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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (135274)	6/2/2004 12:46:17 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

Volunteer armies are far better, IMO In competence and dedication to duty, I would agree, and I'm pretty satisfied with the army we have, although it could always be even better. But for the sake of logical debate on what form of military might encourage use of military force, I would say that a volunteer military permits politicians to say "they know what they signed up for" and use that as an excuse to drag the nation to war inappropriately. But that has not happened yet, despite what some of the disserters of the current military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq might have us believe. We're at a point in opposing the emerging militant Islamist ideology that a volunteer military might meet the need. But I think the size of the army should be increased back to 1990 levels at a minimum. But should we not succeed in opposing Islamic militancy in the region, and it gain increasing support, we're likely going to be faced with mandatory service of some type, probably conscription. Because, unless we make some major inroads toward reforming the political and economic problems in the region, this is going to turn into a very long struggle. Hawk