Rebecca Costa

This year the U. S. military hits a new milestone.  The conflict in Afghanistan is now the longest war fought in United States history.

The death of 2,300 American soldiers and 1,000 coalition fighters, the loss of 360,000 Afghan civilians and displacement of 3.9 million more - these scratch the surface of a long litany of sobering statistics 16 years of war have amassed. To date, the U.S. has spent $830 Billion to quash the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and the tab for continuing our engagement runs roughly $4 million an hour.  And while you might think this means victory is near, the Afghan government admits it is currently in control of less than two-thirds of the country.

These are the hard facts.

After John McCain and Lindsey Graham publicly stated the U.S. is in an intractable "stalemate" in Afghanistan, those of us who lived through a similar quagmire during the Vietnam War found ourselves shaking our heads.  Why do we enter wars which have a) no measurable objective, and b) no exit strategy? And more importantly, why are we surprised to learn that once we set up shop, we can't leave and we can't stay?  Today, the Afghan economy is so dependent on the United States it would collapse minutes after U.S. troops pulled out – opening the door for terrorists in the same way ISIL was created by the vacuum left in Iraq.  Yet, how long can America sustain a cost of $4 million every hour?

Yesterday I went to Karl Eikenberry for the answer.  Eikenberry was Obama's controversial pick for Ambassador to Afghanistan between 2009-2011.  He's an Army Lieutenant General with an impressive military career beginning at West Point and culminating with two terms in Afghanistan as the Commander of Combined Forces who was responsible for transferring operational responsibility of southern and eastern Afghanistan to NATO security forces and the Afghan national army.

According to Eikenberry there is no way the American public would agree to sending a hundred thousand American soldiers to Afghanistan – or engage in a 16- year war – if the draft was still in place.  Conscription forces the American public to become engaged.  Once high school graduates in our own neighborhoods are forced to go to war the numbers of soldiers and what they are fighting for matter.  That's when Americans start paying attention and putting pressure on their representatives in Washington.

I admit I had never drawn a connection between Nixon shutting down conscription in 1973 and a war without end, but Eikenberry had a point. How would the public react if Obama or Trump announced another 100,000 American soldiers were needed in Afghanistan and the draft lottery system used during the Vietnam war would again commence?  How would we react if we were told that draft may continue for another 16 years – or maybe longer?

The answer is there would be public outrage.

While there are clear benefits to an all-volunteer army - not the least of which is soldiers want to be there and therefore, are motivated to excel – it turns out there is an unspoken downside.  That downside is public disengagement.  The number of troops we send to fight in foreign nations goes up, goes down, goes back up again.  The number of deaths pile up.  The years pass by.  And all this has little to do with whether our kids did their homework last night, whether we'll get that raise at work, whether the dry cleaning got picked up or we have adequate health care coverage.  The truth is we don't give a moment's thought to whether the number of soldiers should be 80,000 or 200,000 – or whether the government sends our military or subs the job to contract mercenaries.  So long as the operation is "voluntary" the public is content to play spectator.

If Eikenberry is right – and he may well be – the way to end the war in Afghanistan is to bring back the draft.  Then watch things change quickly.