Reinstating the Draft?

There's more talk of a military draft. This is from the San Fransisco Chronicle:

The war-strained all-volunteer U.S. military has a growing manpower problem and a cross-section of Washington policymakers has proposed a solution -- increase the size of the regular military by 30,000, 40,000 or even 100,000 or more.

While just about all the proponents maintain they want to achieve the increase by offering recruits bigger financial incentives or through appeals to patriotism, lurking in the background is a possibility that for now remains anathema to all but a few. The military draft, which coughed up its last conscript in 1973, could make a comeback if recruiting doesn't pick up and if America's commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan turn into long-term occupations or if the Bush administration's tough-minded foreign policy means military action in places like Iran or North Korea.

It's important to note that the Bush administration adamantly scorns the idea of a resumed draft. It won't even agree to a permanent increase in the Army's size, which Congress temporarily boosted by 30,000 last year, saying instead that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plan to transform the military into a high-tech, mobile force will meet the nation's needs.

But the administration does admit it has a problem, particularly in filling the ranks in the 500,000-person regular Army and the 675,000-person Army National Guard and Army Reserve, which have been called upon to carry a large part of the burden of deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. In a March 23 press conference, Army Secretary Francis Harvey said that in the first two months of 2005, the active Army was meeting 94 percent of its recruiting goal, the Reserve 90 percent and the Guard 75 percent.

However,

The idea is widely attacked. "The argument for a draft is political hot air," said Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank.

But he warned that if the Iraq occupation drags on, other foreign military operations are launched and a half-million more soldiers are needed, "I don't think we can get there without a draft."

"Anything less than that, I can't see it's necessary and it would be counterproductive" by burdening the military with people who don't want to be there, Goure added.

Charles Pena of the libertarian Cato Institute, which opposes the draft, said the only way the public would accept a draft would be if it was part of a broader national service plan in which young people could still volunteer for the military.

"It might be politically acceptable if all the pressures lead to an increase in the military," Pena said. "But if the administration can transform Iraqi security forces so they assume more of the operations in Iraq and can bring forces home, we'll see the pressures wane."

Lawrence Korb, assistant defense secretary under President Ronald Reagan, supports the all-volunteer military. But he said the Bush administration is severely straining the military and faces a deadline.

"You've got about another year," said Korb, who is now an analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. "If you don't cut back in Iraq, your all-volunteer Army and Marine Corps are going to be in big trouble."