It's Time to Deselect Selective Service

Barack Obama has announced that he is now in favor of requiring women to register for selective service the same as men.  This fits right in with his impulse to subject common sense, experience and evidence to his rigid progressive ideology.  It proceeds logically from his decision to remove all restrictions on women's serving in combat roles.  Obama clearly has no respect for Chesterton's rule on fences:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

 The fact is there are differences between men and women, physical obviously but also psychological, that make women on the whole less suitable for the rigors of modern combat.  In addition to the limitations of women as individual, throwing young men and women together in combat units is asking for trouble for it will inevitably result in sexual attraction, which is poison to unit cohesion.  Sexual attraction, by its nature is exclusive and selfish.  Effective combat units demand that all members think of the unit and the mission first, without singling certain members out for special consideration.  This, by the way, is the same reality that makes admission of practicing homosexuals into the military a risky experiment.  None of this is sexist or homophobic.  It's just reality and human nature.  If your overriding consideration is maintaining an effective military force that will fight and win its country's wars, you will give these cautions due respect.  If your goal is to advance a progressive sophomoric fantasy of what human society should look like if it were directed from the faculty lounge, you ignore the evidence of history and experience and tear that fence down.

But I'm not really writing today about the role of women or gays in the military.  Ironically, I'm actually interested in tearing down a fence, the selective service system itself.

Up until the Civil War, compulsory military service in the United States was limited to the militia.  Most every man of military age was deemed by law to be a member of the militia and subject to call-up in times of emergency  (There were also instances of impressment for naval service during the War of Independence.)  The Civil War was the first American war fought after the industrial revolution made raising and maintaining large armies practical.  With the high casualty rates of the war, both sides eventually felt the need to resort to conscription to supply the soldiers necessary to continue the war.

Conscription was again used in World War I when only 73,000 men responded to Woodrow Wilson's call for one million volunteers.  Woodrow Wilson created the West's first propaganda ministry, the Committee on Public Information.  But even that organization was not equal to the task of convincing American men to volunteer for the daily slaughter then taking place in France.

Conscription was re-introduced in 1940 for the run-up to World War II.  After that war ended, though, conscription stayed.  The war had destroyed the Axis powers but it established a potentially more dangerous enemy  in the Soviet Union and the subject states it had inherited from Germany.  Actual conscriptions spiked in the early 50's for Korea and in the 60's for Vietnam but no one has been drafted in the United States since 1973.  The Military Selective Service Act authorizes the President to require registration.  In 1975 Gerald Ford ended the registration requirement.

Jimmy Carter reinstated it in 1980 following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  The invasion, and the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran the previous year had exposed Carter's dangerous naivete about the world and he was flailing about for some kind of response to stave off the total collapse of his presidency.  His reinstatement of registration was a symbolic gesture, much like his boycott of the 1980 Olympics.

Conscription is a grave imposition upon liberty, often upon life itself, certainly upon the pursuit of happiness.  It always has been but it has, on occasion, been  a necessary imposition.   It is not necessary now.  It may never be necessary again, but who knows what the future holds.

Conscription is not unnecessary because the world is no longer dangerous; it certainly is.  It is unnecessary because the United States no longer fight wars using mass armies of draftees.  The United States' method of waging war requires dedicated, motivated, intelligent volunteers.  It requires the use of advanced technological equipment and weapons.  It places huge responsibilities on small units and their leaders.s

The United States military is a volunteer force built around a highly professional core of career officers and NCO's.  These leaders need the willing volunteers I described above to give their talents maximum effect.  They should not be babysitting reluctant draftees putting their time in until discharge.

The typical recruit in 1863 needed to know the nine steps to load and fire a flintlock rifle as well as the regimental drill used to maneuver around a battlefield.  Once he mastered those skills he functioned as a cog in a well-oiled machine directed by his commanding officer.  His NCO's and junior officers were there mainly to relay commands from the colonel and to make sure the men in their companies were performing as required.  Very little independent judgment was required.

Today's infantryman is more than just a trigger puller standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a mass of his fellows, all within sight and earshot of the colors and the commanding officer.  He often patrols as part of a small unit, a platoon or maybe a squad.  He needs to understand the overall objectives of the higher echelons so that he can take proper action when required to exercise initiative.  It is folly to expect this kind of performance from unwilling draftees.

Today the only real purpose for the Selective Service System is to keep a few hundred timeservers drawing a federal paycheck with federal benefits until they qualify for their federal retirement.  It's time for them to find real jobs.