The entire idea of fighting "for your country" is ridiculous to me. It's not my country.
Almost the entire human race has no influence on the events that occur at all.
For me my country is things like the institution of the local pub, liberal use of gallows humour, and deeply despising the idea that cities and fields ought to be organised on regular grids rather than things like Parliament or the monarchy. I love my country in the sense of the former, I think I’ll live out my days frustrated and pessimistic about the latter.
It’s not my country.
Yep... it's always "our country" this and "our country" that when they need you to play cannon fodder - and when it's all over, it just goes straight back to being their country. No different than rich people telling us how we're "all in this together" during COVID.
It's cute how they tell everyone we can just go vote to have a lot of influence on things too. :)
As if any of us has any influence on what's going on whatsoever.
Do you think you deserve to live in a country if others fight to save your life but you won't do the same for them?
The only requirement to live in a country is to be born in it. You shouldn't expel a citizen just because you can't brainwash him to your liking.
So your ok with other people fighting and dying in Ukraine but you think if you lived there you shouldn't have to defend our risk your life in any way? You think after the war you should have the same standing as any other citizen? You think you should get the same benefits as those families that lost loved ones because you didn't feel you should risk your life?
Let me provide you with the second side of the same coin.
Would you be ok with fighting on Russia's side? Do you think that after the war you should have the same standing as the ones, who were doing anything to avoid being conscripted?
Because, see, every war is at the very fucking best (read: not realistic) consists of one side that is righteous, and one that is not. Realistically, the chances of you being on the "right" side of it are excruciatingly small. But given conscription, you are denied of choice during that time, your feelings and believes on that matter are not considered at all - you are just a cog. And nobody gives a damn about cogs.
Russia's country is not being invaded. Ukraine is. That is the reality. If you don't defend your country and are fine with your neighbor doing so and dying, what makes you think you should have the same benefits as him?
I would be forced anyway and die on the first week, so my rights would not enter in play anyway.
But your attitude suggest that you advocate revoking rights from draft evaders. What rights should Trump lose, then?
That's why human rights treaties "need" exceptions to allow conscription (see the Article 4 of the ECHR for example).
100% against.
People don't belong to the government, and shouldn't be forced into doing any sort of job, especially one where they could be killed or traumatized for life.
If the people think their country is worth fighting for and a threat is legitimate, they should choose to defend it if the system is working properly.
Alternative point:
Conscription is not about fighting for your country. It's about ensuring that the children of the wealthy and powerful would die alongside the children of the poor in any conflict. War has always been fought by the poor and powerless to benefit the wealthy and powerful.
You then have a trained, but effectively civilian, group selected from the entire cross section of your country that shares the diversity of all your people and which you can use for all kinds of positive change, like building projects and disaster preparedness and relief.
This is a very different group than career soldiers.
This needs to be thought of as another two years of high school with different curricula rather than raising some kind of militia.
I feel as though that doesn't always necessarily work out well in practice though. If you look at the history of US presidents who were eligible for the draft for example, you have Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Trump and Joe Biden who were all from affluent and/or well connected families and who all dodged it. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of well-off people who dodged it too, but those were just the easiest to look up lol
Elon Musk - the whole reason he skipped South Africa right before his 18th birthday was to avoid being conscripted into the SADF. That's the actual reason - him and his family had no problem profiting off Apartheid until it was his turn to actually doing the dirty work of maintaining it. It's what a lot of rich white kids in SA did.
It’s about ensuring that the children of the wealthy and powerful would die alongside the children of the poor in any conflict.
Bullcrap. The children of the wealthy and powerful always get to have have convenient loopholes to get out of conscription - just look at Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
like building projects and disaster preparedness and relief.
Or, you know... have groups of trained civilians around to repress anything that threatens the precious status quo.
That's a really interesting perspective I didn't think I've seen before. Thanks for posting.
Absolutely not. It's slavery, and forcing humans to kill other humans for the cause of some sociopaths that hold power is abhorrent.
My great grandad was conscripted in WW2, he escaped twice just so he could hold his baby daughter. Good for him. I might not have got to meet him if he hadn't done that. Seeing his friends get blown to bits for nothing changed him forever.
Here in Finland I am currently doing The military service and yea it kinda sucks but I do feel its necessary for a country like Finland. Its "only" 165-347 -days long and a very big Part of Finnish culture, so I don't feel that Bad about it. It also really makes you grow as a person, having to tolerate all the bullshit that we have to do and we learn a lot of useful skills for Day to Day Life.
Is it mandatory for everyone or only males?
Males only, though women can voluntarily join If they want. The arrival batch for my brigade had about 1100 males and 70 females
I'm conflicted on it.
In a case where a country is under constant threat of attack and there is a very real chance of that country being conquered by a hostile military power, I do see the argument for conscription. This argument works much better in freer countries, where the people enjoy a stable way of life. It becomes similar to taxes, everyone who lives under such a system is required to "chip in" for the good of the country. Take a country like Finland as an example. They have been invaded, multiple times, by The Russian Empire/Soviet Union. Having much of their population trained to fight a modern military conflict makes the cost of invasion much higher for the attacker. And I suspect the vast majority of Finns see their current government as preferable to domination by Russia.
The other side of that coin, is that a country might use those conscripts to engage in foreign military adventures, which have nothing to do with defending the country. The obvious example of this being the US involvement in Vietnam. US politicians got away with forcing many young men to go die, in a foreign country for really stupid reasons. And I would find it hard to ever agree with the US Government being allowed to draft soldiers again.
I could see a sort of "middle ground" option being useful. A "limited conscription". This would require some period of training and public service as a form of taxation. Individuals are required to complete infantry training, so they have a basic understanding of modern infantry tactics, in the event a country is invaded. At the end of training, they then move into a public sector job for the rest of their term, with the option (entirely their choice) to serve in a military role. Such a system provides the country with a much larger pool of individuals with some training, in the event of invasion, and also provides a large, low level, work force to perform public works. I'm thinking of it as something like the Public Works Administration, except you first spend 6 months learning how to shoot a rifle and dig a trench. And then you spend the next 18 months building roads, improving levees, or handling the mountain of paperwork which feeds a bureaucracy.
I doubt such a system is what you're asking about. But, at least in the US, I don't think the people will trust the Federal Government to wield the power of a real military draft again for a long time. Vietnam is still well remembered and the debacle in the War in Iraq 2: Daddy Didn't Go Far Enough, has people skeptical of the Government's use of war powers. Though, technically, "The Draft" never really went away. US Males are required to sign up for "Selective Service" and the laws states that they can be called up to serve. But, unless the US is under direct threat of invasion, I expect that trying to do so would result in riots. At least, I hope any politician pushing that idea would get dragged out of his office and lynched in the streets.
There are two main reasons to conscript citizens. The first, to fight wars, has largely faded into irrelevance (barring exceptions for those waging war, like Russia, or those defending their country, like Ukraine). For the most part wars are better fought by paid professionals.
It's the second type of conscription that I will discuss. Many governments promote a system of national service for reasons of social cohesion, (the so-called Scandinavian model). It has much to recommend it. It creates a shared experience in otherwise fragmented societies, breaking down barriers of class, race and gender. It can be used to instil the values of a country in its population. It builds respect for the armed forces, teaching civilians that their freedom ultimately depends on others’ willingness to kill and be killed. And it subjects a pampered population to a bracing dose of spartan clean living, away from iPads and alcopops.
The problem is in the implementation. Social service should not be confined to the young. One of the biggest divides in society is generational, and national service only for the young would not change that. Moreover it would do many older folks a lot of good to learn the value of inclusion and diversity.
The day countries conscript both young and old, men and women and everyone in between equally, and guve everyone equal rights and responsibilities according to their capabilities, is when I'll deem conscription as somewhat worth it. Being conscripted takes away years of your life, and for what?
For the most part wars are better fought by paid professionals.
That only goes for dirty wars that you have no good reason to fight.
It has much to recommend it. It creates a shared experience in otherwise fragmented societies, breaking down barriers of class, race and gender.
The US would like to disagree.
It can be used to instil the values of a country in its population.
In other words... nationalist brainwashing.
And it subjects a pampered population
Only a boomer could think this.
To you first point… are you really saying that professional troops are less effective than untrained conscripts who really don’t want to be there?
Cuz that much at least is true.
Ukraine might be justified- and it might be necessary and even right- to have conscription… but a professional army would have been much more effective, at least at the start of the war.
are you really saying that professional troops are less effective than untrained conscripts who really don’t want to be there?
Firstly... there is absolutely no rule that says conscripts have to be untrained, just like there's no rule that says a conscript wouldn't necessarily want to be there - but that's irrelevant to the question at hand.
More importantly, yes - a citizen army can be more effective than a professionalized one. Napoleon Bonaparte's armies proved that to the world to such a degree that military theorists of the time literally thought the professional military obsolete. Of course, the problem with a citizen army is that you have to animate the citizenry with a cause that can actually be justified - kind of a difficult thing to do if you're waging colonialist wars that only benefit the wealthy half-way around the world. Which is what a professional military is good for - that's why the US didn't experience the same level of revolt in the ranks during the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as they did during the war on Vietnam.
but a professional army would have been much more effective
Ukraine did have a professional army at the start of the war - almost all countries do. Not even NATO would be able to defeat Russia with a purely professionalized force - that's pure fantasy.
I'd say it depends on the country, I could understand if the country's military is a self defense force like Japan's military for example. In my particular context, I live in US and I hope to see that conscription never happens again, we have an insatiable military industrial complex and war machine. We have 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad, we even have one in Syria near the oil fields and we were never invited there. Plus we have a long history of interventions that have gone awry, including the more recent ones like Libya back in 2011, we made the situation even worse. All conscription would do is just serve our imperialism.
I live in a country with mandatory conscription.
If the time served is reasonable and the army is organized enough to actually train you and take advantage of your skills, yes i'm all for it.
If not, it just an excuse for permanent stuff to boss around people and make them do meaningless work to look busy.
Indeed. Grew up in a country that phased it out just as I was coming of age. The whole problem was that it was way corrupt, useless, and worst case scenario - men in mid-30s with job, kids, mortgage got called in because the system was so broken.
That is what did the system in. Everyone saw it would be useful to keep it. But we simply could not afford to find it properly or care enough to make more than a useless wasted year.
I knew where you were from before looking at your username :P
Conscription is not good or needed, the modern military is equipped with a wide array of technology and the best training available, it takes year(s) to fully train a soldier. There was a time when you could hand a consript a gun and point him in a the right direction and you had an army, in a modern conflict that lack of training is lethal.
Also in an all volunteer force it's hard enough to manage groups who volunteered to be in the military, I can't imagine controlling people who were forced to be there.
Constipation is not good or needed, the modern military is equipped with a wide array of technology and the best training available, it takes year(s)
They just need some fiber I think really
Auto correct has made me a clown, fixed.
It's funny you mention it because yesterday I had a long talk with someone about it.
She was a conscientious objector and they threw her in jail for quite a while. We're from the Netherlands and apparently they shared this data with the US. So strangely enough she isn't allowed to enter the US now. That's really shocking to me.
Whatever your opinion on war is, you can't expect everyone to be able to shoot someone else. I know for certain that I couldn't.
I'll speak from the perspective of Greece, which has mandatory military service for all males >= 18yo that lasts a full year.
It makes sense that the country needs conscripts and a population that knows how to fight, since we have a neighbor that doesn't play so nice with their surrounding countries.
However the way it's implemented is pure bullshit:
The actual training happens in the first few months, after that it's just free manual labour.
You get to deal with so much BS from the permanent staff, they have a huge superiority complex that you have to accept and play by in order to not have penalties or military prison.
You can't go home, can't see your loved ones, your life is basically shit except the days that you're given leave, which is around a month or so in total.
You get no sleep and work all day, it's a common phenomenon to sleep 3 hours every day.
It's unpaid. (it's actually 8.5 euro a month which is arguably worse than unpaid, it's like getting spat on the face)
You pay for lots of things, travelling to/from the base, buying food outside etc.
It's corrupt as fuck. There are so many people that know someone in the military or meet someone inside, and get very special treatment while the rest have to work twice as hard to cover up for them.
It is extremely hard to avoid it completely, there are parents with little kids that are missing from home for months because of it, there are poor people that can't afford not to be working but still have to go, there are mentally ill people that aren't given a full exclusion.
And it used to be much worse than this, we're the ones that "have it good"..
I am conflicted.
On the one hand, conscription is essentially forced labour. Some countries take that concept even further and allow the potential conscripts to choose between military service and straight-up forced labour e.g. in social jobs like emergency services or care jobs. Im my home country this goes so far that some parts of the social system wouldn't work without this system.
This is also an equality issue, since almost all counties only apply something like that to young men and not women, even though women are totally capable for that kind of work as well.
On the other hand, if a country has a military that is primarily based on carreer soldiers, it becomes much easier for an emerging dictatorship to order these soldiers to e.g. shoot at protesters. A military based on mostly ordinary people who were conscripted as young men and stay trained using a militia system (like e.g. the Swiss does) is imho much more stable against e.g. military coups.
But it is a significant and non-voluntary investment.
In the Swiss, for example, every man has to spend ~2% of their work life in the military, which can be directly equated to a ~1% loss in GDP, just for mandatory military service.
In Israel, men have to serve for a minimum of 2 years and 8 months, while women have to serve 2 years, which roughly equates to a loss of ~5% GDP.
Conscription doesn't make a military cheaper of stronger compared to a complete volunteer/carreer army.
(Take these back-of-the-napkin calculations with a lot of salt, they are just there to show a rough dimension.)
So yeah, forced labour and lots of involuntary time investment of a significant portion of the population vs higher resistance against coups.
Do you think if the period demand served was shorter (6 months to a year) and it was equal regardless of gender that would be much better?
I feel like that time in a social program wouldn't be too off putting for someone's goals in life and I imagine if someone were to go the military route instead most of that time would be eaten up by basic and trade training.
Over here (Austria) it's 6 months for military or 9 months for social. The people in the social program are actually contributing labor and their work is really important.
The people going into military spend most of their time in training. While there they can learn some skills free of charge, e.g. they can do their driver's license or the truck driver's license or get some medical training, stuff like that. So it's not completely wasted time for the individual, but almost completely. They serve mostly a political/ideological purpose.
One thing to note here regarding Austria's military service that will not apply to other countries: Our military is total and utter crap when it comes to combat. Like, they aren't even pretending that they could defend the country.
Instead, the biggest part of the real usage of the military is in disaster mitigation/recovery. So for example, currently there are some severe floods in southern Austria and some villages are actually completely cut off by the floods. So the military is there to first airdrop supplies, then they built a temporary ferry service and now they are building a new road through the muddy forest. Recruits doing their mandatory service are used for these purposes. So even from a social aspect, they aren't completely useless either.
The question is whether it is fair to force people to do that, and also if they wouldn't force them, who else would do it? That's not really the point of conscription at all, but it's a major side effect over here.
If we have a system like that, it should totally be equal regardless of gender.
But if we should have a system like that, I cannot answer that.
Only as an absolute last resort to an existential threat and even then there should be options for people to contribute without having to actively kill another person if it’s at all possible.
Even then I’m not sure it’s justified.
I think it's utterly necessary in situations like what Ukraine is facing. Could a government misuse it? Sure, but most government powers can be misused.
Against.
If I ever feel compelled to take up arms for any cause, I'd want my squad to be as committed to that cause as I am.
Against.
If I get conscripted you'll never find me.
I'll fight for the country on home soil but never overseas.
No one should ever be forced to fight or die for something they don't believe in.
If in service of national infrastructure projects or search and rescue yeah maybe.
If to die in a far off jungle/desert I'd as soon shoot my CO
Government should incetivise population to fight for it rather than force service.
It's not ok but it's unfortunately necessary
Maybe, under specific conditions, and only if certain requirements are met.
Firstly, I’m only (reluctantly) in favor of conscription for defensive wars. Never mind the propaganda - if a conscript is ever stationed outside their nation’s borders, that’s not “defense” (by conscription standards, anyway). None of that “preemptive strike” bullshit. They also must be adequately trained. Throwing people into the meat grinder is not okay.
Secondly, conscripts get free, high-quality healthcare for life (I know, some of you already do, but I’m American). No exceptions or exclusions of any kind, and no red tape. Individuals must be well compensated for any injuries, and family must be well compensated in case of death.
Thirdly, conscripts must be well paid, and guaranteed a return to their peacetime job regardless of company size, length of absence, etc.
I’m sure there are many points I haven’t addressed, so feel free to add them!
I feel like it's necessary for some countries, e.g. Finland. Nobody in their right mind would ever want to invade finland given how strong their military is. You just can't achieve that without conscription.
Depends on the situation. I would accept conscription for myself as a measure of last resort ie. defence. I probably wouldn't be much use to them anyway so they would have to be really desperate!! I also kind of like how the Swiss military service works, everyone does it, knowing it will probably never be needed... because it teaches life skills etc.
On the other hand I don't think I could get behind the US conscription for Vietnam or Russia conscription for Ukraine.
Who TF is for?
No one was born to fight a war.
IMO, it's always wrong.
At heart, I believe that the claimed authority by which governments draft people is illegitimate - that all nominal justifications for it are necessarily insufficient, self-contradictory or self-defeating.
But that's a more fundamental point, and one about governance as a whole.
Even if I pretend that such authority is legitimate, I still oppose conscription.
A volunteer army serves as a check on militaristic excess. If a war is both legitimate and necessary, then people will willingly fight it. If people will not willingly fight it, then it's almost certainly the case that it's not necessary or justified.
And if it is indeed the case that a war is necessary and justified and there's still insufficient support to provide for a volunteer army, then frankly, the nation is too sick to be worth saving anyway.
On the contrary, a volunteer army allows the ruling class to prosecute wars without risk to their own families. Volunteer armies are primarily recruited from poorer and disadvantaged families, and the "volunteers" are serving because they see no other option to support themselves.
If a war arrives that is necessary, justified, and also has broad support among the population there will still be those who avoid fighting because they know that others will do so for them. They will unjustly reap the benefits of victory without making any sacrifices.
You can make a similar argument about taxation. By your logic payment should be optional, since a society that genuinely wants to be just and fair should also voluntarily want to give money to achieve that.
On the contrary, a volunteer army allows the ruling class to prosecute wars without risk to their own families.
As does conscription, since there are always exceptions made for that explicit purpose.
So that works out the same either way.
If a war arrives that is necessary, justified, and also has broad support among the population there will still be those who avoid fighting because they know that others will do so for them.
Yes - there will always be such people. The issue is how many of them there would be.
I would say that a nation that's unhealthy enough to have so many such people that they would make the difference between winning and losing deserves to lose.
You can make a similar argument about taxation. By your logic payment should be optional, since a society that genuinely wants to be just and fair should also voluntarily want to give money to achieve that.
Yes, and I in fact would. And with the same proviso - any society that would fail as a result deserves to fail.
Conscription is a crime against humanity and an androcide. I hope I live to see the day where the participators of operating this inhuman system are punished.
It's not ok because having the need for an army isn't something we should be ok with in the first place.
I’m not a war hawk at all, and I used to have a similar viewpoint as you, but I’ve realized that all it takes is one crazy person with power to prove this whole idea completely naive and ignorant. Look at the Ukraine war and Putin for example.
And in a perfect world that's not something that would happen, hence what I'm saying. Needing an army to counter people like Putin is not something we should be ok with because we shouldn't be ok with people like Putin having power in the first place.
The need for an army will always exist no matter what you think is okay
How? If the world was at peace, why need an army? To keep evil at bay? Nuclear escalation anyone? No? I'm the only one who realizes that's ridiculous?
There will always be that one guy that ruins peace for everyone. We have had lots of times of peace but they all ended. All good things must come to an end
Only if The Nation I live in is so ideologically in synch with my own beliefs that I'd be willing to volunteer. In other words I'm fine with people being forced to fight for what I believe.
Absolutely against. Why should I risk my life / die for someone else's interest's.
Just pay people for the job instead.
I don't want to die for my country as I'm more valuable being alive, but on the other hand if no one does the bully will just take it.
I have the option to just leave as I'd get a job everywhere in the world, with the financial stability to go wherever. A lot of people don't have this option. I also have no kids required to protect.
I would however fight from a distance, or for a more targeted assassination mission to end the war.
It's different per person, but I haven't fought my whole life for a normal life, to now get my ass shot off. I've already PTSD from my abused childhood, I don't need another.
So yes it's required to have conscription, but I'd be the first to refuse. So what is my opinion worth?
I think mandatory military service is likely a good thing for a population (maybe not the individual). With a highly trained population, volunteering would likely increase and reduce the need for conscription during times of war.
The benefits of military service for young adults are numerous. Discipline, exercise, comeradity, professional exposure, etc. Could reduce some of the mental issues we see due to isolation through technology. Of course I'm taking in peace time.
I don't need military service to find all of those benefits as a man. I didn't need to find them when I was a young man either. Those things exist already. Capitalism has all the incentives to analyze community building, isolate portions of said communites and sell it back to you. Military service is one of those "solutions" to a problem being created by that very concept I described. Young people are being sold isolation for a cheap, yet heavy price.
Also it's extremely ignorant and frankly childish to assume that a military (such as the US Empire's) isn't causing death and destruction at all because it isn't "officially" at war. These young adults absolutely shouldn't bond over drone striking children just because the US Empire needs blood.
Conscription is a dogshit concept. There are no benefits just profit.
Yes, because the army is a good place to form well behaved, totally stable young adults and is not a place where far right radicals get gun training and recruit people that can easily be influenced 👍
There are many very left leaving countries with mandatory military training now and in the past.
You may be significant referring to the US military, and in that instance I completely agree with you.
Annihilation of critical thinking, cultivation of blind obedience, proportion of violence as the main way of resolving conflict. Yeah, that's not bad at all.
Not all militaries function in this way. I'm sorry yours does.
As an example, Israel has the concept of Rosh Gadol which empowers members of it's service to be better than the system itself.
Given the atrocities committed, I'd say they've failed utterly.
No, because in all times the elites don't have to fight, while the plebs must die for [insert abstract concept].
The entire idea of fighting "for your country" is ridiculous to me. It's not my country.
Almost the entire human race has no influence on the events that occur at all.
For me my country is things like the institution of the local pub, liberal use of gallows humour, and deeply despising the idea that cities and fields ought to be organised on regular grids rather than things like Parliament or the monarchy. I love my country in the sense of the former, I think I’ll live out my days frustrated and pessimistic about the latter.
Yep... it's always "our country" this and "our country" that when they need you to play cannon fodder - and when it's all over, it just goes straight back to being their country. No different than rich people telling us how we're "all in this together" during COVID.
It's cute how they tell everyone we can just go vote to have a lot of influence on things too. :)
As if any of us has any influence on what's going on whatsoever.
Do you think you deserve to live in a country if others fight to save your life but you won't do the same for them?
The only requirement to live in a country is to be born in it. You shouldn't expel a citizen just because you can't brainwash him to your liking.
So your ok with other people fighting and dying in Ukraine but you think if you lived there you shouldn't have to defend our risk your life in any way? You think after the war you should have the same standing as any other citizen? You think you should get the same benefits as those families that lost loved ones because you didn't feel you should risk your life?
Let me provide you with the second side of the same coin.
Would you be ok with fighting on Russia's side? Do you think that after the war you should have the same standing as the ones, who were doing anything to avoid being conscripted?
Because, see, every war is at the very fucking best (read: not realistic) consists of one side that is righteous, and one that is not. Realistically, the chances of you being on the "right" side of it are excruciatingly small. But given conscription, you are denied of choice during that time, your feelings and believes on that matter are not considered at all - you are just a cog. And nobody gives a damn about cogs.
Russia's country is not being invaded. Ukraine is. That is the reality. If you don't defend your country and are fine with your neighbor doing so and dying, what makes you think you should have the same benefits as him?
I would be forced anyway and die on the first week, so my rights would not enter in play anyway.
But your attitude suggest that you advocate revoking rights from draft evaders. What rights should Trump lose, then?
I mean, it's slavery.
That's why human rights treaties "need" exceptions to allow conscription (see the Article 4 of the ECHR for example).
100% against.
People don't belong to the government, and shouldn't be forced into doing any sort of job, especially one where they could be killed or traumatized for life.
If the people think their country is worth fighting for and a threat is legitimate, they should choose to defend it if the system is working properly.
Alternative point:
Conscription is not about fighting for your country. It's about ensuring that the children of the wealthy and powerful would die alongside the children of the poor in any conflict. War has always been fought by the poor and powerless to benefit the wealthy and powerful.
You then have a trained, but effectively civilian, group selected from the entire cross section of your country that shares the diversity of all your people and which you can use for all kinds of positive change, like building projects and disaster preparedness and relief.
This is a very different group than career soldiers.
This needs to be thought of as another two years of high school with different curricula rather than raising some kind of militia.
I feel as though that doesn't always necessarily work out well in practice though. If you look at the history of US presidents who were eligible for the draft for example, you have Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Trump and Joe Biden who were all from affluent and/or well connected families and who all dodged it. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of well-off people who dodged it too, but those were just the easiest to look up lol
Elon Musk - the whole reason he skipped South Africa right before his 18th birthday was to avoid being conscripted into the SADF. That's the actual reason - him and his family had no problem profiting off Apartheid until it was his turn to actually doing the dirty work of maintaining it. It's what a lot of rich white kids in SA did.
Bullcrap. The children of the wealthy and powerful always get to have have convenient loopholes to get out of conscription - just look at Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
Or, you know... have groups of trained civilians around to repress anything that threatens the precious status quo.
That's a really interesting perspective I didn't think I've seen before. Thanks for posting.
Absolutely not. It's slavery, and forcing humans to kill other humans for the cause of some sociopaths that hold power is abhorrent.
My great grandad was conscripted in WW2, he escaped twice just so he could hold his baby daughter. Good for him. I might not have got to meet him if he hadn't done that. Seeing his friends get blown to bits for nothing changed him forever.
Here in Finland I am currently doing The military service and yea it kinda sucks but I do feel its necessary for a country like Finland. Its "only" 165-347 -days long and a very big Part of Finnish culture, so I don't feel that Bad about it. It also really makes you grow as a person, having to tolerate all the bullshit that we have to do and we learn a lot of useful skills for Day to Day Life.
Is it mandatory for everyone or only males?
Males only, though women can voluntarily join If they want. The arrival batch for my brigade had about 1100 males and 70 females
I'm conflicted on it.
In a case where a country is under constant threat of attack and there is a very real chance of that country being conquered by a hostile military power, I do see the argument for conscription. This argument works much better in freer countries, where the people enjoy a stable way of life. It becomes similar to taxes, everyone who lives under such a system is required to "chip in" for the good of the country. Take a country like Finland as an example. They have been invaded, multiple times, by The Russian Empire/Soviet Union. Having much of their population trained to fight a modern military conflict makes the cost of invasion much higher for the attacker. And I suspect the vast majority of Finns see their current government as preferable to domination by Russia.
The other side of that coin, is that a country might use those conscripts to engage in foreign military adventures, which have nothing to do with defending the country. The obvious example of this being the US involvement in Vietnam. US politicians got away with forcing many young men to go die, in a foreign country for really stupid reasons. And I would find it hard to ever agree with the US Government being allowed to draft soldiers again.
I could see a sort of "middle ground" option being useful. A "limited conscription". This would require some period of training and public service as a form of taxation. Individuals are required to complete infantry training, so they have a basic understanding of modern infantry tactics, in the event a country is invaded. At the end of training, they then move into a public sector job for the rest of their term, with the option (entirely their choice) to serve in a military role. Such a system provides the country with a much larger pool of individuals with some training, in the event of invasion, and also provides a large, low level, work force to perform public works. I'm thinking of it as something like the Public Works Administration, except you first spend 6 months learning how to shoot a rifle and dig a trench. And then you spend the next 18 months building roads, improving levees, or handling the mountain of paperwork which feeds a bureaucracy.
I doubt such a system is what you're asking about. But, at least in the US, I don't think the people will trust the Federal Government to wield the power of a real military draft again for a long time. Vietnam is still well remembered and the debacle in the War in Iraq 2: Daddy Didn't Go Far Enough, has people skeptical of the Government's use of war powers. Though, technically, "The Draft" never really went away. US Males are required to sign up for "Selective Service" and the laws states that they can be called up to serve. But, unless the US is under direct threat of invasion, I expect that trying to do so would result in riots. At least, I hope any politician pushing that idea would get dragged out of his office and lynched in the streets.
There are two main reasons to conscript citizens. The first, to fight wars, has largely faded into irrelevance (barring exceptions for those waging war, like Russia, or those defending their country, like Ukraine). For the most part wars are better fought by paid professionals.
It's the second type of conscription that I will discuss. Many governments promote a system of national service for reasons of social cohesion, (the so-called Scandinavian model). It has much to recommend it. It creates a shared experience in otherwise fragmented societies, breaking down barriers of class, race and gender. It can be used to instil the values of a country in its population. It builds respect for the armed forces, teaching civilians that their freedom ultimately depends on others’ willingness to kill and be killed. And it subjects a pampered population to a bracing dose of spartan clean living, away from iPads and alcopops.
The problem is in the implementation. Social service should not be confined to the young. One of the biggest divides in society is generational, and national service only for the young would not change that. Moreover it would do many older folks a lot of good to learn the value of inclusion and diversity.
The day countries conscript both young and old, men and women and everyone in between equally, and guve everyone equal rights and responsibilities according to their capabilities, is when I'll deem conscription as somewhat worth it. Being conscripted takes away years of your life, and for what?
That only goes for dirty wars that you have no good reason to fight.
The US would like to disagree.
In other words... nationalist brainwashing.
Only a boomer could think this.
To you first point… are you really saying that professional troops are less effective than untrained conscripts who really don’t want to be there?
Cuz that much at least is true.
Ukraine might be justified- and it might be necessary and even right- to have conscription… but a professional army would have been much more effective, at least at the start of the war.
Firstly... there is absolutely no rule that says conscripts have to be untrained, just like there's no rule that says a conscript wouldn't necessarily want to be there - but that's irrelevant to the question at hand.
More importantly, yes - a citizen army can be more effective than a professionalized one. Napoleon Bonaparte's armies proved that to the world to such a degree that military theorists of the time literally thought the professional military obsolete. Of course, the problem with a citizen army is that you have to animate the citizenry with a cause that can actually be justified - kind of a difficult thing to do if you're waging colonialist wars that only benefit the wealthy half-way around the world. Which is what a professional military is good for - that's why the US didn't experience the same level of revolt in the ranks during the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as they did during the war on Vietnam.
Ukraine did have a professional army at the start of the war - almost all countries do. Not even NATO would be able to defeat Russia with a purely professionalized force - that's pure fantasy.
I'd say it depends on the country, I could understand if the country's military is a self defense force like Japan's military for example. In my particular context, I live in US and I hope to see that conscription never happens again, we have an insatiable military industrial complex and war machine. We have 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad, we even have one in Syria near the oil fields and we were never invited there. Plus we have a long history of interventions that have gone awry, including the more recent ones like Libya back in 2011, we made the situation even worse. All conscription would do is just serve our imperialism.
I live in a country with mandatory conscription.
If the time served is reasonable and the army is organized enough to actually train you and take advantage of your skills, yes i'm all for it.
If not, it just an excuse for permanent stuff to boss around people and make them do meaningless work to look busy.
Indeed. Grew up in a country that phased it out just as I was coming of age. The whole problem was that it was way corrupt, useless, and worst case scenario - men in mid-30s with job, kids, mortgage got called in because the system was so broken.
That is what did the system in. Everyone saw it would be useful to keep it. But we simply could not afford to find it properly or care enough to make more than a useless wasted year.
I knew where you were from before looking at your username :P
Conscription is not good or needed, the modern military is equipped with a wide array of technology and the best training available, it takes year(s) to fully train a soldier. There was a time when you could hand a consript a gun and point him in a the right direction and you had an army, in a modern conflict that lack of training is lethal.
Also in an all volunteer force it's hard enough to manage groups who volunteered to be in the military, I can't imagine controlling people who were forced to be there.
They just need some fiber I think really
Auto correct has made me a clown, fixed.
It's funny you mention it because yesterday I had a long talk with someone about it.
She was a conscientious objector and they threw her in jail for quite a while. We're from the Netherlands and apparently they shared this data with the US. So strangely enough she isn't allowed to enter the US now. That's really shocking to me.
Whatever your opinion on war is, you can't expect everyone to be able to shoot someone else. I know for certain that I couldn't.
I'll speak from the perspective of Greece, which has mandatory military service for all males >= 18yo that lasts a full year.
It makes sense that the country needs conscripts and a population that knows how to fight, since we have a neighbor that doesn't play so nice with their surrounding countries.
However the way it's implemented is pure bullshit:
The actual training happens in the first few months, after that it's just free manual labour.
You get to deal with so much BS from the permanent staff, they have a huge superiority complex that you have to accept and play by in order to not have penalties or military prison.
You can't go home, can't see your loved ones, your life is basically shit except the days that you're given leave, which is around a month or so in total.
You get no sleep and work all day, it's a common phenomenon to sleep 3 hours every day.
It's unpaid. (it's actually 8.5 euro a month which is arguably worse than unpaid, it's like getting spat on the face)
You pay for lots of things, travelling to/from the base, buying food outside etc.
It's corrupt as fuck. There are so many people that know someone in the military or meet someone inside, and get very special treatment while the rest have to work twice as hard to cover up for them.
It is extremely hard to avoid it completely, there are parents with little kids that are missing from home for months because of it, there are poor people that can't afford not to be working but still have to go, there are mentally ill people that aren't given a full exclusion.
And it used to be much worse than this, we're the ones that "have it good"..
I am conflicted.
On the one hand, conscription is essentially forced labour. Some countries take that concept even further and allow the potential conscripts to choose between military service and straight-up forced labour e.g. in social jobs like emergency services or care jobs. Im my home country this goes so far that some parts of the social system wouldn't work without this system.
This is also an equality issue, since almost all counties only apply something like that to young men and not women, even though women are totally capable for that kind of work as well.
On the other hand, if a country has a military that is primarily based on carreer soldiers, it becomes much easier for an emerging dictatorship to order these soldiers to e.g. shoot at protesters. A military based on mostly ordinary people who were conscripted as young men and stay trained using a militia system (like e.g. the Swiss does) is imho much more stable against e.g. military coups.
But it is a significant and non-voluntary investment.
In the Swiss, for example, every man has to spend ~2% of their work life in the military, which can be directly equated to a ~1% loss in GDP, just for mandatory military service.
In Israel, men have to serve for a minimum of 2 years and 8 months, while women have to serve 2 years, which roughly equates to a loss of ~5% GDP.
Conscription doesn't make a military cheaper of stronger compared to a complete volunteer/carreer army.
(Take these back-of-the-napkin calculations with a lot of salt, they are just there to show a rough dimension.)
So yeah, forced labour and lots of involuntary time investment of a significant portion of the population vs higher resistance against coups.
Do you think if the period demand served was shorter (6 months to a year) and it was equal regardless of gender that would be much better?
I feel like that time in a social program wouldn't be too off putting for someone's goals in life and I imagine if someone were to go the military route instead most of that time would be eaten up by basic and trade training.
Over here (Austria) it's 6 months for military or 9 months for social. The people in the social program are actually contributing labor and their work is really important.
The people going into military spend most of their time in training. While there they can learn some skills free of charge, e.g. they can do their driver's license or the truck driver's license or get some medical training, stuff like that. So it's not completely wasted time for the individual, but almost completely. They serve mostly a political/ideological purpose.
One thing to note here regarding Austria's military service that will not apply to other countries: Our military is total and utter crap when it comes to combat. Like, they aren't even pretending that they could defend the country.
Instead, the biggest part of the real usage of the military is in disaster mitigation/recovery. So for example, currently there are some severe floods in southern Austria and some villages are actually completely cut off by the floods. So the military is there to first airdrop supplies, then they built a temporary ferry service and now they are building a new road through the muddy forest. Recruits doing their mandatory service are used for these purposes. So even from a social aspect, they aren't completely useless either.
The question is whether it is fair to force people to do that, and also if they wouldn't force them, who else would do it? That's not really the point of conscription at all, but it's a major side effect over here.
If we have a system like that, it should totally be equal regardless of gender.
But if we should have a system like that, I cannot answer that.
Only as an absolute last resort to an existential threat and even then there should be options for people to contribute without having to actively kill another person if it’s at all possible.
Even then I’m not sure it’s justified.
I think it's utterly necessary in situations like what Ukraine is facing. Could a government misuse it? Sure, but most government powers can be misused.
Against.
If I ever feel compelled to take up arms for any cause, I'd want my squad to be as committed to that cause as I am.
Against.
If I get conscripted you'll never find me.
I'll fight for the country on home soil but never overseas.
No one should ever be forced to fight or die for something they don't believe in.
If in service of national infrastructure projects or search and rescue yeah maybe.
If to die in a far off jungle/desert I'd as soon shoot my CO
Government should incetivise population to fight for it rather than force service.
It's not ok but it's unfortunately necessary
Maybe, under specific conditions, and only if certain requirements are met.
Firstly, I’m only (reluctantly) in favor of conscription for defensive wars. Never mind the propaganda - if a conscript is ever stationed outside their nation’s borders, that’s not “defense” (by conscription standards, anyway). None of that “preemptive strike” bullshit. They also must be adequately trained. Throwing people into the meat grinder is not okay.
Secondly, conscripts get free, high-quality healthcare for life (I know, some of you already do, but I’m American). No exceptions or exclusions of any kind, and no red tape. Individuals must be well compensated for any injuries, and family must be well compensated in case of death.
Thirdly, conscripts must be well paid, and guaranteed a return to their peacetime job regardless of company size, length of absence, etc.
I’m sure there are many points I haven’t addressed, so feel free to add them!
I feel like it's necessary for some countries, e.g. Finland. Nobody in their right mind would ever want to invade finland given how strong their military is. You just can't achieve that without conscription.
Depends on the situation. I would accept conscription for myself as a measure of last resort ie. defence. I probably wouldn't be much use to them anyway so they would have to be really desperate!! I also kind of like how the Swiss military service works, everyone does it, knowing it will probably never be needed... because it teaches life skills etc.
On the other hand I don't think I could get behind the US conscription for Vietnam or Russia conscription for Ukraine.
Who TF is for?
No one was born to fight a war.
IMO, it's always wrong.
At heart, I believe that the claimed authority by which governments draft people is illegitimate - that all nominal justifications for it are necessarily insufficient, self-contradictory or self-defeating.
But that's a more fundamental point, and one about governance as a whole.
Even if I pretend that such authority is legitimate, I still oppose conscription.
A volunteer army serves as a check on militaristic excess. If a war is both legitimate and necessary, then people will willingly fight it. If people will not willingly fight it, then it's almost certainly the case that it's not necessary or justified.
And if it is indeed the case that a war is necessary and justified and there's still insufficient support to provide for a volunteer army, then frankly, the nation is too sick to be worth saving anyway.
On the contrary, a volunteer army allows the ruling class to prosecute wars without risk to their own families. Volunteer armies are primarily recruited from poorer and disadvantaged families, and the "volunteers" are serving because they see no other option to support themselves.
If a war arrives that is necessary, justified, and also has broad support among the population there will still be those who avoid fighting because they know that others will do so for them. They will unjustly reap the benefits of victory without making any sacrifices.
You can make a similar argument about taxation. By your logic payment should be optional, since a society that genuinely wants to be just and fair should also voluntarily want to give money to achieve that.
As does conscription, since there are always exceptions made for that explicit purpose.
So that works out the same either way.
Yes - there will always be such people. The issue is how many of them there would be.
I would say that a nation that's unhealthy enough to have so many such people that they would make the difference between winning and losing deserves to lose.
Yes, and I in fact would. And with the same proviso - any society that would fail as a result deserves to fail.
Conscription is a crime against humanity and an androcide. I hope I live to see the day where the participators of operating this inhuman system are punished.
It's not ok because having the need for an army isn't something we should be ok with in the first place.
I’m not a war hawk at all, and I used to have a similar viewpoint as you, but I’ve realized that all it takes is one crazy person with power to prove this whole idea completely naive and ignorant. Look at the Ukraine war and Putin for example.
And in a perfect world that's not something that would happen, hence what I'm saying. Needing an army to counter people like Putin is not something we should be ok with because we shouldn't be ok with people like Putin having power in the first place.
The need for an army will always exist no matter what you think is okay
How? If the world was at peace, why need an army? To keep evil at bay? Nuclear escalation anyone? No? I'm the only one who realizes that's ridiculous?
There will always be that one guy that ruins peace for everyone. We have had lots of times of peace but they all ended. All good things must come to an end
Only if The Nation I live in is so ideologically in synch with my own beliefs that I'd be willing to volunteer. In other words I'm fine with people being forced to fight for what I believe.
Absolutely against. Why should I risk my life / die for someone else's interest's.
Just pay people for the job instead.
I don't want to die for my country as I'm more valuable being alive, but on the other hand if no one does the bully will just take it.
I have the option to just leave as I'd get a job everywhere in the world, with the financial stability to go wherever. A lot of people don't have this option. I also have no kids required to protect.
I would however fight from a distance, or for a more targeted assassination mission to end the war.
It's different per person, but I haven't fought my whole life for a normal life, to now get my ass shot off. I've already PTSD from my abused childhood, I don't need another.
So yes it's required to have conscription, but I'd be the first to refuse. So what is my opinion worth?
I think mandatory military service is likely a good thing for a population (maybe not the individual). With a highly trained population, volunteering would likely increase and reduce the need for conscription during times of war.
The benefits of military service for young adults are numerous. Discipline, exercise, comeradity, professional exposure, etc. Could reduce some of the mental issues we see due to isolation through technology. Of course I'm taking in peace time.
I don't need military service to find all of those benefits as a man. I didn't need to find them when I was a young man either. Those things exist already. Capitalism has all the incentives to analyze community building, isolate portions of said communites and sell it back to you. Military service is one of those "solutions" to a problem being created by that very concept I described. Young people are being sold isolation for a cheap, yet heavy price.
Also it's extremely ignorant and frankly childish to assume that a military (such as the US Empire's) isn't causing death and destruction at all because it isn't "officially" at war. These young adults absolutely shouldn't bond over drone striking children just because the US Empire needs blood.
Conscription is a dogshit concept. There are no benefits just profit.
Yes, because the army is a good place to form well behaved, totally stable young adults and is not a place where far right radicals get gun training and recruit people that can easily be influenced 👍
There are many very left leaving countries with mandatory military training now and in the past.
You may be significant referring to the US military, and in that instance I completely agree with you.
Annihilation of critical thinking, cultivation of blind obedience, proportion of violence as the main way of resolving conflict. Yeah, that's not bad at all.
Not all militaries function in this way. I'm sorry yours does.
As an example, Israel has the concept of Rosh Gadol which empowers members of it's service to be better than the system itself.
Given the atrocities committed, I'd say they've failed utterly.