@Moosefish I know you are 100% in the corner of there not being a draft but this dude raises some decent points. He's a green beret which doesn't make his opinions any more credible than any other ex-military, but still something.
He's usually pretty reasonable and well-thought of in his videos. I don't think our military could fight a world war with the current undermanned military something does need to change
I finally got to watch it all (super-busy at work right now). Here are my thoughts:
1. He lists several accurate "facts", but comes to inaccurate conclusions. They are based on a narrow view of how the US wages war, which I will address.
2. The 'auto-registration' for the draft is a complete nothing. It should have been done long ago, as the previous system is archaic & the move will save millions. This is the government doing things correctly (shocking, I know).
3. He spends a lot of time discussing how people that think they can avoid the draft, won't be able to. It's a non-sequitur argument, imo.
Here's my argument against everything he said:
1. The concept that we will wage wars w/ large amounts of (Army/ground) troops, holding ground & advancing forward in mass is outdated. It's simply not how any of the "plans" on the book intend to defeat any enemy. It's not how the DoD is built & any attempt to shift to anything resembling it would be both a disaster & a complete abandonment of how our forces have been constructed for the past 40 years.
Can we do it conceptually? Yes. In a limited manner. Is it a strategy to defeat a peer/near-peer? Hell no. We have never been constructed that way since the natural after-effects of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of '86 (for good reason).
Big Caveat: Anybody w/ heavy, hands-on experience w/ the "War on Terror" would understandably have a difficult time accepting this. The US flexed for that mission, but still did not fundamentally change our overall 'Great War' strategy. That never changed and also never (understandably) got much attention. We effectively fought for a generation w/ an ad hoc approach, while (under) funding our actual strategy (a losing combo).
2. His mentioning of China only makes my point above worse for him. There aren't enough warm bodies in the US to wage a "classic", WWII-style ground war across China (forgive me if I avoid an otherwise-hilarious 'never fight a land war in Asia' joke)
There are
105 (!!!!!) cities in China w/ a reported population of over 1 million.
SOURCE
How do you "defeat" an enemy that large, w/ such a heavy reliance on ground forces (enough to force a draft) with any semblance of authenticity? You don't.
Your strategy has to rely on force multipliers & target centers of gravity (whether you adhere to that strategy or not) and force their hand. It's precise, it's deadly, & it removes their ability to wage war. It's the only way...and none of it requires large amounts of ground forces that need an ill trained & equipped conscripted force to supplement. The cost alone of training/equipping & then supporting that large a number is staggering.
PLUS: There is a definite push (vetoed by Biden) to increase junior-enlisted pay by as much as 30% (long overdue). It's going to pass in '25, because it has to if you want to keep the beating heart of our forces. Can you imagine the exponential cost increase when you add a large conscripted force to that price tag? Not going to happen.
We have better options before we get to that point: Stop-loss, recall, & Reserve/Guard troops. If we are still waging war after those assets have been exhausted....we've already lost.
3. I absolutely respect his time as a Green Beret. But, his viewpoint is colored by his own experience. That experience lacks any real exposure w/ Grand Strategy, Deterrence, or Theater-wide effects & operations.
To put it another way: He's an absolute expert at the tactical level. I would trust his opinion over mine under those terms. However, unless his experience is abnormal for an any Green Beret (Officer or Enlisted) he lacks exposure to both the academic and practical application of what I mention above.
This is a common flaw w/ the Army. Their thinking is very rigid & Army-centric. The rest of us are very familiar w/ Joint Planning (at least those of us that don't spell 'joint' as "A-R-M-Y"
)
Source? My own JPME II experience, which was ~70% Army Officer. Lots of really good dudes, some (
) really smart, but handicapped by their inability to think outside of Army constructs.
Joint efforts are very capable. Learning what all that means, how it's employed, & what the actual capabilities are is a unique education. It takes expertise not only for your own mission, but also (at least) an educated understanding of what everybody else brings to the fight. Joint Planning is emphasized & valued because of that. It's the reason I'm J-coded (and why the DoD would ever bother to track that).
Again: I'm not knocking his experience. But, I don't think he has the breadth required to be able to debate the theoretical need for any conscripted force. But, I could be wrong.
4. The option often dismissed: Nuclear.
We are not going to sacrifice millions of US troops w/o attempting to end a large-scale war w/ careful application of our nuclear assets. Why?
1. Because the near-peer, nuclear-capable enemy is either already considering it or has already used those assets
2. It is and has been the backbone of our entire defense strategy for more than 70 years. Any Commander in Chief that automatically ignores this option is a failure. It has to be on the table as an option, because to ignore it is ignoring existential threats.
We've been living in a type of 'peace dividend' that pretends that this will "never happen", but that's fantasy-land. We have the big stick and we should use it, if necessary.
Bottom, bottom line: A conscripted force does not make our forces stronger & certainly does not make us more capable of defeating any peer/near peer foe. Drafting anybody would be counter-productive.
