Compulsory Military Service?

Yes, lots of good points by everyone :D 8) . However, I would like to point out the following:

1. Registering eligible citizens for emergency contingencies is NOT the same thing as a peacetime draft to routinely fill a nation's armed forces (or social services either for conscientious objectors out there). One is for dire emergencies, the other is a potential tool of oppression and fundamentally inconsistent with a free society. Most citizens (and even resident non-citizens) will step up to defend their homes in an emergency or to otherwise serve in the nation's armed forces, but no one should be coerced during peacetime.

2. How likely is it that anyone would attack either Finland or Norway using conventional, or unconventional, military forces - as opposed to terrorist attacks? Not many I would submit, as:

a. Both have capable and very respectable, if small, armed forces.

b. Norway belongs to NATO, whose member nations would immediately act to support Norway in the event of any attack, which shows how effective diplomacy can be as a tool of the nation state.

c. Finland, although not a NATO member, would very likely be able to count on the support of most of NATO (certain affiliated and french speaking countries excluded) and the free world in the event of an attack.

d. Finland kicked the :cen: out of the last army to invade them - just ask the Russians ;) . Yes, the Russians eventually won, but no one is going to forget the lessons of the Winter War any time soon.

e. How many real enemies does either nation really have right now? I define enemies as other nation states who wish to invade or do them serious harm, which excludes terrorists or internal rebels who wish to bring down or split off from the cntral government.
 
there wont be a draft unless there is a full scale war like the Civil War, World Wars, and Vietnam even. To so do would be unconstitutional because it violates the right to "pursue life, liberty, and happiness"
 
Gunner13 said:
b. Norway belongs to NATO, whose member nations would immediately act to support Norway in the event of any attack, which shows how effective diplomacy can be as a tool of the nation state.
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This is something we actually have started to focus on a lot lately.
We have a small, but rather well trained armed force IMO.
But it's too small to defend all of Norway alone, that's why we have an increased focus on operations abroad, to help our Allies there.
In that way we try/hope to ensure that they would come to our aid if we ever should need them back here.
 
Gunner13 said:
[...] Most citizens (and even resident non-citizens) will step up to defend their homes in an emergency or to otherwise serve in the nation's armed forces, but no one should be coerced during peacetime. [...]
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Yes. But as I said it will be too late to train these people to anything resembling a capable soldier after a threat has appeared in countries that lack the strategic depth of USA. There will simply be no time. We won't be getting eight months warning of a certain attack. At least one can't count on that.

To get a large enough reserve that has been at least once upon a time trained one must have conscription. Training on the other hand is more than necessary. Already in 1939-1940 the casualties among the "speed trained" units were horrendous. (Many times greater than in regular reservist units.) By conscription many lives of those that would not volunteer during peacetime but would in case of a war will be saved.

For the reasons I stated in my previous post. If one could afford to look at the issue in plain ideological terms I'd agree with you: no one should be coerced to serve in peace time, people should feel it as their obligation. Unfortunately we can't afford that since people love their comforts. A country of this size needs a trained army of a certain size and capability. Conscription is the only cost-effective method that we can achieve that.

Gunner13 said:
[...] 2. How likely is it that anyone would attack either Finland or Norway using conventional, or unconventional, military forces - as opposed to terrorist attacks? Not many I would submit, as:

a. Both have capable and very respectable, if small, armed forces.

b. Norway belongs to NATO, whose member nations would immediately act to support Norway in the event of any attack, which shows how effective diplomacy can be as a tool of the nation state.

c. Finland, although not a NATO member, would very likely be able to count on the support of most of NATO (certain affiliated and french speaking countries excluded) and the free world in the event of an attack.

d. Finland kicked the :cen: out of the last army to invade them - just ask the Russians ;) . Yes, the Russians eventually won, but no one is going to forget the lessons of the Winter War any time soon.

e. How many real enemies does either nation really have right now? I define enemies as other nation states who wish to invade or do them serious harm, which excludes terrorists or internal rebels who wish to bring down or split off from the cntral government.
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Well it is very unlikely that anyone should attack Finland (I'll leave Norway to Norvegians :) ) in the foreseeable future. However you never know what will happen and it takes a long time to train a effective armed forces. (A Decade or more they say.)

a.) Its nice to know that we are respected abroad. :)

c.) Do you honestly think that other nations would risk going to war against Russia, to help some Finland? :shock: I'm certain that We'd get a lot of sympathy and cheap equipment but thats about it. (Sympathy and equipment are always more than welcome.) If one makes a cool strategic assesment there is nothing in Finland that is valuable to anybody but us. What would the others fight for? I'd understand some members of the EU responding as we share their currency, but why should USA care enough? (Besides that would be risking a nuclear confrontation over Finland. Who wants that?)

In addition, if we get help, how long will it take for that help to arrive? How many months did it again take for US to deploy to Kuwait for OIF? By the time help got here we'd already be overrrun if we had only the token force that we'd have without conscription.


d.) Yes we did, but the price was very high indeed. They propably won't be forgetting attack we made in 1941 or the defense we put up in 1944 either. They know however that eventually they will get their way, if they have the political possibility of just wearing us out. (Something they lacked during WWII)

e.) NONE! we hope it will stay that way. Can we still say - with absolute certainty- that we will not be pulled into a conflict in the near future. I don't think such assurances can be given by anyone.

edited for spelling.
 
No argument about the time it takes to properly train indivduals and units - as you are indisputably correct! Once again, a free society should be defended by volunteers and if you can't convince enough citizens one way, they you have to find another. The US Armed Forces, active and reserve, struggled for years after the draft ended to keep up unit strength, improve morale, maintain unit identity and keep training up to requirements. Elite units suffered less, but all branches were strained terribly in the early years and the damage from Viet Nam made everything much worse.

In the end, the citizens of each country have to make decisions about the size, structure, role and costs they are willing to pay for their armed forces as well as how they will staff them. I admit that what works for the USA might not work in Soumi.

However, if you need help, just call - neither your neighbors to the west, nor the 82nd Airborne Division, need very long to arrive - ditto for B52s and aircraft carriers. :)
 
yes

But you see, the choice is simpel. Dont want to serve your country? Find a diffrent one. Its a democracy, want to change the compulsary service? Elect someone that will....
 
I don't think you'll see a draft in the US soon. After all the toubles the military had with draftees during the Vietnam days who needs that? I know I'd hate to be in the crap with a bunch of guys that don't want to be there and are doing anything they can to get out. The only scenerio i can see for a draft is as a last resort.
 
Norway has a huge stockpile of US Military Supplies. IF Norway or any of europe for that matter got into a war, I have no doubt in my mind that the US would step in.
 
Right, those are prepositioned stocks in case of an attack (or threat thereof) in Northern Europe or along the Baltic coast. The whole point of NATO is a defensive alliance to keep the peace in Europe and, by extension, in North America and the rest of the world. Given some of the distances involved, postioning trained personnel and equipment in the right places is critical.

If your neighbor's house catches on fire, you don't want to start fighting the fire when it gets to your house, you put out the fire right away (ideally, you keep it from starting in the first place) :D .
 
In addition, if we get help, how long will it take for that help to arrive? How many months did it again take for US to deploy to Kuwait for OIF? By the time help got here we'd already be overrrun if we had only the token force that we'd have without conscription.
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12 - 18 hours.

The US was in no rush to deploy to Kuwait for OIF, it was a build up in the event Hussein did not comply. The timeline allowed for slow deployment.
 
Hi guys.

I've been reading posts on this forum for a couple of days now, and I thought I'd join in.
I'm From the Netherlands and feel I have to correct the idea that the Netherlands still has compulsory service. We stopped drafting around 1996, I think.
Still I think it wasn't a bad thing.
It taught people discipline. And some people tell me they used their time in the military to think about what to do with their lives (i.e. school) afterwards, seeing a completely different side of life in the military then in school so far.
What was wrong was that only men could get drafted. Never heard feminists complain about that though. ;)


BTW I believe the official reason was that a "modern" army doesn't need as many soldiers as before, because of technology taking over. What do you think about that theory? I think they just tried to save money on defence (again).
 
Well

Well what threats are their to holland? I mean, your protected by NATO, right...? So, lets say prettey much only if NATO broke up and Germany attacked you...Now, I dont mean any insult, but is hat not a really insane scnario....?
 
lol
Of course you're probably right. But then again, the last time we thought we didn't need to invest in an Army, Adolf didn't agree. He took us in five days! Dutch soldiers tried to stop the Germans, but the Germans had something we didn't have...tanks. A tank is hard to stop when you're on a bicycle, you know. The only thing we have to be proud of is that it took five days and the bombardment of Rotterdam for us to surrender.

But to get back on topic. all I really meant to say was that we now have an all volunteer army, and I do see downsides to that.
 
No...the United States does not have the kind of government that should force compulsory service unless the country is in immediate danger.

It is not the government's place to dictate what people should do with their lives.
 
No...the United States does not have the kind of government that should force compulsory service unless the country is in immediate danger.

It is not the government's place to dictate what people should do with their lives.
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I would beg to differ. The U.S. government can re-institute the draft any time it sees fit. It has done so in the past and will likely do so in the future. An all volunteer force can be stretched quite thin and then needs to be supplemented by trained personnel. The quickest way to do that is to mandate military service.
 
LCDR_SurfWar said:
It is not the government's place to dictate what people should do with their lives.
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People kid themselves if they think we don't let the US government tell us what to do with our lives. i.e. Helmet laws, seatbelt laws, drug laws, etc. All of these are allegedly done in the name of the "greater social good" - why would this not apply to Compulsory Service? Not just the military defense aspect of it, but the concept of the results yielded by giving 18 year olds discipline and helping them find direction.

The problem with the idea of an all-volunteer military is that American society has been progressing more and more toward an attitude of "let someone else do it." What happens when there is nobody else? Or when the somebody else does it and then gets spit on for doing it?
 
"A free society should NEVER compel its citizens to serve!"

And should NEVER compel it's citizens to pay taxes!


"People who are doing compulsory service have very low morale when shipped abroad."

Any recruits or soldiers whose training is still in progress and not completed should never been shipped anywhere, not even volunteerly and paid. Usually none of democratic countries ship soldiers in training or no-one compulsory abroad and without pay. All soldiers shipped abroad are volunteers and get paid for that and have completed their training wich is IMO right.


"I can't agree with you universally. For instance I am quite certain that there would be no lack of volunteers should Finland be attacked (According to polls over 80% think that we should defend ourselves with arms even if the outcome looked bleak.) Nevertheless we are in a very secure situation right now and people do not like to have so much trouble if they do not see it to be necessary. (If nobody is going to attack anyway, why serve?)"

Then will be volunteers enough but as you said, no time and no resources to train them all.

And why to serve since there is a lot of else to do like studying and making money for example. Military training is not comfortable as normal civilian life. It's not fun to be all clothes wet in one meter snow and -30Celsius grades frost with lack of sleep.

Many local people like to join and enjoy military and someones not, but the most of men who have passed their training and all the shit in military are usually very proud of it. The most of the unmotivated scum usually quit themselves during first days and weeks of basic training and if not, some of them get booted out.

Somehow usually service fellows don't like unmotivated inviduals in training and generally pussies are the most hated group. The worst pussies use to cause with their actions collective punishments to the entire platoon or company wich causes pussies to get themselves beaten by angry fellows.

Generally military training as education does very good to many people and it is at least unmatched experiment.
 
South Korea has compulsory service as well.
However, fraggings aren't a common problem because national service is practically part of the culture now. It'd be strange not to go. It happens now and then, seldom though but those are usually because of mistreatment etc.
South Korea's foreign deployments nowadays are completely voluntary so there's no morale problem there. Last thing you want to do is drag abroad a loser.
If there's ever a war at home, I don't think motivation will be a problem.

Are you sure the Chinese have a draft? I think one of the Chinese posters here said it was all volunteer.
 
"national service is practically part of the culture now. It'd be strange not to go."

Just like here. Military training is a natural part of education and man without military training is not man. Civil service hippies are weird faggots and communists whose only right purpose is to be used as mine ploughts.

"Are you sure the Chinese have a draft? I think one of the Chinese posters here said it was all volunteer."

Chinese will always have the famous "one million volunteers" like in Korea.
 
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