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Today's "Ask Dr. Ruwart"

What if the all-volunteer military isn't enough?

Question: What if there are insufficient military volunteers and our nation needs more help? I hope the answer isn't that we shouldn't get involved in wars that are insufficiently popular to get sufficient volunteers.

My Short Answer:

Today's army "volunteers" are actually people who are accepting a soldiering job for pay. If more military personnel are needed, paying higher wages will increase enlistment.

If potential volunteers believe that a war is unjustified, higher wages will be needed for recruitment. The military will be staffed with mercenaries, rather than patriots. Conversely, if a nation is attacked, as the U.S. was on 9-11, enlistments skyrocket, even without an increase in pay to compensate for the increased risks.

The funding needed to keep soldiers in the field, and the public's willingness to bear that cost, are indicators that politicians can use to gauge "customer satisfaction" with the war they are waging. A very unpopular war, like Vietnam, might have ended earlier if this "market mechanism" had been in place.

Dr. Mary Ruwart is a leading expert in libertarian communication and author of the international bestseller Healing Our World. She is also author of Short Answers to Tough Questions, in which you will find a collection of her answers.

Read more of Dr. Ruwart's Short Answers to Tough Libertarian Questions.

Dr. Ruwart's answers graciously provided by The Advocates for Self-Government.