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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

I hear you. But women can continue the line —society. Men can’t bear children —society dies. Men get sent to war, women stay in the homeland, many of the men may not return and the women may have to persevere, with sacrifice but society can push on. If it were reversed, that society may well collapse.

The Spartans didn’t send their women off and let the men stay back in the homeland.

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How many people do you think are in the military? It’s way below one percent in the USA. In the last war we fought, we lost barely any soldiers compared to the number deployed. It’s bad that we lost any, but your argument is logically null. Women aren’t just baby machines, in any case. Nothing is being “reversed” it’s just more equal if everyone is registered for selective service.

In WW1, so many French young men died in the battles that the average height of the French soldier declined by over an inch in WW2. It became popular for French and German women to marry old men and foreigners after both wars.

By preserving the women, society can bounce back from a catastrophic loss of young men.

Luckily here in America we have hundreds of millions of men and women to give up to the altar of democracy, right? We’re not France in 1915 or 1939. Not only that, but maybe you want to consider more modern war’s attrition rates.

Ukraine is now drafting old men.

I haven't checked their current age limit but I bet it makes me feel old.

Age limit is unchanged. You can only serve between ages of 18 and 60.

There’s a few anomalies where old dudes are sticking around voluntarily.

Also worth noting that a lot of the videos posted claiming to be “people being drafted” are actually videos of the police just arresting criminals…

Ukraine doesn’t have 350 million citizens and the world’s 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 7th largest air forces, ten times more aircraft carriers than the next country, the worlds most effective military training, and a total military budget of more than the next 15 or 20 countries. If we sent troops to Ukraine, Russia would be out within weeks, and we’d have less casualties than Iraq and Afghanistan, assuming Putin didn’t start nuking.

They probably said the same in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. "Merely weeks until victory." And as percentage of GDP, military spending was even higher back then: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/uni...

You just have to cut the Russian supply lines, the situations are completely different.

Just bomb the Ho Chi Minh trail through Cambodia, then the North will capitulate.

In your comparison, is Viet Cong Ukraine or Russia??

Erm, probably neither? I don’t know a ton about pro-Russian partisan guerrilla actions.

"If we sent troops to Ukraine, Russia would be out within weeks, and we’d have less casualties than Iraq and Afghanistan, assuming Putin didn’t start nuking."

Big assumption. Other options are also North Korea sending troops. Or Iran. Or while the US engages there, China uses the opportunity to take Taiwan. Geopolitics is complicated. No one wants a nuclear war, but at some point there is no more rationality, when a side feels pushed over the limit.

the US can fight three peer wars at the same time. that's their military doctrine.

I really do not want to see how all of this plays out, but I believe China has also quite some manpower and their military capabilities are not exactly known. The outcome will likely depend, how the rest of the world reacts. And if there are nukes.

*could. It seems to have lost the appetite recently, and bankrupted itself with the twenty year war on terror against itself, which it lost.

>US can fight three peer

That's never been doctorine for the simple reason US hasn't had (near) peer rivals until PRC in last 30 years. Peak hyperpower US 90s doctorine was calibrated for 2 "major" wars, when major is with adversaries who were frankly all medium powers (IRAQ tier). Then in 00s-10s it shifted to 1 "major" war, 1 holding war, i.e. actively fight 1 major war, fix another major war in place so resources can shift to second war after active war. Now half the think tank writing is questioning if US can win in PRC backyard, where PRC is characterized either as near peer, pacing power, or peer. US doctorine right now is maybe can deter PRC until post 2030s "decade of concern" but right now US IndoPac posture in PRC backyard a tossup.

I think they now have 3 carrier groups out in the world at the same time. each of these is basically enough to best a foreign military excluding nukes.

Gulf war against 90s Iraq with 20m people and ~800 1960s missiles (scud Bs) required 5 carrier groups + regional air basing for air campaign, completely compromised Anti Air (by french who designed Iraq IADS and gave schematics to US). Relative to modern Iran with 80m people and 4x more missiles with 2000s rocketry tech, much more favourable geography (facing water), 1990s Iraq/Gulf War would not even measure up as a medium power / major war. One (1) carrier with 150/270 (short term surge) sorties per day is not remotely enough against a medium power. Can US surge 6-7 carriers + forward deploy air force with advanced notice to tackle Iran, yeah, but it wouldn't leave much left for anything else. CVN69 isn't exactly defeating the houthis right now. That's the numbers behind why US doctorine downgraded to 1 major war + 1 holding war (with medium/small adverary), while near/peer war with PRC is currently a toss up.

If Ukraine needs to draft people at all, they should just surrender. If they can't maintain the manpower they need just with volounteers, then clearly the population has "voted" that they'd rather not fight.

Men dying in a war, Women most affected. Just underscores how disposable men are. Not like they had hopes or dreams or anything.

Maybe it would be fair if men had privileges to go along with such obligations but equality is equality. It’s not like the world is short on people.

Historically the rich and powerful would keep harems and mistresses, have scores of children, and send poor young men off to be killed (and possibly rape women on the losing side). And most of the wars were to preserve the wealth and power of the rich.

Ww2 killed 3% of the earths population. Our bombs are much worse now.

> Our bombs are much worse now.

Are you under the impression that we're still doing trench warfare, though?

And any big nukes won't be aimed at soldiers.

To everyone’s surprise, we still are engaging in trench warfare. Maybe the USA isn’t currently involved in a war where they’re digging and in the trenches, but Eastern Europe right now is proving that trenches aren’t going anywhere.

Come to think of it, I'm unaware of any war over the last 100 years between conventional forces that didn't involve trench warfare.

The biggest difference/innovation as of late is inverting the trench, bringing the dirt/sandbags above ground instead of the soldiers below ground

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion

> I'm unaware of any war over the last 100 years between conventional forces that didn't involve trench warfare

Anything involving modern combined-arms warfare. Iraq, for example.

I'm being a bit unfair in that I'm counting hesco as a kind of trench warfare, but you're right in that that doesn't exactly apply on 'patrol'

Still, I believe earthen barriers are still used to solidify the 'frontlines' if you squint a bit

Afaik the Iraq Iran war was still doing straight up trench warfare (at points) and the Syrian civil war + Afghan theater were using caves (in some areas). Same with Korea and Vietnam.

Then again you're right in that I don't think sudan etc have used trench warfare (in the first civil war, apparently the second one has on a post edit search: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65962771 )

You're completely right on the second Iraq war, I don't see any sources for trenches, minus hesco.

I think what I comes down to is trench warfare is popular for the same reason earthworks are popular in civil engineering. Cheap, locally sourced, and effective in its purpose.

> the Iraq Iran war was still doing straight up trench warfare (at points) and the Syrian civil war + Afghan theater were using caves (in some areas)Same with Korea and Vietnam

Static versus combined arms. The U.S. military is deadly not only because it is big, but also because it practically invented and then mastered modern combined-arms warfare. (It’s why we put so much emphasis on air superiority over e.g. armour.)

Are you defining trench warfare as "has a trench"? Because I meant the system of long lines under fire for weeks/months and high-attrition infantry attacks across the narrow no man's land to take slivers of territory.

What rock do you live under? There is trench warfare going on right now.

Take a look at Ukraine. They're running low on conscripts despite "modern warfare"

Ukraine is running low on conscripts because they're not drafting 18-20 year olds.

their national birthrates, just like in the rest of Europe, are low, and losing 20-40% of the 18-25 year old cohort means population collapse.

Russia is in a similar place, and is generally only drafting from ethnic minorities, far eastern locales, and prisoners, plus a hearty dose of mercenaries. that said, they have 3x the population and can just pull way more people.

in both countries the average of a trooper is like 38-45.

They aren't running low on conscripts. They ran low on people they could conscript using the previous set of conscription laws that were extremely "leaky". Then they changed the law, and now they're not really low on manpower anymore.

No, but the Spartans did send their slaves, who outnumbered Spartan warriors 7:1. Spartan women were also somewhat more independent than the women of other Greek city states. Considering Sparta was not a particularly large city-state, and if they didn't control so many other city-states and have such a large cache of slaves, they might have needed to send their women after all. (bot that it matters as we're comparing a 2,500 year old society to a modern day one...)

Would you be ok with mandatory draft registration for women if conscription began with only women aged 36 and above? National fertility would be unaffected, since women of that age rarely have children anyways. Then the draft would be gender-balanced and the war hawks would get more bodies for their machine. Everybody wins.

Fertility only happens if women can find a partner. They are not baby making machines. If you have a catastrophic loss of men, you can still experience a demographic disaster.

Not really, a society that sends women to war is more or less a cowardly society dressing it up as equality.

What sort of male sends the female to check on the noises that sound like an intruder in the wee hours of the night? Do they set turns and when it's her turn she's gotta check out the noises? Any gal married or shacked up with a guy like that should kick him out before night is over.

Can you imagine Paul asking Nancy to check out the basement noises in SF?

Also, those war hawks should see duty in the front lines. None of this sitting behind "green zones" directing grunts. Get out there, get in the line of fire. Imagine Washington, Nimitz, Yamamoto, Zhukov, etc., let's just phone it in.

> Not really, a society that sends women to war is more or less a cowardly society dressing it up as equality.

Israel is likely the most prominent country sending women to war. I'm eager to call Israel many bad names, but "cowardly" is not one of them.

I think it's a worthwhile discussion, but your argumentation seems to be mainly based on stereotypes (women are weak) and some old chivalric ideals.

I mean, when things go bump on our farm my wife won’t hesitate to grab the rifle and haze a black bear or coyote. I’ll lay down my life for my wife and kids but I assure you she can be as dangerous as the next guy; in general much more.

It usually comes down to proximity and appetite.

This blatant mysogyny is shocking so out in the open. There's nothing "cowardly" about asking a woman to protect her country, or her husband.

Not that I support the idea of drafting civilian populations as soldiers in general: it's mostly a way to get innocent people killed and not much more.

> Not that I support the idea of drafting civilian populations as soldiers in general: it's mostly a way to get innocent people killed and not much more.

Not if you train them before sending them to the front. Check Ukraine, they would have been defeated without the massive influx of conscripts due to the massive Russian influx of poorly trained conscripts.

I think you mean misandry. Perhaps it is. Men bear the burden of conflict. Women bear the aftermath. But that’s how things shake out due to biology. Same as we frown upon sending children to war. Yes, they are easier to indoctrinate and can pull a trigger just as well as adults (see today’s conflict ridden areas of Africa). Yet, we know better than to send “future us-es” into the grinder guaranteeing societal collapse.

No, I do mean misogyny. Women are just as capable and willing as men to fight and defend. With modern weapons especially, there is no real difference between the fighting capacity of a woman and that of a man. And women are people in their own right, not things to be protected to perpetuate society.

Also, women are not children. Children deserve protection because they don't know any better, their minds are not fully equipped to understand what going to war means. Additionally, children make very poor soldiers, as their motor skills and reasoning skills and emotional control are just not developed enough to function as well as an adult, particularly in times of extreme stress such as war.

So again, children require and deserve protection from the rest of society. Women neither require it, nor deserve it, not any more than any other civilian.

If going to war front as an infantryman were a privilege, we'd see the likes of Hollywood actors and actresses volunteer for the front as well as any wealthy folks and any other privileged folks --but they rarely do --this indicates it is not a privilege, but rather something the poor and of lesser means, those whose lives are worth less are sent to the front. It's violence, it's abuse. Sometimes someone has to endure it. I don't see how not sending one is either misogyny or misandry. Sending someone however, is both of the above; however, if we must, then I think it's the duty of men to do the fighting. Women, can of course be in support of the front lines.

Of course it's not a privilege. But if you're saying women aren't good at it, that women need to be protected, that's misogyny. It's like saying women can't receive the death penalty because they are not mentally sound to be held responsible for their actions, which was a real misogynistic argument at one point.

Misandry would be saying men must be sent to war instead of women because they are inferior, or because they deserve a worse life, or something like that.

There's nothing misogynistic being said here. You're stretching the word to cover situations it just doesn't apply to.

Misogyny is believing women are less capable than men for certain important things (there are other ways of being misogynistic, but this is one of the most common). Warfare is a very good example.

>but they rarely do

World War 2 had a shitload of famous actors, athletes, politician's kids, etc go off to war. What are you smoking?

Besides Sparta the starkest example of a slaveholding society and the brutality needed to enforce that, they weren't even all that great militarily. They had a run of one to two centuries where they dominated militarily and then they tended to be mediocre at best. Sparta ended up as a tourist spot for romans to see people in funny costumes and hats.

This sounds like discrimination. Only women can produce offspring? Too bad, so sad. Everyone serves if it is required.

It doesn't sound like discrimination, it is discrimination, tautologically.

The onus is on you to show that it is bad in this case. We discriminate routinely, children are exempt from working for example.

I believe in the specific case of gender equality, the burden of proof is on the side which claims that discrimination is justified.

Well that's a bit daft, as men and women are as different as green and blue.

The genders are not equal, you're operating on fictional premise.

Can’t men just identify as women to avoid the draft?

No, changing your gender identity doesn't affect your selective service registration

I'm not sure why you're getting downvotes for this because it's a pretty straight forward question with a non-obvious answer.

Ever tried to actually "change your gender"? It's not really a thing you can do any more than "becoming gay" if you are straight.

can but dont.

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