Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio don’t have friendly chats nowadays, but the two Republican presidential candidates agree on at least one important piece of legislation. They are both co-sponsoring the bill by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to prevent President Obama from ordering young women to register for the military draft, as all men must do at age 18.
Lee’s legislation is appropriate, for a decision of this sort should be for Congress to make. It is not something any president should be allowed to do unilaterally. This is especially true given that it is being pushed for reasons of feminist ideology, and has nothing to do with military necessity.
It’s also worth noting that most women do not want to be subject to the draft. Only 38 percent support such a change, a recent Rasmussen Reports survey showed, whereas 52 percent of women oppose it. The case can be made that there’s something deeply wrong with a society that contemplates obliging its mothers, sisters and daughters to go to war.
But Congress should not limit itself to reasserting its authority over women and the draft. It should go further and abolish the draft for men as well, because it also has nothing to do with military necessity. Only 29 percent of the public believes in the draft, and 58 percent oppose it, according to the same poll.
A bipartisan House bill, sponsored by two Colorado congressmen, Reps. Mike Coffman, R, and Jared Polis, D, would abolish mandatory Selective Service registration. They want to keep the military permanently as an all-volunteer force, as it has been in practice since 1973.
Coffman notes that conscription “outlived its usefulness a long time ago.” And yes, the system is obsolete. No one has ever been prosecuted for failing to register, and how many young men do you know who actually follow the law and inform the Selective Service every time they change their address before age 25? (Did you know that it’s a felony if you don’t?)
There are also strong moral and military arguments for an all-volunteer force. The U.S. military is as strong and effective as it is because it is a professional, all-volunteer fighting force. Even though the Selective Service registration system has not been used to draft anyone since President Carter reinstated it in 1980, the military still managed to deploy 2.5 million military men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2001-13.
If America is ever under such threat that much larger numbers are needed, the nation must trust itself to supply volunteers. The military’s numbers have been sufficient in recent years to fight more wars than most members of the public support.
Instead of having a dreary and tendentious ideological debate over whether to draft women, presidential candidates and Congress should set the issue aside for both sexes, and let the country’s services uniforms be worn proudly and solely by volunteers.
