National Service and the All-Volunteer Force

• Author: James Golby,Hugh Liebert
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17715245
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018
• Subject Matter: Disputatio Sine Fine

Disputatio Sine Fine

National Service and the

All-Volunteer Force:

A Response to Hauser’s

“Why America Should

Restore the Draft”

Hugh Liebert

1

and James Golby

2

Abstract

In “Midlife Crisis? The All-Volunteer Force at Forty,” we illustrated the regional and

partisan imbalance in today’s all-volunteer force (AVF), and we argued that restoring

the draft is neither an effective nor a practicable policy solution to this problem. In

response, Colonel Hauser has argued for restoring the draft, substantially increasing

the number of U.S. ground forces and reinvigorating Congressional foreign policy-

making. In this article, we question the practicability of Colonel Hauser’s proposals,

and we argue that a restored draft would not improve national character, facilitate

sounder foreign policy decisions, or reduce costs relative to an AVF.

Keywords

all-volunteer force, draft, national service, civil–military gap, partisanship, regional

representation

In “Midlife Crisis? The All-Volunteer Force at Forty,” we illustrate the regional and

partisan imbalance in today’s all-volunteer force (AVF), and we argue that since

restoring the draft is neither an effective nor a practicable policy option, “new and

1

Department of Social Sciences, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY, USA

2

Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, DC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Hugh Liebert, Department of Social Sciences, U.S. Military Academy, 607 Cullum Road, West Point,

NY 10996, USA.

Email: hugh.liebert@usma.edu

Armed Forces & Society

2018, Vol. 44(1) 186-192

ªThe Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/0095327X17715245

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