Is Australia Bringing Back the Draft?
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A former top-ranking Australian military official has publicly called for that country to reinstate the draft:
First, if Australia is experiencing a declining birth rate, then the easiest solution is to foster net immigration. Is the potential for conscription likely to increase or decrease an Australian's willingness to remain in his home country, or might he get out while the getting's good? By the same token, would a family with adolescent children be more or less willing to relocate to Australia if it implements a draft?
Second, if declining birth rates mean that there aren't enough young Australians to serve in the military, then there's also probably not enough young Australians to do lots of other things, like become engineers or police officers or nurses or teachers or accountants or cabaret singers. If labor is scarce, then the opportunity cost of conscription becomes higher, not lower, and a draft becomes a worse, not a better, idea than if birth rates were high.
Third, if Australian faces declining birth rates, then it becomes even more important that young Australians maximize their productivity so they can then maximize their income and the Australian economy can maximize its potential and competitive position in the global marketplace. Does a draft catalyze undergraduate, graduate and professional education, or hinder it? (Remember, we're not talking about a "G.I. Bill," but a life-disrupting mandatory interregnum of one's college years.)
Fourth, the idea that young Australians will not serve at any salary is hogwash, just as it is hogwash here in the U.S. Pay a raw recruit a starting salary of, say, $150,000 per year plus benefits, and any supposed "shortage" of recruits would instantaneously vanish. Even for the military, it's as simple as supply + demand = equilibrium price.
Finally, the whole concept of conscription in an otherwise free society exposes an obnoxious contradiction. If you start conscripting people to defend the Australian — or the American — "way of life," then what exactly has that "way of life" become?
For Discussion: Israel, another "free society" with a "way of life," has a draft. Does its unique circumstance warrant a bye? Why or why not?
Admiral Chris Barrie, who retired in 2002 after 41 years' military service, the final four as chief of the defence force, said Australia's young work force would substantially shrink in the decades ahead due to lower birth rates. "In such a climate, we will not be able to attract the number of people we need, even if we attempted the usual financial incentives schemes," Barrie told a conference.This is, of course, utter nonsense. On several levels in fact.
"For these reasons, I consider that we ought to begin to think how and when Australia should shift to a universal national service structure to train young people for our armed forces," he added.
...
"We need to have young people join the military," he later told Sky News. "We can put in place all the financial incentives we like but the real fact of the matter is, we're going to run out of people."
First, if Australia is experiencing a declining birth rate, then the easiest solution is to foster net immigration. Is the potential for conscription likely to increase or decrease an Australian's willingness to remain in his home country, or might he get out while the getting's good? By the same token, would a family with adolescent children be more or less willing to relocate to Australia if it implements a draft?
Second, if declining birth rates mean that there aren't enough young Australians to serve in the military, then there's also probably not enough young Australians to do lots of other things, like become engineers or police officers or nurses or teachers or accountants or cabaret singers. If labor is scarce, then the opportunity cost of conscription becomes higher, not lower, and a draft becomes a worse, not a better, idea than if birth rates were high.
Third, if Australian faces declining birth rates, then it becomes even more important that young Australians maximize their productivity so they can then maximize their income and the Australian economy can maximize its potential and competitive position in the global marketplace. Does a draft catalyze undergraduate, graduate and professional education, or hinder it? (Remember, we're not talking about a "G.I. Bill," but a life-disrupting mandatory interregnum of one's college years.)
Fourth, the idea that young Australians will not serve at any salary is hogwash, just as it is hogwash here in the U.S. Pay a raw recruit a starting salary of, say, $150,000 per year plus benefits, and any supposed "shortage" of recruits would instantaneously vanish. Even for the military, it's as simple as supply + demand = equilibrium price.
Finally, the whole concept of conscription in an otherwise free society exposes an obnoxious contradiction. If you start conscripting people to defend the Australian — or the American — "way of life," then what exactly has that "way of life" become?
For Discussion: Israel, another "free society" with a "way of life," has a draft. Does its unique circumstance warrant a bye? Why or why not?
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Posted by Kip on
31 January 2006
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