Rethinking the Draft

Now that I'm safely past it, it's time to rethink the draft [self-aware irony intended].

One reason we ended the draft was because having a large standing army made it too easy to see military action as the only answer to international problems. If you've got a hammer, every problem is a nail.

But now we see there's a downside to this. I'm sure many people pointed it out even 30 years ago. By maintaining an all-volunteer military, the burden of taking military action is concentrated on a small number of people. These people, and their families, live in military enclaves (bases or towns around military bases) and tend to be invisible to the wider public. So they can be abused repeatedly without political consequences. The rest of us just don't notice, so long as we can run our SUVs.