Why America Should Restore the Draft

Abstract

While agreeing with Professor Liebert and Colonel Golby that the All-Volunteer Force—which in 1973 replaced the Selective Service System (the draft) enacted by Congress at the onset of World War II—has worsened the estrangement of America’s military from the larger society and that this estrangement constitutes a hazard to our nation’s democracy, Colonel Hauser disputes their notion that nothing much can be done to remediate that hazard other than encouraging a return to historical/traditional nonpartisanship on the part of active and retired military officers, presumably encouraged by civilian political leadership. Instead, he suggests, a return to the draft, within a program of national service, would not only ameliorate military-societal separation but also provide a multitude of strategic, social, political, and economic benefits to the entire nation.