Brian O’Brien rejects the idea that bringing back conscription would keep the U.S. out of unnecessary wars:
This reasoning arose during the Iraq War when it was proposed that a draft might have stopped the invasion because young people would have felt personally at risk of being deployed and would have protested. Because there was no draft, that fear wasn’t there and there was no uprising as during the Vietnam War when massive demonstrations were held across the nation.
O’Brien makes a compelling case that the U.S. fought longer, bloodier wars when it had conscription than when it has not had it. The U.S. did not stay out of wars of choice during that same period. While there is a certain logic behind the assumption that policymakers with draft-age children would be less inclined to support a foreign war, it still doesn’t keep those wars from happening. Even if we could bring conscription back tomorrow, prevailing assumptions about the U.S. role in the world and the definition of our “vital interests” would remain unchanged. The U.S. would end up fighting even more unnecessary wars with the increased manpower available to the government.
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