Stratfor's George Friedman has thoughts on why and how the U.S. military will be vastly expanded, starting in 2005. Attention young adults: no, it will not be through a draft.
Since it is clear that the war will continue regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, it is time to focus on the single most important strategic issue facing the United States: the size and composition of the U.S. armed forces. Unless jihadist opposition throughout the Islamic world ends suddenly, which is unlikely, the war will continue for several years. The U.S. military, however, is in no position to continue fighting the war with current forces -- particularly Army and Marine forces. Therefore, something has to give. To be more precise, there will be a massive increase in the size of the U.S. military in 2005.The force must be expanded. It must contain people who understand the commitment is extended and open-ended. It must contain people who will be trained in some specialties for a year, and then be available for deployment for years after that. The force must include young officers, as well as enlisted men. And these will be people who can readily get other civilian jobs. This cannot be a force of the failed.
It is one thing to risk your life. It is another to emerge impoverished from the experience. The soldier's job is to place himself between home and war's desolation. It is the homeland's job to reward a soldier for a job well done. It is the peculiarity and, to us, the charm of the United States that soldiers will indeed give their lives for their country out of patriotism -- but they expect their country to pay them for the risk.
There is an unpleasant tradition in our country of paying soldiers poorly. It is as if the United States intends to dare its troops to serve. There is another side to this -- a hidden contempt by businessmen and professionals toward those who would serve at that kind of pay. We know that the children of wealthy businessmen and professionals don't serve, but the deeper shame is the lack of respect the elite has for those people who do. Part of it goes back to the aristocratic tradition of the enlisted man as brute, but it also extends to officers -- there is a feeling that if these men and woman were any good, they would be selling bonds.
That is about to change with a vengeance. The United States will not institute a draft. The children of the elite will not enlist. The United States is going to lose its army in the coming year or so, or will face a revolt of the exploited in the ranks -- men and women trapped in commitments that are far more extensive than anyone expected, and whose lives are being thereby ruined. But there is a war on and it is not going to go away.
The United States will have to replace some of the existing force, will have to compensate the remainder for staying on and will have to induce others to join. These will be men and women prepared to sacrifice their lives if need be, but not their financial futures. Nor is it fair to expect them to do so. They will be fighting not only so that others might live -- but also so that others can make a pile of money while they serve.
No one wants a draftee on his flank, but those who will not serve must surely pay and pay big time. The idea that a captain leading a company in Iraq should make less than a successful professional in any other field is absurd. The idea that a senior IT technician at a brokerage or hospital should have a 401(k) while a sergeant working computers in Baghdad has to put in 20 years before he sees a nickel in retirement income, is obscene.
And, leaving moralism aside, it will not work. There is no way around an expanded force and there is, therefore, no way around vastly increased pay and benefits for the troops. This will mean either higher taxes or cutbacks in other areas. However, those who don't serve and don't send their children to serve are no longer going to be able to simply count on being protected by the faceless "others." There ain't no such thing as a free lunch -- and that goes for national defense, as well.
Something healthy will come out of this. For a country that fights as many wars as the United States does -- and it fights a lot of wars -- the idea that the profession of arms should be treated worse and paid any less than professions like the law or medicine is absurd. Soldiers do not deal with matters of less importance to Americans than lawyers and doctors. In the past, it was possible to get soldiers on the cheap. Those days are past. If the United States plans to have a military in two years, it will have to pay for it.
Read the whole thing, via The Braden Files.
Posted by Alan at October 23, 2004 07:38 AM