[Picket sign in Los Angeles on the first day of renewed draft registration, 21 July 1980: “Registration is the 1st step to war”. Photo by Dean Musgrove from the Herald Examiner Collection, L.A. Public Library.]
[Picket sign in Los Angeles on the first day of renewed draft registration, 21 July 1980: “Registration is the 1st step to war”. Photo by Dean Musgrove from the Herald Examiner Collection, L.A. Public Library.]
Some people argue that a draft, especially a draft of the children of those in power, would help prevent war. Some of these poeple sincerely want to prevent (larger, longer) wars. But we think that they are mistaken about the implications of a dravft.
Arguing that policy makers (including voters) are more likely to oppose a war if their children might be forced to participate amounts to arguing that we should kidnap children, hold them hostage, and threaten to kill them, as a way to influence their parents to act.
Whether or not death threats against children are an “effective” means to exert influence on their parents, such extortion is profoundly unethical, and should be rejected categorically. It also replicates and reinforces the ageism of the (age-based) draft, which imposes the burden and risk of war on young people.
Aside from the ageism and immorality of that argument, it’s contradicted by common sense and by history.
One could argue, of course, that any sort of military mobilization, production of more and more deadly weapons, forward deployment of weapons and soldiers, or even military brinkmanship and threats of war make the risk of war more apparent and might thereby catalyze anti-war activism. That might be true, but the fact is that all of these steps toward war, including planning and preparation for conscription, make wars more likely, not less.
Let me break down some of the ways a draft makes war (and larger, longer wars) more likely:
1. Ongoing contingency planning and preparation for conscription, such as “peacetime” registration for a “fallback” draft, normalizes the legitimacy of conscription and the idea that whether to go to war is a decision for “leaders” and not the populace in the minds of both potential draftees and other potential opponents of a draft. This (a) creates an internalized barrier to anti-draft, anti-war, and anti-authoritarian consciousness raising, and (b) makes opposition to military mobilization slower to emerge.
A draft or visible contingency planning and preparation for a draft, such as ongoing “peacetime” registration for a “fallback” draft, normalizes military training and obedience to orders for military mobilization as an unquestioned right of passage. Albert Einstein, Honorary Chair of the War Resisters League, whose opposition to war was grounded in his anti-fascism and expressed itself especially strongly in his support for draft resistance, described the relationship between the draft and bellicose nationalism as follows:
The state should be our servant and not we its slaves. The state transgresses this commandment when it compels us to by force to engage in military and war service, the more so since the object and the effect of this slavish service is to kill people belonging to other countries….
The present deplorably high development of nationalism everywhere is, in my opinion, intimately connected with the institution of compulsory military service…. A state which demands military service of its inhabitants is compelled to cultivate in them a nationalistic spirit, thereby laying the psychological foundation for their military service. In its schools it must idolize, alongside with religion, its instrument of brutal force in the eyes of the youth.
The introduction of compulsory military service is therefore, to my mind, the prime cause of the moral decay… which seriously threatens not merely the survival of our civilization but our very existence….
Therefore, all those who desire to cultivate an international spirit and to combat chauvinism must take their stand against compulsory military service.
[Albert Einstein, 1931, included in “Ideas and Opinions”, 1954]
2. A draft or preparations to speed activation of a draft enable larger, longer wars that can be escalated more quickly with less debate. A draft allows quicker mobilization, making it more likely that military commitments will be made before opposition can become visible.
Draft resister David Harris described the way that worked as follows with respect to the U.S. war in Indochina:
The war might well have been impossible if the Selective Service System hadn’t already been in place and functioning smoothly. “Peacetime” conscription had been national policy since the year after I was born. We were inured to it. Everybody I knew registered when he turned eighteen and never gave it a second thought until late in the game. The preexisting capacity to conscript was a given, and the purpose to which it was put did not have to seek advance justification in the political marketplace, so planners in Washington could assume unlimited manpower when they made policies. In effect, the Selective Service System was a blank check for instant and undeclared war. When the focus turned to Vietnam, there was no need to convince the nation to pledge its sons: those sons were already pledged; no need to ask permission: permission was long since given; no need to suspend the protections of the Constitution: they were already suspended. Using us was simple…. All that was required was cranking up the dial and turning the machine loose….
[David Harris, “Our War: What We Did in Vietnam and What It Did to Us”, 1996, pp. 28-29]
3. A draft or existence of contingency mechanisms for an “on demand” draft and Presidential authority to order inductions makes it possible for the military to be expanded by Presidential fiat, without Congressional debate (or the delay that debate might require).
Here’s what Daniel Ellsberg had to say (full interview) about the lessons about the draft from the U.S. war in Indochina:
The larger involvement [by the U.S. in Indochina] I think required a draft…. Despite the fact that the draft did account for large rallies, it also was essential to a large war. And I think that if we got the draft back, in other words if we started drafting people we’d have a much larger military, and I believe that we would — dangerous and wrongful as it is for us to be operating with special forces in many, many countries around the world — if we were operating with brigades and divisions…. then what’ll go with that is a hell of a lot more bombing than you’ve seen yet. With the American troops would come bombing of the local country on a vastly greater scale…. The fact is that the overall scale would be enormously greater. A draft, I’m afraid, would facilitate that. That’s one lesson from Vietnam.
[Daniel Ellsberg in a conversation with David Swanson at the San Francisco Public Library, 28 May 2016, at 1:25:25 of video.]
4. The perceived ability to “fall back” on conscription if recruiting falls short allows military planners and decision-makers (including the Pentagon, President, and Congress) to give less consideration (if any) to whether people will be willing to fight particular wars.
Perceived availability of a draft as a “fallback” mobilization option allows planners and decision-makers to conceptualize possible popular anti-war sentiment as merely a potential political problem and not as a practical “people power” constraint on war-making.
Wars are not popular with the American public. Our nation may face a future war where our treaty obligations require us to come to the defense of a loyal ally, but where many Americans may conclude that they do not support the war. The United States must be prepared for future wars. An essential part of that preparation is the unmistakable signal to a would-be adversary that the United States is prepared to fight and win, and if necessary to mobilize for war through the last resort of a viable selective service system and a military draft.
[Steve Barney, former former General Counsel to the Senate Armed Services Committee and member of the National Commiission on Military, National, and Public Service, in response to written questions from Rep. Ro Khanna of the House Armed Services Committee following a hearing on 19 May 2021.]
I think there is a particularly clear example of this relationship between the availability of a draft and military decision-making in the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Despite the history of popular opposition to conscription (especially during the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s), the existence of a fallback infrastructure for compulsory military mobilization in Russia enabled Putin and those around them to take for granted that they didn’t need to consider whether enough Russian people would be willing to carry out the invasion of Ukraine. Activating the draft was perceived as a “push-button” solution ready and waiting, so those deciding on a military adventure didn’t think about it. Opposition to military mobilization in Russia and Ukraine has emerged, but more slowly and with less effect than if there had been no draft machinery in place, and too late to have had any influence on the initial decision to invade.
[Screenshot from Selective Service System video. To say that the mission of draft registration is “backstopping diplomacy” and “projecting strength” is to say that it is used — just as nuclear weapons are used — to give greater credibility to U.S. military threats.]
A draft is not a way to deter war-making. Draft resistance is a way to limit the ability of the government to wage war, and eliminating contingency planning and preparation for a future draft is a way to slow the rush to war and constrain war planning and war making.
[This article draws on my notes for a debate on this topic at the annual conference of the Peace and Justice Studies Association of the USA and Canada (PJSA) hosted by Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 16 September 2023. I am solely responsible for the opinions expressed here, but I am grateful to Mark Lance, Matt Meyer, Habiba Choudhury, and Amy Rutenberg for discussions that helped sharpen and develop my thinking on this issue, despite in some cases strong disagreements.]
This page published or republished here 16 September 2021; most recently modified 30 March 2024. This site is maintained by Edward Hasbrouck. Corrections, contributions (articles, graphics, photos, videos, links, etc.), and feedback are welcomed.