Agency initiates steps for selective draft – WASHINGTON — The government is taking the first steps toward a targeted military draft of Americans with special skills in computers and foreign languages. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is adamant that he will not ask Congress to authorize a draft, and officials at the Selective Service System, the independent federal agency that would organize any conscription, stress that the possibility of a so-called “special skills draft” is remote.
While languages and medicine are both generalized skills where people drafted for (relatively) short 1-2 year enlistments might be expected to immediately pitch in and start contributing, I wonder if computer skills are really in the same category. Since the variety of software and hardware solutions is so varied, and especially in the military so customized, it seems that much of a draftees enlistment would be spent trying to sort heads or tails out of things.
Reservists are pre-trained and continually re-certified on the operation of reasonably current equipment and have a base training in military process and procedures. Even with all those advantages over straight civilians, they often spend months spinning up for deployment before their skills become sufficiently honed.
How much worse off would someone who not only has to orient themselves to the military, but also has to become familiar with another professionals work? The same reason that project managers, engineers, architects, and other specialties are not drafted is that they are not interchangeable on a one-to-one basis. When it takes months to orient yourself to previous work on a progress, the value of substituting people drops quickly.
Translators on the other hand ARE pretty much interchangeable (with admittedly noticeable loss in things like nuance) and would seem after a cursory glance to be a more sensible target for an enhanced draft.
Draft for Computers/Linguists Considered
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Agency initiates steps for selective draft –
While languages and medicine are both generalized skills where people drafted for (relatively) short 1-2 year enlistments might be expected to immediately pitch in and start contributing, I wonder if computer skills are really in the same category. Since the variety of software and hardware solutions is so varied, and especially in the military so customized, it seems that much of a draftees enlistment would be spent trying to sort heads or tails out of things.
Reservists are pre-trained and continually re-certified on the operation of reasonably current equipment and have a base training in military process and procedures. Even with all those advantages over straight civilians, they often spend months spinning up for deployment before their skills become sufficiently honed.
How much worse off would someone who not only has to orient themselves to the military, but also has to become familiar with another professionals work? The same reason that project managers, engineers, architects, and other specialties are not drafted is that they are not interchangeable on a one-to-one basis. When it takes months to orient yourself to previous work on a progress, the value of substituting people drops quickly.
Translators on the other hand ARE pretty much interchangeable (with admittedly noticeable loss in things like nuance) and would seem after a cursory glance to be a more sensible target for an enhanced draft.