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Comment by consp | Hacker News Reader

Add a frontline draft (no exceptions) to that and let's see how it goes. You can manage away cost but not that.

I always wanted a law where, in case Congress declares war, each senator and congressman/woman that voted for war has to send their kids and grandkids (if they are between 18 and 35 years of age) to the front line.

There would be no war pretty soon.

Alternatively: a president declaring war should first kill a randomly-selected soldier with their own bare hands, livestreamed on television. It would make war real to them, and not just some non-people disappearing into a bomb explosion on a video screen.

Something similar has been suggested for starting nuclear war: if things are bad enough that you are willing to doom whole populations of mostly-innocents to their death, you shouldn't have any trouble directly killing one more.

You could make it even more symbolic by doing it as seppuku instead: if you have failed badly enough as a politician that politics isn't even an option anymore and many soldiers have to pay the ultimate price to make up for your failure, then you should be the first one to do so.

This would probably cause psychopathic presidents to start more wars just for the opportunity. Historically many of the leaders of countries were also soldiers who had no qualms doing the killing.

This is a bit old but I will just add that I don't think that would be adequate. I know of several Congress creatures and their families who deliberately, intentionally, willingly and with a political plan in mind to send their children to "war". Of course it is usually in some specialized capacity where they are safe and also generate some prestige, e.g., Air Force, intel, etc. for their inevitable political career.

Sadly, they care less about their own children usually than if you made it far simpler, simply make the full cost of any war totally and solely payable by the ruling/upper classes through both immense taxation on their income, i.e., 90% and a wealth tax of 10%, total forfeiture of all assets if they is any attempt to hidden them and are not reported, and a bounty of 50% for discovery of any unreported assets.

Now THAT would end all wars everywhere, except it would likely also cause the money to try to escape to a place that does not have such policies and use that as a base of operations to build/raise a force of subversion, infiltration, corruption, etc.

Frankly, people really have very little understanding of the "shape" of what they are up against. It's often dismissed and I don't even think the people who call it "spiritual warfare" really understand it either, but it is essentially a power, a force that has been often described, but never defined or identified properly that is essentially an abstraction, a graph, more an amorphous fluid dynamic than a material thing. If you know anyone that is an extremely manipulative narcissist and pathological and deliberate, psychopathic liar, you have come face to face with the constantly shifting, ducking, weaving, and orchestrating nature of the system that so many are hard pressed to understand because it is not a line of men on a battlefield, it is not a missile, it is not even "money" it is data, digital transactions of "currency", information as currency... the life blood of manipulation, abuse, and evil.

With enough wealth drafts can be doged

cue Creedence - Fortunate Son

More relevantly, in a modern war you want experts. Even grunts need to know a lot to be effective, they have drilled and drilled until they react correctly without thinking about it - and somebody in charge of a handful of them needs to know how to use their skills to achieve larger strategic goals which then trickle up.

Needing to use a draft is a bad sign - the more of your soldiers are volunteers the better quality you'll get out of that.

> Needing to use a draft is a bad sign - the more of your soldiers are volunteers the better quality you'll get out of that.

That's a luxury position, which unfortunately not every country is in.

I agree it's a luxury position, I'm just suggesting that "We should draft trust fund kids" isn't actually some clever fix to ensure alignment from the ultra-wealthy and your military forces will hate it.

It may not ensure alignment, but a draft should not distinguish people drafted based on wealth because then you get the opposite of alignment.

Or the privileged kids are placed in safe deployments.

There is the real thing you do. You ensure your kids are drafted. However, even in war, there are places that are peaceful that have to be protected. Your kids do have to go through basic training, which is grueling, but once they do that, you just make sure that they're the ones selected to man the supply chain back home. Or maybe they stand in front of an embassy of a third party not involved with the war because you still have to have guards in front of that embassy even though it's probably a ceremonial position.

Note that it often isn't the powerful doing anything. Anyone with sense in military chain of command is going to ensure the kids of the powerful people get moved to important but non dangerous positions without being asked. Even if asked to put the kids in a dangerous position it won't happen.

Or officer commissions purchased.

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