Paul Hellyer's American student

Paul Kane has written a New York Times op-ed which sounds disturbingly like something cooked up by former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer. The modern Canadian Armed Forces were formed by amalgamating the formerly separate Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and the Royal Canadian Air Force. The arguments for this highly disruptive move were primarily economic and bureaucratic, not military in nature. It's to the credit of the members of the separate services that things worked out as well as they did, but many careers were cut short and much bitterness still exists from that re-organization so many years ago.

Hellyer claimed that "the amalgamation . . . will provide the flexibility to enable Canada to meet in the most effective manner the military requirements of the future. It will also establish Canada as an unquestionable leader in the field of military organization." In one sense this was true: Canada was the first nation to completely amalgamate the military services. But to be a "leader" requires that someone else "follow". That part never happened. The hoped-for cost savings may or may not have been achieved, but the economies all seemed to reduce the combat effectiveness, morale, and equipment inventories of the combat arms. A unified armed forces was no better able to resist militarily ignorant political moves than the separate services had been.

Kane doesn't go quite "full Hellyer" here, but you can see the same sort of thinking:

First, the Air Force should be eliminated, and its personnel and equipment integrated into the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. [. . .]

Yes, air power is a critical component of America’s arsenal. But the Army, Navy and Marines already maintain air wings within their expeditionary units. The Air Force is increasingly a redundancy in structure and spending.

It's quite possible that the current division of responsibilities between the USAF and the other branches of service need to be re-adjusted. The USAF is notoriously uninterested in ground-support missions, which is of very high importance to ground troops. Allowing the Army to run its own attack helicopters was the compromise arrived at — the Air Force still had to maintain some ground-attack aircraft, but the Army's helicopter forces took on most of the close-support duties.

The second part of Kane's proposal is actually pretty good:

Second, the archaic “up or out” military promotion system should be scrapped in favor of a plan that treats service members as real assets. [. . .]

Treating service members like so many widgets — in particular, the enlisted men and women who make up 85 percent of the ranks — is arbitrary and bad management. I have seen many fit, experienced officers and enlisted Marines arbitrarily forced out because there were only so many slots into which they could be promoted.

The military should develop a new accounting and personnel system that tracks the cost of developing its human capital and tallies each service member as an investment with a fixed value based on his education, training, experience and performance. This would reflect the departure of a valued service member as an asset lost, not a cost cut. Why are fit men and women who have served in combat, a human experience that a million dollars can’t buy, being pushed out instead of retained for 15, 20, 30 years?

But after the solid part of his proposal, he quickly dives into the worst solution available:

Third, the United States needs a national service program for all young men and women, without any deferments, to increase the quality and size of the pool from which troops are drawn.

Because, as we all know, a well-trained, loyal, and dependable armed service can be created by dragooning free individuals against their will. Calling it "conscription" does not make it any less repulsive. Forcing people to "serve" at gunpoint makes a mockery of the whole notion of being a free country.

The "denizens" at Castle Argghhh! also weigh in on Kane's proposals.