WASHINGTON -- The Cold War has been over for a decade, but you wouldn't know it after looking at U.S. security policy. Spending on the military is rising; all 18-year-old men must register for the draft. However, a House appropriations subcommittee has voted to kill the Selective Service System, along with registration. Congress should affirm this decision and cut the agency's funding.
Registration never made sense. President Jimmy Carter reinstituted the draft signup to show the Soviets that he was tough. President Ronald Reagan promised to kill the program, but flip-flopped after the Soviet-inspired crackdown in Poland. Even then, however, Moscow could tell the difference between a serious military and an outdated list of untrained 18-year-olds.
Today the U.S. stands astride the globe as a military colossus. The prospect of a clash of mass armies, a la NATO vs. the Warsaw Pact, is but a paranoid fantasy. No one -- outside, perhaps, of Selective Service -- now believes registration is necessary. Six years ago the Congressional Research Service concluded that a major military buildup could be "much more quickly" achieved "by activating more reserves than by instituting a draft."