Clik here to view.
By Amy Schafer
Who is truly bearing the burden of repeated deployments and protracted conflicts? Who comprises our shrinking all-volunteer force? As the daughter of an A-10 pilot, I see my fellow military brats enlisting and being commissioned at incredible rates. Anecdotally, it has seemed at least one child in every military family tends to serve, while the ROTC programs in the Ivy League are some of the smallest in the country, and military service is left unconsidered as a viable career option for most young Americans.
This is creating a cultural gap between military and civilians and presents challenges for effective civilian control and oversight of the military. More and more military service has become a family affair, creating a “warrior caste” whose mantle is passed down from generation to generation.
Bridging the civil-military divide will not only be accomplished by encouraging a broader group of young men and women to join up, but also by educating young Americans who are less likely to interact with the military about their role in American society. Fostering engagement with and understanding of the military will create a greater sense of national investment, and perhaps cause a few more people to give pause when we engage militarily around the world.
There is little evidence that the burden of the past twelve years has been felt outside of the military, a stark contrast from previous wars characterized both by the draft and engagement — both positive and negative — by regular citizens. As an Air Force brat, I grew up as a military dependent with all of the realities that entails: frequent moves, my father’s deployment to the Middle East, and an international move before my senior year of high school. Despite the challenges, I would not trade my upbringing for the world.
There is a sense of duty and service to country that is ingrained in the children of those who serve. It is both a blessing and a burden that is further leading to the civil-military divide, as a disproportionate number of the military brats I grew up around are now serving, or intend to serve. A 2007 U.S. Army study found that of the three hundred and four General Officers serving in the military, one hundred and eighty had children serving in uniform.
A 2011 survey by Pew found that “Veterans are more than twice as likely as members of the general public to say they have a son or daughter who has served (21% vs. 9%).” Considering the fact that less than ten percent of eighteen-year-olds have a veteran parent and twice as many veteran parents have a son or daughter who has served, the military looks less like a shared burden and more like a family tradition.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
This divide is exacerbated by the absence of young officers being commissioned from our nation’s elite universities. In 2011, only fifty-three students were commissioned out of a combined graduating class of almost fifteen thousand students from all eight universities comprising the elite Ivy League. As Marine Corps Gen. Lehnert observed at his son’s 2006 graduation from Stanford, his son was the only graduating student with a parent in the military. Of elite universities in 2006, Princeton produced the most commissioned officers …a grand total of only nine. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted the effect of this separation in a speech for soon to be college graduates – not at West Point or Annapolis, but at Duke University:
“Even after 9/11, in the absence of a draft, for a growing number of Americans, service in the military, no matter how laudable, has become something for other people to do. In fact, with each passing decade fewer and fewer Americans know someone with military experience in their family or social circle. According to one study, in 1988 about forty percent of eighteen year olds had a veteran parent. By 2000 the share had dropped to eighteen percent, and is projected to fall below ten percent in the future.”
Bridging the Gap: Is a Draft the Answer?
Our Founding Fathers worried that a standing Army too far removed from the citizens it served could undermine civilian oversight and become less effective. As Thomas Jefferson stated, “Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”
This concern led Rep. Charles Rangel to propose reinstating the draft in 2003, arguing “Every time someone says ‘more troops,’ or the military option is on the table in Iran, and the military option is on the table in North Korea,” Rangel said, “They’re saying that somebody’s kids are going to be placed in harm’s way, but not mine.”
But reinstating the draft would create problems for today’s incredibly professional fighting force. Draftees serving for a short period of time, will be only minimally trained and thus ill-suited to today’s modern combat environment. We need a broader solution that does not undermine combat effectiveness.
Perhaps the answer to bridging the civil-military gap and breaking the isolation of the ‘warrior caste’ has much less to do with encouraging young Americans to enlist and much more to do with national security education. Courses in military history and strategy should not be limited to the ROTC programs on college campuses. Military officers at the very top of the chain have been studying military strategy and operations for decades; by comparison, most civilians in the situation room are necessarily amateurs.
As Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster remarked on Veteran’s Day, “And we might ensure that we do not take for granted the important role that Georgetown and other universities play in keeping our military connected to those in whose name we fight. Understanding war and warriors is necessary if societies and governments are to make sound judgments concerning military policy.” We should be allowing, or even better – encouraging, military education to start in undergraduate political science and international relations programs, regardless of whether a student self-selects into security studies. Even those who have no intention or desire to serve should have a greater understanding of the military.
This is not far off from what the Founding Fathers envisioned; in an 1813 letter to James Monroe Thomas Jefferson remarked, “We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education.” Add in we ladies, and those words still ring true today.
Amy Schafer is a former research intern for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She has worked previously as a policy intern in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Schafer is a 2013 graduate of the College of William & Mary.
Editor’s Note: This piece stated that Representative Charles Rangel proposed a bill to reinstate the draft in 2006. In fact, Congressman Rangel first made this proposal in 2003. This has been corrected.