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I am surprised that no one seems to have picked up one sentence that Bush used when talking about why there would not be a draft. I think it was in the first debate when he mentioned robots in combat, and then he shut up about it. I think that he had started to use some classified information to help his position and then decided not to. (Remember when Carter started talking about stealth aircraft before they were operational?)
First: I am not talking about mechanical men type robots, like in Robocop. I am talking about armed machines that don't have humans inside the machine. Instead the operator is someplace else, controlling the machine via a data link.
The military has been experimenting with them for decades, but the control problems were overwhelming. But with modern low power signals and digital controls, smaller and more sensitive sensors, and greater on-board processing ability, robot warriors will soon be hitting the battlefields. Some, such as the Predator armed drone, are already there.
Technology has advanced to the stage where not much, if any, R&D is needed.
Imagine a future Fallajuh. Imagine a small vehicle, the size of an 4 wheeled all terrain buggy, lightly armored, outfitted with a machine gun, a couple of missiles, a laser designator, laser range finder, several tiny TV cameras (Both visible light and infrared), tight beam encrypted data link (So it will be difficult to locate by electronic means)and a good microprocessor. A drone, circling lazily miles above picks up movement around a suspected area. The ground operator tells his bot to move to where it can observe the area. He switched one of the cameras to zoom in, another to infrared, and tells the bot to monitor the pixels for movement. The operator sits back with his coffee. Two hours later a tone beeps and a screen flashes with a circle around the movement. Nope, just a goat. A few minutes later another alert is the real thing. An enemy patrol is trying to slip past. The operator decides the doesn't want to give away the location of his bot, so he uses the laser range-finder & the GPS locater to transmit the EXACT position of the patrol to an artillery battery. Seconds later the patrol vanishes in fire & red mist. Now the operator is to to assemble for the attack. With several other bots they assault. Bullets bounce of the bot harmlessly, while the operator, as if it were a computer game, targets and dispatches enemy targets. Real people but to him, just images on a screen. No screams, and no personal fear of his own death. His guns don't miss for the electronics take care of the marksmanship. Hard targets are laser designated for smart bombs. The operator next to him curses as his bot is destroyed and the screens go blank, but for that operator it is only, "GAME OVER". His own suffers the loss of a screen as a bullet hits a camera lens. Small matter as his bot as many eyes. The radar tracked where the bullet came from and the processor, in auto-fight mode, already has sent ultra accurate return fire back to where the bullet came from. That enemy won't shoot any more. The other operator has now assumed command of a bot that has been air dropped into the midst of the enemy. In thirty minutes the objective has been taken, and now a real tank and a couple armored personnel carriers with a squad of human soldiers arrive to take care of anything that the bots may have missed. The bots missed very little, but they did miss some. At the end of the operation one American is wounded, dozens of enemy are dead, the rest have fled in terror.
Draft? Who needs it? The bots don't have to be fed, or clothed, or take leave, and when you don't need them you can put them in warehouses until needed again. Operators? Hey, look how many people have already trained themselves, well almost trained themselves, using video computer games. Recruiting slogan: JOIN THE ARMY AND PLAY THE BEST GAMES - FOR REAL!!
The problem is, I haven't been that much over the top in my little scenario.
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