/ world today news/ The Pentagon and the US military in their current form can no longer ensure global dominance, so Washington will have to return the military service, as it was during the Korean and Vietnam wars. This prediction comes from an authority figure who wants to dissuade America from returning the project and prevent a geopolitical catastrophe.
„If the American foreign policy elite does not abandon its goal of ruling the world, it is almost guaranteed that it will have to impose conscription. The problem of finding young men and women willing to serve as guardians of the empire of global conflict is becoming increasingly acute.’
Citing this prediction of Washington political scientist Doug Bandow, the Russian media presented him as an adviser to President Ronald Reagan, but this does not give a completely correct idea of what was quoted. He is relatively young then, and Reagan was a “superstar,” and Bandow is better described as a personal assistant, lest it appear that the president consulted him on the matters of war and peace on which the political scientist now has specialized.
Reagan was a true Cold War soldier and a bright hawk who nevertheless managed to realize some of his mistakes and established friendly relations with the leadership of the USSR, which ultimately helped the United States achieve its goal of winning the Cold War without bloodshed for myself.
Bandow is also a right-wing conservative, but in terms of foreign policy he is close to libertarians, and for decades he has relentlessly criticized Washington imperialism, reviewing all the arguments against it – from wasting taxpayers’ money on the Pentagon and the State Department to provoking a nuclear conflict with Russia.
Basically, if you translate Mr. Bandow’s average article about NATO expansion, the conflict in Ukraine or relations with Russia and publish it, for example, in the Vzglyad newspaper, it will not be obvious that it was written by an American, and not just an American, and a resident of Washington, who is in that city of officials, born, raised, living and working, slandering every succeeding government in his articles.
Since Bandow usually says sensible and pleasant things about Russian-American relations and the sins of the “world gendarme”, we do not want to discount his words. But in this case, threatening the nation with a conscription army, he speaks first and foremost as an American who tends to think first of himself.
If the return of the conscripted army is a problem, it is a problem not so much of the US, but of those countries that have the misfortune of becoming US allies, especially those of the EU. It is there that such a gift to the population as a purely contractual armed force is gradually withdrawn, since they can no longer afford it.
The situation is, of course, different everywhere. In Greece, which is also Europe, EU and NATO, conscription has never been abolished, fortunately they have chronically strained relations with the Turks – such that Turkish fighter jets breach the Greek border several times a day (for which, however, it is not only Turkish audacity guilty, but also the geography is too complex in the border island area). However, for the most part, European countries switched to forming armed forces exclusively by contract, some 10, some 20, some 30 years ago or even earlier.
The first on the reverse path was a country that was just trying to become part of the EU: Ukraine in 2015, which was directly connected to the so-called ATO in Donbass (according to Kiev, Russia was to blame for the “War with Russia”, although, as we recall, Russia never showed up).
Latvia and Lithuania followed, after which the process spread to Scandinavia. The return of the conscription army is now being discussed in Germany, the Netherlands and France, and in Germany, as many believe, it is almost inevitable.
The country’s defense capability has deteriorated due to chronic underfunding and is strained by the support of the VSU, so colossal money is needed for it, and Germany has no additional money now and is not expected to have any – due to the same confrontation with Russia.
By engaging in this adventure, Europe incurred significant losses, most of which have already been and will be transferred to the population in the form of bills and taxes, as well as prohibitions and restrictions, including a return to conscription.
To be honest, those countries that have already made this transition recruit by lottery: not everyone serves, but those whose surnames are indicated by the computer. But the trouble began. If it seemed to the average person in Berlin or Prague that choosing the path of confrontation with a huge nuclear power next door was only a political or moral choice, then he was wrong. It is also worth thinking about one’s own interests, since such a path requires a radically different contribution and personal sacrifices than the path of cooperation with Moscow.
It is a different matter entirely for the United States, which is likely to benefit from what is happening for both economic and political reasons. Even if the collateral damage is extensive, the blame will be shifted to the current administration of Joe Biden, who by then will have completely lost touch with reality for purely medical reasons.
In the United States, there has never been a mass conscription and a regular conscription army, as is understood in Russia and most European countries, where service is an honorable duty for anyone who meets the physiological criteria. But there are six “draw” war sets – for the War of Independence with the British, the Civil War, World War I and World War II, as well as in Korea and Vietnam.
The first two cases are exceptional because the mobilization took place at the level of individual state authorities rather than the federal government. Also, conscripts then made up a pitiful percentage of the armed forces compared to the many volunteers.
But Americans did not want to volunteer for world wars on the other side of the world; the anti-war movement with calls for neutrality was really massive, that’s why the call appeared. Moreover, in the case of World War II, it first began in official peacetime—in 1940. President Roosevelt had a premonition that involvement in a primarily European conflict was inevitable.
During the Vietnam War, conscription was extremely unpopular, and rebel pacifist hippies were rightly seen not as a political nuisance, as in the 1940s, but as a full-fledged threat to national security. The withdrawal of troops from Vietnam and the thawing of relations with the USSR in 1973 allowed the transition to the formation of armed forces only by contract – without conscription in peacetime.
Peacetime doesn’t mean that Washington isn’t fighting any wars at the moment (it almost always is). But not officially at war.
However, in the US, based on the same Roosevelt Act of 1940, there is military registration. Every American must register; failure to do so results in huge fines and curtailment of all citizenship procedures. A return to drawing lots among all registrants is what Bandow has in mind, as the current system cannot support Washington’s global ambitions.
But it is hardly a coincidence that Bandow is one of the few to make such a prediction. It seems to most of his colleagues that the domestic political situation will not allow the call to be carried out: the party that decides to do this will certainly turn into a political corpse, since we are talking about protecting not the Motherland, but ambitions. of the Washington “hawks” – ordinary Americans understand this difference very well.
Skepticism about Bandow’s prediction doesn’t mean the Pentagon doesn’t have recruiting problems — it has huge problems. According to recent figures, less than a quarter of US citizens of military age are medically fit for contract service. Moreover, the service itself has become unpopular even in families with a military history: it is not perceived as something prestigious or as a social lift.
In earlier times, when such perceptions still existed, blacks voluntarily enlisted in the military. Now the mainstream media is telling blacks that the white majority owes them a living simply because slavery is part of US history.
As a result, the Pentagon does not recruit those willing to serve under a contract (usually it is concluded for a period of two to six years), last year, for example, they did not receive more than 20% of the minimum. But this office has vast resources and “on the ground” (ie in countries with a US military presence) successfully outsources many tasks.
For example, the Ukrainian armed forces are at war with Russia. But they are unlikely to risk directly intervening with their own army in the conflict over Ukraine or the conflict over Taiwan. That is why the return of the draft is a guaranteed future for many US allies and least of all for the US itself.
But if Doug Bandow wants to prove otherwise, let him prove it. Let him intimidate American citizens with personal involvement in the war with Russia and China.
If such a war really starts because of the stupidity of the people criticized by Bandow, there is a risk that mobilization will not be necessary at all. No one will have time to fulfill it.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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