4 ms·

> even though the US hasn’t had a draft in 51 years That smuggles an assumption that US will never have draft again

by matkoniecz 3y ago

ysofunny 3y ago
maybe the American way to have a draft is to fight a civil war?
- babyshake 3y ago
  It seems as though there is essentially no scenario where the American public would accept a mandatory draft. Times have changed.
  - fallingknife 3y ago
    Seemed that way in 1940 too
    - hannasanarion 3y ago
      Did it? Every single person who was draft-eligible in 1940 was born before WW1 ended.
      - lazyasciiart 3y ago
        I’ve done this arithmetic a few times now and I think you’re wrong: someone born the week after ww1 ended (November 1918) would have been 22 in November 1940, when the first draft registration was held for men who had reached 21. So there should be about 12 months of births in there.
  - ysofunny 3y ago
    all I'm saying is how mandatorily drafting people to go fight a war in another continent is extremely hard whereas getting people to fight in a way that's happening near YOUR (meaning their particular case) state border is super easy, barely an inconvenience
    - LoganDark 3y ago
      Yeah, but no draftee is going to do a backflip, snap the bad guy's neck and save the day. Drafting people gets them killed.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    It will happen, and the American people will accept it, for the same reasons they accept tons of things today that are done against their best interests: Ideological divisions and loyalty, propaganda saturation, fear of an outside enemy, (possibly) religion, and the general desire to use the political system to punish "others" rather than help themselves.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > will happen, and the American people will accept it America will automate warfare before that happens.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
vajrabum 3y ago
It also maybe implies that the selective service is responsible for it's own funding and ignores that it's entire a creature of DoD and Congress. It's hardly a bureaucracy run amok for its own purposes. The funding in 2022 was $31.7M. DoD has a lot of contingency plans and that's not a lot of money to spend to fund one of them even if the likelihood putting it into action is small.
- opo 3y ago
  31 million dollars is actually a lot of money to waste on an arguably immoral program. Multiply those tens of millions by the 40 years of the program and you are talking about a lot of money that should not have been spent.
jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
It is overwhelmingly likely the US will never have a draft again. The nature of warfare has changed. You can't give someone a few weeks of basic and throw them on the battlefield anymore. They need to be experts on a variety of technical topics as well as how to do combined arms maneuver in large formations. You need trained professionals. If the US is ever placed in a position so desperate that a draft is done again, rebuilding a new selective service administration overnight will be a trivial problem compared to everything else going on.
- lesuorac 3y ago
  You don't need to throw everybody onto the battlefield. The standing armed forces and reserve will need a lot of logistical support that can be done with little additional training. Plenty of people are forklift drivers and cooks in their day jobs. That said, it's not like the SSA is really needed. If a war got bad enough to need a draft I'm sure congress would let the IRS fork over a list of 18+ males. Or even say 18+ males with certain occupations on their tax returns (i.e. Doctors).
  - stackskipton 3y ago
    Like most systems, on the surface it appears extremely simple. You start to look at the issue deeper and it becomes extremely complex. Start drafting all the doctors? Sure, what happens when you draft an ophthalmologist? Are they even useful for more than TikTok videos? What if they have asthma? How many Doctors can we take without crippling the home front? Furthermore, we start up a draft. We draft the guy who does calibrations for Maverick missiles in factory. Come to find out, it takes 3 months to train that guy and there are very few of them. It's also really important weapon system. Now what? SSA constantly holds mock drafts to try and answer all these questions.
- Supermancho 3y ago
  > It is overwhelmingly likely the US will never have a draft again. It's more likely that it will, the longer it exists. Saying "it will never", implies a pessimistic view of US durability. I think this is a fair interpretation, I can agree with. I understand this is not exactly what you meant.

> even though the US hasn’t had a draft in 51 years That smuggles an assumption that US will never have draft again

ysofunny 3y ago

maybe the American way to have a draft is to fight a civil war?

babyshake 3y ago
It seems as though there is essentially no scenario where the American public would accept a mandatory draft. Times have changed.
- fallingknife 3y ago
  Seemed that way in 1940 too
  - hannasanarion 3y ago
    Did it? Every single person who was draft-eligible in 1940 was born before WW1 ended.
    - lazyasciiart 3y ago
      I’ve done this arithmetic a few times now and I think you’re wrong: someone born the week after ww1 ended (November 1918) would have been 22 in November 1940, when the first draft registration was held for men who had reached 21. So there should be about 12 months of births in there.
- ysofunny 3y ago
  all I'm saying is how mandatorily drafting people to go fight a war in another continent is extremely hard whereas getting people to fight in a way that's happening near YOUR (meaning their particular case) state border is super easy, barely an inconvenience
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    Yeah, but no draftee is going to do a backflip, snap the bad guy's neck and save the day. Drafting people gets them killed.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  It will happen, and the American people will accept it, for the same reasons they accept tons of things today that are done against their best interests: Ideological divisions and loyalty, propaganda saturation, fear of an outside enemy, (possibly) religion, and the general desire to use the political system to punish "others" rather than help themselves.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > will happen, and the American people will accept it America will automate warfare before that happens.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

vajrabum 3y ago

It also maybe implies that the selective service is responsible for it's own funding and ignores that it's entire a creature of DoD and Congress. It's hardly a bureaucracy run amok for its own purposes. The funding in 2022 was $31.7M. DoD has a lot of contingency plans and that's not a lot of money to spend to fund one of them even if the likelihood putting it into action is small.

opo 3y ago
31 million dollars is actually a lot of money to waste on an arguably immoral program. Multiply those tens of millions by the 40 years of the program and you are talking about a lot of money that should not have been spent.

jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago

It is overwhelmingly likely the US will never have a draft again. The nature of warfare has changed. You can't give someone a few weeks of basic and throw them on the battlefield anymore. They need to be experts on a variety of technical topics as well as how to do combined arms maneuver in large formations. You need trained professionals. If the US is ever placed in a position so desperate that a draft is done again, rebuilding a new selective service administration overnight will be a trivial problem compared to everything else going on.

lesuorac 3y ago
You don't need to throw everybody onto the battlefield. The standing armed forces and reserve will need a lot of logistical support that can be done with little additional training. Plenty of people are forklift drivers and cooks in their day jobs. That said, it's not like the SSA is really needed. If a war got bad enough to need a draft I'm sure congress would let the IRS fork over a list of 18+ males. Or even say 18+ males with certain occupations on their tax returns (i.e. Doctors).
- stackskipton 3y ago
  Like most systems, on the surface it appears extremely simple. You start to look at the issue deeper and it becomes extremely complex. Start drafting all the doctors? Sure, what happens when you draft an ophthalmologist? Are they even useful for more than TikTok videos? What if they have asthma? How many Doctors can we take without crippling the home front? Furthermore, we start up a draft. We draft the guy who does calibrations for Maverick missiles in factory. Come to find out, it takes 3 months to train that guy and there are very few of them. It's also really important weapon system. Now what? SSA constantly holds mock drafts to try and answer all these questions.
Supermancho 3y ago
> It is overwhelmingly likely the US will never have a draft again. It's more likely that it will, the longer it exists. Saying "it will never", implies a pessimistic view of US durability. I think this is a fair interpretation, I can agree with. I understand this is not exactly what you meant.