Is it time to bring back the draft? As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on and recruiting volunteers gets harder, the idea of a military draft seems less far-fetched.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: NATIONAL

With American forces bogged down in Iraq and the military struggling to meet its commitments around the globe, some lawmakers and military experts are asking a very controversial question: Is it time to bring back the draft?

It's been more than 30 years since the U.S. last had a draft, during the tumult of the Vietnam War. Although the Bush administration says the military can meet its needs with the current all-volunteer force, some analysts aren't so sure.

"To put it into terms that most Americans can understand," writes Philip Gold in his book The Coming Draft, "the Army is living, people-wise, from paycheck to paycheck, and is only one lost paycheck away from disaster."

Of the four military service branches, the Army, which is carrying much of the combat load in Iraq and Afghanistan, seems to be having the hardest time. It failed to meet its recruitment goals in 2005, although it did meet them for 2006. But there are some indications that the Army is relaxing its standards: The age limit for enlistment has been raised from 35 to 42, and high school dropouts made up 19 percent of new enlistees in 2006, up from 6 percent in 2003.

Five years into the war on terrorism, the U.S. military is stretched to the limit. Its 1.4 million active-duty troops may sound like a big pool to draw from, but that figure includes support units, training units, headquarters personnel, and others who do not go to the front. During a prolonged war like the one in Iraq, frontline units have to be rotated out and replaced while they rest and retrain. So keeping 138,000 ground troops in Iraq and 23,000 in Afghanistan, while maintaining forces elsewhere in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia creates a strain.

And what if another military conflict arises--in North Korea or Iran, for example? A Pentagon-appointed panel recently concluded that the military would lack the forces to handle its current operations if new crises emerged.

MILITARY OPPOSITION

Still, most of the top military brass seem to be opposed to a draft. The Pentagon says volunteers meet the military's needs better than a conscripted force would. First, volunteers are more committed to being in the armed forces than people who are forced to join would be. And many volunteers are considering a career in the military, so as a group, volunteers stay longer. (During the draft, only one of every eight soldiers re-enlisted once his original tour of duty was over; today, one of every two re-enlists.) With less turnover, there are fewer people to train, and the armed forces as a whole are more experienced.

Furthermore, the Pentagon says volunteers are a better fit for today's military, which makes use of a lot more technology and sophisticated equipment than in the past: fewer, but more-skilled soldiers are what the armed forces need, they say.

"Today's force is smarter, more experienced, and more economically diverse" than the draft-era military, says Bill...