I touched on this a little bit in another thread here, and I think villanelle touched on it a little bit here too.
We don't have enough people in the submarine force.
I don't know if it plays out the same in the surface fleet, but, we were 90 short for officer ascesions last year. They made up some of it by really torquing some people and forcing them to go nuke, and made up some more with NUPOCs, but last I checked NR still wanted another 15 O's for last year, not even addressing this year yet. That's just the officer side. I know they're still paying some zone B and C nukes 100K to reenlist, so I doubt the enlisted side is doing much better, at least in the engine room. I'm all for sending whoever you can that can do the job and support the watchbill, hotdog or taco. I'd bet a lot of people who have been that port and stbd watchstander for half an underway would agree too. Either you integrate or start forcing men to do our crappy jobs, draft or otherwise, I don't see any other way. Even with all the frat problems of integration, I bet politically its easier to integrate to fix manning problems than to push for a draft.