Military Conscription

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82738273 said:
According to Just War Doctrine, is military conscription (draft) ever justifiable?
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Read the book. From the Catechism
Public authorities, in this case, have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for national defense.
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If a draft is necessary, then public authorities have a duty to impose it. So yes, at times it is justifiable.
 
Yes, conscription is morally allowable
And sometimes necessary.

Has anyone read a detailed account of, say, the rape of Nanking by the Japanese? It’s like the mouth of hell opened on the face of the earth. Is anyone really going allege that it would have been morally impermissible to defend oneself against that? (Remember they made aggressive war on the US, Britain, the Netherlands, Etc., to say nothing of China).
 
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Wrong, wrong, wrong. You act like saddam hussein’s feared revolutionary guard defeated the US military. They lasted like 48 hours. Their soldiers surrendered to US DRONES for petes sake.

Can you point to a single battle the US lost in Vietnam? That ones on the politicians.
 
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But the people should have some say in the wars in which we fight.
 
Which is why politicians have failed to let the military complete their jobs.
 
The National Socialists used that same line as they marched people off the Concentration Camps. I was just following orders.
 
i was 1 year on a boomer submarine. there is a big difference between laws and orders.
 
We are a country of laws and order.
And there are moral laws as well as laws set forth by men and women.
 
on_the_hill said:
I expect that conscripts may have lower morale, but that doesn’t prove that they’re inferior soldiers.
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Except it does. If two soldiers of equal strength and skill got in a fight, the one with the most morale will win everytime. You don’t need a study to know that, it’s common sense.
but WW1 and 2
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Different technology, battlefield, and society. If the generals back than had the technology we have today (gps, helicopters, drones, etc) they wouldn’t have even needed a draft. It’s literally quality over quantity.

That and WW1&2 were formally declared wars while Vietnam wasn’t. Had Congress declared a formal war on Vietnam, history would have been much different.
 
It is false to assume morale is such a huge role in combat, particularly to the extent it is deemed the deciding factor in all combats, for the same reason “quality of quantity” has been debunked in history: because it hasn’t worked in the real world.

For example, in WWII Japanese soldiers viewed themselves as far superior to their western counterparts,
Literally holding to a “quality over quantity” ideal. It didn’t work on practice, at all.
 
It’s morally possible but as societies become more developed it becomes increasingly imprudent and increasingly difficult to justify conscription.

If I was born in the Vietnam-era I would have responded to the draft but I would have refused to participate in killing (murder), so if I didn’t qualify being a conscientious objector I suppose I would have been in a prison somewhere. The Catholic Worker Movement dealt with similar issues in the mid 20th century.

Here is the USCCB statement on conscriptions:

http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-act...scription-for-military-service-1980-02-14.cfm
 
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Respectfully disagee - quite strongly - that conscription becomes harder to justify as a society becomes more advanced.

The most advanced, developed nation in the Middle East is Israel - which has conscription, in part because all its neighbors have at various times tried to wipe it out. There conscription is more than important; it’s basically necessary for the survival of the nation.
 
Israel is in a unique situation compared to North America or Europe.
 
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There is one major difference. The US military swears to defend the Constitution, not the President. In fact, in some situations, like the Godwin’s Law situation you brought up, an enlisted man cannot only disobey an order, but is required to disobey some orders, according to the Code of Military Justice.
 
Actually, The US did not institute a draft for Viet Nam. It had been in place since WWII. Also, a majority of the soldiers in Viet Nam were volunteers. Conscription is a method of equalizing military service as long as there are no exceptions. I prefer volunteer soldiers but there are positive points to conscription.

Full Disclosure: I dodged the draft (during Nam) by enlisting.

Patrick
AMDG
 
Actually, Viet Nam was won by the military by '73. Then Congress cut off support. In '75 the North invaded with a larger army that the US used in France in '45. The south had no air support, an average of 2 magazines and 1 hand grenade per soldier.

Viet Nam was lost in the press and Congress.

Patrick
AMDG
 
Why would it not be? Just war theory does not address conscription.
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
If a draft we’re fair, I would say that people should comply.
But the history of the USA, is that the rich and well to do find a way for their sons to avoid the draft, especially at times of war.
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This was the problem with the Vietnam era draft. The draft that caught Elvis Presley was not run the same way as the one where anyone could get out of it by going to college, or a rich Daddy could use influence on a Congresscritter to get Sonny out.

Plus the WWII draft was at least partly used as a way to space out the flood of recruits, many of whom would have or tried to volunteer only to be told to go home and wait for the call, so the training facilities could be built and run effectively.
 
Once again - this is false. What were gulf wars I & II?

This thread seems to have a lot of what I call “word lawyers” who want to define things in ways that support their conclusions.

It’s rather the same thing as above, regarding “a draft is indefensible.” When I raised Israel, the response was,
“Well, Israel’s different.”

No, it’s not, and no, you can’t say the all volunteer military never won a war - except when you define “victory” abstrusely & try to force yourself to be correct.

Certainly an all volunteer US military never lost a war, and, as i’ve posted above (and got silence in return) I can make a compelling argument that the all-volunteer military y has kept peace in the world (certainly between the main likely combatants) since 1945.
 
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