When the Army begins to offer $40,000 to all enlistment four-year contracts, and still miss their goal, then I'll start worrying about a draft.
The Army is currently undergoing a major reorganization (which will take several years), the ultimate result of which will transfer many active duty, non-deployable "support" jobs to civilian contractors. That will allow the Army to use the active duty slots to create more combat and direct combat-support units. That, in turn (according to the Army) will allow them to decrease the length of combat deployments (currently 15 months) to six or eight months (or allow them to decrease the number of times one is deployed to a combat area.
Here's something that many people don't realize -- Even when the Army missed their recruiting goal for four straight months last year, they still turned away thousands of volunteers. Why? In the past 25 years, the Army (and the other services) have markedly increased enlistment standards. For example, joining with a GED used to be routine. Today, only a few get in the door with a GED.
Long, long, long before a draft would be considered, we would see the Army widely relax enlistment standards, allowing any recruit to have aGED, and approving more waivers for criminal history and minor medical conditions. This, alone would allow the Army to easily meet their established recruiting goals. I would hate to see this happen. Our military is the best in the world today because of our high standards. But, if a draft were implemented, standards would necessarily decrease in any case.
Why a Draft is a Bad Idea
Training. For more than a quarter of a century, the United States Military has been an "all volunteer" service. During that time, the military has dramatically (and successfully!) changed the way it trains and the way it fights. In order to implement a draft, we would have to change the entire way the military trains and operates today. This would (in my opinion, and the opinion of senior military leaders) result in a much less effective military.
A draft is a good way to fight wars of 50 years ago. It is a lousy way to fight wars today. Today's military members are highly trained professionals. The days of giving a couple month's of training on firing a rifle and tossing a grenade, then sending men off to combat are long, long gone. In today's military, even the basic infantry is "high tech." You don't train someone to operate and maintain highly sophisticated military equipment overnight. It takes a minimum of 18 months to 2 years to turn out a trained Soldier, Airman, Sailor, or Marine. It takes even longer than that for many military specialties.
According to the Selective Service, if a draft were implemented today, it would take 193 days for the first inductee to report in. After that, it would take another 12 to 18 months to train them and form them into new combat units. In short, if we instituted a draft today, inductees would not be combat effective until about two years from now (at which time, their two year service commitment would be over).
Qualifications/Disqualifications. For more than 25 years, each of the military services have come to rely upon the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) testing program to determine whether or not one has the aptitude to learn military jobs. If a draft were re-instituted, it would be far too easy for individuals who did not wish to serve to intentionally score low on this exam. The military would have no way of knowing which skills these individuals would be capable of learning. As I said, even today's infantry is "high tech," and we have to have the ability to determine whether or not one even has the mental capability of succeeding before we waste thousands of taxpayers dollars to pay for the training.
