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36 Washington Q. 7 (2013)

handle is hein.journals/wingtqurl36 and id is 1 raw text is: Karl W. Eikenberry Reassessing the All-Volunteer Force When America ended the military draft in 1973 and transitioned to the All-Volunteer Force (AVF), the success of this ambitious enterprise was not guaranteed. Yet by the early 1990s, decisive victories in the Cold War and Operation Desert Storm had convincingly validated the AVE Today, U.S. military forces are unmatched both globally and historically in their lethality, speed, and agility. Our society's cost-benefit calculus is based upon its volunteer military's demonstrated deterrent effect and battlefield performance, defense expenditures, and the societal premium associated with liberation from the burden of conscription. Yet, while the majority of Americans hold their soldiers in high esteem and consider the well-endowed AVF a worthy bargain to secure their nation's interests in a dangerous world (a 2012 Gallup poll showed that 75 percent of those polled expressed confidence in their military),' we have collectively ignored the severe political and strategic consequences of its implementation. By two important but rarely acknowledged metrics, the advantage of the volunteer over the conscript military is less certain today. First comes the question of political ownership of the military within our democracy. The defense establishment lays claim to vast amounts of taxpayers' dollars and plays a consequential role in deciding vital matters of war and peace. As most citizens take a keen interest in the cost and conduct of their police force, so citizens at the national level should have a broad sense of responsibility for the behavior of our armed forces. Karl W. Eikenberry is the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at Stanford University. He is the former ambassador to Afghanistan and a retired U.S. army lieutenant general who also commanded the U.S.-led Coalition Forces in Afghanistan, 2005-2007. A version of this article will appear in a book on the American military edited by Professor David Kennedy to be published in the summer of 2013, by Oxford University Press. Copyright © 2013 Center for Strategic and International Studies The Washington Quarterly 36:1 pp. 7-24 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2013.751647 THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY U WINTER 2013

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