Would you be surprised? I am opposed to the draft!

Think what you like, I spent no time in the military. I don't like authoritarian organizations, and I haven't supported most wars. I have a lot of trouble even thinking about doing harm to someone else. When someone is injured in my presence, I feel the injury almost as if it were done to me. I have to fight against that empathetic nuisance, when it is required for me to respond to an emergency.
 

Despite that, I would have volunteered for World War II in some capacity that would have helped the UN cause. Otherwise, I would make a truly lousy soldier. Had I been drafted for Vietnam, I probably would have been a casualty soon after arriving, having done no useful service. I was lucky to have been classified 1-Y and then 4-Y (that's "morally unfit" for the interested), so I got out. I burned my draft card long before its expiration date, and lived several years in fear of arrest. (Sorry, cops, too late now.)
 

So, I am not qualified to talk about what goes on in the military, as I dislike it. And, it is very hard for me to consider such a thing as entering a military service. You may, if it pleases you, take that as disqualifying any of the views herein.
 

The solution to our problems, after Vietnam, was to make military service voluntary. I say leave it that way. Here are my reasons:
 

1. First and foremost, it costs a lot of money to run an all-volunteer military. You must really want a military to be willing to pay the freight. The draft reduces the cost of war, because draftees are paid minimum  wage or less. I don't want war to cost less; I want it to be expensive. People are cheap, so the presumption is people will be reluctant to have a war that costs a pretty penny.
 

2. Those who volunteer are presumed to understand they are risking their lives. In return, they are treated well and differently from other citizens. Soldiers and veterans get lots of lifetime benefits unavailable to other citizens.
 

3. Volunteer soldiers - mercenaries - have a reduced moral claim on our conscience. Unlike draftees, they want to be warriors and take the risk of death or injury. So, while we may be sympathetic to them and their families when the worst happens, it really isn't the same case as the draftee who was forcibly sacrificed to the volcano. In short, callously, it is easier to accept war casualties when they are volunteers.
 

4. Mercenaries are assumed to want to fight, and learn how to fight professionally. They are like the Knights and Samurai of old, who cannot and will not be defeated by any except their equal. The value of a professional military has been demonstrated recently in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, where conventional opposing armies and warriors are destroyed very quickly and efficiently. There are probably fewer than 5 countries that can hope to match the US military in the field, including China, Britain, Germany, Russia, France and maybe India. Everyone else would be quickly decimated, and with very few casualties.
 

5. Because we are sanctioning gangs of professional killers, we run the risk of being at their mercy. Therefore, it is in our interest to emphasize the conditioning that the military obey civilian command, to make sure the benefits are sufficient to keep people in line, and to make sure the military is no larger than we really require. Because a volunteer military suggests a greater risk of coup d'etat, close civilian supervision is required. If supervision is not forthcoming, that is a reason to shrink the military.
 

The volunteer military is risky to a democracy, because mercenaries may not be loyal. On the other hand, the general draft terrorizes everyone for some years in early adulthood. Military training at an impressionable age makes people more militaristic, so the draft can be more dangerous to democracy than volunteerism in the long run.
 

I think in a democracy, unlike Sparta, military societies need to be confined and carefully controlled. I think democratic societies should avoid war for a lot of reasons, but be prepared to fight when really necessary. I don't think democracies should be Imperial powers - the undoing of the Athenians and the British.