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Comment by mrguyorama | Hacker News Reader

After 20 years of blowing things up in a far away desert, the US military is struggling to find enough volunteers to meet it's requirements. Nobody wants to go die in the desert. Maybe if we had spent the past 20 years not doing that, the US would have a bit more gusto from the youngins.

If we go to war with China, and it's not just some minor skirmish, I expect there to be a draft.

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>After 20 years of blowing things up in a far away desert, the US military is struggling to find enough volunteers to meet it's requirements. Nobody wants to go die in the desert.

The desert stuff was not so bad by comparison. These were asymmetrical conflicts. The emerging threats are near-peer forces. Even fewer will want to sign up for that!

>I expect there to be a draft.

And if there is a draft there will be mass noncompliance. It won't work. If they're smart they won't try it because that would look weak.

War between the West and China would be naval and air affair (with the exception of Korea I guess), so the traditional draft doesn't make much sense I think. The war would be mostly about whether US can blockade China into a collapse, because China is not self-sufficient in energy (by a huge margin) and food (by a smaller margin).

You might see people drafted into factories, given how much stuff is made in China and the impact on global trade, though.

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