US Military without Vietnam

I think we're skipping the cultural impact of a continuing draft. The modern professional military caste is inherently and nearly completely apart from the rest of America. It's based on mostly Southern rural and some Northern rural/inner-city volunteers that see themselves as apart from the rest of the country.

The draft certainly wasn't representative of the population and of course rich or connected people at the time skipped it, but it certainly was a lot closer than the modern military where poor people fight wars for rich politicians.

The Widening Gap Between Military and Society. James Fallows also talks about it fairly often.

I'm kind of curious. What made the Army decide to get its own fleet of helos when the Air Force is often tasked with shuffling troops around?

Did the Air Force decide that rotary-wing aircraft were beneath their notice and let the Army have 'em

The Air Force wouldn't let the Army have the fixed wing aircraft it wanted for close combat support so the Army invested in attack helicopters because it couldn't build the A-10 it would have preferred. That would continue ITTL. As for transport the Army doesn't trust the Air Force on that matter either, so if helicopters let them escape a little from the USAF they'll do it.

As with Representatives versus Senators where the enemy is not the other party but rather the other chamber (at least in bygone days), the enemy is not the USSR but rather the Air Force. There's a reason each branch always gets 1/3 of the defence budget.
 
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Interesting that there seems to be consensus that the draft would continue without Vietnam. I think this is incorrect, historically the US has tended to have a small professional military rather than a large non-professional military. The exception to this is during times of major war. My expectation is that w/o the pressures of Vietnam by the early to mid 1960s the US would be trending back in this direction, note that the UK, Canada, France and Australia were all moving away from the draft by the mid 1950s to early 1960s so the trend was in the air for western military's.

Especially without the pressure of needing many ground forces what would have driven keeping the draft alive?

Tom.

I agree. Why would the US army want a lot of people who don't want to be in the army, were a pain in the bottom to train and then be a handicap on the battlefield?

Look at the relatively poor performance of US ground forces in Vietnam (pause for the 'God Bless America' outcry).

Without a ground war in Vietnam I think the elitist attitude of the Kennedy administration that favoured professionalism and special forces and a reliance on new technology would move America toward an end to the draft by the end of the 1960's.

A conscript army would be less efficient as technical skill and intensive training is more important than grunts marching up and down and playing with bayonets.
 
I agree. Why would the US army want a lot of people who don't want to be in the army, were a pain in the bottom to train and then be a handicap on the battlefield?

Look at the relatively poor performance of US ground forces in Vietnam (pause for the 'God Bless America' outcry).

Without a ground war in Vietnam I think the elitist attitude of the Kennedy administration that favoured professionalism and special forces and a reliance on new technology would move America toward an end to the draft by the end of the 1960's.

A conscript army would be less efficient as technical skill and intensive training is more important than grunts marching up and down and playing with bayonets.

But the Kennedy-Administration wasn´t all Special forces. Under Kennedy we saw the change from the Strategy of Massive nuclear retaliation to Flexibel Response. There was already before Vietnam a massive rearment of the conventional US-forces and the offical goal was "Two and a half war", means the USA should have been caple to fight an convential war against the Soviets AND China AND still have a strategic Reserve. For such an Army the Draft would still be needed.

My Prognosis, how the US-forces would look like in the late 1970th.

A much bigger Army with 18-20 Divisons. There will be still 5 Divisions and four TankRegiments in Germany and 2 Divisions in Korea. The US-Army will get a earlier (but more flawed) replacement for the M60-tank. Beside "heavy" Divisions (armored and mechanized) and "light" Divions (airmobile), there will be "medium" Divisions (mot. Infantry with heavy equipment). The army will be good equipt for the Battles of the 1970th but less for the Battles of the 1990th.
The Airforce will still depent on "heavy" fighters-bombers. There will be no F-16.
 
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