S-2,
Quote:
I fear that this is the inevitable product of a professional, all-volunteer force attempting to prosecute a war that demands the full force of both America and the U.K.'s nat'l power.
We seem to believe that we are best served by an all-volunteer force to fully carry the national burden. As such, for most people it's a choice best avoided simply because they can. Should we be surprised that our servicepeople feel duped while making sacrifices that others don't see as necessary to the common good?
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well, i think there's two problems you're pointing out here.
1. we don't have enough troops to "do the job",
2. the people are divested from having to carry the national burden.
conscription would indeed solve both those problems (of course coming with its own price, too- as vietnam showed, both in quality and in terms of the burden the people is willing to carry).
however, it's fully possible for an all-volunteer system to at least solve the first problem: to take a simplistic approach, i am pretty sure if the military suddenly decided to double the pay and benefits for every single rank, we would get plenty of volunteers. we did field a far bigger force in the 1980s, and we already had the all-volunteer system in place then.