This question was inspired by a post on lemmy.zip about lowering the minimum age to purchase firearms in the US, and a lot of commeters brought up military service and training as a benchmark to normal civilians, and how if guns would be prevalent, then firearm training should be more common.
For reference, I live in the USA, where the minimum age to join the military is 18, but joining is, for the most part, optional. I also know some friends that have gone through the military, mostly for college benefits, and it has really messed them up. However, I have also met some friends from south korea, where I understand military service is mandatory before starting a more normal career. From what I’ve heard, military service was treated more as a trade school, because they were never deployed, in comparison to American troops.
I just wanted to know what the broader Lemmy community thought about mandatory military service is, especially from viewpoints outside the US.
Fuck that noise.
My opinion is fuck no.
Morally? Fuck that shit. But, being a Finn and sharing a huge border with Russia, I see why it is a thing here and in a lot of countries.
As for America, your military seems to have enough people in it, and the US hasn’t needed to actually defend itself for a looooong time.
The US military has actually been short on recruits for a long time now due to the obesity epidemic.
I mean we could stop maintaining an invasion force in basically every corner of the globe simultaneously, but we aren’t filthy communists or whatever.
I think military service in general is kind of important since you can actually get attacked (thanks to russia for making my point).
We had mandatory military service for men in germany and it was canceled. I sure hope it stays that way bc it isnt efficient to make kids who have better options waste their time on something they dont actually want to do. We have a professional military for that. AND if we had it, women of course must go too.
But besides that especially in countries known for their warcrimes and batshit crazy politics, like the US, I think its clear that mandatory military training would be a bad idea.
Professional army.
Support and train a reserve army of those willing. Citizens that could support the country and other citizens in the case of an invasion. Some countries do that. I like to think of those.
Only if otherwise necessary general service. E.g. active invasion you can’t otherwise oppose, or you can’t establish a minimum reserve.
Mandatory paid service with military as an OPTION, maybe. I’d like kids to get work right out of high school, have a year before college or whatever to make some money and do something different.
Literally always the military? No way. And certainly nothing that doesn’t come with a paycheck. It just sucks now that the only way to get scholarships for college is right out of high school, something needs to interrupt that.
A mandatory year in food service or retail could fix one of the main core issues we have here in the US, which is lack of empathy and respect for others. It is the genesis of so many of our problems.
I feel like most kids get this in high school, 3/4 of mine did anyway. Most people I know spent at least some time working in retail and/or restaurant.
And yes I agree that a lack of empathy and excess of greed is THE problem facing us.
What bothers me more is hospitality work is satisfying as fuck - I love making people comfortable and happy, that commitment to excellence - it’s just so hard to make a good living at it.
Mandatory social work sounds great. I’d love to spend a year working in the forest service, or even on city cleanup. Paid of course. But it builds love for your neighbors and country to help your community.
Just imagine if instead of millitary service, it was compulsary public service that actually benefitted society. Nursing, construction/infrastructure, farming, teaching/childcare, etc.
Its astrounding how much money is pumped into the military industrial complex when it could be used to fund to many other programs for public good.
But that would be sOciALiSm.
More hilarious when considering the US Military is an inherently socialist institution.
My sister and brother-in-law will go to the commissary, stay on base housing, get their paycheck from the US Govt., receive public Healthcare, and the GI Bill, then promptly go home and post on Facebook about how socialism bad.
This exists in Austria. Males have to choose between 6 months of military or 9 months of public service. Interestingly enough the existence of the public service option has been a strong reason why people voted against removing the mandatory service some years ago.
Out of curiosity, what do they do for public service?
Driving ambulance cars and doing first aid, helping in kindergarten, retirement homes, homeless shelters, institutions for people with disabilities,…
The ambulance is probably the most popular position, you can also choose what you want to do to a certain extent.
I think compulsory retail service would fix society.
Some places you can opt to do compulsory public service instead of military service.
I fully support this. It would help on so many levels. Provide a cheap workforce to help with currently in demand stuff and fix shit, help young people get away from home, get a new view on life and get some starter cash, and mix people from all walks of life. I genuinely see no downside.
That’s too good of an idea to be usable, the powers that don’t want it would tell the nurses, construction workers and farmers their livelihoods were being undermined by slave labour.
AmeriCorps is exactly this, but it’s obviously not compulsory.
Does that still exist?
In Switzerland we do mandatory military service or public service if you don’t do the military.
Both are ok, I only know the military but it’s a good experience. At first you don’t really want to do it but then you have a lot of fun, drink tons of cheap beers and learn to shoot (skill that you have to maintain for several years with mandatory shooting sessions).
Overall it’s more of a school of life rather than military school. I knew people in the medics and they did jack shit. I was in DCA and did jack shit. Most people I talk to did dumb stuff and most of us have good and funny memories from that time.
Is this a useful military force? Probably not, but we are Switzerland so who cares?
It’s ridiculous and should never be implemented.
Nobody should be forced to be a war machine. If you want, you can encourage it, give it appealing perks, but ultimately the decision should be down to the individual if they want to spend a chunk of their life on that.
It ignores that people have consciences and forces such ones into violent behavior. That violates human freedom and dignity.
Some countries have implemented some sort of civilian service. Others just ignore the wishes of their citizens. You decide the moral path here.
I’m a bit ambivalent: I would have hated it, and there’s no immediate benefit. I’m also well past the point of being affected, so yes, you should have compulsory service.
Compulsory service can’t create an effective military force, but what it can do is widespread experience with discipline, working together, basic weapons familiarity. There are many emergencies where having this widespread experience might be useful, over a herd of random citizens in an unruly mob. Heck, make it part of national guard or have fema run it.
For the military, you might get a head start on getting people ready, should you ever have to call them up. In recent decades we always assumed war is fast and you can only use what you start with, but Ukraine demonstrate there can still be protracted wars.
But I’m picturing more of an organized force to help in a large flood or fire for example. Or it helps to have some sort of goal, so build it as a modern WPA.
how if guns would be prevalent
hahahaha ‘would’ hahahhahhah. hilarious.
a huge contigent of domestic terrorism in the united states is ex-military white guys. also, a huge percentage of the homeless population are veterans… it clearly leaves a psychological stain we then refuse to mop up. but yeah, lets push everyone through agencies with the worst sexual assault tallies in the country. awesome.
You don’t use a mop to clean up a stain, you mop up a spill which can then leave a stain. You have to scrub a stain and maybe use something like vinegar or baking soda.
Mandatory training - Yes
Mandatory service - NoIn the event of a real defensive war, where your nation is invaded with the intent of conquest or subjugation, you will not have a lack of volunteers. You will have a lack of trained people.
It takes a couple of months to train a new recruit. Having everyone ready to go will help tremendously during the initial stages of war.
On the other hand, a permanent mandatory service is 1. A waste of money, 2. Open for exploitation by corrupt governments
In the event of a real defensive war, where your nation is invaded with the intent of conquest or subjugation, you will not have a lack of volunteers. You will have a lack of trained people.
Hey, I have a (purely theoretical!) question if you don’t mind.
So, if there was (theoretically of course) a war out there, where the government openly admits that they lack volunteers, people are trying to escape the country en masse by illegally crossing the border, and also there were thousands of videos online about that government kidnapping people off the streets (so that they have at least someone to send into the war), would it mean by your definition that such a war is not “with the intent of conquest or subjugation”?
Arguing semantics is not arguing in good faith.
In this “purely theoretical” case, exhaustion plays a huge role. There would not be a lack of volunteers in the beginning, say in the first year of war. After a couple of years and no hope of victory, it’s not surprising some people could decide to give up.
Now, should they be forced into war anyway? Tragedy of the commons or some such philosophical dilemma…
I don’t think I am “arguing semantics” (whatever that means), and you evaded the question :(
In somw places it’s more necessary than others. I don’t think US would benefit from it, but here in Finland I’d rather keep it. I’d try to make civilian service more common choice than currently, though.
they were never deployed
You absolutely should not ever get deployed during mandatory service. That shit is not okay.
What kind of purpose does the military serve over there? Is seeing soldiers doing civilian stuff a common thing?
My perspective has always been that the military works overseas, completely seperate from most Americans daily life
The point of military service isn’t to fight wars abroad, which americans seem to do a lot, but to train reservists who can later defend the country if needed. It ranges between 6-11 months I think, which wouldn’t give you enough time to both train the people and get something done anyway.
Civilian service or whatever is the correct term is in english, isn’t soldiers doing civilian stuff, but an alternative path for those who don’t want to be in the military. You’d work for some public organization, as a civilian.
It’s called Finnish Defence Forces and its purpose is just that; to defend Finland. We have a 1400km border with Russia.
Most conscripts are around 18 to 20 years old and the service is something between 6 to 12 months depending on your position. In general you spend weekdays at the barracks and weekends at home - with some exceptions. You don’t generally see people in military uniforms outside the military areas except for when they’re traveling to and from the barracks.
The service is mandatory for men but recently there has been some discussion on expanding that to apply to women as well. I think it’s a good system. Even if not military, then atleast some sort of community service. It acts as a sort of rite of passage.
I don’t think community service for women would be anything but a punishment, it wouldn’t improve defence in any way and would just be an excuse to not pay someone to do the same job.
I’ve lately been thinking that some kind of weekend-long preparedness course every year, or every few years, might be a good option. With an intensive 1-4 week infodump and practical training to start with. Hopefully in case of SHTF we could help keep everyone warm, fed and un-panicked for at least a few days while everyone further up the chain has their hands full. Also might help combat misinformation, maintain first-aid and civilian firefighting skills, enhance home cybersecurity, establish a neighborhood LoRa/Meshtastic network or get everyone on Briar for communication without major infrastructure (okay, that’s just me daydreaming), etc.
But yeah, pro-mandatory-military-training in our case, target group however the defence forces wants to set it, but don’t really see the point in a US setting.
