Is there a draft in the wind?
December 12, 2004
BY SCOTT FORNEK Political Reporter
Henry Bowles can't believe how many classmates at Northwestern University passed the word along as gospel in the days before last month's election.
"It's just astounding," says Bowles, 20, a junior and president of the College Republicans on the Evanston campus. "They would say, 'Well, you know Bush really is going to reinstate the draft.'
"I would say, 'No, that would be political suicide, and here is why it won't happen.'"
DRAFT FACTS
Number of men drafted during past U.S. wars:
World War I (14 months): 2,810,296
World War II (6 years): 10,110,104
Korea (3 years): 1,529,539
Vietnam (8.5 years): 1,857,304
Last man drafted: Entered Army on June 30, 1973.
Source: Selective Service System
Among college and some high school students and on the Internet, it is the hot topic, the buzz -- the rumor that won't go away.
"Kids, forget those career goals after high school," warns one Web site. "You're going to the desert to fight."
Another offers a $9.99 e-Book titled 10 Ways to Dodge the Draft.
"Prepare for a spring 2005 draft," the site warns. "Fail the minimum eligibility requirements."
Never mind that President Bush says he has no plans to reinstate the draft.
"Forget all this talk about a draft," Bush said in an October debate with Democratic challenger John Kerry. "We're not going to have a draft so long as I'm the president."
And such a move would require congressional approval -- and the House overwhelmingly voted down one Democratic attempt to bring it back in October by a staggering 402-2 vote.
Despite all that, half of the nation's 18- to 29-year-olds said they believed Bush wanted to reinstate the draft in the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey, which was released in October.
'Manpower problems not there'
Such talk of reviving the draft is nonsense, says military expert Jack Spencer.
"The chances, given the current security environment, are zero," says Spencer, senior policy analyst for defense and national security at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Can you say there will never be a draft? No, because you don't know what the future will bring.
"But we are so far away from needing or wanting a draft that it boggles my mind that ... people believe this."
The U.S. military now has 2.6 million people in uniform, both on active duty and in the reserves. A total of 170,647 troops were in Iraq and Kuwait on Sept. 30, and another 10,000 are expected to be deployed in the next month.
"The manpower problems just aren't there," Spencer says.
All branches of the armed forces met or exceeded their recruiting goals for the fiscal year that ended in September, except the National Guard, which signed up just 87 percent of the additional people it needed, said Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman. "Quite frankly, there are still plenty of Americans that still want to be in the military," she says.
Critics point to the National Guard shortfall as proof that people are thinking twice about signing up because of all the overseas action guardsmen are seeing.
But Krenke argues it's because the Guard generally recruits about 5,000 soldiers who leave the regular Army each year, but those Army troops remain on active duty in Iraq. She said the National Guard is devising strategies to deal with the problem.
'We're stretched'
Not all experts are scoffing at the rumors.
"It boils down to one thing, and that is Iraq and how long can we sustain the military deployment there," says Charles V. Pena, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank.
With the troop levels in Iraq about to be increased to 150,000 and another 30,000 in Kuwait, that might not be too long, Pena argues.
The volunteer military operates under what it calls a 3-1 rotation schedule, which requires two stateside units for every one deployed overseas so that troops can be rotated in and out of harm's way.
That means the armed services need three times as many troops as are actually deployed -- 540,000 in the case of Iraq and Kuwait. More than 1.4 million men and women are on active duty, but just 499,543 of them are in the Army, which is handling the bulk of the fighting in Iraq.
"And that does not take into account the other deployments we have around the globe," Pena says. "The active Army is not large enough to maintain a 3-1 deployment ratio, which is why you see the National Guard and reserves being used.
"We're stretched, and so the question will not go away: Does that mean we might have to resort to a draft?"
'A backdoor draft'
Pena says no -- not exactly.
If the situation worsens in Iraq, he thinks politicians might move toward mandatory national service, in which all young people are required to either perform some sort of community work or enlist in the military.
The military component could be made more attractive by making it a shorter term than, for instance, emptying bedpans at a nursing home. The military option would also carry the added benefit of providing job training.
Pena opposes the concept as "a severe broach of civil liberties" and "a backdoor draft." But he envisions conservatives favoring it for military reasons and liberals for the army of "volunteers" they would reap for social programs.
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