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Comment by ilammy | Hacker News Reader

Many countries still have military conscription, so sometimes enlisted soldiers do not really have a choice: you are either drafted with national pride, or drafted feeling moral guilt, or jailed for dodging and then maybe still drafted afterwards into a penal batallion. Or you break and bend the law.

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Even when military service is compulsory, there is still _somewhat_ of a choice. In many of these countries you can effectively avoid enlistment - through "undisciplined behavior", playing up health issues, claiming psychological unfitness or even just going "off the grid" for several years.

Thats a bit like arguing that poverty is a choice, as anyone able-bodied could teach themselves valuable skills and get a job. And for some people its true.

Maybe Napoleon would always become a leader and a great commander, even if he was born into a tribe of cavemen.

There is a lot of draft dodging in Russia, but the army still gets it's steady stream of conscripts. Most of them dont want to be there.

For some reason some of my friends in Russia mentioned they didn't mind being in the army because they liked having 3 square meals a day, getting into good physical shape, getting weapons training, the camaraderie, being sent here and there (without having to pay for travel), etc.

Personally I wouldn't enjoy it, that's for sure.

How's that дедовщина going for them?

Fair enough. I did say "somewhat" of a choice. In some countries (not sure about Russia), almost half the population manages to dodge the draft one way or another.

Those actions are all really illegal...

Very important point. It should be considered a cornerstone of democracy to have only voluntary drafting -- just like a free press and general elections.

Coming from a democratic country with drafting... It gets tricky if your country is small and in a rather delicate geographical position with questionable neighbours.

Our constitution has a line saying that it's every citizen's duty to defend the country. Essentially drafting is education how to fulfil that duty. If we remove drafting, shall we remove that constitution article? If we remove it, then citizen-government relationship gets different. Is it "our" country and we take full ownership of it or do we just happen to live here and, if this establishment is threatened we just move on to the next one?

All nation-states (all communities really) involves two sorts of obligation: the obligations of the group to the individual (rights) and the obligations of the individual to the group (duties). Liberal democracies tend to foreground the rights of individuals rather than duties, but it is not anti-democratic or illiberal to expect citizens to do their duty as described in the constitution of that community. For some communities, a large well-trained military reserve is essential, and the draft is the best way to achieve that.

I would not take that as a fact. Drafting allows for a more representative selection of the population, giving more conscientious and better troops.

Drafting is democratic because it is equal. Drafting should also be an anti-war effort. Would you vote for someone who wanted to go to war, if you knew it would send your children or friends into the war?

With a draft, the choice to go to war becomes higher profile, and everyone is more invested in it.

> Drafting allows for a more representative selection of the population, giving more conscientious and better troops.

Maybe that is correct, but it does nothing to get more conscientious government and military leadership. There are bad consequences as well - draft can increase duration of war, leading to more crimes and more deaths. Also, drafting strips many people of belief in personal responsibility.

> Drafting is democratic because it is equal. Drafting should also be an anti-war effort.

Do you know what democratic means? If you got drafted into Vietnam war, there was nothing democratic about it. Government lied to people from the start and was covering up evidence of how the war was going.

> Maybe that is correct, but it does nothing to get more conscientious government and military leadership.

It does. Then public knows that their elected leaders may send themselves and/or their family/relatives/friends. Warmongering suddenly is much more touchy-feely when you got skin in the game.

> There are bad consequences as well - draft can increase duration of war

Longer war is better than loosing. Especially if you're defending.

> leading to more crimes and more deaths

Loosing defence war to some sort of not-exactly-human-rights-loving regime is much worse.

> Also, drafting strips many people of belief in personal responsibility.

How so? It becomes everyone's personal responsibility if the country gets in war.

> Do you know what democratic means? If you got drafted into Vietnam war, there was nothing democratic about it. Government lied to people from the start and was covering up evidence of how the war was going.

And government was democratically elected, wasn't it?

As a non-american, IMO fully professional US military is the reason for war-happy government. For better or worse.

> It does. Then public knows that their elected leaders may send themselves and/or their family/relatives/friends. Warmongering suddenly is much more touchy-feely when you got skin in the game.

Again, it didn't work that way during the Vietnam war. Maybe it will next time, we'll see.

> And government was democratically elected, wasn't it?

Technically it was. In practice, Johnson wasn't elected and the high-ranking officials including the president maintained the war on back burner, burning through American and Vietnamese lives, to keep up with their dubious agenda. The war effort was a lie and massively opposed by the public.

I don't think it's so straight forward. Take Germany for example. During the Weimar Republic the professional army was strongly involved in the dismantling of democracy leading to the 3rd Reich. It's been largely been attributed to the fact that they were quite disconnected from the Republic with their loyalties to their leaders not the republic (typically it's called they were a state inside the state) . Germany deliberately decided on having mandatory military service because of these experiences. The argument being if the army is composed of the people, its very difficult to use them against the people.

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