"The authors of this March Washington Monthly article arguing for the necessity of a military draft present us with an aptly named list of "Five bad options" for ending the military's personnel shortage. Beside their five alternate solutions, the draft starts to sound like not such a bad idea. But there are also several fairly good options that are never mentioned in the article:
* Stop military welfare: the authors argue that we need more soldiers because out of 1.4 million active duty troops, only 400,000 were available to send to Iraq at the outset. The other million are stationed at U.S. military bases around the world, many of which were built during a starkly different geopolitical era. We have been providing nearly all of Japan's defense forces for sixty years; currently, they have about 47,000 U.S. personnel on the ground. Germany has major bases currently hosting about 70,000 U.S. troops in preparation for the Soviet invasion of Western Europe. In 2004, President Bush announced a plan to withdraw 70,000 troops from European and Asian nations, but we will continue to provide at least 40,000 troops in Japan and tens of thousands more in western Europe. Surely Germany--whose defense budget is less than 1.5% of their GDP as opposed to the 3.5% of our GDP we spend to protect the world--and other wealthy nations are strong enough to protect themselves without our help.
Stop welfare for the military: the starting base pay for an army E-1 is currently $13,712.40. Now obviously, soldiers get other benefits: housing, subsidized or free food and other supplies for themselves and their families, training, etc. However, that salary is still below the poverty line for many military families, making them eligible for federal and state entitlement programs. The authors make the patently obvious point that "there are practical limits" to the marginal returns a salary increase would bring in recruitment. But during the same period when bonuses were raised well into the five-figure range for even unskilled recruits, salary increases barely beat inflation. Moreover, the pay for nearly any military job is lower than that of an equivalent civilian job. Taking into account that most civilian mechanics, engineers, construction workers, and medics don't risk getting shot on the job, it's not hard to see why the armed forces have trouble with both recruitment and retention. "More risk, less reward" isn't exactly a poster-ready slogan. A $10,000 signing bonus is nice, but training for a well-paying career is better."
50minutehour.net |
