Trump advisers propose mandatory military service

Some in the former president’s camp say it’s time more young adults put “some skin in the game.”

JD Vance appears to be in on requiring the kids of non-billionaires to serve in the military too:

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a potential Trump running mate, said in an interview that he sees a clear need for measures to boost participation. “I like the idea of national service. And I’m not talking about in wartime,” he said, calling for more Americans to put “some skin in the game.”

Cognitive_Dissident,

Uh huh. The military literally indoctrinates you, breaks down and destroys who you are and rebuilds you the way they want you to be, which does not include critical thinking skills or thinking for yourself at all, just ‘following orders’ and ‘conforming’. What they want here is clear: make young people into obedient robots who don’t question authority at all. They want to put religion in public schools, too, which also would discourage thinking for yourself and questioning things (“”“you have to have FAITH!”“”). The end result? An entire generation of obedient robots.

Objection, (edited )

From the perspective of the ruling class, a draft would be an absolutely terrible idea. Many Americans do not care at all what the military does because the victims are mostly PoC foreigners, and if some American soldiers die they might care a little bit, but they chose to be there and knew the risks so it’s whatever. This apathy allows the ruling class to do whatever they want, to go on these random, decades-long invasions that leave hundreds of thousands dead, and nobody actually gives a shit at all, and the handful that do can be written off as traitors and foreign agents.

Nothing would get Americans to start paying attention and caring about foreign policy like forcing them to get involved and potentially risking their own lives. From the ruling class’s perspective, they’ve got a good thing going. They’d have to be truly desperate for manpower to fuck that up, and they’re not.

I won’t say they won’t do it because I don’t want to underestimate their stupidity. But if they do decide to start bringing people in who don’t wanna be there, away from their bread and circuses, to get front row seats to all the horrors and atrocities the media doesn’t like talking about, and give them guns and training, well, all I can say is that’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for them.

frezik,

Lots of European countries have mandatory military service. Including scandanavian countries that are sometimes held up as a social democracy ideal. It works because they are primarily defensive in nature. When invaded, you want to have a large reserve list to fall back on; people who can return to service with minimal training. Motivation isn’t usually a problem, because people tend to rally around the flag when invaded.

Conscription doesn’t work as well when you’re the aggressor. You have to convince those conscripts that they are here for a good reason. They otherwise start questioning why the hell they’re putting their life on the line for a bunch of rich idiots at the top. Even if they don’t desert, they won’t put in their full effort.

This is basically the difference between the armies of Russia and Ukraine. They’re both relying on conscripts, but one is clearly the aggressor and has motivation issues. We can also look back to America’s history in Vietnam. Lots of people both pressed into service and at home who question why the hell we’re doing this.

So what you do instead is ramp up jingoisim. Convince people they should enlist, and then it was their own “free will” to run off and die for rich idiots at the top.

Some of the people most opposed to mandatory service are the top military officers. They want a voulenteer military, not because they’re high minded or anything, but because they know what kind of wars America fights.

That is, until one party had its brain eaten by a man who doesn’t understand the playbook.

wildcardology,

Ah yes, the famous draft dodger that will disinherit his children if they join the armed forces.

JimSamtanko,

First lest see trump’s service record…

geekworking,

Ozzy summed it up well:

Politicians hide themselves away They only started the war Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor

HelixDab2,

Okay, let’s thinks some of this through.

measures to remedy what they see as a “crisis” facing the all-volunteer military.

This is accurate. All branches of the military are having problems meeting their recruiting requirements, because kids in general in the US are no longer fit enough to make it into basic training in the first place. So while there are enough raw people that have the mental aptitude that are trying to get in–but just barely–so many of them are unable to meet the physical requirements that the military lacks the personnel that it needs.

He described the concept as a common “rite of passage,” one that would create a sense of “shared sacrifice” among America’s youth.

Okay, yes. This is potentially correct. However, you’re also going to see a lot of resentment. So perhaps you won’t see the esprit de corps that you might want.

he says leads to “unnecessary delays” and “unwarranted rejections” for some people with disabilities or other conditions who otherwise want to serve.

I was one of those people that might have been an “unwarranted rejection”; I scored quite high on the ASVAB at the time (I think 96th percentile in the mid 90s), but was disqualified because I was on Prozac. Now I would be disqualified because I’m on the autism spectrum. (I was then too, but hadn’t been diagnosed.) I might have done well in the military. I might have hated it. But I never got the chance to find out.

Only 1 percent of the U.S. population serves in the armed forces, Army data shows.

Okay, see, here’s a huge problem. Mandatory military service would mean expanding the military by 100x. Even if you only served 18 months or 2 years as a conscript, that’s an ENORMOUS amount of money that has to be spent by the gov’t feeding, housing, clothing, training, providing healthcare, and paying (since you kinda gotta pay the troops) for so goddamn many people, and that assumes that they entirely cut all post-separation benefits for anyone that is conscripted (e.g., no VA for people that become disabled, no GI Bill, etc.) The infrastructure spending alone for that, and the number of new bases that would need to be built, is staggering. Right now we spend 3.5% of our GDP on the military. Even if we went low-tech for all the soldiers that were conscripted, you could expect to see that number triple, easily. That means that you’re either doing massive deficit spending, cutting everything else that taxes are spent on, or raising taxes by a lot.

Tower,

expanding the military by 100x

Send massive amounts of money to defense contractors…

entirely cut all post-separation benefits for anyone that is conscripted

without any future liability obligations…

you could expect to see that number triple, easily

and leaving tons of room to grift…

cutting everything else that taxes are spent on

all while also getting to fuck over the poors?

Somewhere, a senator just spontaneously jizzed his pants.

HelixDab2,

all while also getting to fuck over the poors?

Not just the poors though. You’d have to cut infrastructure spending, Social Security, Medicaid/Medicare, criminal justice, food and drug administration (you know, the people that make sure food is safe?), everything that makes our country more or less functional. This isn’t something that the 1% would be fine with; it’s more like the .1%, or .01%, because even most of the very wealthy people would end up getting badly fucked by the kind of cuts you would need to have in order to add that many people to the military without instituting oppressive taxes.

I think that saying that the current military budget would triple if there was mandatory conscription is actually being incredibly conservative. If you look at military spending as a percentage of GDP when the US last had something even in the same county as mandatory conscription–World War II–the US was spending over 40% of the GDP on the military.

I can’t imagine most people in the US being okay with that kind of loss of necessary gov’t function combined with insanely high taxes unless the US was also involved in an existential war.

Fedizen,

“peace candidate”

TheBananaKing,

Ah yes, slavery.

LodeMike, (edited )

Just in case anyone doesn’t know: the main supreme court case about conscription basically had the decision of “But Mom! All the other countries do it!”

RGB3x3,

It would be far from “slavery” in the typical sense.

If this happened, those people would get food, housing, healthcare and job training while getting paid for it.

Though I’m definitely not in favor of conscription because how can you call yourself free if you’re required to do involuntary military work for the government.

TheBananaKing,

You think slaves weren’t fed?

Leate_Wonceslace,
@Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Yeah, the comment just made 0 sense; Slaves got free food, lodging and Healthcare all the way back to biblical times. They also got a free dating service so the master could keep them forever.

Dragomus,

I’ll add to that, they also got free “education” to learn skills needed for their “job” and how to adress their “superiors”.

ChonkyOwlbear,

That’s a really roundabout way of socialising healthcare.

psmgx,

Service Guarantees Healthcare. Do you want to know more?

Notyou,

I remember when Obama suggested mandatory civil service. Not necessarily military but local government or parks. Doing some local community work. I thought that was a great idea.

Having mandatory military is dumb. I was in for a few enlistments and you don’t want someone forced to be there when people’s lives are on the line. Vietnam ended up with a bunch of officers getting fragged by disgruntled draftees.

tacosanonymous,

I think it would be a great way to nearly eradicate unemployment and justify free college/trade school until we can force UBI down politicians’ throats.

CheeseNoodle,

I think some kind of public service is potentially good but you have to sort out your incentive structure first. Otherwise all those extra workers just end up being the only workers.

TheBigBrother,

Good, easier to organize the proletariat dictatorship.

ricecake,

That’s the worst idea I’ve heard on so many levels.

Drafting people is immoral.

Also, it’s politically stupid because the draft is just… Extremely unpopular. Universal mandatory service will be radically less popular.

Then, you’re filling the military with a bunch of people who don’t want to be there. Suddenly a sizable portion of the US military is composed of new recruits who don’t want to be there. If only half the people who come up for mandatory service actually get drafted, that’s still more people than are currently in the US military. This will do wonders for effectiveness and morale.

Finally, once they get out, you have an insane amount of GI bill benefits to pay out, to say nothing of the long term VA costs that come from more than doubling the size of the military. (Potentially up to a 10x increase, assuming four year term of service and roughly 4M 18 year olds per year).
Or you can change the law to deny GI bill benefits to draftees, which is definitely going to be popular with the people whose life you’re stealing.

I suppose “draft everyone” is technically a way to give everyone subsidized college education and universal healthcare, but I think there’s better ways.

Just the dumbest possible people.

solidgrue,
@solidgrue@lemmy.world avatar

Then, you’re filling the military with a bunch of people who don’t want to be there. Suddenly a sizable portion of the US military is composed of new recruits who don’t want to be there. If only half the people who come up for mandatory service actually get drafted, that’s still more people than are currently in the US military. This will do wonders for effectiveness and morale.

A gift for Papa Putin, you say?

CodingCarpenter,

As if they would actually pay out on the GI bill. I’ve known more than a few that gets screwed over over stupid technicalities or paperwork. The fact is the US government does not give a shit about vets and that’s a sad thing

voracitude,

Sorry, I can’t. I have bone spurs.

hopesdead,
@hopesdead@startrek.website avatar

Just so he can call us losers if we end up dead? No thanks.

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