The Pentagon said the US army will start the new year off with its smallest band of soldiers since 1941 due to a stark decrease in enlistment, particularly in Gen Z
There’s also the fact that if they did call for draft, how many would actually qualify? Isn’t the US in the middle of an obesity epidemic and mental health crisis?. A few weeks of boot camp is not going to be adequate to get the vast majority of young people into fighting shape, both mentally and physically.
The US could afford a few tricks before that. Better benefits, for example. Maybe a vet program. Maybe recruit graduates and offer them a career in what they actually studied and their loan payments covered while in the military or wiped after 15 years service. If I was $250k in debt with an engineering degree working minimum wage answering phones all day and the military promised me a commission with the engineers, I’d be tempted. I wouldn’t do it now out of principle but when the military offered me a place at officer school to do what I did my degree in, I went to the recruitment place and got a leaflet. (Luckily, I saw the light before signing up.) And I live in a marginally more civilised place than the US.
Assuming you don’t care about human life at all (and these people don’t) it still made more sense in a time where giving a warm body a gun and pointing them in the right direction would give you at least some results.
Modern warfare doesn’t quite work like that anymore, you can’t just throw conscripts at enemy positions expecting to break their lines. Just ask Ukraine.
yet…
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There’s also the fact that if they did call for draft, how many would actually qualify? Isn’t the US in the middle of an obesity epidemic and mental health crisis?. A few weeks of boot camp is not going to be adequate to get the vast majority of young people into fighting shape, both mentally and physically.
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That’s a good point, a draft would be a political suicide for whoever pulls the trigger on it.
Conscription is a terrible idea to begin with. You get soldiers with shit morale.
For sure, but that wouldn’t be a concern if the ruling class gets desperate enough.
The US could afford a few tricks before that. Better benefits, for example. Maybe a vet program. Maybe recruit graduates and offer them a career in what they actually studied and their loan payments covered while in the military or wiped after 15 years service. If I was $250k in debt with an engineering degree working minimum wage answering phones all day and the military promised me a commission with the engineers, I’d be tempted. I wouldn’t do it now out of principle but when the military offered me a place at officer school to do what I did my degree in, I went to the recruitment place and got a leaflet. (Luckily, I saw the light before signing up.) And I live in a marginally more civilised place than the US.
Assuming you don’t care about human life at all (and these people don’t) it still made more sense in a time where giving a warm body a gun and pointing them in the right direction would give you at least some results.
Modern warfare doesn’t quite work like that anymore, you can’t just throw conscripts at enemy positions expecting to break their lines. Just ask Ukraine.
Lol, that I can relate