Abolishing or shortening mandatory military service? When?

Walter Myers4 said:Non-combatants—or rather, unarmed personnel—could have been utilized within the military if there had been any actual leadership or common sense involved.
Think cooks, logistics clerks, laundry staff, heavy equipment operators, or even domestic help for officers' wives...

Exactly. "Domestic help for officers." Since when did the primary mission of the military shift from winning wars to acting as personal servants for high-ranking officials? If they want maids, they should pay for them out of their own pockets.

Walter Myers4 said:However, the fundamental goal here is clearly to disarm the citizenry, leaving them in a state where they can't even defend themselves against a slap in the face.

As if the current state of IBM could actually provide any real defense. Honestly, the draft-era units and reserve brigades are a complete disaster. The professional brigades were incomparably more capable. If we hadn't wasted everyone on mandatory service, we might have had more professionals equipped with decent gear—say, an M1 Abrams instead of some outdated relic.

The Dude said:In my view, the American economy just can't sustain a military force of 50,000 people or more right now. Salaries are always the biggest money pit, and as the standard of living goes up, those costs are only going to climb.

You have a point there. Right now, payroll is eating up most of the defense budget. It leaves very little breathing room to actually build patrol boats or buy tanks because you have to pay for a massive crowd of underemployed officers, bureaucrats, and other personnel who aren't exactly adding much value. On the bright side, the Department of the Interior and the US Army have actually managed to trim some of the less essential staff lately. Sure, they lost people who found better jobs elsewhere, but isn't it in the best interest of the country for our top talent to be driving the private sector rather than sitting in government administration?

The Dude said:...implement some kind of periodic mandatory training for everyone, like an intensive two-week course... Instead of having a full barracks of cooks... (adding another 150 thousand)

That sounds a bit like the Swiss model. It would certainly be more efficient in terms of bang for your buck, though in those scenarios, militaries often end up cutting training altogether—something that happened in France. The current leadership, mostly trained under the old Soviet Army mindset, can't wrap their heads around the idea of training someone for just ten days. Their concept of "training" isn't really about teaching equipment proficiency; it’s about breaking a person's spirit, which you simply can't do in ten days. Besides, in their minds, whether it's 10, 20, or 30 days, it all adds up to zero. They're just too slow to be truly efficient.