that didn't stop wars, just ended Vietnam after many years and three presidents, only to be replaced by another war, then another.
The problem isn't the draft or lack thereof, it's imperialism and the military industrial complex that is supported by corrupted politicians in a failed and no longer limited federal government. We incarcerate at the highest level -- even more than China -- and that hasn't solve crime either. More force is only the answer in defense, but we don't fight defensive wars since WWII.
We fight whether the UN or NATO has approved, and that's the problem, a federal government that broke itself by no longer be limited, by pretending corporations are people instead of clearly not being people, by pretending deficits don't matter and so don't need to constrain federal government, by allowing government to control trade, control contracting, control speech, control association and prefer special interests to equal protection under the law, under the false notion of "a nation of laws" as if bad laws being followed is somehow good, when it's only good if equal protection exists first.
6
Don't reinstate the draft. Require a year of compulsory national service. It can be in the military; it can be be cleaning up the environment; it can be doing public service (teachers' aide; nursing assistant) in under-served areas. Yes, much of it will be make-work. But it will provide training, and a chance to meet citizens from other parts of the country and with other backgrounds. Some will choose the military, many will not. Reward a year's service with a year of higher education at no cost - a GI bill for all of us. Maybe even make it a requirement for voting - we should all ask what we can do for our country!
70
@Fred IL agree 100%. I'd pay extra in taxes just to see Ivanka and Jared cleaning toilets in a barracks as I had to do when it was my time to serve. I know this is mean spirited but I've had enough of the 1% bone spur patriots avoid the heavy lifting of defending our country.
63
@Fred That looks like involuntary servitude to me. The 13th Amendment has something to say about that.
1
@William Starr What, that they have to make up some crime to convict you of before they can make you work in this way? That doesn't sound too hard, Southerners have been doing it for 150 years.
3
"Does that mean bringing back the draft? Of course not."
[Oh, yes it does. With this conclusion he might as well not have written the essay. As a former draftee that had no desire whatsoever to be drafted, a nation of one per-centers that scorns a draft has no real desire to remain a free and independent nation.]
13
@sharonm "Free and independent" is mixed with coercive force to fight and kill without needing a sense of being wronged? Therein is the problem, when people think our government is right and the people are wrong to choose and be free.
Better you than me is exactly what "thank you for your service means" now means. Those with opportunity, education and money avoid the military at all costs.
Those who avoided required service during the draft due to "bone spurs" should be required to peel potatoes on the front line. They are the worst of all generations and do not deserve any respect.
23
“Privatizing the United States Army Was a Mistake.” Yet, it still the most logical move to do in a country where money rules politics.
5
@Roland Berger PROFOUND !
but remember -
Politicians Start Wars - from comfortable distance!
Since people of both parties want to have us stay out of optional wars and many want to reduce growing class distinctions, outside of fear for their political future, what is keeping them from making the draft one part of compulsory national service for a period of time. If the past is any indication, people from both parties were able to see the societal benefits of putting people together of all backgrounds and turning them into a cohesive united unit. If we don't want to have a mercenary armed forces in the future, bringing back a draft with no opt outs for the wealthy and influential might start to address the stark divisions we have in politics if participants gets to see and experience the "other" is pretty much the same as they are.
7
@Kevin
"....the societal benefits of putting people together of all backgrounds and turning them into a cohesive unit."
....ummm... actually, that's called "public schools" and it only works if there are no charter, religious or Libertarian schools (Libertarians, according to their platform, do not believe in public schools. A child is the parent's problem, to educate or not.).
12
@rosa Because in your mind most parents don't want to educate their kids, and that the public school system is a big success.
@David You seem to be making a joke, but many people DON'T want to educate their kids, if that means their kids learning things that they disagree with.
The public school system, while FAR from perfect is in fact a HUGE success when compared to what came before. In case you were wondering, the system before public education was: "If you can afford to go to school, great. If not... tough luck."
3
2035: It has become almost impossible to provide work for all of those who must have it. Global commerce goes to those who have the lowest wage costs along with highly trained employees. No one has yet designed, the still un-named, economic system, to replace capitalism. Luck is still what we are all still confident for. The earth is shrinking.
4
@INTUITE
2050: Compounding that problem of "disappearing jobs" (most being replaced by robotic assembly lines) is the nationwide ban on birth-control and abortion. After the 20's the US population tripled in 30 years, rents quadrupled and almost the entire medical profession moved to the verdant Gobi Desert.
And the economic system was Constitutionally named "Feudalism" to mirror the Presidency of Eric Trump.
1
Ending the draft was never a good idea. National service is sorely needed more now than ever if we are to remain one (country) out of many.
We should immediately draft the family members of every elected federal official. And bone spurs shouldn't be a problem on KP duty.
14
National Service for every young America would certainly help them grow up with a sense of responsibility, dedication to the values of being an American, and learning how to live in a world in which they learn how to live in a world beyond their immediate horizon. Ending the military draft was a welcomed relief for the Pentagon and General Officers Corp who didn’t have enough mailable young men to follow orders. The result is a professional military that has been tested well beyond their numbers. National Service or military training should be a requirement for every high school graduate or 18 year old man and woman.
5
@priscus I'm all for it. But have you ever heard the screams from people when you mention it. I'd be even more for it it there was a branch of defense dedicated to environmental defense.
5
@priscus You have it wrong. The draftees weren't a ragtag group of young men who didn't follow orders -- they did, do not discredit them. Nor did the Generals find relief in the end of the draft. They wanted it and needed it sorely. Look at the couple of troop "surges" and its lasting detrimental effects on the Army that can be felt to this day.
It was the American public write large that did away with the draft. They were experiencing the horrors of the Vietnam war on a personal level. But look how it affected the outcome of the war. We left Vietnam because the American middle class had a personal relationship with the war. I doubt we can say the same for both Iraq and Afghanistan.
We shouldn't just bring back the draft, a lottery system that gave people with connections an easy out (bone spurs, defending Texas against the NVA). Instate mandatory 2 year national or military service for all American citizens, very few exceptions.
4
This old guy remembers why the draft was abolished. It was to quell dissent. Now most families feel safe from military service. That combined with the fact that our forces are so superior that we suffer few casualties, allows our nation to engage in endless wars to the benefit of the military bureaucracy and the defense contractors. Eisenhower warned us.
35
The USA is currently a country that will sell its military to the highest bidder. The USA supplies mercenaries to whomever can afford us. That is now.
22
@gratis
One can similarly state that the USA is currently a country that sells its presidency to the highest bidder.
Putin does not need to conquer the US with conventional arms: he conquers it by buying the presidency and putting a stooge there. Putin spends his money on the companies who know how to use the Internet and how to use all tricks and of the trade of marketing, based in turn on psychology, including evolutionary and social psychology.
12
In 1975 a movie came out called Rollerball where your primary allegiance was to your corporation rather than your country because in many cases they were bigger. In the movie, conflicts were settled by Rollerball games and the warriors were the players.
Could corporations become so big and powerful that they have their own armies? They already hire "Contractors" for protection. Could they start wars? Could they drive national policy? Especially when we have a CEO for president.
12
I think the country turned south when Republicans allowed King Donald the first to get away with corruption in early 2020.
Things quickly degraded from there. The water became contaminated. Children were not taught properly. Farms went out of business and became storage facilities. The two party system disappeared, as it was no longer needed with a king in charge.
28
When WW2 started, the Head of Selective Service was Grace Kelly's father.
The men who showed up for their draft physical were rejected to the tune of 50%.
Because of the chaos of the Great Depression men were rejected for rickets, rotten teeth, undersized and illiterate.
50%.
That's what "inequality" did to our parent's and grandparent's generations.
For many of those men, being a soldier was the first time in their lives that they got 3 square meals a day; the first time that they had ever seen a dentist or a doctor.
Kinda like today.
This was a terrific article, but sometimes, you know, past IS prologue.
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General Marshall had to susend training for new soldiers until after they were able to fix their teeth and get them back up physically after years of depression starvation.
7
I thought eliminating the draft was a bad idea. I thought Citizens United was a bad idea. War on our credit card is also a bad idea. As a former life-long Republican, I think that electing Republicans is a bad idea.
We need to fix all these things.
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A draft would fix this. Everybody serves. No rich kid workarounds, no bone spurs. if we are in a “war” or whatever we call these things now a days, everybody goes once before anybody has to go twice.
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@AL "A draft would fix this."
If nothing else, it would probably at least force the Supreme Court to finally face the blatant conflict between the 13th Amendment and military conscription that nobody wanted to admit to during Vietnam.
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@AL -
1. Agreed!
2. Fat Chance!
1
We are, indeed, a long way toward privatization. But of all the things to worry about in the future, a strike by contractors is perhaps 8,311th on the list. More likely worries are:
(1) A continued policy of Forever War as contractors make sure there are always forces deployed, always action.
(2) Lack of accountability for the behavior of the contractors, which we've seen in the current law and in the lack of will of our politicians in our near 20-year war in the Middle East.
(3) Inability to control costs, for the same reasons as (1) and because Congressmen may be legally bribed (thanks Citizens United) and contractors are a rich (pun intended) source of jobs when out of office.
(4) Failure to take care of those who serve, as has been traditional with the military and which is a major part of the total cost of war. Instead, contract employees will be treated as disposable.
(5) Add your own to the list ...
26
Our military is not "volunteer." A volunteer offers service
for free, one of "a thousand points of light." (The irony of
a billionaire asking for free work.) Nope, our "boys and girls"
in uniform are professionals, there for the pay and career security, housing, medical, education for their kids. They are
not starry eyed idealists who "serve."
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@Poesy --Most of them are there because they have few other choices. Every citizen should serve. Rich, poor, male, female. 2 years for their country. Maybe not the military, but some serve to their country, so they finally have some skin in this game.
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@Poesy - My grandson, who just enlisted in the Marines, is a "starry-eyed idealist", home-schooled to believe that America is always (R)ight and brainwashed by the gee-whiz video-style TV ads from the MIC.
The old (Chickenhawk) politicians who support War for Fun and Profit rely on a steady supply of young, cannon-fodder idealists.
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@Miss Anne Thrope --The biggest problem this country seems to have, is that we are almost always wrong, never honest with ourselves, and a sorry nation of delusional believers in magic. Man, it's discouraging.
The United States functioned without a military draft for the majority of its history and from the ratification of the U.S. Constitution to the present day, that professional force has never once committed a mutiny, gone on strike, or launched a coup e'tat. Two centuries is quite enough time to prove that a volunteer force poses no threat to the Republic
If the author is calling for a greater sense of civic duty, I have no problem agreeing with him. If he is calling for the establishment of a military force that would number about 20,000,000 active troops and reserves. then I have a very bad problem. And of course, I am not surprised that the majority of the commentators see this situation as a fine reason for extending the federal government's authority to confiscate all of the citizens for a few years.
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P!ease reread. The author is talking about a private contractor army, not a volunteer (no conscription) one. Big difference.
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@Quiet Waiting
The percentage of military personal is one-half of one percent.
The military budget is 60% of the total budget.
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@DRubin
Thank you for your response to my comment. With that said, I indeed did read the article and my comment consequently was intended to reference the superiority of a volunteer force to both a contracted force and the draft alternative. I apologize if I did not make that point clear.
1
While at University, I once attended a lecture by a visiting Colonel who taught at the Marine Corps War College. I asked him how he would respond to the idea of reintroducing the draft so that citizens would feel some kind of connection to the various wars our nation participated in. He replied that such a course would not be advisable, "...for the good of the Service." As a young man, that seemed like a sufficient answer. Now, being older, I realize that there was an obvious follow up question I should have asked: What if the good of the Service comes into conflict with the good of the Nation? Yes, it is good for the military to be an all volunteer force, but it is very bad for America for it to be so. Ultimately, when they conflict, we need to put the needs of the Nation above the needs of our Armed Forces: Sometimes that means sending them into harms way, sometimes it means denying them weapons systems we cannot afford, and sometimes it means asking them to deal with draftees.
22
"Does that mean bringing back the draft? Of course not."
Of course not?
And why not? Yes, harder for the Army, but better for the country.
This middle-class boy's life was changed for the better when I was drafted in 1967. Yes, I know tens of thousands of other draftees of that era lost their lives much too soon.
But isn't that what ended our misguided actions in Vietnam?
No, bring back the draft. The reasons are too many to list here, but bring it back. And then this excellent piece of sci-fi will be just that, fiction.
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Reinstate the draft, for young men and women, exemptions only for those very few unable to contribute physically or mentally. Actual service if not enough people volunteer. It is an outrage that currently so few volunteers serve multiple tours of duty.
AND a constitutional requirement that all presidential candidates have served in the military they are so eager to command.
The military can use all talents and offers all manner of training. Shuffle money from weapons to GREATLY increased education and care of armed service members.
Of course you are precious to your mother, but no more than Johnny or Susie down the block is to theirs. Side benefit: increase in number of voters, I bet.
Thank you.
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@Harriet The President is more than just the Commander in Chief of the military. If we're going to demand that prospective presidents have served in the military, should we not also demand that they have served abroad as an ambassador to a foreign nation, to gain requisite experience with international relations? Should we demand that they have been a teacher, before they are allowed to set education policy? Should we demand that no President be allowed to set economic policy unless they have a PhD in Economics?
I'm not against a program of national service, but if you think that being in the military is the only way to serve one's country, you're delusional. Reinstatement of the draft would do nothing but create a resentful military of soldiers being forced to fight against their will. That worked out great for us in Vietnam, didn't it?
8
If all presidential candidates had to have military experience, we would quickly eliminate almost all the women.
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@Samuel - Actually, some of the ideas in your first paragraph sound pretty good.
1
Absolutely brilliant.
About the only things it missed were the outsourcing of the Senate to Saudi money following the Aramco privatization and the deification of Mitch McConnell in 2030, after the Supreme Court interpreted the Free Exercise Clause in his supporters favour.
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You could not run the current military with draftees as Americans remember the Vietnam draft. Military service now requires a lot of training for the force to be effective. The latest estimate is that 80 per cent of the potential draftees do not have the physical and mental,skills to qualify. Training someone for a year or more to leave in less than 12 months does not make sense. The only viable draft is continuous responsibility for military service into early middle age with active service stints throughout that period. That is what the Israelis, Swiss and other nations do. It also requires a visible discrimination against those people that could not or refuse to make the cut. Otherwise why would someone do it if it was easy to evade. No, digging a ditch in a national forest for two years is not an equivalent.
I really doubt Americans are ready for that type of social environment. It is why few military leaders want anything to do with a draft.
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@Michael Blazin YEs, it sounds difficult, but we did it until the '70s when the elimination was more political than logical.. if you are drafted you just would have to tough it out..HI
@Michael Blazin
Military leaders generally oppose a draft because a draft results in units composed of personnel unsuited to service - physically unfit or emotionally unfit or educationally unfit. The Swiss and the Israelis use a draft because both states are bordered by nations with populations many time their own size who have in the past demonstrated armed hostility. That is not the case with the United States.
The draft ended because it would have confronted the problem of drafting women. I had a deferment during Vietnam for college but my sister wasn't required to register with the selective service one year behind me. All her life she had better job and income.
The draft was very unfair. Men got nothing for the distinction of being potential cannon fodder.
As I understand - young men still have to register for the selective service.
14
@gluebottle You blame the draft, for which you got a deferment, for the fact that your sister has a better job and makes more money than you?
Also, men didn't get "nothing" for being the only ones eligible to be drafted. We got control of our entire civilization for the last several thousand years. Seems like a fair trade-off to me.
7
@gluebottle -----" I had a deferment during Vietnam for college but my sister wasn't required to register with the selective service one year behind me. All her life she had better job and income."
This does not make sense. You got a deferment and your sister, all her life, bad a better job and income.
One does not have anything to do with the other.
What point am I missing here?
Yes, men still have to register the selective service. I you want to change that, lobby your representatives.
1
The biggest mistake was going to an all volunteer army in the first place. When we had a draft and everyone was at risk to go to war, it was more difficult for our "leadership" to send the Armed Forces into unwinnable colonial wars that no one wants. A goodly part of the reason for ending the war in Vietnam is that voting parents didn't want to see their kids wasted in what was an unwinnable war. We need a citizen's armed forces, and a Congress that takes back the power to declare war. Also, the Armed Forces do better when they have input from person outside them.
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@Michael Skadden
Exactly correct. But the right-wing and the MIC learned an important lesson from Vietnam: as long as kids aren't being drafted, the public's interest in our military adventures is greatly diminished and they can do whatever they want with minimal scrutiny and interference.
So now everyone pays pious lip service to "supporting the troops" but with an undercurrent of "but they volunteered for it." And the majority knows it won't be them or their kids being sent over there. So most people don't really pay much attention.
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@Pat... I realized the country was lost/going to be lost when dubiously expensive and likely to useless war efforts, (yes, plural) lost critical public examination with the "popular" bumper sticker argument: "Support our troops!" A declaration that left out the red flag: "Right OR Wrong!" No skin in the game - who's to blame? Those with no skin in the game. Unicorns are not coming to save us.
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@Michael Skadden: The Korean and Vietnam wars could not have been fought if the powers that be did not feel confident that Congress would approve a draft, so that the unwilling could be forced to serve during wars for which they had no enthusiasm. How do I know? I got drafted.
I hear what you have to say, but perhaps also see it from another perspective as an ex-draftee. All this talk about high-tech not disputed, major war requires boots on the ground.
12
I think the government should always maintain certain functions not privatize them. It is a slippery slope. Rather than correcting the problems at the VA, we are seeing privatization of treatment of military servicemen. People who have chronic physical or psychiatric issues will fall through the cracks. There should not be privately run prisons and immigration detention facilities. Since the profit motive comes first, less is spent on well trained staff, food and medical/psychiatric care. The military should not be privatized as another country might own enough voting stock in the corporation and dictate foreign policy and the use of that military branch. Quality control and oversight can be done by the government of its agencies without "corporate secret" information blockage we have seen recently.
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@KG Exactly correct. To "privatize" is to lose public control.
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This forecast actually seems more likely than most all dystopic future histories in books and film. My only question is what will the reserve currency be? Likely not the dollar. Whichever one it is will determine which transnational corporation, aka "the government," is actually running the invasions, occupations, and strikes (of both kinds).
8
My fear isn't the strike. It's if the country doesn't own the military, who does? It works for whoever pays. As our country becomes increasingly the toy of the rich (which we saw earlier in our history, what with rail, coal, and oil barons, the pinkerton private army, common workplace injuries and child labor) we can again be the victims of the rich - living in corporate towns, fighting their wars.
We've been moving that way for a while now. In that scenario, I"d welcome a strike. The military doesn't exist in a vacuum. Making the poorest pay for the taxes of the rich, gerrymandering and other voter repression, head-in-the-sand immigration laws that fail to address cross-border environmental issues and try to scare off immigration by hurting children, all these things also demand that the military answer the call of the rich to keep the rest of us down.
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Just wondering, is it really privatization that Republicans (or former) like Max Boot are concerned about, or unionization? Is he lamenting the end of a pliable workforce?
I'm noticing that the real "threat" seems to be Gen Z and millennial workers who are standing up against their employers for what they believe in, even without unions to back them up. You see it today in Silicon Valley.
If the professional "warriors" want to facilitate and enable the US to get into more senseless wars that gobble up my taxes, I will stop thanking them for their service and start considering them part of the problem.
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@Thomas I don't think anyone can tell what is uppermost in anyone's mind. Could the fact that he is a senior nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point give him cover for the focus of his concern?
I wondered whether it might be worthwhile to see the film bearing the title of his book, ' World War Z'. I found this , 'the script was completely re-written by Matthew Michael Carnahan to set the film in the present, leaving behind much of the book's premise to make it more of an action film. In a 2012 interview, Brooks stated the film now had nothing in common with the novel other than the title'.
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@William The book is far better - more of a Studs Terkel oral history of the zombie plague than a star studded action packed feature.
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The U.S. Army on strike?? What we are waiting for is the U.S. Congress on strike, and, why not, the White House? The future is privatization of absolutely everything. If private sector for-profit enterprises with stockholders can engender a military, they can engender government. Corporations will offer as a service the A-to-Z governing of your country, providing skilled presidents, cabinet secretaries, senators & congress-members and so on down the line. The public sector will disappear as an affront to individual liberty. It started with Blackwater and Charter schools.
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If DONALD TRUMP can factually do whatever he wants, he would want to privatize the Executive Branch, and put all
three million employees under strict non-disclosure agreements. He could put his children in his will, and they would inherit Earth, and all of their dad's property and deals.
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Finally, someone putting down on paper what I have been thinking for years except I said it another way. I said it was a mistake to quit the draft!
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@William Poppen Yes, eliminating the draft was bad public policy, but it was not a "mistake." It was an expedient political choice to defuse the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War. First there was the draft lottery to reduce the number of people who had to put their lives on the line for the country. Then the "all volunteer" armed forces approach to further reduce who had a direct stake in the nation's defense. Now less than one percent of families in the US have someone involved in the active duty military. Ending the draft was a cynical political decision to reduce the public's interest in war and peace.
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@Peter Adams So now we live with a professional army and feel few constraints to enter a military action any place in the world. Yes it was no mistake because it fixed an issue with the Vietnam War but dumping the draft has had some long-term unintended consequences.