Allenby: Bring back the draft

It’s time for the United States to bring back the draft, writes Brad Allenby, Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics and Founding Chair of the Consortium on Emerging Technologies, Military Operations, and National Security, in a Future Tense article for Slate magazine.

Rapid advances in military technology threaten to make going to war too easy, argues Allenby, and the chasm between civilian and military cultures has continued to grow during the 40 years of all-volunteer service since the Vietnam War. Reinstating the draft could help mitigate that undesirable trend by investing Americans more deeply in military decisions and increasing the general public’s understanding of military culture, institutions, values and tactics.

“A draft can help void increasingly oversimplistic policy, optimistic and naive technological determinism, and a dangerous cultural chasm between experienced military personnel and a civilian population with no military experience that wavers between benign neglect (or malign disparagement, during the Vietnam era) and adulation of the military,” writes Allenby.

Increasing overlap between civilian and military cultures through the draft would also increase public understanding of the realities of emerging military technologies, like drones, lethal autonomous robots, cyber warfare and engineered warfighters whose physical and cognitive abilities are enhanced through genetic engineering, brain-computer interfaces and other methods. Building a robust public conversation about the ethics and consequences of these technologies will require a more informed, savvy populace that comprehends the thorny realities of military decision-making.

To learn more about how technology is changing the social and institutional calculus of war, read the full article at Future Tense. 

Future Tense is a collaboration among ASU, the New America Foundation and Slate magazine that explores how emerging technologies affect policy and society.