Is Compulsory Military Service Fascism?

[Immoren]

Compulsory Military Service gives population tools to defend themselves from tyrannical governments.

[Floofybit]

How are so many people for this?!

[The Grand Fifth Imperium]

Hello nationstates family. I just came back from my compulsory military service (3000$). I feel robbed and humiliated. I used a G3 infantry rifle by force, it was very dirty everywhere and I got pneumonia, people were very rude. they don't give medicine, water and food for the sake of so called rules. Military service is a blow to the idea of ​​patriotism. I always sang national anthems (even though I didn't want to). Conscription should be abolished in Turkey and in the world because I don't want to do something I don't want. States that practice conscription are fascist.

the Turks got it all wrong then. Fascism, though? Certainly not. The military you describe (dirty, no food, medicine, etc.) sounds very different from the US military and probably most other modern fighting forces.

Personally, I like the concept of Swiss style conscription, and I say that as someone who's still young enough to get drafted.

[Stellar Colonies]

How are so many people for this?!

It would probably be a little more even if it was phrased:

Is Compulsory Military Service Unethical?

instead of

Is Compulsory Military Service Fascism?

[Necroghastia]

How are so many people for this?!

Voting "No" to the poll does not mean that one is pro-CMS, it just means one does not believe it is fascist in nature.

[Floofybit]

No it’s not fascist, its good (under certain conditions).

I do not believe conscription is fascist because the entire point is to be able to have a large amount of manpower, able to be called quickly into action incase a actual fascist state attempts to invade the nation. The government needs to be able to guard itself from internal (coups, rebellions, riote) and external threats to the security of the nation’s citizens.

Compulsory Military Service gives population tools to defend themselves from tyrannical governments.

Just this, I understand the poll

[Sky Reavers]

How are so many people for this?!

It's not they are for it. It's more like they don't belive, that conscription is inherently fascist thing. For example, I am also agaisnt concription, but I don't belive, that it's a fascism. Some communist and democratic countries have this too. After all, there are many evils in this world, that are not spawns of fascism.

[Kubra]

It took the metaphorical Pain Glove* that was Vietnam to put that idea to rest, hence the modern US military being an all-volunteer force**.

* In the sense that the ground-pounders were draftees who, upon return, would have had insult added to injury simply because their numbers were up.
** That still has Selective Service on its books simply as a Hell-in-a-handbasket thing, but I digress.

This is the common wisdom, yes. But the reason the US military abandoned conscription isn't because it is immoral or even because conscripted troops are less competent than volunteers. The number one reason is that citizen-soldiers will defend their homes valiantly and to the death, and take the fight to the enemy if that is warranted (e.g. conscript troops won WWI, WWII, and Korea). But they will not tolerate an extended war whose goals are less crystal clear than the defense of their homes. That was the lesson of Vietnam: if the answer to the question "What in the name of absolute fuck are we doing here???" has to be massaged or abstracted, you're going to get fraggings and mutinies in the field, and massive political unrest at home. I'm not a Time Lord or a psychic with access to parallel realities, but it seems a fair supposition to say that with a conscript army, the American mission in Afghanistan would likely have been get in, get bin Laden, and GTFO with a minimum of amputated limbs, trillions of dollars pissed away in corruption and waste, and native allies dishonorably abandoned to vengeful religious fanatics upon our withdrawal. The catastrophically mass-fatal and destructive invasion of Iraq might not have happened at all.

...possibly. I could be wrong, but that's what I think. Unfortunately this is one of those realms where actual scientific experimentation is both too costly and utterly immoral to conduct, and so this kind of post-hoc analysis is about the only thing we've got. What I do say with confidence is that the capital-hostage American federal government prefers a volunteer force because it empirically, factually has not created anywhere close to the same level of unrest as we saw during Vietnam, even when the actual wars being fought are no more moral, clearly motivated, or free of war profiteering than the Vietnam war was.

Why didn't they learn it in the Philippines tho

[El Lazaro]

Compulsory Military Service gives population tools to defend themselves from tyrannical governments.

I’m not sure if this is a joke, but if we were actually debating the merits of conscription, having a large standing army with weak civilian control funnels power towards an officer class that doesn’t necessarily represent the population at-large, whereas less permanent and more representative conscript armies undermine the creation of a powerful officer class and arm the populace regardless of what they believe. This idea of a temporary and decentralized mass army, not “I need to collect cool-looking guns to overthrow the U.S. government,” is what the Founding Fathers were thinking about when they wrote the 2nd Amendment, minus the compulsory service part.

In the US, we’re well past the point of this being a realistic goal, but for countries with weaker yet more politicized militaries, conscription could be an odd sort of democratic counterbalance and an alternative to roving sectarian/anti-government militant groups. Different institutions are needed to address different situations. What doesn’t make sense for one country could be a novel solution in another.

[Kubra]

Compulsory Military Service gives population tools to defend themselves from tyrannical governments.

I’m not sure if this is a joke, but if we were actually debating the merits of conscription, having a large standing army with weak civilian control funnels power towards an officer class that doesn’t necessarily represent the population at-large, whereas less permanent and more representative conscript armies undermine the creation of a powerful officer class and arm the populace regardless of what they believe. This idea of a temporary and decentralized mass army, not “I need to collect cool-looking guns to overthrow the U.S. government,” is what the Founding Fathers were thinking about when they wrote the 2nd Amendment, minus the compulsory service part.

In the US, we’re well past the point of this being a realistic goal, but for countries with weaker yet more politicized militaries, conscription could be an odd sort of democratic counterbalance and an alternative to roving sectarian/anti-government militant groups. Different institutions are needed to address different situations. What doesn’t make sense for one country could be a novel solution in another.

Nah, technological and organisational changes when it comes to warfare means that officers still remain as they are regardless of conscripts, they're easily differentiated from the lot and don't much get involved in the overall internal workings of the military. They're in, they get hazed for a bit of amusement and to confirm the professionals superior position, then they're out.
The thing with the liberal conscript armies was that they were seriously based around conscription, rather than just being a summer camp with extra bullying. There was no differentiation except for rank. That's why most remaining places with universal military service (sans a couple euro's) are pretty illiberal.

[Drongonia]

No, of course not.

[Relikai]

No it’s not fascist, its good (under certain conditions).

I do not believe conscription is fascist because the entire point is to be able to have a large amount of manpower, able to be called quickly into action incase a actual fascist state attempts to invade the nation. The government needs to be able to guard itself from internal (coups, rebellions, riote) and external threats to the security of the nation’s citizens.

Compulsory Military Service gives population tools to defend themselves from tyrannical governments.

Just this, I understand the poll

Small states like mine whose survival count on neighbors who can be openly beligerrant needs it more.

We don't have the privilege of the US who uses conscription for numbers to interfere overseas. Many people here love to overlook the example and ignore that some countries were bombed by neighbora, threatened with military action, and the target of the CIA, so having numbers would gladly allow us to tell them to piss off.

[Kubra]

Just this, I understand the poll

Small states like mine whose survival count on neighbors who can be openly beligerrant needs it more.

We don't have the privilege of the US who uses conscription for numbers to interfere overseas. Many people here love to overlook the example and ignore that some countries were bombed by neighbora, threatened with military action, and the target of the CIA, so having numbers would gladly allow us to tell them to piss off.

Iraq had conscription. It also got rolled twice.

[Relikai]

Small states like mine whose survival count on neighbors who can be openly beligerrant needs it more.

We don't have the privilege of the US who uses conscription for numbers to interfere overseas. Many people here love to overlook the example and ignore that some countries were bombed by neighbora, threatened with military action, and the target of the CIA, so having numbers would gladly allow us to tell them to piss off.

Iraq had conscription. It also got rolled twice.

The amateur fighter who trained everyday got smackdowned by Floyd Mayweather.

Compare equals like Iraq-Iran, not stupid balances like the US+NATO+Coalition vs Iraq.

[The Great Nevada Overlord]

No, it has been used by Fascist nations before, but it in itself is not Fascism.

That doesn't mean that it's good (it's certainly not) and that doesn't mean that I support it, but if CMS was Fascist, than Switzerland would be a Fascist state.

[Risottia]

States that practice conscription are fascist.

Switzerland and Sweden beg to differ.

[Fan-T Pashtunistan]

It took the metaphorical Pain Glove* that was Vietnam to put that idea to rest, hence the modern US military being an all-volunteer force**.

* In the sense that the ground-pounders were draftees who, upon return, would have had insult added to injury simply because their numbers were up.
** That still has Selective Service on its books simply as a Hell-in-a-handbasket thing, but I digress.

This is the common wisdom, yes. But the reason the US military abandoned conscription isn't because it is immoral or even because conscripted troops are less competent than volunteers. The number one reason is that citizen-soldiers will defend their homes valiantly and to the death, and take the fight to the enemy if that is warranted (e.g. conscript troops won WWI, WWII, and Korea). But they will not tolerate an extended war whose goals are less crystal clear than the defense of their homes. That was the lesson of Vietnam: if the answer to the question "What in the name of absolute fuck are we doing here???" has to be massaged or abstracted, you're going to get fraggings and mutinies in the field, and massive political unrest at home. I'm not a Time Lord or a psychic with access to parallel realities, but it seems a fair supposition to say that with a conscript army, the American mission in Afghanistan would likely have been get in, get bin Laden, and GTFO with a minimum of amputated limbs, trillions of dollars pissed away in corruption and waste, and native allies dishonorably abandoned to vengeful religious fanatics upon our withdrawal. The catastrophically mass-fatal and destructive invasion of Iraq might not have happened at all.

...possibly. I could be wrong, but that's what I think. Unfortunately this is one of those realms where actual scientific experimentation is both too costly and utterly immoral to conduct, and so this kind of post-hoc analysis is about the only thing we've got. What I do say with confidence is that the capital-hostage American federal government prefers a volunteer force because it empirically, factually has not created anywhere close to the same level of unrest as we saw during Vietnam, even when the actual wars being fought are no more moral, clearly motivated, or free of war profiteering than the Vietnam war was.

IC:
They should have only drafted those owned property, or, unless they agreed to renounce their inheritance, those who stood to inherit property.
“Family owns stocks and shares?
You’re going to Vietnam.”
“Dad owns a corner store?
You’re going to Vietnam.”
“Mom owns a food truck?
Vietnam”

1 month wasted.

So you paid to be discharged earlier, as opposed to the normal 6 months that working-classes have to do,
and yet you, a rich kid, complain?

Yes. And it's telling that he claims to speak for love yet he says here that if there was an invasion he would leave and supposedly abandon his sweethearts, refusing to protect them.

If EOKA types went to your country to kill your sweethearts, are you saying you would just abandon them?

[Najairadarethu]

Just stumbled over this while scrolling through this thread again:

not on its own. fascism is a specific hierarchy and method of ruling. compulsory military service is common in fascist systems, but compulsory military service is not fascist.

If you agree that compulsory military service is a common element of fascism, then surely it has to have a certain fascist element to it -- otherwise it would not appeal to fascists.

So since doors are a common element of office buildings, doors have a certain office building element to it - otherwise doors wouldn't be used for office buildings?


More formal:

From the fact that all As are Bs, it does not follow that all Bs are As. A classic formal fallacy. But I know what you mean, the thing fascism and the military in general have in common is mostly strict hierarchies and a degree of authoritarianism. But this doesn't mean that there can't be any strictly hierarchical army made up of staunch anti-fascists. Armies can also be organized in many different ways, more or less hierarchical and authoritarian.

[Najairadarethu]

States that practice conscription are fascist.

Switzerland and Sweden beg to differ.

Israel as well. Many Israelis are actually just about now defending their political system against turning more fascist. So Israel has existed as a non-fascist state for decades - with probably the strictest conscription policy in the world.

[Rakhalia]

Switzerland and Sweden beg to differ.

Israel as well. Many Israelis are actually just about now defending their political system against turning more fascist. So Israel has existed as a non-fascist state for decades - with probably the strictest conscription policy in the world.

Using a genocidal apartheid state as your example doesn't help your point.

[GermanEmpire of kaisereich]

If mandatory military service is to be considered fascist, then, wow, my country is extremely fascist and yet has friendly relations with the Americans and the Chinese (I'm from Brazil and here military service is mandatory)

[Ruotsaland]

I definitely think it can be used to fascist ends, but on its own, compulsory military service is as “fascist” as having to do jury duty; that is to say, none really.

I can’t profess I know much about Turkey’s use of the practice, but in places like Finland and Switzerland, what mandatory military service does is to regularly train your populace for the worst-case scenario just in case that the much bigger neighbours (Russia in the case of Finland, and Germany and France in the case of Switzerland) decide that the national sovereignty is forfeit. But these are for matters of national defence genuinely, and the concept of them ever being used offensively is so astronomically unheard of that it is never even part of the conversation. It’s hard to make an argument that Finland or Switzerland are fascist by that token, as fascism is “palingenetic nationalism”, or a revival of nationalist fervour under the premise that national pride has been thoroughly eroded and that needs to be reversed by a strong leader with a strong plan. Can’t revive national pride when the national pride never went away.

However, if we were to take the US, which has a long track record of using its army offensively over the last 150 years especially, mandatory conscription, if it was reintroduced beyond Selective Service looming over male American citizens on this being a remote possibility, could be fascist with how such wars are sold to the public: bringing a “better system” to backwater countries in the “Third World”, that being “American-style ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’”. Forcing men to fight in these wars which have no genuine existential security reason to be fought, and yet selling it as a matter of national pride, can be arguably fascist.

Point being, it depends a lot more on how a government sells the need for it, and the actual needs of the nation in question, rather than the policy itself universally being fascist.

[Najairadarethu]

Israel as well. Many Israelis are actually just about now defending their political system against turning more fascist. So Israel has existed as a non-fascist state for decades - with probably the strictest conscription policy in the world.

Using a genocidal apartheid state as your example doesn't help your point.

Israel is no Apartheid state, let alone genocidal. Claiming the latter is a preposterous falsification of history and utterly malicious as well. But this has been discussed to death already and it's crystal clear that people who make such claims are obstinate ideologues (usually with a strong antisemitic streak) you can't argue with anyway.

[Page]

Using a genocidal apartheid state as your example doesn't help your point.

Israel is no Apartheid state, let alone genocidal. Claiming the latter is a preposterous falsification of history and utterly malicious as well. But this has been discussed to death already and it's crystal clear that people who make such claims are obstinate ideologues (usually with a strong antisemitic streak) you can't argue with anyway.

Here's a simple yes/no question. Are there Palestinians who are ruled over by Israel who have no suffrage and no citizenship? The answer is yes. Israel is an Apartheid state. You wanna split hairs over there being no public swimming pools with signs that say "no Arabs allowed." Palestinians under Istaeli rule can't even get passports. The people of Gaza can't import food without the permission of the Israeli military. Lack of in your face segregation does not refute Israel's status an Apartheid state.

[Corianna]

I'd say no. I've never heard of a Fascist state that didn't have Compulsory Military Service (and I'd be curious to know if there ever was one) but not every country who does have it can be classified as Fascist.