Does our country need one half of the world's army?

30 Issues in 30 Days is our election year series on the important issues facing the country this election year. Today: Emerging issues of modern warfare and the near future of the U.S. military. Visit the 30 Issue home page for all the conversations.

As part of the Brian Lehrer Show's 30 Issues in 30 Days series, the WNYC Data News team is designing interactive visualizations, tools and graphics to illuminate the data behind the issues. Join the full conversation on the Obama and Romney military record here..

A new draft makes sense to my notions of fairness, smart decision-making and national unity. But I have a hard time getting too passionate about imposing a draft.

Scott Shane, reporter for the New York Times, discusses his recent series of pieces on the use of drone warfare by the United States—and how some of that reporting has been misconstrued.

Recap from It's a Free Country.

Welcome to Politics Bites, where every afternoon at It's A Free Country, we bring you the unmissable quotes from the morning's political conversations on WNYC. Today on the Brian Lehrer Show, David Eisenhower, director of the Institute for Public Service at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, discussed his afterword to The United States Constitution: What It Says, What It Means: A Hip Pocket Guide and his grandfather's famous "military-industrial complex" speech.

Elisabeth Bumiller, Pentagon correspondent for The New York Times, talks about potential cuts to the U.S. defense budget and what it means for the 21st century U.S. military.

Try The New York Times budget cutting tool here.

With the deficit super committee defense budget "trigger" on the line, Travis Sharp, Bacevich Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), looks at what the funding priorities are for the US military.