In the last 5 weeks, I’ve written two articles on the draft for the Hoover Institution’s on-line publication Defining Ideas. The first made the case against the military draft; the second made the case against universal national service.
In responses on the Defining Ideas site, some commenters argued that one advantage of the draft is that it causes people who benefit from defense to have “skin in the game.”
In response to my first article, one commenter wrote:
Our freedom is not for free. David Henderson wants those who are prepared to risk their lives for our freedom to do that for the benefit of those who want their freedom for free.
In response to my second article, one commenter wrote:
When American men do not serve their country, they put no skin in the game and, as a result, do not feel that they are obliged to fight and defend.
Actually, though, if the goal is for beneficiaries of defense to have skin in the game, an all-volunteer force does a better job than the draft.
Why?
The reason is that the draft puts a disproportionate burden on draftees. An all-volunteer force, on the other hand, spreads the burden to beneficiaries of defense whether or not they are in the military.
In the late 1970s, there was a serious push, spearheaded by Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), to restore the draft. I got copies of all of the bills to do that. Every single one of them—and there were many—explicitly cut first-term pay, often by a large percent. Why pay when you can threaten potential draftees with prison sentences for not complying? So the burden would have been placed disproportionately on those who were drafted.
Consider, by contrast, an all-volunteer force. The reason the military had problems recruiting high-quality personnel in the late 1970s was that we had an economic boom combined with high inflation. It was a double whammy. The boom gave potential recruits good alternatives to military service; failure to raise pay in line with the Consumer Price Index made military service even less attractive than otherwise.
President Jimmy Carter got wise to the situation relatively late in his 4-year stint in the White House and, with Congress, raised first-term pay. Then Ronald Reagan became president and raised it again. That’s how we got out of the late 1970s recruiting doldrums.
So note what happened. Because we had a volunteer military, the burden of defense couldn’t be shifted onto the shoulders of young military personnel. Instead it was shared by all taxpayers.
We saw something similar in the middle of the 2000s, during the second war against Iraq. Here’s what I wrote in September 2015, drawing on a scholarly article co-authored with then Marine Major Chad W. Seagren:
Henderson and Seagren note that, as the number of troops in Vietnam increased from 1964 on, real military personnel outlays per military member barely budged. By contrast, real military personnel outlays per member rose substantially as the U.S. government got in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. From an average of $73,887 per member between 1996 and 2001, real outlays rose to an average of $103,772 from 2004 to 2010, an increase of 40 percent. The reason: the government had to increase pay to meet its manpower targets. Henderson and Seagren point out that this higher cost per military member resulted in about an extra $45 billion per year in U.S. government spending. That higher cost was, admittedly, financed mainly with deficits rather than with current taxes. But deficits now, unless the government later defaults or cuts spending, lead to higher taxes in the future. And if, as seems likely, the future tax system even roughly resembles the present tax system in forcing higher income people to pay a much higher percent of their income in taxes, the rich and powerful will pay more for war.
The bottom line is that if you want all people who benefit from defense to have skin in the game and not just focus on a small group, you should oppose the draft and favor an all-volunteer military.
Postscript:
In researching this piece, I came across this Econlib article by Chad Seagren, “Service in a Free Society,” May 2, 2011. I had lined it up and edited it during my time as editor of the Econlib articles. I had forgotten about it. It speaks to many of the issues with the draft, and does so well.
READER COMMENTS
nobody.really
Aug 5 2024 at 5:31pm
Nice point. That said,
1: Do people who pay no income tax—such as a member of a married couple earning $27,700—still have skin in the game? [Insert complaints about “the 47 percent of takers in America….”)
2: Would a universal-ish draft a la Israel fulfill the “skin in the game” criteria? Even if pay is sub-market level, the burden I bear as a conscript would be offset by the benefit I receive for the rest of my life as a taxpayer. (True, the draft wouldn’t be truly universal, in that people who are now beyond draft age, or who immigrate after draft age, wouldn’t participate….)
For what it’s worth, as of 2015 Israel was anticipating shifting to having an all-volunteer force. Why? Among other reasons, declining social cohesion triggered by grievance that certain classes of religious Jews were exempt. (The Israeli Supreme Court just eliminated that exemption.) This sounds a bit like the grievance that soldiers in Vietnam felt about people evading the draft by going to college. But when you eliminate the presumption that everyone is supposed to participate, this sense of grievance may disappear—even if a similar social class ends up in the military under either a draft or a volunteer system.
(In the US, the shift to an all-volunteer system coincided with 1) a shift to recruiting more women, 2) increased funding—including the adoption of more sophisticated weapons systems and coordination between the military branches—and 3) an increased focus on recruiting people with a high school diploma—thought to be necessary for operating the increasingly sophisticated miliary systems. Thus, it’s hard to tease out the consequence of the shift to an all-volunteer force separated from the consequences of these other changes.)
Matthias
Aug 6 2024 at 3:28am
A universal draft would at least have an easier time being morally justified than one that’s for a subset of the population only.
But it’s less efficient than taxing and hiring volunteers.
MarkW
Aug 5 2024 at 6:30pm
Well put. The US is likely never to have a massed-forces war like WWII again (and even then it had no use for ALL of the eligible young men available). Also even then, the only ones who really had ‘skin in the game’ were those selected young men.
Matthias
Aug 6 2024 at 3:31am
Yes, it seems weird to bring the ‘skin in the game’ argument but then not argue for drafting women nor all men.
(You could make an exception for mothers perhaps. But then you should probably also make an exception for fathers?)
In any case, taxing everyone and paying volunteers is more efficient.
You can even pay first time soldiers more than returning soldiers, if you want to get a large part of the population through basic training.
Richard A.
Aug 5 2024 at 10:14pm
“failure to raise pay in line with the Consumer Price Index made military service even less attractive than otherwise.”
It’s actually the failure to raise pay in line with private sector pay, not with the CPI. Granted, there is a strong correlation between wage and price inflation.
Andrew_FL
Aug 6 2024 at 12:20pm
Failure to raise pay *at least* in line with the consumer price index, is how that should be read.
Jeff M.
Aug 6 2024 at 1:49pm
I would be an advocate of Heinlein’s approach in “Starship Troopers” where the only people who were allowed to vote were “Citizens” who had served in the military.
Thomas Boyle
Aug 6 2024 at 2:22pm
Exactly right! The draft enables most people (all women, plus everyone over 26) to minimize their own “skin in the game” at the expense of a minority (men between 18 and 26). This affects the nation’s willingness to go to war, its willingness to equip the military and its willingness to pay well. I don’t know that we could agree on a name for this practice (some pretty strong ones suggest themselves), but it sure isn’t “patriotism” or “fairness”.
What’s more, we would expect fewer genuine volunteers for a military that uses a draft. Aside from the severe moral problem of supporting an organization that uses forced labor, the organization will unquestionably do less for its personnel than it otherwise would, whether through low pay or a greater willingness to use them as “cannon fodder” (whether by mission design or provision of equipment or both).
steve
Aug 6 2024 at 11:27pm
I think you are wrong on this. The lottery meant that everyone of draft age was susceptible to being drafted, at least in theory. There were ways for rich kids to get out of it but everyone else was at risk. It’s one of the things that lead to the student protests. Some of them probably cared about My Lai and the lies we heard about casualties but mostly it was not wanting to be drafted. Your point is probably for fair for after the lottery was done and people were chosen.
Steve
Dave
Aug 7 2024 at 11:27am
I think the thing you missed is that not everyone is of draft age.
“It’s one of the things that lead to the student protests. Some of them probably cared about My Lai and the lies we heard about casualties but mostly it was not wanting to be drafted.”
Yes. The students were of draft age, where the downsides were concentrated.
steve
Aug 7 2024 at 4:21pm
Everyone doesnt need to be of draft age or even draftable. If you had a son who could be drafted, a brother or boyfriend then you were affected. (Note that I called them student protests but a lot more than just students protested. They were the most vigorous, but it wasn’t just the male students.)
Steve
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