82nd Airborne on its way to Lebanon?

With no takers on a peace keeping force it will be up to the US to save Israel's bacon. The 82nd Airborne is on tap to be sent.

However, that won't work since Hezbollah won't comply. Their guerrillas will fight the effort and missiles will continue to fly. The result will be a widening of the war to include Syria and Iran to get at the "real sources" of the conflict (how little they understand about the situation...).

As Bill Lind said, this is 1914 all over again. I keep getting the gut feeling that at the end of the day we are going to be at war from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush (the Shiite crescent and beyond). If the history of 4GW serves as a guide: we will lose this conflict (and badly).

Things have spun way out of control. Can anyone say draft?

Comments

[Robert Cassidy]

Source on this?

I understand that the 82nd is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq later this summer, so this would assume stepping up that timetable, but I've seen nothing about it in the news.

[Marcello]

A draft would be a political suicide.In addition to that it would take too much time to set up.

[John Robb]

Inside source.

[jamie]

Also reported at Harper's

http://www.harpers.org/sb-source-bush-admin-lebanon-1153936109.html

[John Robb]

Marcello, normally I would agree. However, like I said, the gut is telling me that it is going to spin out of control.

Given the length of the potential conflict. We will have all the time in the world to set up the draft.

[Robert Paterson]

Feels like August 1914 to me - events are getting out of the control of the controllers - I agree John, WWIII is looming and political suicide or not the US Military is already overstretched. I can visualize a Pearl harbour like event that will give the draft its greenlight. Sadly I too can see the whole thing end in tragedy.

Like WWI, the world order will be very different when this is all over. Not sure what that means but my bet is that our society will not longer be based on cheap oil and that will change everything

[Marcello]

"Marcello, normally I would agree. However, like I said, the gut is telling me that it is going to spin out of control.
Given the length of the potential conflict. We will have all the time in the world to set up the draft."

The only reason that the current war is still semimanageable from a politcal point of view is that is being waged by a volounteer forces (regular and mercenary) on borrowed money.
Thrown in the draft and you can bet that a lot of people who now don't give a damn because they are not directly involved would start to ask questions.That is not godd for who is in charge.

The sencond half of the problem is organizational.The US military has been a volounteer force for over thirty years and equipment, training and tactics would reflect this.How would you integrate conscripts into this? Hastily trained cannon fodder infantry units with second hand equipment while you mantain a well trained high tech volounteer force in parallel like the iraqi republican guard (rather ironic I would say)? Or would you keep the concripts for long enough to train them to volounteer standard and get something out of them? How long would the term last? Three years maybe?
Neither option is particularly attractive and I have not even begun to scrape the paint off the issue.
Further it would take time to set up and at least the current administration thrives on short term fixes.Frankly I would rather expect more of the same: more contractors, more airpower, more incentives for enlistment, more robbing Peter to give Paul, some redeployments and more bullshit.Especially more bullshit.
Did I mention more bullshit?
But a draft? I do not see it.Save maybe in case of a nuke attack on america that would have everyone dancing at the government tunes.

[Don McArthur]

A draft that excluded any non-medical deferments is the only thing that will save us from GOP military adventurism. They won't sacrifice their own.

[jamie]

Wasn't there a system of purchasing replacements for combat duty during the US civil war?

[The Hook]

There was such a system and I think it cost $300 in 1863 dollars. Which today would be $20,000 or something like that.

[Oliver]

The comparision to 1914 is mistaken.

In 1914 two alliances of essentially equal strength and kind faced each other. Today the West is able to destroy everybody in the region. Furthermore the US cannot afford to lose a war of that scale. It would be a catastrophe. Secondly a general war in that area is bound to include the use of the "oil weapon". Strategic Oil Reserves will last for a shorter time than it would take to train draftees. The US would be forced to make a desert and call it peace, quickly so.

[mark safranski]

"But a draft? I do not see it.Save maybe in case of a nuke attack on america that would have everyone dancing at the government tunes."

Well...I'd have to say if there was ever a time to set aside partisan feelings, the immediate aftermath of a nuclear strike on the United States might be the appropriate moment.

[Tim F]

Our democracy will not survive the sort of global conflict that you describe. This administration will find it too difficult to operate with no public support and (likely) a minority in Congress, which will oblige them to capitulate or proceed extraconstitutionally.

Who thinks that they would capitulate? I don't.

Needless to say another 9/11-type attack, AKA Reichstag fire, would render the question moot.

[John Robb]

Oliver: 1914 is pretty apt. The idea is that there were a series of cascading entanglements that resulted in a global war. Equality doesn't matter. The length and difficulty of the conflict does.

The Draft: It won't take a nuke to do it. It will happen at a point far less than that. There will be a horrible domestic bill to pay though. Most people don't even think we are at war right now.

[The Hook]

I'm not so sure that a 9/11-type strike or even nuke attack would guarantee ever-lasting support of the American people for the US government. I think there's a 30 or 40% chance that US citizens would quickly (3-12 months) ignore their government and look at it as a failure that they can't count on. Information spreads so fast nowadays that any silliness the Feds tried to pull could exposed pretty quickly.

[Oliver]

The length and difficulty of the conflict does.

And here you are mistaken. The US simply cannot afford a long stop of oil supplies. If it takes extremely drastic measures to end that war, the US will nevertheless execute such measures.

[tim302]

I tend to agree with Robert that a severe strategic reversal will trigger a draft. Something like US forces being cut off from their logistical tail in Iraq.

John, I see your point about most people not knowing we're at war. It isn't even a topic of discussion for most people at all. I think though that Marcello is on to something when he says it would be political suicide. People would start to be _very_ interested when they or their kids were on the line...just like last time, for better or worse, in Vietnam.

Now I don't think that this factor would register at all with the White House-- it seems to me they are pretty insulated from reality as it is.

[Oliver]

And the draftees would help how? No western nation will take the level of casualties that would make a draft necessary. I can be even more direct. Once so many troops are killed, it will be time to use nukes, but not to use a draft

[b]

Well...I'd have to say if there was ever a time to set aside partisan feelings, the immediate aftermath of a nuclear strike on the United States might be the appropriate moment.

Karl Rove knows this, as the neocons do. It will be an U.S. produced weapon though. Take care to collect and compare the isotope mixture.

[John Robb]

b, good coverage BTW. Also, when covering this stuff, don't forget to detach yourself (its the only way to keep it together without thinking Apes!)

[mark safranski]

"Take care to collect and compare the isotope mixture."

I'll get right on that after I adjust the brim of my tinfoil hat.

[Josh Koenig]

As one of "the kids" who might be on the line, I have to say there's a consensus among the sub-30 cohort against this war, and a Draft will trigger serious backlash.

[jim my]

Movement orders are interesting, particularly during the past weekend. Whether its related or not, we may never know. Within hours, Syria went from threatening to send its army into Lebanon if the IDF crossed the border to a blander statement about demanding a ceasefire.

Whether its the 82nd, the Stryker movement to Germany in the news, the 24th MEU and its ESG offshore or all the sudden road traffic in Iraq, I doubt the Syrians could keep up with everything.

Curiously, Janes reported on 071906 that the Syrians and Iranians have cut the Russians out of intelligence gathering at new joint facilities in Syria. Wonder how the Russians sitting in Tartus are feeling with all of the crusader comments flying about.

I have to agree with John, when covering this stuff, don't forget to detach yourself (its the only way to keep it together without thinking Apes!)

[Jon S.]

If the region explodes into wider warfare, all bets for civilization get called in. Iran may not be able to take on the US directly but they can certainly blockade the gulf with their cruise missiles. That would be an appetizer in a wider war.

This stupid little border conflict could have the effect of thinning out the global liquid fuel supply dramatically.

"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing" - Paul Muad-dib

[mihai]

In 1914 evereybody wanted to go to war. The Prussians wanted it, the French, Austro-Hungaria, the Serbs, and I think that even the Russians were not so reluctant to it. In the Middle Easte the situation is completely different... We've got a very strong Army, the Israeli one, which has not lost a war in that area for more than 50 years and which is now being backed up by the US. On the other side we have the Syrians and Iranians (!?) Do you think the Syrians and Iranians really believe they'll be able to handle Israel and the US at the same time? I doubt it.