Link you guys need to check out.. about the military draft

[VanillaGorilla]

Clinton himself was not solely responsible for "gutting" the military. Bush Sr. signed into policy dramatic reductions in ground forces after it was apparent the Cold War had been won. Further reductions began to take place after Gulf War 1 but the bulk of it took place during Clinton's watch yet that was not entirely all his policy.

As you said the bulk of it took place under Clinton. So Clinton was responsible for a large chunk of it.

This country has neither the patience nor the willpower for a long drawn out occupation. It will certainly not tolerate a draft to support such an occupation without a dramatic new reason to do so (ie China invades). Support for the war is already waning after only a year so I highly doubt people will be strongly supportive of a 5-10 occupation that needs continual troop rotations.

The funny thing about politicians is that they only care what the people think around election time. So the public might not have a choice if they do it right after the election.

 

[bioman]

Perhaps but troop strength was sufficient for defense and even for offense..it is not suitable for long term occupation and nation building but that is nobody's fault since that is not it's primary purpose, thus Clinton shouldn't get the blame for the misuse of the military.

This is a special forces/intel war from now on. It matters very little how many people we send into Iraq if we don't seal their borders (and our own for that matter) and establish a viable intel network. All of that matters even less in an increasingly hostile environment where we cannot distinguish friend from foe (can you say Viet Nam?).

Terrorism has a lengthy history of humbling mighty armies..especially if those armies have to play by the rules which we are expected to. The Viet Cong and their "policy of harrassment" as opposed to open engagment is just an example. Add to that religious fervor and a situation that can be easily be interpreted as Western occupation by the locals and viola, you have an increasingly uphill "challenge" if you will.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

Perhaps but troop strength was sufficient for defense and even for offense..it is not suitable for long term occupation and nation building but that is nobody's fault since that is not it's primary purpose, thus Clinton shouldn't get the blame for the misuse of the military.

We had a massive build up of military under Regan and the Cold war. After Regan the resources we spent on military declined. President HW. Bush cut them back some. However the decline happened after the gulf war which means that he was only in office about a year. Clinton cut the military much more than bush. There were several military bases around here that were closed. I remember when he did it Military experts saying that he was cutting way too much. Since the gulf war our military has been cut in half. Bush didn't cut 25% and Clinton didn't cut 25%. It was more like 10 % under Bush and 40% under Clinton. As you said the bulk of the cuts happened under the Clinton Administration. Therefore IMO Clinton should get the blame for the military cuts.Any way, my point in bring it up was that we are short of military personnel which makes it plausible that they could bring back a draft.

This is a special forces/intel war from now on. It matters very little how many people we send into Iraq if we don't seal their borders (and our own for that matter) and establish a viable intel network. All of that matters even less in an increasingly hostile environment where we cannot distinguish friend from foe (can you say Viet Nam?).

True. We are doing more wrong than right in this war. My greatest fear is that this is going to turn into a small version of Nam coupled with a larger scale black hawk down.

Terrorism has a lengthy history of humbling mighty armies..especially if those armies have to play by the rules which we are expected to. The Viet Cong and their "policy of harrassment" as opposed to open engagment is just an example. Add to that religious fervor and a situation that can be easily be interpreted as Western occupation by the locals and viola, you have an increasingly uphill "challenge" if you will.

All you have to do is look at Russia's occupation of Afghanistan. I think they were there close to eight years before they finally pulled out. You can't fight a war like this with the conventional warfare.