The draft is going in the exact wrong direction. We need to return to a military just big enough to defend America (say, 100,000 members, $100 billion) and not big enough that we can easily run around kicking over beehives. Considering that we face no plausible existential threats, spending $800 billion a year is not just stupid but absurd.

"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."

BTW, I am an Infantry officer, heading back to Iraq for my second tour in three years.

The scenarios he envisions would likely be met with massive aerial strikes, not infantrymen fighting door-to-door.

Fighting that kind of war is exactly what loses us any kind of moral standing in the world. "Collateral damage" is always enormous, and makes it impossible to govern afterward. Witness the growing condemnation of Israel today for its actions in Gaza. Condemnation, that is, from everywhere except this in nation, which cheers them on and makes comments like that quoted above.

I challenge that assumption. Aside from the logistics/medical footprint required to support that many troops, it fails to acknowledge that it increases the number of targets as well. How many more soldiers and marines would have died before the body and vehicle armor to support those numbers was able to be produced? It took long enough for the ones who were there. This in a nation the size of California, loaded with weapons caches, and before the UAV capabilities we have now. I think a case can be made that flooding the zone might have been a disaster with even thousands more casualties.

Though maybe not if we had fought our way through Syria first with the Soviets taking out Iran from the East. But that was hardly an option, Tony, was it?

As long as you don't launch yourself into another Iraq-style war, what pressing manpower requirements are there that would require conscription to meet them? You could say "Afghanistan", I suppose, but that's only if we try to go full "protect the population" counter-insurgency there, and try to do it alone.

Well its the same argumant being made for taking someone else's hard earned wealth because it's a free lunch.

FWIW, I think the best argument for a draft/national-service arrangement is that we all live so darn long now. We are approaching the day when a 2-year commitment is a 2% commitment.

OK, I actually came to make an admittedly small point about a draft. In 1964, upon leaving school, I tried three times to join our armed forces (twice Army, once Air Force) - and was turned down. So I figured I was "safe" and got a job. Then was promptly drafted. Then discharged, after several months, as "medically unfit for induction."

Point being, the draft board set its standards to get a certain number of bodies regardless of the condition of those bodies, while the reality of requirements was ignored.