This would end most, if not all, wars.

[erpowers]

57. My Problem With That Amendment

The war by national vote seems to me like one of those ideas that when you first hear about it it sounds good, but then when you think about it it does not sound as good. I realize that if you oppose war, having a situation where it takes a long time to start a war is a good thing. However, having a national vote in order to go to war has its own problems. If there was ever a Pearl Harbor type attack a national election would have to be called. Then the nation would have to pay to have the election. Beyond the cost of the election would be the time it would take in order to schedule an election. Instead of taking days for either Congress to declare war, or for the President to deploy troops we would have to wait at least weeks in order to organize and hold an election. In addition, what would you do with the people who did not vote? Send them to war just to punish them for not voting?

Another problem is personnel. It seems the military has been having enough trouble with people who willingly signed up for the military and then upon being sent to war decided they do not like the military. What would you do with the people who voted for the war, but do not want to fight the war? Yes, you can force those people to join the military, but you cannot force them to do their job, or do their job well. So, you could end up in a situation in which a number of people who are forced to join the military perform poorly in order to be kicked out of the military. At that point the military is faced with a major decision; keep poorly performing people in the military and let them cause problems for the military because they(military leadership) do not want to let those people off the hook, or cut their loses and kick the poor performing people out. So, at least in theory someone could vote for war and still not go to war by performing poorly.