> I don't know, Marv. It seems to me that, precisely, the measure of
> the *opposite* risk (conscript armies making imperialist wars too
> uphill in modern U.S. society) was given by the decision of the
> government to set up all-"volunteer"/mercenary armed forces. That's
> the premium -- so to speak -- the rulers decided to pay to insure
> against *that* risk.
>
> And that was back then, when Vietnam happened. Now *that* risk must
> be greater, no? After all, people started to demonstrate against the
> invasion of Iraq way before it was launched. Not to mention now,
> after Iraq has proven to be a fiasco in the eyes of a majority of the
> U.S. people.
Yes, this is the other side of the coin - the "mass resistance" risk inherent in a draft which you mention as against the "insufficient forces" risk in a non-conscript army that I was referring to. It's a real conundrum for US imperialism, isn't it?
Perhaps the advent of the democratic franchise in England, France, the US and elsewhere has served to inhibit the use of large armies of conscripts physically occupying colonial territories. Bourgeois democracies have had to become even more dependent on "neo-colonial" methods involving economic coercion and technologically advanced military forces to avoid the kind of expenditures and casualties and news coverage of atrocities leading to mass political unrest at home which finds expression through electoral channels and demos (eg. India, Algeria, Vietnam).