The Volunteer Army and War

The Vietnam war showed the country how divisive a draft could be for an unpopular war.   During Vietnam the question of whether we should be at war shedding American blood on the other side of the world was hotly debated everywhere.  Since then, the wisdom of being in the first Gulf war was debated, the need to invade Iraq, and the need for our continued presence in Afghanistan was and still is debated.  There is no doubt that if there were drafts for the current wars popular unhappiness with the length and cost in blood with the wars would have ended them much sooner.  Also, it is much less likely that the US would have gone into Iraq.  The debate on war would be at a much higher decibel level if there was a draft.  A draft focuses the attention of the populace because it potentially involves every family in the country.   A volunteer army only involves a small, self-selecting, and somewhat isolated section of society.  This allows the politicians much greater leeway in starting and prosecuting wars.  I have no doubt, that if the politicians of either party had their way, they would have an army of foreign mercenaries, like the French Foreign Legion.  For their purposes the ideal army would be composed of soldiers who had no relatives among the electorate to bring pathos to an anti-war debate.  The benefit of this would be that the military would be freer to prosecute wars the way they saw fit.  This would probably lead to cleaner  The danger is that the electorate might become enamored of war since they had no personal connection to its horror.