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I Want You!

RAND Corporation

Chapter One

Lapses in discipline within elements of the Army have caused me serious concern. Some instances have been obvious, grave in nature, and well publicized. These, along with other[s] ... dictate the need to give special attention to the subject throughout the chain of command. - General William C. Westmoreland Chief of Staff, U.S. Army-1971

We have the finest military on Earth because we have the finest people on Earth, because we recruit and we retain the best that America has to offer. - William S. Cohen Secretary of Defense-2001

Introduction

As this was being written, in spring 2006, 157,000 American service members were at war: 137,000 in Iraq and 20,000 in Afghanistan. All were volunteers. While some worry about the resiliency of the all-volunteer force during periods of prolonged stress and long-term commitment, and others decry the perceived lack of social representativeness of the all-volunteer force, no one can deny that it is the finest fighting force the United States has ever fielded.

Looking back, there are at least five reasons that the United States moved to an all-volunteer force in 1973. First, the norm throughout American history has been a volunteer military. Second, the size of the eligible population of young men reachingdraft age each year in the 1960s was so large and the needs of the military so small in comparison that, in practice, the draft was no longer universal. By the late 1960s, the American system of conscription had lost legitimacy and support among the vast majority of the American people. It was viewed as unfair, the universality of the World War II draft having been replaced by a system encapsulated in the title of a landmark blue ribbon commission report, Who Serves When Not All Serve (Marshall, 1967). The large population of military age also meant that obtaining enough volunteers was possible at Budget levels that were seen as acceptable. Third, the Vietnam War was unpopular. As the war went on, draft calls increased and deferments were cancelled; more and more young Americans became subject to an institution they had been able, up to that point, to largely ignore. It was an institution that tied them to an unpopular war. Fourth, as one historian has written, there was a "rational, intellectual basis for the volunteer force" that told young men that they did not have a moral obligation to serve. Finally, the Army itself had lost confidence in the draft as discipline problems among draftees mounted in Vietnam. The Army was ready for a change. Moreover, there was a group of inspired leaders that pressed forward and would not be deterred. Notwithstanding all this, some argued against the end of conscription. Most students of military sociology argued in favor of reforming, not ending, the draft. Some liberals and some conservatives in Congress were fearful of an all-volunteer force, albeit for very different reasons.

The Move to End Conscription

Conscription is not the norm for America. Americans have historically distrusted standing militaries. A citizen militia - the National Guard of today - is provided for in the Constitution as a counter to a strong standing federal army. While there was an implied obligation for all to "provide for the common defense," the first national draft did not come until the Civil War. After the war, the Adjutant General of the State of Illinois set down a design for a future draft system that would be the model for the future conscription system in the United States. The model was based on federalism, as it existed in the 1860s. It apportioned the requirement for future conscripts to the states and through the states to individual counties. This plan, together with the concept of "channeling" draft-eligible men into whatever military or civilian occupation best supported the war effort - a concept that led to the term Selective Service - was implemented during World War I and again in 1940, on the eve of World War II. President Harry Truman ended conscription for a time in 1947 but, following the same model, reinstated the draft as a Cold War measure in 1948. It remained in place until 1973.

If America has no tradition of a draft absent an ongoing war, hot or cold, we have a tradition of the intellectual elite longing for some form of national service. The issue is not so much the need of the country for the labor of these conscripted citizens, but the benefits that would be wrought on a young person having served the country for some period of time. Voluntary programs, such as the Peace Corps, were fine for those who already had a calling for service. What was needed, they argued, was compulsory service to transform the unredeemed and to make them better citizens. The attraction was not so much for military service as for any service. If other forms of national service were constitutionally prohibited, military service would do.

In reality, the Cold War draft of the pre-Vietnam period was a poor substitute for universal service. As the size of the draft age group expanded and the needs of the military fell, draft calls fell, and the universality of the system became a sham. While other countries, France for example, facing a similar situation tried to maintain universal conscription by reducing terms of service to fit their demographics and their budgets, this was not really an alternative for America, given the worldwide military commitments it had accepted after World War II. By the early 1960s, the Selective Service had became "a draft agency that did more deferring than drafting" (Flynn, 1985, p. 218). In 1962, only 76,000 were drafted. By comparison, more than 430,000 draft eligible men were given educational or occupational deferments that year, and over 1,300,000 were deferred because of paternity. In fall 1962, President John Kennedy extended deferments to married men, even if they were not fathers. For all practicaal purposes, this meant that anyone who wanted to could avoid military service. What was left of the draft became politically sensitive because of the perception that the system of deferments had gotten out of control. The need for a draft was openly questioned. Pressure mounted in Congress to reform Selective Service and, at least, study the feasibility of an all-volunteer force. In 1963, President Lyndon Johnson announced that the Pentagon would undertake a comprehensive study of the draft system.

While there was a movement in favor of some form of compulsory national service as a Responsibility of citizenship, there was also a movement that believed that the draft was "inconsistent with a free society" (Friedman, 1967). The leading proponent was University of Chicago Professor Milton Friedman. Economists and those who accepted Professor Friedman's argument dominated the Pentagon study of the draft. The task of the study, as they saw it, was to estimate the cost of shifting from the draft to a voluntary system of manpower procurement. The study group drew the distinction between the cost to society of having a draft and the budget costs of moving to an all-volunteer force. Their argument was that the cost to society is very high when the cost of the military is not paid for by the general public but by a small group of draftees forced to serve at below-market wages. They argued that, by comparison, the budget cost of the all-volunteer force was "affordable." The analysis was set aside, however, as the country moved to increasing draft calls for the Vietnam War.

By fall 1968, the unpopularity of the draft and the Vietnam War motivated the Republican candidate for President, Richard Nixon, to publicly announce that if elected he would move the country to an all-volunteer force. In a campaign speech, Nixon said that a draft that "arbitrarily selects some and not others simply cannot be squared with our whole concept of liberty, justice and equality under the law.... in the long run, the only way to stop the inequities is to stop using the system" (Nixon, 1968).

The Army itself was also ready for a change. As the official Army history of the period put it, "well before the Gates Commission rendered its report, the Army's leadership had concluded that an end to conscription was in the service's best interest...." (Griffith, 1997, p. 17).

On February 20, 1970, the Gates Commission, set up by President Nixon to advise him on establishing an all-volunteer force reported that "We unanimously believe that the nation's interest will be better served by an all-volunteer force, supported by an effective standby draft, than by a mixed force of volunteers and conscripts" (Gates, 1970).

The recommendation by the Gates Commission must be seen against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. By the late 1960s, the widespread opposition to the Vietnam War had moved from the burning of draft cards to riots in the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention of 1968. Finally, with an unpopular war in a stalemate and at the request of President Nixon, the House of Representatives moved to an all-volunteer force by approving Public Law 92-129 by a vote of 297 to 108 on August 4, 1971. The Senate followed on September 21, 1971, by a vote of 55 to 30. On September 28, 1971, President Nixon signed the bill that extended the draft for only two years and committed the country to transition to an all-volunteer force (Lee and Parker, 1977, pp. 138-147).

Model for Other Countries

While the Gates Commission accepted Friedman's arguments, European countries that have moved to an all-volunteer force more recently were not very moved by the argument that conscription is "inconsistent with a free society." In fact, the historical view on the European continent is that every citizen has an obligation to perform some service at the call of the state. The end of the Cold War, however, led to cost-motivated downsizing that sharply cut the number of conscripts, thereby sowing "the seeds of an upcoming public debate about who serves and who ... [does] not" (Haltiner and Klein, 2005, p. 10). Echoing the debate that had occurred in the United States in the 1960s, "the problem of burden-sharing in defense matters grew acute and there was strong political pressure in favor of a complete suspension of the draft, [in such countries as] France, Italy, Slovenia and Spain" (Haltiner and Klein, 2005, p. 11). These new converts to an all-volunteer force found universal military service both unaffordable and inconsistent with maintaining a competent, modern military. Most recently, Anthony Cordesman, in his review of NATO military operations in Kosovo, found that

Kosovo seems to have reinforced the lessons that many military experts drew about the value of conscripts versus professionals after the Gulf War.... The level of technology and the tactical demands of Kosovo clearly required highly trained and proficient soldiers.... This experience helps validate the decision to phase out conscription to many French officers. It also raised growing concerns among German officers over their government's insistence that conscription was necessary to ensure a democratic force. Some senior German officers feel that the net result is to alienate German conscripts while wasting scarce resources on useless low-grade manpower. (Cordesman, 2000, p. 260)

Effects on the Military: From 1973 to the Present

The all-volunteer force has changed the American military in remarkable ways. The "quality" of the force, measured by scores on standardized IQ tests, has improved. The percentage of new recruits who are high school diploma graduates was increased. The all-volunteer force has dramatically increased the number of career personnel and increased the proficiency and professionalism of the force. Despite fears that an all-volunteer force would separate the Army from the American people, the all-volunteer force is broadly representative of the American people. Some have argued that this has come at the expense of widening the political gap between the military and society and have blamed this on the lack of a draft. This is a new kind of representationalism, based not on race, gender, socioeconomic status, educational achievement, or geography but on political values.

Quality

The quality of personnel that the services access under the all-volunteer force has remarkably improved since the days of the draft. Under the Vietnam War-era draft, the services used a quota system to ensure the "equitable" distribution of manpower on the basis of mental ability. Each service was required to take a specified percentage of Mental Category IV personnel. Mental Category IV personnel are between the 10th and 30th percentile of the population. On a standard intelligence test - the Stanford-Binet IQ test - this represents a test score range between about 72 and 91. Mental Category V, the lowest 10 percent of the population, is never taken. Those opposed to the all-volunteer force in Congress, who were unsuccessful in their attempts to block President Nixon's initiative, turned their attention to the issue of quality. If there was going to be an all-volunteer force, it would have to have a 55-percent floor on high school graduates, as opposed to the 45-percent floor the services had had, and a ceiling of 18 percent on Mental Category IV personnel. Many at the time, particularly opponents of the all-volunteer force in Congress, thought these levels could not be achieved. To make a very long story short - discussed in the rest of this book - about 93 percent of accessions today are high school graduates, and the services take very few - in effect, no - Mental Category IV personnel.

Representativeness

The issue of representativeness had surfaced during the early debates about the all-volunteer force, during the deliberations of the Gates Commission; as the Army transitioned to the all-volunteer force; and, most recently, during the current war in Iraq and the War on Terrorism. In 1973, the recently retired Army Chief of Staff, General William Westmoreland, told the New York Times that "The social composition ... (of the all-volunteer Army) bothers me. I deplore the prospect of our military forces not representing a cross-section of our society" (Franklin, 1973, p. 1).

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from I Want You! by Bernard D. Rostker Copyright © 2006 by RAND Corporation. Excerpted by permission.
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