> Back in the day my country still had obligatory military service for the oldest male child of the family. Everyone had to do this. IQ tests were used to sort people coming in.

With due respect for your country, which country you're talking about is highly relevant. There are <5 countries with militaries comparable in efficiency to the US military and only Israel is really soldier-per-soldier competitive. That's not a criticism of your country--your country likely spends its efforts on better things--but if we're talking about what's effective for a military, US military practices really are a reasonable gold standard.

That starts with the fact that the US doesn't do compulsory military service, because soldiers who don't want to be there aren't effective soldiers (note that Israel does do compulsory military service, which is because they have different problems than we do).

> The military does not only need highly functioning autonomous operators. There were many more menial positions in cleaning, catering, hauling and warm body canon fodder than there were scouts or special forces.

Thinking that "warm body cannon fodder" is something the military needs demonstrates a bit of a misconception on how modern militaries work.

Cleaning, catering, hauling, etc. need to be handled by high-functioning people as well, because in a warzone, attacks on things like cleanliness to reduce morale, or attacks on food and other supplies, are effective attacks.

All this is to say, that if the US military doesn't want low-IQ folks, there are good reasons for that.

I'm guessing a former Soviet country (oldest male child) but I could be way off.

>That starts with the fact that the US doesn't do compulsory military service, because soldiers who don't want to be there aren't effective soldiers (note that Israel does do compulsory military service, which is because they have different problems than we do).

While the security concerns of certain countries have motivated compelled military service, I wonder if a side-effect is less division/greater intra-country tolerance? And would the U.S. benefit from instituting compelled military service, or perhaps, compelled national service, which doesn't necessarily entail holding a weapon.

Some cursory searching turned up this study from Brookings suggesting that it would. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/nationa...

And here's a paper - more of an opinion piece - arguing against it: https://www.cato.org/testimony/mandatory-universal-national-...

It doesn't really matter if the US would benefit from forced military service because that's not the kind of values the country was founded on. Drafts may sometimes be necessary in wartime, but during peace it's an awful idea to force military training on everyone.

On the one hand, one of the values our country was founded on was maintaining the right to own slaves. On the other hand, the values that our country was founded on that I still care about, like free speech and privacy, have been eroded far more severely than a draft would erode them.

I'm definitely ethically opposed to a draft, but it's a bit naive to think that the US has ethical values or even ever has.

The country was Belgium. This was in the 1980's. A different era.

Read abt McNamara’s Morons, referenced elsewhere in the thread. Below a certain threshold of low IQ, humans are fundamentally unfit to handle dangerous weapons, and lack basic awareness and understanding to perform even menial roles.

> warm body canon fodder

Man, your Army Band really takes their Bach to the extreme.

It was a reference to the Star Wars canon, not Bach. Sadly his army failed to defend it from the Mouseketeers.