The problem is that, after Vietnam, America will oppose the draft for pretty much any war that isn't directly defensive, i.e. a retaliation to an attack or overt declaration of war.

Vietnam didn't start with a draft either, IIRC.

With the development of modern media, wars have become much, much harder to wage.

They used to be. But institutions adapted. Do you remember the run-up to the Iraq war? You could drive a truck through the arguments for invading (I remember being particularly unimpressed by the aluminum tubes & audio recordings), yet the media was so supine that even arch-liberal papers like the New York Times drank the kool-aid so deeply they would apologize later. And then there are things like embedded reporters, or those Pentagon pundits (forgotten about them? I wouldn't be surprised.).

No, in this Gotterdammerung for newspapers, we cannot look to them to stop wars & drafts.

So compulsive military service is quite possible in the case of a rather clear national emergency.

So you agree with me, then, that the American people philosophically accepts coercion like the draft, it's just that we don't observe any recent drafts because the specific circumstances that would make it useful are, due to historical & technological contingency, rare? :)

I admit I can't quite find how this thread originated, so I may be slightly off topic; for some reason it does not show in the comments in the original post.

We're nested too far down to appear on the main page; you'd have to click 'more comments'.