Someone snarking on Twitter last night pointed out that the draft will never be reinstated in the United States, it's been replaced by institutional poverty. I mean, consider: we had to deal with a student who gave no fucks about her $80k education because her three years in the Coast Guard meant she didn't have to pay for a dime of it. With places with compulsory military service, it's much more about the necessity of civil defense and logistics than it is about imperialism (American military service is entirely in service of imperialism). We can't even really afford our troops anymore; imagine what WWII would like if for every dude landing at Normandy required two guys from Halliburton. American military force projection is a weird bastard child of old laws, old traditions and new corporate realities. This is why it largely interests the poor and the adventurers.