After recent ruminations on the wisdom of returning to some form of military conscription, a Reagan-era Pentagon official counters with the blessings of today’s All-Volunteer Force. Elliot J. Feldman writes in Saturday’s Washington Post that the woes of today’s force are due, in large measure, to civilians failing to keep a tighter rein on mission creep. A draft, which he maintains would be inherently unfair, won’t fix what some folks say has gone wrong (too few troops fighting too-long wars).
He concludes with a pretty smart take:
We must understand what we are capable of and stop posturing that, with force, we can do anything. There is nothing patriotic about sending young people to wars that cannot be won or to transform foreign countries uninterested in our way of life. It is not so much about being modest as it is about being realistic. We should recognize what we can do and maintain the capability to do it. No less, but no more.