Increasing the Army back to the 750k range is very doable with an all volunteer force. We had more than that in the 1980’s. The only challenge is doing it effectively, which takes time. An additional 200k would take about four to five years to enact. President Bush should have done this back in 2002, but Rumsfeld was against adding troops. It was one of their biggest mistakes.

Of course, it would take the same amount of time if trying to increase a drafted army. You do not get an effective fighting force with just boot camp and AIT. And there is a max capacity for those training resources, so you can only add a set amount each year. Plus, it takes a year or more of advanced unit level training to make an effective fighting force, and then once trained, you want to keep it together for a while. You can not get that when you only have people on 18 month assignments after 6 months of preliminary training.

If you want to draft people for 5 year stints, and fully enforce USMJ, including prison for those who do not comply or follow procedures, then you could have a military as effective as the current all volunteer force. But you are adding costs, and you can only bring a minor percentage of Americans through it. That means most draft age people would not be going in the military, which defeats one of the arguments for it.

I suppose you cold make everyone go through basic military training, and only keep those who are the best, but that would be significantly more expensive for no net benefit. Anyone who has served in the modern Army, especially in combat, could probably not imagine having an under motivated draftee with no experience, and focused primarily on surviving to his exit date this year, in the vehicle with him as they attempt to rescue their fellow soldiers pinned down ahead of them.

Will the draftee step up and do the mission to the best of his ability this day? Just don’t know, maybe. But you would be sure of the other guy to your right who has five years experience and who has trained and fought with you for the last two years. If you haven’t been there, trust that you don’t want to have any doubts regarding the people around you.