Conscription

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Conscription is the term given to any involuntary labour called upon by an authority. Historically, conscription has been used to define people going into the armed forces of a country during wartime. Where it is still practised, it is usually only for a fixed period and euphemistically referred to as something far nicer, like "national service" or the "draft."

Although the zeitgeist of the world post-Cold War has led to conscription being considered A Bad Thing, many countries still retain laws to enforce the practice if they put themselves in an "emergency" position, such as war.[1]

Contents

[edit] Arguments for conscription

Believe it or not, there are some half-decent arguments for the practice of conscription into the armed forces:

  • The most obvious is the additional manpower. Back in the days of the First and Second World Wars, millions of men were used in combat, a number far outstripping the size of the standing armies of pre-war times. Conscription gave a valuable boost to military numbers during wartime. This is less applicable to Western nations today, which rely on superior technology and training (or at least picking the right enemies with far less technology and training), rather than weight of numbers and human wave attacks that characterized war in the early 20th century and earlier. However, some countries still rely on the draft in order to afford a credible defense without relying on a military alliance.
  • Another popular argument is the idea that making conscription into a rite of passage of sorts is important for social solidarity. The fact that — ideally, at least — everyone should serve acts as an equalizer for the population, which can improve not only the civilian world, but also military life. The American military is currently perceived as being dominated largely by conservative, evangelical Republicans in its political and religious makeup; conscription could theoretically result in a wider range of viewpoints in the forces. Take, for example, the Cuban Missile Crisis, where the knee-jerk reaction by a disproportionate number of Joint Chiefs of Staff was to invade Cuba (yet again), against the objections of John F. Kennedy.[2] Likewise, it has been suggested that a draft, by creating much greater contact between the military and civilian spheres, could prevent elitism (especially against non-veteran civilians) from developing in the armed forces.[3]
  • Education also comes up. Often, a conscript service will be trained in ways that a populace left to their own devices might otherwise avoid or not have access to. Military service especially often leaves people with great team working skills as well as experience in many other areas. Engineering and medicine being two vital, non-combat, professions that support the military — volunteer reserve forces tend to focus on these disciplines. Often these skills can be applied to a professional field once the conscript leaves military service.
  • A seemingly counter-intuitive argument often used by pacifists is that the draft would make war "real" to the upper classes, leading to demands for greater accountability on the decision to go to war. With a draft, the children of well-off families would have to actually worry about the reality of war. As a result, there would be a lot more opposition to war if there were even the slightest chance that the average middle-class American or his or her children could be called up and asked to fight. (The obvious case study here is the Vietnam War, where the draft fuelled the anti-war movement, and the burning of draft cards became a common protest). This criticism of professional armies highlights that, in the U.S. armed forces, voluntary enlistment comes disproportionately from poorer family backgrounds.[4]
  • A corollary to the pacifist and solidarity arguments is that a "citizen army" of conscripts acts as a counterforce to militarism and lessens the risk of military coups, because it (presumably) gives every (male) citizen a stake in the military and counteracts the military elitism mentioned above. This argument also tends to draw on the classical connection between military service and the franchise found in ancient Greece and Rome and allude to the professionalisation of the Roman legions as a cause for the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.[5]

[edit] Arguments against conscription

There are also numerous arguments against conscription:

  • The big one, of course, is coercion. Conscription, by definition, is not voluntary. Therefore, its use in society can be considered tantamount to slavery, which is considered an immoral act by most modern standards. Although a very simple and primarily emotional argument against conscription, it is one of the more powerful ones. In light of the UN's Declaration of Human Rights, involuntary servitude of any kind is now effectively illegal worldwide.[6] Conscription has also been unfavorably compared to sex slavery, especially considering accusations leveled against the Japanese military about how it has used its women in the past.[7]
  • Another issue is that conscription produces lower-quality soldiers compared to a volunteer, professional army.[8][9] Almost by definition, conscript soldiers do not want to be fighting and tend to not have the mindset or physical prowess to be effective soldiers prior to training — and in most cases, probably still don't have such things after training. As a result, conscripts make for a very ineffective fighting force, and popular culture (based on some historical fact) often portrays them as expendable. However, this reasoning doesn't really apply if all you want is a bunch of men carrying a sign reading "eat us first."
  • The economics of a conscript force also don't stack up well against a volunteer army. It simply costs too much to pay and train an army of unwilling[10] soldiers (thus kicking them out of the labour force) who will return to civilian life long before the armed forces get a return on their investment.[11] Furthermore, some studies have shown that "conscription increases the likelihood of developing a criminal record,"[12] thus increasing the negative economic impact, while other studies have found no link between military training and violent crime,[13] or, conversely, suggest that those with a criminal record are less likely to re-offend if conscripted.[14]
  • While proponents of conscription argue that it would randomly and equally select from all levels of society, historically some people have been more equal than others when it came to their ability to dodge the draft. In the American Civil War, the Union had a draft but allowed people to pay a $300 substitute fee, something that poor families could not afford. These tensions, unsurprisingly, boiled over in the 1863 New York draft riots.[wp] During the Vietnam War, there was rampant abuse of student deferments[15][16] to avoid the draft. Gaining a graduate degree on top of a graduate degree was often an option not available to younger men who were drafted into the conflict.
  • Finally, conscription usually doesn't cover women. Even the biggest supporters under the "traditional gender roles" don't want to forcefully train young women to become housewives. In the United States only men, starting at age 18, must register for the Selective Service. This is not true in all countries, however; in Israel, for example, men and women are equally subject to the draft, although women are still barred from many positions and have a shorter term (two years vs. three years for men).

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Military conscription: Does your country need you?, The Economist
  2. JFK vs. the Military, The Atlantic (Apparently being a WWII veteran wasn't enough for them.)
  3. This column goes so far as to suggest that an all-volunteer force could lead to a coup d'etat by a military that feels itself to be above civilians.
  4. Lutz, Amy, 2008, Who Joins the Military? A Look at Race, Class and Immigration Status, Journal of Political and Military Sociology 36(2), pp. 167-188
  5. This was central to Chalmers Johnson's gloomy outlook on what he perceived as U.S. militarism in his "Blowback trilogy": Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (2000, revised 2004), The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (2005), and The Sorrows of Empire (2007)
  6. Outlawing slavery: international conventions and human rights legislation, National Museums Liverpool
  7. Sexual Slavery and the Comfort Women of World War II, Berkeley Journal of International Law
  8. Drafted Armies are Self-Killing Machines, War on the Rocks
  9. In Georgia, Russia saw its Army's shortcomings, Christian Science Monitor
  10. The problem of willingness is mitigated in most democratic states by offering Alternative civilian service[wp], a system originating with the necessity of dealing with conscientious objectors[wp], for instance as pacifists such as the Quakers.
  11. The Economic Costs and the Political Allure of Conscription, University of Helsinki
  12. Conscription and Crime: Evidence from the Argentine Draft Lottery
  13. Does the Military Train Men to be Violent Criminals? New Evidence from Australia’s Conscription Lotteries
  14. Does Peacetime Military Service Affect Crime?, a study from Denmark, which, like the Australian study, found no effect of conscription on violent crime, but found that property crime decreased for up to two years after the end of conscript's military service.
  15. et. al
  16. Trampling on his father's career.
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