The Military Obligation of Citizens Since Vietnam

On the eve of the Persian Gulf War, as President George Bush worked to win public support for his policy to liberate Kuwait, he made it plain that his war plans included no plan to restore the military draft. He would call up the National Guard and Army Reserve. By taking these steps, Bush distanced himself as far as possible from the manpower policies pursued in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson. After deciding to escalate the war in Vietnam, Johnson refused to call up the National Guard or Army Reserve and chose instead to rely solely on the draft. These different approaches to raising an army for war did not simply reflect different policy preferences of the two administrations. While it was politically possible for Johnson to rely on the draft alone, President Bush knew that he could not restore the draft even if he wanted to. The Vietnam War and the rise of the all-volunteer force had moved the country away from an "unlimited" toward a "limited" conception of