Conscription Totally Explained

Everything about Conscription totally explained

Conscription is a general term for involuntary labor demanded by some established authority. It is most often used in the specific sense of government policies that require citizens (often just males) to serve in the armed forces. It is known by various names — for example, the most recent conscription program in the United States was known colloquially as "'the draft.'" Many nations don't maintain conscription forces, instead relying on a volunteer or professional military most of the time, although many of these countries still reserve the possibility of conscription for wartime and during times of crises.
   "Conscription" has also sometimes been used as a general term for non-military involuntary labour demanded by some established authority; for example, some translators of Old Testament commentaries use the term to describe the levies of labour used to build the Temple of Solomon. In Japan during World War II, Japanese women and children were conscripted to work in factories.
   Referring to compulsory service in the armed forces, the term "conscription" has two main meanings:

compulsory service, usually of young men of a given age, for example 17 – 18, for a set period of time, commonly 1 – 2 years. In the United Kingdom and Singapore this was commonly known as "national service"; in New Zealand, at first compulsory military training and later national service; in Norway, Safeguard Duty/1st time service.
compulsory service, for an indefinite period of time, in the context of a widespread mobilisation of forces for fighting war, including on the home territory, usually imposed on men in a much wider age group (for example 18 – 45). (In the United Kingdom this was commonly known as "call-up").
The term "conscription" refers only to the mandatory service; thus, those undergoing conscription are known as "conscripts" or "selectee" in the United States (from the Selective Service System or the Selective Service Initiative announced in 2004).
   In the U.S. the term "enlisted" is often used to refer only to those who have volunteered for service in roles other than as commissioned officers.
History

Military slavery
The system of military slaves was widely used in the Middle East from the 9th until the 19th century.
   In the middle of the 14th century, Ottoman Sultan Murad I built his own personal slave army called the Kapıkulu. The new force was based on the sultan's right to a fifth of the war booty, which he interpreted to include captives taken in battle. The captive slaves were converted to Islam and trained in the sultan's personal service. In the devşirme (translated "blood tax" or "child collection"), young Christian boys from the Balkans were taken away from their homes and families, converted to Islam and enlisted into special soldier classes of the Ottoman army. These soldier classes were named Janissaries, the most famous branch of the Kapıkulu. The Janissaries eventually became a decisive factor in the Ottoman invasions of Europe. Most of the military commanders of the Ottoman forces, imperial administrators and de facto rulers of the Ottoman Empire, such as Pargalı İbrahim Pasha and Sokollu Mehmet Paşa, were recruited in this way. By 1609 the Sultan's Kapıkulu forces increased to about 100,000. Mahmud II forcibly disbanded Janissary corps in 1826. Mamluks were a slave soldiers who converted to Islam and served the Muslim caliphs and the Ayyubid sultans during the Middle Ages. The first mamluks served the Abbasid caliphs in 9th century Baghdad. Over time they became a powerful military caste, and on more than one occasion they seized power for themselves, for example, ruling Egypt from 1250-1517. From 1250 Egypt had been ruled by the Bahri dynasty of Kipchak Turk origin. White slaves from the Caucasus served in the army and formed an elite corp of troops eventually revolting in Egypt to form the Burgi dynasty. Mamluks were mainly responsible for the expulsion of the Crusaders from Palestine and preventing the Mongol Ilkhanate of Persia and Iraq from entering Egypt.
   The Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismail "the Bloodthirsty" (1672-1727) raised a corps of 150,000 black slaves, called his Black Guard, who coerced the country into submission.
Invention of modern conscription
Modern conscription was invented during the French Revolution, allowing the Republic to defend itself from European monarchies' attacks. Deputy Jean-Baptiste Jourdan gave its name to the September 5, 1798 Act, whose first article stated: "Any Frenchman is a soldier and owes himself to the defense of the nation." It enabled the creation of the Grande Armée, what Napoleon Bonaparte called "the nation in arms," which successfully battled European professional armies. More than 2.6 million men were inducted between 1800 and 1813.
   The defeat of the disorganized Prussian Army shocked the Prussian establishment, which had largely felt invincible after the Frederician victories. Scharnhorst advocated adopting the levée en masse, the military conscription used by France. Krümpersystem was the beginning of short-term compulsory service in Prussia, as opposed to the long-term conscription previously used.
   In Russian Empire, the service time was 25 years at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1834 it was decreased to 20 years. The recruits should have been not younger than 17 and not older than 35. In 1874 universal conscription on the modern pattern was introduced, an innovation only made possible by the abolition of serfdom in 1861.
   Conscription was introduced in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The 1863 Enrollment Act permitted draftees to hire paid substitutes to fight in their place. This, and the bounty system, led to widespread dislike of conscription by the public at large; the New York Draft Riots were one symptom. In addition, draftees were viewed with disdain by volunteer soldiers and their officers. In the end, the draft provided only 6% of the Union Army's manpower. Conscription wasn't employed again in the U.S. until 1917.
   According to philosopher Michel Foucault, conscription is one of the forms taken by "disciplinary institutions", along with hospitals, schools and prisons. Louis Althusser has also underlined how Machiavelli was one of the first modern theorists to think the relationship between conscription and the creation of a nation, or successfully bolstering patriotism. Machiavelli despised the use of mercenaries and professional armies, which at this time were ravaging the divided Italian states.
   Sending conscripts to foreign wars that don't directly affect the home nation's security has historically been very politically contentious in democracies. For instance, during World War I, bitter disputes broke out in Canada (see Conscription Crisis of 1917), Australia and New Zealand (See Compulsory Military Training) over conscription. Canada also had a political dispute over conscription during World War II (see Conscription Crisis of 1944). Similarly, mass protests against conscription to fight the Vietnam War occurred in several countries in the late 1960s. (See also: Conscription Crisis)
Gender issue
Some countries that draft women include Cuba, Israel, North Korea, Libya, and Eritrea. In 2002, Sweden's government asked the army to consider mandatory military service for women. Some have considered the practice of excluding women from the draft unfair, because they feel it goes against principles of equality. Some simply argue that women can be militarily useful, and that excluding them places an unnecessary limit on resources. During World War II, women were drafted into the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. The United States came close to drafting women into the Nurse Corps in preparation for a planned invasion of Japan; the Japanese surrender made this unnecessary.
   The non-egalitarian policy practiced by some countries of drafting men and not women has often been a flash point and source of conflict. This policy is often cited by some masculists as an example of an unfair policy, which benefits women over men. Gender egalitarians point out that, in the long run, such a policy supports social thinking about women as weaker and less able beings, and is therefore not really an overall benefit to women - more of a double edged sword (or golden chain). Apprehension about the possible conscription of women was a key factor that led to the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States.
In 1981 in the United States, several men filed lawsuit in the case Rostker v. Goldberg, alleging that the Military Selective Service Act violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment by requiring that men only and not also women register with the SSS. The Supreme Court eventually upheld the Act, stating that "the argument for registering women was based on considerations of equity, but Congress was entitled, in the exercise of its constitutional powers, to focus on the question of military need, rather than 'equity.'"
   On 1 October 1999 in the Taiwan Area, the Judicial Yuan of the Republic of China in its Interpretation 490 considered that the physical differences between males and females and the derived role differentiation in their respective social functions and lives wouldn't make drafting males only violating the Constitution of the Republic of China. However, transsexual persons are exempt from the Taiwanese conscription.
Conscientious objection
A conscientious objector is an individual whose personal beliefs are incompatible with military service, or sometimes with any role in the armed forces. In some countries, conscientious objectors have special legal status, which augments their conscription duties. For example, Sweden allows conscientious objectors to choose a service in the "weapons-free" branch, such as an airport fireman, nurse or telecommunications technician. Some may also refuse such service as they feel that they still are a part of the military complex. The reasons for refusing to serve are varied. Some conscientious objectors are so for religious reasons — notably, the members of the historic peace churches are pacifist by doctrine, and Jehovah's Witnesses, while not strictly speaking pacifists, refuse to participate in the armed services on the grounds that they believe Christians should be neutral in worldly conflicts.
Draft evaders
Not everyone who is conscripted is willing to go to war. In the United States, especially during the Vietnam Era, some used political connections to ensure that they were placed well away from any potential harm, serving in what was termed a Champagne unit.
   Many would avoid military service altogether through college deferments, by becoming fathers, or serving in various exempt jobs (teaching was one possibility). Others used educational exemptions, became conscientious objectors or pretended to be conscientious objectors, although they might then be drafted for non-combat work, such as serving as a combat medic. It was also possible they could be asked to do similar civilian work, such as being a hospital orderly.
   It was, in fact, quite easy for those with some knowledge of the system to avoid being drafted. A simple route, widely publicized, was to get a medical rejection. While a person could claim to have symptoms (or feign homosexuality), if enough physicians sent letters that a person had a problem, he might well be rejected. It often wasn't worth the Army's time to dispute this claim. Such an approach worked best in a larger city where there was no stigma to not serving, and the potential draftee wasn't known to those reviewing him.
   For others, the most common method of avoiding the draft was to cross the border into another country. People who have been "called up" for military service and who attempted to avoid it in some way were known as "draft-dodgers". Particularly during the Vietnam War, U.S. draft-dodgers usually made their way to Canada, Mexico or Sweden.
   Many people looked upon draft-dodgers with scorn as being "cowards", but some supported them in their efforts. In the late years of the war, objections against it and support for draft-dodgers was much more outspoken, because of the casualties suffered by American troops, and the actual cause and purpose of the war being heavily questioned.
   Toward the end of the U.S. draft, an attempt was made to make the system somewhat fairer by turning it into a lottery, with each of the year's calendar dates randomly assigned a number. Men born on lower numbered dates were called up for review. For the reasons given above, this didn't make the system any fairer, and the entire system ended in 1973. Today, American men 18-25 are required to register with the government, but there hasn't been a callup since the Vietnam Era.
Draft resisters
Historically, there has been resistance to conscription in almost every country and situation where it has been imposed. In the USA and some other countries, the Vietnam War saw new levels of opposition to conscription and the Selective Service System. Many people opposed to and facing conscription chose to either apply for classification and assignment to civilian alternative service or noncombatant service within the military as conscientious objectors, or to evade the draft by fleeing to a neutral country. A small proportion, like Muhammad Ali, chose to resist the draft by publicly and politically fighting conscription. Some people resist at the point of registration for the draft. In the USA since 1980, for example, the draft resistance movement has focused on mandatory draft registration. Others resist at the point of induction, when they're ordered to put on a uniform, when they're ordered to carry or use a weapon, or when they're ordered into combat.
   There are those who are immune to the draft. These people include anyone who works for the government (Teachers, police officers, lawmakers, etc), People who work for government contractors, and those who work in jobs essential to the operation of the country (waste management, power plants, etc). In the United Kingdom this is known as a Reserved occupation as it's deemed necessary to the survival of the nation.
   A government can also grant an exemption from conscription to a group of people based upon religious grounds. One instance is the Amish people in the United States who are immune from any military callup and don't have to register for selective service. In Israel, the Muslim and Christian Arab minority, as well as many ultra-Orthodox Jews are also exempt from mandatory service. This exemption, however, doesn't cover Druze Israeli citizens and several Bedouin Muslim villages. Permanent residents such as the Druzes of the Golan Heights are also excused. Exemption doesn't prevent members of the exempted groups from volunteering although such behavior is marginal.
Though some conscripts feel that they benefited from their experience in the military, others feel that their time could have been spent more productively pursuing their chosen studies or career paths. Individual resentment may also be compounded by the typically low wages paid to conscripts, especially in countries such as Greece, South Korea, Finland and Singapore.
Countries with and without mandatory military service
� See: Military service

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