There are several approaches to the problem, the first being the restoration of pay and perks. But the cost of doing this would be huge, perhaps as high as $200 billion. A second is a dramatic reduction in our commitments: Is the $80-plus billion committed to Iraq a genuine military expense? And of course the third way is the restoration of the draft, which would be a terrible forfeit in any general design to limit the role of government in human affairs.
A redistribution of responsibilities is of course primarily appealing. Why did Kosovo, and Somalia -- and indeed Iraq -- emerge as U.S. burdens? The principal reason is that we are the superpower and our resources are huge. But this plays into the thesis that the resources of others can't be counted upon proportionately. The future of the Mideast is at least as much a concern of Spain as it is of the United States. But this does not add up to coordinated political responsibility.
The 18-year-old Americans whose attention was caught by the military in the 1980s are the fathers now of 18-year-olds who feel that their families were betrayed. Back then we had the GI Bill of Rights, veterans got 100 percent college education aid, and they and their families received lifelong health care. Salaries in the service were competitive. Retirement pay came in at competitive age levels.
That is gone. Not even PX privileges are secure. Combine that with the absence of a sense of mission, which was the contribution of the Soviet Union's war against democracy, and we arrive at the present dilemma: How do we simultaneously reduce our overhead and continue to attract volunteers to serve those needs we are left undertaking?
Sen. Kerry appears to feel the need every day to say something different from what President Bush is saying and doing. His trouble is that what he has been saying is not very different from what you and I would come up with, reaching into a grab bag. So Kerry says we must adapt our forces to new missions. Uh-huh. A feverish amount of attention needs to be given by Democratic and Republican political strategists in the weeks before they present their programs to the voters.