It’s not really how we fight anymore. Buuuut if you want to see protests to rival the 70s, try doing a general draft again.
The US Military will never do another draft. The issue with the draft is that it instantly galvanizes opinions of every single American. Right now with a volunteer army, most Americans don’t have an immediate family member that’s deployed abroad. But if you institute the draft, they will.
Everyone will have a brother, husband, son, father, uncle, cousin, nephew, etc that has been drafted. And there’s really nothing like a close personal connection to drive people to be upset and show it publicly. An unpopular war would become an impossible war very fast with the near-instantaneous speed of communication the internet allows. It would allow angry people to organize in very large groups very fast. The protests would be massive and unending.
Towards the end, drafted troops would refuse to go on patrol, attack their officers with grenades (nearly 500 were killed this way during the war), and refuse deployment while still in the US. 50,000 troops deserted.
The lesson the military learned from Vietnam is that drafts are counterproductive. The civilian protests helped set the tenor in Washington, but it was the collapse of morale within the military itself that ended the war.
It’s not really how we fight anymore. Buuuut if you want to see protests to rival the 70s, try doing a general draft again.
The US Military will never do another draft. The issue with the draft is that it instantly galvanizes opinions of every single American. Right now with a volunteer army, most Americans don’t have an immediate family member that’s deployed abroad. But if you institute the draft, they will.
Everyone will have a brother, husband, son, father, uncle, cousin, nephew, etc that has been drafted. And there’s really nothing like a close personal connection to drive people to be upset and show it publicly. An unpopular war would become an impossible war very fast with the near-instantaneous speed of communication the internet allows. It would allow angry people to organize in very large groups very fast. The protests would be massive and unending.
There’s a great documentary covering the protests from within the military called “Sir, No! Sir”
Towards the end, drafted troops would refuse to go on patrol, attack their officers with grenades (nearly 500 were killed this way during the war), and refuse deployment while still in the US. 50,000 troops deserted.
The lesson the military learned from Vietnam is that drafts are counterproductive. The civilian protests helped set the tenor in Washington, but it was the collapse of morale within the military itself that ended the war.