The All-Volunteer Force: The Debate
The All-Volunteer Force: The Debate
by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling
Download the full article: The All-Volunteer Force: The Debate
I’d like to share with SWJ readers the debate I’ve been having with current and former senior defense leaders on the deficiencies of the all-volunteer force.
This past February, I published “The Founder’s Wisdom” in Armed Forces Journal. While the article addressed many aspects of Congressional and popular oversight of national security issues, the issue that provoked the strongest reaction was the portion concerning the all-volunteer military.
Raising an Army is not merely a matter of labor economics – finding the right combination of wages, benefits and marketing strategies to fill job vacancies. Raising an Army is a profoundly political act with profoundly political consequences. The issues of who fights and who pays for America’s wars are ultimately questions about our conceptions of justice and civic obligation. My hope is that our debate about the merits of the all-volunteer force will move beyond questions of wages and benefits, and focus on these larger issues of justice and civic obligation.
As this “short-term struggle” approaches its tenth year, cheerful portrayals of the AVF are no longer plausible. It’s time for the United States to reconsider the wisdom of the all-volunteer force.
I look forward to the always superb commentary by SWJ readers on this debate, and I hope that Dr. Gilroy and Mr. Ford will join us.
Download the full article: The All-Volunteer Force: The Debate
Lieutenant Colonel Paul L. Yingling is an Army officer who has served three tours of duty in Iraq and is currently a professor of security studies at the George C. Marshall Center in Garmisch, Germany. The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Army or Defense Department.
