Conscripts vs. Volunteers
It seems to me to be a question of the kind of government one wants. Direct democracy, the people making decisions and carrying them out, like Athens, means the citizens are the soldiers and both decide to fight and fight themselves. Each tribe elects its general, and high command is rotated among the generals. Aeschylus and Socrates were proud of their service in the ranks. It was their city, and the long-haired Medes and Spartans knew it to their sorrow.
Rome didn't even have representative democracy, but was ruled by a select class of Senators. As long as Roman citizens served in the Army they quickly conquered much of the known world. Generals became their consuls and their emperors (imperator == a commander acclaimed for victory by his troops). When they hired mercenaries and whole peoples to defend them, they became victims of their armies, and, in time, the Roman Empire fell, something the Republic could hardly have done while the Roman people still survived.
I believe a well-disciplined (i.e. trained) democratic military with a professional corps of career soldiers is the strongest defense of national liberty. I think military training should be universal, starting at age 15 as part of high school. Quarters of active duty training can be interspered so that every one has learned the basic duties of a soldier. The career soldiers can do the training and gain experience in command. I would like to eliminate the distinction between officers and non-commissioned officers as unsuitable to a democracy. I would like to see promotion to depend on the approval of their subordinates as a necessary but not sufficient condition.
These trained citizen soldiers will not become servants of the state. They will insist that only people who have served hold public office, but they will not be worshippers of ex-superiors.
In an age of democracy, the decision to fight should be that of those who will have to fight or have stood the risk in the past. |
