Since the watershed in world politics marked by Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the explosion of Jew-hatred on the heels of the Oct. 7 Tehran-backed Hamas pogrom that killed over 1,200 people, mostly Jews, in Israel, capitalist governments worldwide have looked to expand their military might. They’ve boosted “defense” budgets, weighed new military alliances and looked anew at the size of their armies.
Any illusions that technology can replace soldiers, that the rise of machines, drones, robots or “artificial intelligence” can replace humans as cannon fodder for the capitalist bosses is a pipe dream.
Democrats and Republicans — the two parties that defend the interests of the U.S. capitalist class — are discussing how much to raise last year’s $883.7 billion military budget, an amount larger than the defense budgets of the next nine largest countries combined.
But dishing out more money doesn’t guarantee a big enough army. In 2023, the U.S. military collectively fell short of its recruiting goals by some 41,000. The Defense Department says since the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of volunteers has dropped.
New bills introduced in Congress would allow the military to automatically register all young men for the draft at age 18, add an additional year for their draft eligibility to 26, and a proposal in the Senate to include women in draft registration. They’re being debated, largely out of the public eye.
The political costs of a draft — ordering young workers to fight whether they want to or not — are high, as the capitalist rulers learned in Vietnam. The army became a hotbed of opposition to the war and Washington was forced to abandon the draft in 1973.
In 1980, protests of thousands erupted across the U.S. when Democratic President Jimmy Carter reintroduced draft registration, as the capitalist rulers chaffed at restrictions on their use of the army, especially as the Iranian people in their tens of millions overthrew the hated rule of the U.S.-backed shah.
Today’s bills in Congress are a long way from being passed, and none of them would actually reimpose the draft at this time. They would accumulate a larger pool of potential draftees.
For working people, the proposed increase in draft age from 25 to 26 is a grim reminder that in the lead up to World War II, men in the U.S. were required to register between the ages of 18 and 45. Some 10 million draftees were forced into the bloodiest inter-imperialist slaughter in history.
Politicians on both sides argue automatic registration will cut down on red tape and “help citizens avoid unnecessary legal issues.” In fact, they are trying to address the problem of the 16% who aren’t registering now, while at the same time hoping to avoid the wildly unpopular prosecutions against those who refused to register in the 1980s.
Draft of women proposed
The proposal in the Senate to register women for the draft — buried in a 1,197 page bill — has stirred debate.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley told Fox News, “We need to get reality back in check here. There shouldn’t be women in the draft.” But more than 250,000 women today serve in the U.S. military, serving in every capacity, largely for the same reason as men, to get a cheap education and job skills.
The real question isn’t whether women can fight, that’s been proven, including with honor during the revolutionary war in Cuba. The real question is who and what are you fighting for.
Some commentators, like the American Civil Liberties Union, argue that women being included in the draft is a step toward equality. But being forced to defend the U.S. rulers’ interests in imperialist wars has nothing to do with women’s emancipation and isn’t a “right” for men or women.
Women’s second-class status is rooted in the profit needs of capitalism. The bosses use women’s position to pay them less than men, try to exclude them from a variety of jobs and incite prejudices against women to divide workers.
The U.S. military, and the armies of all capitalist countries, have only one function — to defend the employers’ interests worldwide. That won’t change with more women in their ranks, any more than would the election of a female president — like Kamala Harris — committed to upholding capitalist rule be a step forward.
The drive of the capitalist system toward more wars today sharply poses for working people in our millions the need to take political power out of their hands, to build our own party, a party of labor, with our own foreign policy of solidarity with our class worldwide.