In 1973, the US military took an enormously consequential step when it adopted an all-volunteer force model. That decision has produced the most professional, capable joint force in history. But it hasn’t come without costs—from the large budgets required to maintain it to a shrinking recruitment base that has serious implications for civil-military relations. So what does the all-volunteer force’s future look like? How much have the strategic, economic, and social conditions that drove the decision to adopt the model changed over the past fifty years? Would it hold up in a modern, large-scale war? And if strategic realities required it, how would a return to some form of conscription work? John Amble is joined on this episode by Jaron Wharton and Keith Carter, coeditors of Bend But Do Not Break: Shaping the Future of the All-Volunteer Force, to explore those questions and more.
The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.
In this episode of the MWI Podcast we talk to historian and bestselling author Max Boot. He gives his assessment of the current situation...
After twenty years of America’s post-9/11 wars and the US military’s struggle to build capable and effective security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, there...
Medal of Honor recipient Staff Sgt. (Ret) Sal Giunta discusses his actions in the Korengal Valley in 2007, how he managed keep calm under...