[ftth_finland]

> Anyway, I agree that mandatory drafting should not be reintroduced.

Why not? Why should the burden only fall on the poor and the desperate?

For reference, Finland has universal conscription. The question over here is, why are women excluded?

[omginternets]

For one: modern professional armies do not want this, because conscripts don’t make great soldiers.

[barry-cotter]

Doesn’t matter. If a real war starts you want a lot of men and the only reliable way is conscription. No one could have fought WW2 with a volunteer military. Ukraine aren’t relying on volunteers. Israel don’t rely on volunteers. You do the best you can with what you’ve got available.

[paganel]

Conscript armies do win grand wars, but I agree that some current military leaders may not want to divide the military pie.

[ftth_finland]

This is definitely one of those citation needed comments.

Firstly, professional armies are recruited from the general population and are on average no better or worse than conscripts.

Secondly, the above comment completely sidesteps the moral aspects. Why should the burden of military service fall predominantly on the poor and the desperate? Why should decision makers be able to only send other people’s children to war?

[mhitza]

Why do you imply that non mandatory conscription means that the poor or desperate will be the ones to enroll?

In Romania around 2008 mandatory drafting was removed from the constitution and yet we still have an army. The reason why we have such a small army is in a significant part due to pervasive corruption in all of the state's structures, low salaries and abusive higher ups. We have an interesting documentary about the subject (has english subtitles) about the ridiculous state of the army due to reasons mentioned. https://youtu.be/0_YnxJJcC7M?feature=shared

[ftth_finland]

> Why do you imply that non mandatory conscription means that the poor or desperate will be the ones to enroll?

Because the army is the employer of last resort. It is what you do when you have no other options.

[jelliclesfarm]

I don’t know.. why can’t men bleed every month, possess a uterus and bear children ..and the burden of perpetuating the human race.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

This topic was talking about conscription though, a measure of last resort.

If we really reach a point where conscription is required, it also means that carrying an uterus is probably irrelevant: it's either kill or be killed.

Hopefully that's never going to be a thing again in as many countries as possible