The DoD needs a kick in the opposite direction.

Make the Pentagon finally pass an audit. Cut its funding. It is clear the profligacy is incentivizing bad decisions - the new normal in the Strait of Hormuz being only the latest.

It's clearly too much of a toy and too much capability for the past few decades of both civilian and military administration. An entire generation only knows the United States military as an institution of blunder, excess and failure.

After cleaning house, the United States should also bring back the draft. More social spending should be paired with more public service. It will be harder to start wars of choice and treat veterans like beggars when everyone's kids will have to sacrifice. This will not degrade capability, as many of the most capable militaries in the world have a draft - notably Israel. Making people from Iowa and New York serve together would be good for a dangerously fracturing country. The "volunteer professional" military was created to get around opposition to Vietnam. It's a disgrace.

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nradov 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Concerns over the DoD failing audits are silly and uninformed. The reality is that they only started publishing full financial reports in FY2018 and are legally required to pass an audit in FY2028. The department is full of complex legacy systems and it's going to take years to modernize those no matter what.

https://www.dodig.mil/DoW-Financial-Statement-Audit-Explaine...

In the meantime, cutting funding accomplishes nothing and only punishes troops who can't do anything to fix the core problems. Despite the enormous budget the DoD is actually underfunded for their assigned missions. This is causing escalating failures and reducing readiness. The only solution is to scale back the missions, and that can only be done by Congress and the President. This is fundamentally a political issue so vote accordingly.

The notion of bringing back the draft is stupid. Most US senior military leaders don't even want conscripts: they're generally unmotivated, cause morale problems, and don't stick around. For an offensive expeditionary force they're worse than useless. Comparisons to Israel are irrelevant because they operate a territorial defense force which isn't expected to conduct sustained power projection far beyond their own borders. And it the new era of autonomous systems there's little need for mass armies anyway.

Veterans are hardly treated like beggars. Those who complete a full 20+ years of service (or are medically retired) receive a solid pension and medical benefits. While there are some flaws in the military retirement and disability system, and occasionally veterans don't get the services they deserve, it generally works pretty well for such a huge system.

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tyre 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Also pointing at the Hormuz situation as a victim of this is silly. I would be very surprised if the top military leaders truly believed that Iran couldn’t execute asymmetric warfare to disrupt the gulf without a US invasion.

Israel gave presentations to DoD that said they could affect regime change in Iran. The DoD said “lol yeah, okay buddy, ain’t now way in hell.” Israel had a single audience, Trump, and just had to play into his ego + pretending that this would be Venezuela 2.0.

	▲	godwinson__4-8 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Dan Caine has come out in testimony before the Senate in support of this war and this strategy, shoulder to shoulder with Hegseth. If this is due to post Venezuela kool-aid, then he drank from the same cup. Many others in the natsec space have resigned or been fired for standing by their convictions in the Trump era. The DoD is not without responsibility for this failure. Blaming Trump alone has been the sad redoubt of modern American discourse, a rather depressing reflection of a country that cannot look itself in the mirror, that treats Trump as a cause rather than a symptom. If the quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq had not occurred, Trump would likely have never been elected. His entire electoral premise has always been institutional incompetence. He famously was elected the first time by destroying the Republican guard from the inside, by tearing down Jeb Bush - a proxy for his brother and his two wars of failure.

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godwinson__4-8 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> The notion of bringing back the draft is stupid. Most US senior military leaders don't even want conscripts: they're generally unmotivated, cause morale problems, and don't stick around. For an offensive expeditionary force they're worse than useless. Comparisons to Israel are irrelevant because they operate a territorial defense force which isn't expected to conduct sustained power projection far beyond their own borders.

If most Americans don't want to fight sustained wars overseas, America should not fight. That is the point. It is easy to make declaring war a distant political issue when a tiny subset of the population fights, yet creates problems for generations across the world. The effects of interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran will likely continue to be felt for generations, and likely make future attacks on the homeland more probable given the asymmetric consequences of the United States continuing to create failed quagmires abroad.

The Iraq War would have probably not happened the way it did if there was a draft. If most Americans don't want to fight, then America should not go to war. What could be a simpler democratic principle?

Instead you seem to support and make excuses for a volunteer military, one with an (at minimum) two decade history of failure, whose hubris and excesses have multiplied in a time of increasing political polarization, lack of faith in institutions (gee, I wonder why?), and as you say, technological change.

Why would this not be a time for radical reform? Why should we ever allow any president or congress to inherit such an institution?

Generals shouldn't always get what they want. Civilian oversight cannot be effective if the gap between civilians and professional service members is so wide. Kennedy famously had to talk down professional generals that bordered on homicidal. Luckily, he was was a veteran himself and was willing to resist their more outrageous impulses. We may not be so lucky next time. More people in the room, and in the military can only lead to better outcomes. If this makes a few trigger happy generals less happy, so be it. It should not be so easy to send men into battle. That is the problem you are failing to appreciate. The problem with the military is that it is too easy. As such, your claim about it being underfunded strikes me as some type of semantic game. If you listen to the alcoholic running the Pentagon, we are wildly succeeding. He doesn't seem to take his job seriously enough. Perhaps it is because it is rather easy for him to obliterate targets and cause chaos from the sky, with minimal repercussions? The cost of this escapade approaching what, $100 billion? And you want to give them more? For what mission are they underfunded? A land invasion? More bombs? More air defense? What more should we take from the American taxpayer to make this make sense? Maybe we should repeat 2003 and invade an adjacent country that has nothing to do with this again?

If everyone had to serve, then perhaps the next time they will have to actually convince the country and the men in their care of the virtue of their purpose. Nothing could be more desirable in a democratic society.

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ecshafer 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I couldn't agree more on the draft. Draft and making congress actually declare wars would be a huge improvement.

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jijijijij an hour ago | parent [-]

A draft would also likely enable/strengthen moral objection for soldiers. A professional army brings contractual obligations for any received benefits (e.g. education), which makes disobeying objectionable orders a question of dealing with existentially threatening consequences (e.g. debt). A draft would also mean the army would culturally approach population average, instead of selecting for a specific background. This strengthens the democratic foundation and surely would be somewhat effective against cultural polarization.

However, in today's society, I think it would be most important to have a draft for everyone, not just young man. Otherwise it would be social dynamite. See South Korea.

Personally, I would prefer a mandatory choice for everyone (no bone spurs) between social services (e.g. working in a hospital), ecological services (e.g. reforestation), technical services (e.g. firefighters) and military service. Everyone having to do one year for society. It would be a unifying shared experience if done right. People of different background would be exposed to each other, a reliable way to fight bias and prejudice.

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godwinson__4-8 an hour ago | parent [-]

Indeed. Israel also does something like this. Nerds don't go to the front line for example, they go into the cyber corps. It's why they have some of the best cyber professionals and companies in the world.

Americans should get free education and free healthcare. But as JFK said, one should also ask what they can do for their country. The military has a lot of jobs, relatively few members actually serve in combat. There are more than enough tasks to go around. Most every type of work you identify already exists as a subset of military service.

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jijijijij 37 minutes ago | parent [-]

I meant especially civilian services as alternative. Every human should have the right to decide, if they want the moral implications associated with the military. The military also shouldn't become a substitute civil infrastructure blurring lines of function and funding. E.g. money for education should be spend on public education for everyone, not becoming a incentive for joining the military.

In Germany it's been like that: You objected military service, you had to do mandatory civilian service, e.g. aiding disabled people, for 9 months . I would prefer there to be a choice right from the beginning. So while mandatory to spend a certain amount of your life time for the collective, some agency remains.

Israel is bad example, because there objection is notoriously hard, yet more relevant than ever.

	▲	godwinson__4-8 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Fair points. Appreciate your perspective. I would just say while generally your last point is true, we also shouldn't underplay the vast extent of civic protest against the current administration in Israel prior to October 7th. It is easy to forget given how quickly October 7th changed Israeli priorities, but I would actually suggest prior to the current "state of emergency" like suspension of internal policy disputes, Israeli society was well demonstrating the democratic benefits of having a country where (mostly) everyone has to serve. You had senior military figures, active military service members, former generals, and civilians (most of which served or had family who served or were serving) all standing up to prevent what was essentially a far-right takeover of the judiciary. That is no small thing, and the political optics and ability of Israeli democracy to protect itself in this (and other instances) is I think grounded in large part by the fact that the majority of that society sees defense as a collective responsibility of all, rather than the sequestered task of a few. This allows for more checks on state power. Obviously, Israel is not a great example for other reasons. But it is hard to imagine such an act ever occurring in the modern United States under present conditions. Take the Jan 6th attack. Why is it the job of the Capitol Police alone to prevent such an attempted decapitation of American democracy? Every American should feel a sense of patriotic duty and capability to protect the foundational organs of the American state. It doesn't exist in this country because for the vast majority of Americans, the federal government is really something of an alien entity. It's a piece of paper or a tax or a headline. The problem of modern America is we are supposed to be a democracy yet we are alienated from our own institutions, our own government, and our own military. In Israel, despite its numerous other problems, this problem does not exist. Athenian democracy - that which the West and the American founders lauded - had the same sort of emphasis on the inculcation of civic virtue through public service. Even the gadfly Socrates was a veteran.