The False Promises of a Draft

[Scooter24]

Why conscription won't improve the military

It's a complex business, calculating how many troops a nation needs. No matter how you do the math, though, one thing is clear: The United States doesn't have enough.

Should we, must we, bring back the draft to fill the gaps?

We need to do something. Simply to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan (and we're doing a less-than-adequate job of that), the U.S. Army has mobilized all its available brigades, delayed their rotations back home, and turned the Guard and Reserves' "weekend warriors" into full-time soldiers. Despite all this, the Army still needs to bring in 4,000 troops from the once-untouchable garrison in South Korea. More desperately, it's ordering to Iraq members of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the outfit in Ft. Irwin, Calif., that trains all other Army units for desert warfare. This is like melting down the lathe to make more metal.

In short, we are stretched thin. If tomorrow brought another crisis requiring U.S. ground forces, it's not clear where they would come from or how they would get there.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102858/