alt Hacker NewsOpening graph: "We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost," says military contractor and all-around surveillance-enabler Palantir.
If that's the case, then every war to be fought needs to have the say so of those that will be doing the fighting and not the solitary decision made by a delusional leader that had already circumvented the required process from Congress.
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Exactly. Enforce the war powers of congress and require a non-delegatable per-war approval.
Hell, require the approval of 3/4 of governors as well.
Having those sent to fight in a war being the ones to decide if the war should be fought was on of the major points in General Butler’s 1935 book War is a Racket
what war? 'tis but a skirmish ... o.O
I was going to make a sarcastic comment about how everyone in Russia shared the risks and costs with Nicolas Romanov but then realized it was true. If politicians sending kids to kill and die shared the risk and cost of war then they wouldn't get to come home from Washington when the war is finished.
Robert Heinlein proposed something like that in his "lost" novel For Us, the Living: instead of declaring war, Congress would authorize a war referendum, in which only those eligible for military service could vote. The catch was, everyone voting "Yes" would thereby automatically sign themselves up in the military for the duration. If a further draft was needed, it would first be composed of those that didn't vote, and lastly those who voted "No."
(In the book, the "future" Congress had called war referenda on three occasions; each time, the vote was overwhelmingly "No," and historians believed those decisions were justified.)