Whether from genuine nostalgia or political desperation, John Kerry has started talking about the draft. President Bush, of course, has said repeatedly that he will keep an all-volunteer force, and Mr. Kerry has yet to produce one scrap of evidence that the president, if reelected, won’t keep his word. Indeed, when the candidates’ foreign policy prescriptions are closely examined, the reinstatement of the draft is far more likely if Mr. Kerry becomes president.
Today’s U.S. military is lean, fast, professional and lethal, drawing on the latest technology and advanced training. Although some countries in Europe maintain a draft as a means of social engineering, no American has been involuntarily inducted into the armed forces since 1973. At the Pentagon, both the career officers and civilians are opposed to the draft’s return. As one noted commentator put it recently, today there is just too much expensive equipment that draftees could break.
As every year goes by, the world moves farther and farther away from the mass armies of the 19th and 20th centuries, the age when conscription was a fact of life in most of Europe and, at times, in the United States. While the combat in Iraq has stressed the U.S. military, the Bush administration’s solution is to stand-up thousands of additional Iraqi troops and turn over to them most of the counterinsurgency responsibilities, thereby reducing the U.S. force levels there. The most dangerous threat to American forces comes from terrorists, guerrillas and insurgents. Militaries of various rogue states are relatively weak and can be easily defeated by the American forces-in-being.
There is, however, one exception. North Korea still maintains the fourth-largest army in the world with an estimated 1.2 million soldiers. While most of its equipment is second-rate, it has plentiful artillery, tough infantry and formidable special forces. It is positioned within striking distance of South Korea’s political and industrial heartland, and presents a serious threat.
Neutralizing North Korea’s dangerous nuclear ambitions, while avoiding a new conflict on the Korean Peninsula, requires an adroit U.S. strategy.
While North Korea has been pursuing dangerous policies from the first day of its national existence, the current round of tensions dates to 2002, after it was found to have been developing a uranium-enrichment program, in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the 1994 agreement aimed at the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The Clinton administration negotiated this deal, whereby Pyongyang agreed to freeze its nuclear program and submit to international inspections, and the United States eased economic sanctions and facilitated the provision of energy supplies. North Korea broke this agreement, before the ink was dry, by secretly pursuing a uranium-based weapons program.
Faced with this challenge, and knowing that North Korea is paranoid about supposedly aggressive American designs, Mr. Bush devised a multilateral strategy. He convinced China, South Korea, Japan and Russia that the United States would no longer deal with Pyongyang bilaterally, thereby forcing them, however reluctantly, to assume joint responsibility. The new multilateral format magnified U.S. diplomatic and military options and has been resisted by North Korea. The inclusion of China in the negotiations is particularly essential — China, more than anyone else, controls North Korea’s energy supply, and shares a strategic border.
Keeping the anti-Pyongyang coalition together is the key to managing the North Korean threat, and causing Kim Jong Il to remain at the negotiating table, rather than risking the renewal of military tensions and possible escalation to an all-out conflict.
Unfortunately, Mr. Kerry’s position on North Korea manifests an utter ignorance of these strategic realities. In the recent debates, Mr. Bush has argued convincingly that undertaking two-party negotiations — as Mr. Kerry is proposing — would give the North Korean delegation an excuse to walk away from the six-party talks that Kim Jong Il has, in fact, been trying to undermine. Moreover, given the chance, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia would gladly abdicate their relatively recent and difficult responsibilities of pressuring Pyongyang. Ironically, in light of his oft-expressed commitment to multilateralism, Mr. Kerry’s approach would put the United States in the position of “going it alone,” leaving us with an unpalatable choice of another ineffective attempt at bribing North Korea, or the real prospect of another land war in Asia that would strain, and, possibly exceed, the abilities of today’s all-volunteer force.
Not since the Civil War has a Republican president instituted a draft in order to fight a war. Through a strategic mix of multilateral diplomacy and credible military strength, Mr. Bush will be able to avoid conscripting a mass military force. By contrast, Mr. Kerry’s proposed policy toward North Korea will be a diplomatic failure, making a military solution the only possible means of removing the threat to regional and global stability that currently exists on that peninsula.
In the waning days of this election, it is important to recognize that it is Kerry’s policies in Asia, not those of Mr. Bush, that make a draft more likely.
David B. Rivkin Jr. and Darin R. Bartram are partners in the Washington office of Baker & Hostetler LLP. Mr. Rivkin served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.
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