Jeffrey Fisher is the director of community and research for IntellectualCapital.com. His email address is jeff@intellectualcapital.com.

"War is the continuation of policy [Politik] by other means." - Carl von Clausewitz, On War

"Clemenceau said war was to important to be left to the generals... [T]oday, war is too important to be left to politicians." - Gen. Jack D. Ripper, USAF, "Dr. Strangelove"

Talk of the draft raises specters of the Cold War. Understandably so, since for many of us, the draft is most directly and viscerally associated with the Vietnam War, the hottest spot in an otherwise temperate 40 years. Moreover, for many Americans, the lesson of Vietnam is that politicians cannot and should not run wars. That same lesson then gets projected backward onto, for example, Hitler's dismissal/overruling of perfectly sound military commanders late in WWII, which then becomes further evidence for the truism it was enlisted to support.

But the prosecution of a war is tricky business. If we do not believe in war for war's sake, then we must accept with Clausewitz that wars take place to further certain specific policy goals. Unfortunately, that's where the ambiguity of the German Politik, which can mean in English both "policy" and "politics," comes into play. Policy is, alas, inseparable from politics. But is it entirely inseparable from politicians?

War and patriotism

When the Jack D. Ripper character took issue with the famous Clemenceau chestnut, he meant what many Americans post-Vietnam would also mean, that war should be placed back in the hands of the military. But if we do not want the military making policy, even de facto (as Ripper himself attempts to do in Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove"), then we may agree with Ripper's conclusions, but we must reject his solution.

IC posters to Danny Glover's article on the draft begin to explore a third possibility: the role and mechanisms of popular participation in the decision to make war.

Kevin C leads off the discussion with a representatively passionate statement about war, the draft and patriotism:

I believe that U.S. leaders have cynically and viciously abused the patriotism of the U.S. public. We need to get back to the idea that soldiers are defenders of the nation, not glorified policemen, or just another set of tools for ideology. U.S. citizens will with little question answer the call of the draft. What amazes me is not that there isn't more patriotism, but that there's still plenty of it, despite the disgusting misuse of our loyalty and dedication since WWII.

Kevin challenges the New World Order (and even Truman Doctrine) political role of the military. The phrase, "defenders of the nation," however, admits of some ambiguity. There remains the question of "national interests" and their defense, which might be considered defending the nation. Kevin's revulsion at the exploitation of American patriotism points up the real issue, though: a declining faith in politicians' abilities to make these decisions with anything approaching objectivity.

While I think he slightly misconstrues some of the ambiguities of Kevin's post, Rackjite nonetheless extends Kevin's point regarding patriotism:

Desertion, draft dodging and bounty hopping were near Olympic sports back then [in the 1860's]. While you may believe it "unpatriotic" for men to question their so-called 'duty' to protect the nation, I would rather have "unpatriotic" men like that around than the "patriotic" men of the SS Totenkopf and Einsatzgruppen units who went off to "protect the fatherland" by murdering millions upon millions of men, women, and children.

Both Kevin and Rackjite express the opinion common on the boards that there is a certain fundamental respect in which it is incumbent upon citizens to question the decisions of their leaders in foreign policy as in everything else. That may sound banal, but the point is not a small one, if we take it seriously enough to do something about it.

At stake with the draft

In that respect, conscription policy takes center stage as directly relevant to our understanding of foreign policy in general and war in particular in a participatory democracy. Brett Verona argues that the very lack of a draft has important political consequences for making war:

I think the draft is abhorrent. Were there no draft, there would have been no Vietnam, because we would have run out of people willing to be killed for nothing. If a country supports a war, as in World War 1 and World War 2, there is no need for a draft due to the vast number of volunteers. The best way to deter entanglement in unpopular wars not supported by the country is to not have a draft.

Brett's argument here focuses on the policy ramifications. You can't fight a war with no soldiers, so if your war is (or will be) unpopular, you have to come up with some other way to achieve your policy/political objectives (and no distinction is required here between domestic and foreign objectives).

AlanH takes issue with Brett's theorization of the draft as war-enabling, however.

Brett, you make the assumption that if there were no draft, the government would have pursued the war in the same way. Maybe they would've, maybe they wouldn't have, but the fact is that the Vietnam War was a bad war because it was prosecuted badly, not because its goals were bad.

But this is precisely the point, is it not? What were the goals of the Vietnam War, and was there national consensus on them? We don't even need to answer the first question to know that the answer to the second is, "no."

What is at stake in the present discussion is whether the war could have been prosecuted at all without a draft. If we respond, "no" (and draftees constituted 88% of Army infantry riflemen in Vietnam in 1969), then we are looking at draft-resistance as a political tool by which the citizenry requires politicians to respect its wishes. Even if we answer, "yes," given the prosecution of the war in Vietnam, that means that we think there were sufficient volunteers to prosecute the war for as long as it went on, and that still supports the same point -- that volunteerism may be a legitimate barometer of support for foreign military interventions.

This is a case against the draft.

The (meaningless?) politics of war

A couple of posters approach the issue from the opposite direction, however. Curtis thinks a draft would actually increase public participation in war-related decisions:

I think some of us don't want a draft because we fear being sent out on wars like the one against Yugoslavia. There is a longing for it, though. I would like to see a draft again, it bonds the people with their leadership and government. The problem only being fear that bad things will happen first, that I will be killed not for the sovereignty of my nation on an excursion caused by meaningless politics. Perhaps reinstating the draft would eliminate that though, by bringing political decisions that the lawmakers decide home.

Curtis sounds a number of important notes in this post. Like Kevin, he is skeptical of "meaningless politics," but one which leaves open the possibility of a meaningful politics when it comes to making war. That "meaningful politics" might take the shape of the deeper and broader consideration of war-making he believes would be engendered by a draft.

Merwyn agrees:

How would the nation react if the draft were renewed? Many more citizens would oppose military escapades such as those our current commander-in-chief has ordered; and many more would demand sound, rational reasons to send themselves, their sons and even their daughters to kill and be killed. Liberals and conservatives would engage in passionate debate concerning the obligation -- contrasted with the privilege -- of women to serve in the military. I therefore think the draft should be reinstated.

In other words, if I understand properly, we might say that the very draft itself drove the opposition to involvement in Vietnam precisely because it forced us all to consider the real consequences, close to home, of an interventionist policy.

In either case, the argument made by both sides in this discussion, pro-draft and anti-draft, revolves around the issue of direct citizen participation in the decision to go to war. Such participation does not take the power to declare war away from the Congress, but it does limit that power.

War is indeed political, but that doesn't mean it ought to be left to politicians any more than it ought to be left to generals. If we want to take war out of the hands of the politicians and put it in the hands of the people, which policy is more likely to produce that result: an all-volunteer or a conscripted military?