Air University Review , July-August 1980

Civilians in Uniform

WHAT to say about manpower? Since the turn of the year, with crisis in Afghanistan, the nation's news has regularly included discussions of America's military manpower needs. Early in the year, the President called for renewal of draft registration, possibly to include women. At the end of January, in a statement paralleled by those of other service chiefs, the Chief of Naval Operations testified to Congress that "adverse trends in retention of our key supervisory talent--our most experienced middlegrade leaders--are fast becoming the critical constraint on the size, capability, and readiness of the Navy. . . . The talent drain occasioned by inadequate compensation is clearly the single most serious concern I have about the present state of the Navy."²

In the following weeks, public opposition to draft registration reemerged from its own version of "deep standby"; Congress proved unwilling to take the political risks associated with reviving the Selective Service System; several reputable analyses from inside the government as well as outside seemed to indicate that adequate military manpower would be available without a draft. By March, the military manpower issue had intersected with the nation's runaway inflation problem. Hence the headline of the March 17, 1980 Air Force Times: "Carter Tells DoD: Stop Complaining about Pay."³

This overview of the manpower issue's evolution early in 1980 illustrates an irony of American political discourse. In most cases, issues must attract a certain attention, a national level of sensitivity and interest, before much is done about them. This simply reflects American consensus-style politics, and it is a fundamental feature of our democratic system. The irony: issues that finally obtain such attention run a heightened risk of being obscured, distorted, oversimplified, misunderstood, and mishandled.

The attention accorded military manpower concerns in the last few months makes it imperative to attend those few writings of substance and utility pushed aside by the rush of journalistic treatments. Kenneth J. Coffey's recent book on the all-volunteer force (A VF) is one such writing. * Dr. Coffey, formerly an official in the Selective Service Administration, then a consultant to various defense agencies and offices on manpower issues, and most recently a manpower expert for the General Accounting Office, should be familiar to readers of this periodical. His article, "Defending Europe against a Conventional Attack," appeared in the January-February 1980 issue of Air University Review.⁴ Because that article and the contents of Coffey's book run closely in parallel, his views require only brief recapitulation here.

Kenneth J Coffey, Strategic Implications of the AII- Volunteer Force: The Conventional Defense of Central Europe (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1979, $15.00 cloth, $9.00 paper), 210 pages.

Dr. Coffey believes that, in a number of ways, the adoption of an all-volunteer force manning policy has diminished American military capability, and especially its commitment to reinforce Europe in a NATO war. Although the regular, active duty forces are not demonstrably lower in quality or worse off than they might have been under a draft system, Coffey argues that the reserve forces have suffered serious erosions of quality and strength by almost every meaningful measure. In accepting the higher manpower costs of an A VF in a time of inflation and budgetary constraints, the United States has forfeited its ability to support both a short war and a long war posture in relation to the NATO contingency. In Coffey's opinion, this development has been ignored at policy levels, causing a widening gap between American capabilities and American commitments in the very case the administration has designated its top priority.

Nevertheless, as Coffey correctly notes, and as the course of public debate early in 1980 confirmed, things have not reached the point at which the Congress and the public are ready to terminate the A VF experiment. He therefore has focused on refinements of present manpower policy. "What additional measures," he asks, "can be taken by the armed forces to reduce A VF-related manpower problems? Second, what adjustments can be made in A VF mobilization and deployment policies to provide a more realistic deterrent against a conventional attack on NATO by the Warsaw Pact? And third, what changes should be made in U.S. strategic policies in order to reconcile the capabilities of the A VF with U.S. war-sustaining commitments?"

Some readers may find Dr. Coffey's questions better, in some respects, than the suggested answers; but among his recommendations several deserve further consideration. One is his suggestion of a limited draft-it could also, perhaps, be a program of special inducements--designed to fill out the Individual Ready Reserve, now dangerously undermanned. Another is the possibility of establishing a system of individual rather than unit replacements, to allow more efficient and flexible use of the manpower now in the reserve. Most important, and doubtless most controversial, Dr. Coffey argues that "the total force policy and the commitment to maintain a long war-sustaining capability are anachronisms of a past era when a large mass army was the order of the day. . . . in an era of volunteerism, the willingness of the American people to support the armed forces and to participate therein should determine the level of strategic commitments. At least for the foreseeable future, the nation's commitments should be reduced in order to reflect the level of capabilities."

In its conclusions, quoted above, this book raises profound questions of policy and strategy--of policy in terms of the determinants of national goals or commitments, of strategy in terms of the classic relationship between ends and means. Regrettably, however, the book does so in a manner that epitomizes the worst consequences of the literal-minded rationalism that so often gets defense analysts and functionaries into political trouble. Whatever the dictates of reason tidily applied to political calculus, the American people do not, and should not, determine their strategic commitments on the basis of "the willingness of the people to support the armed forces." A nation's interests, goals, and commitments are shaped by profound historical and political forces, not only by the pressures of the moment. Nations pursue their interests and attempt to meet their commitments not only with armed force but through the intelligent use of other instrumentalities of influence. Indeed, great statesmen and the nations they serve often seek to manipulate their circumstances and opportunities, as well as those of their adversaries, so that tests of power must give way to tests of skill.

As for strategy, it is a commonplace. to say that means must be adequate to the task at hand. But it is equally fundamental to prevent considerations of means from dominating, or indeed determining, considerations of ends. Further, as many of the great military leaders of history have proclaimed, the intangible elements of war, politics, and power weigh heavily in the determination of results. There is nothing easy, automatic, or even truly scientific about calculating the relation between this nation's commitments and its capabilities in the A VF--or any other--era.

The manpower issues this country now faces are serious, and they will remain important for some time to come. Dr. Coffey's book contains valuable discussions of the A VF experiment's effects on American military capability. To preach prudence; to scrutinize the relation between commitments and capabilities well in advance of need; to assess the domestic political environment as it bears on national purposes and preparedness: these are worthy endeavors, for the most part well pursued in Dr. Coffey's book. But, as I have argued elsewhere, the military and its apologists must learn to present manpower issues in terms that are both meaningful and usable in the customary ends-means debates of American politics.⁵ In doing so, it will, as always, be necessary to guard against the tendency of good logic to overwhelm good judgment.

1. W.J. Holmes, Double-edged Secrets: U.S. Naval Intelligence Operations in the Pacific during World War II (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1979), p. 169.

2. A Report by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, U.S. Navy on the Fiscal Year 1981 Military Posture and Fiscal Year 1981 Budget of the United States Navy, 31 January 1980 (Naval War College print of typescript version), p. 7.7

3. This story further reported that the President had complained of "the constant drum of criticism from top military officials." According to this report, and to others as well, the President added, in the memorandum to Secretary of Defense Harold Brown that: "You should assess other factors involved in reenlistment problems. When I was in the Navy, pay was not the major factor. "

4. Kenneth J. Coffey, "Defending Europe against a Conventional Attack," Air University Review, January-February 1980, pp. 47-59.

5. Thomas H. Etzold, "Our Diminishing Manpower Resources," Army, January 1980, pp. 10-14.

Thomas Etzold (A.B., M.A., University of Indiana; Ph.D., Yale) is professor of strategy at the United States Naval War College. He has also taught history at Tale and Miami University (Ohio). He is coeditor and coauthor of China in the 1920s: Nationalism and Revolution (1976), coeditor with John Lewis Gaddis of Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945-1950, and author of The Conduct of American Foreign Relations: The Other Side of Diplomacy (1977). Dr. Etzold is a frequent contributor to the Review and other professional journals.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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