[geeks] Special skills draft?

[Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez]

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:40:50 -0400
  Phil Stracchino <alaric at caerllewys.net> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 09:53:47AM -0500, Mike Parson 
>wrote:
>> His reason for a draft to get rid of the volunteer 
>>military, so that
>> we'd be less willing to send conscripts into combat than 
>>volunteers who
>> knew what they were signing up for.
> 
> The other side of this problem is that a professional 
>volunteer force is
> generally skilled and competent because they *want* to 
>do what they're
> doing, but a force composed of draftees who don't want 
>to be there is
> gonna get handed its head with gravy and trimmings. 
> Look at Vietnam for
> a classic example: the all-volunteer USMC was doing very 
>nicely thank
> you until Congress decided that it knew how to fight a 
>war better than
> the Pentagon did, and replaced the Marines with 
>regular-Army draftees
> whose entire prior military experience was six weeks on 
>Parris Island,
> at which point everything started going to hell in a 
>handbasket.
> 

Well, there is always the counter example of WWII. Where 
conscript US forces handled the battle seasoned nazi army 
their own ass on a platter with potatoes and gravvy.

No matter how many marine divisions you had threw to 
VietNam the fact that the Vietcong/North Vietnamese were 
fighting for what they believe it was their home had far 
more motivational impact than the US folks sent there to 
fight for something they had little interest in besides 
getting the hell out of there in a single piece. The 
French saw the amount of casualties Ho Chi Minn and his 
merry boys were willing to take and decided it was not 
worth it and got the hell out of it. Technically the 
Americans won most battles, however when you are dealing 
with an enemy who has nothing to lose and who is willing 
to die for what it believes in, you might as well 
reconsider if you are in the same position. If you are 
not, get the hell out of there IMHO.

Professional armies are the answer most of the time, 
especially for self defence forces. However the amount of 
personnel and force you can maintain is limited, when the 
war gets far too big you have to reach for new sources of 
cannon fodder.