posted on Feb, 19 2013 @ 11:21 AM
Originally posted by MadhatterTheGreat
LOL. Sorry about the thread title, I was reading up on Hagel as I was posting the thread. Link should be fixed.
Damn it I thought we were onto a new conspiracy Charlie Rangel is Hagel?
As for the draft - the military would have to change the fundamentals of its leadership dogma to manage and deploy a draft force.
All of our leadership techniques are geared toward incentivizing good behavior and inspiring compliance in servicemen and women who are volunteers
with positive rewards.
For instance in a volunteer military the penalty for poor performance and discipline problems in training is a discharge – this works because the
people want to be there...they don't want to be kicked out.
The military can't use the same technique for draftees who in many cases don’t not want to be there anyway. All they’d have to do is perform
poorly on purpose or be disrespectful/uncooperative so they can be discharged.
That would be in effect rewarding them for their negative behavior. In a draft Army there has to be a place that is worse than the general soldier
population for poor performers and discipline problems - retraining battalions and disciplinary barracks etc.
Poor performance in a draft military used to result in corrective training and or a sort of confinement and relegation to mundane physical (hard
labor) duties until what would be their normal discharge date anyway. The conditions would be even more restrictive than the life of normal service
members so that people would not want to serve their tours in these conditions but turn toward compliance so they could have more privlegdes.
Modern military leadership is positive reinforcement and reward oriented rather than punitive – the whole tone and style of leadership would need
to change to manage a draft quality force.
As a 24 year veteran – I’d rather have a unit of 20 men who wanted to be there than 100 who had to be there. You’d have to be constantly
watching over your shoulder and pushing them to do what was right rather than counting on their professionalism. No career Officer I know wants a
draft Army.
All that said, I don't think the career politicians really care what the professional military wants. They as in all things - think they know best.