*** Official Putin Started Shootin' Thread ***

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I think it kind of makes sense if your country is potentially under threat from a bigger, unfriendly neighbor, like Finland for example.

In the US, two year mandatory service would result in a standing army of about 15 million men if I'm doing the maths right. That seems a bit ott for a country whose military is already op.




See above. I think it's pretty unlikely the US is going to be subject to a suprise invasion by Canada eh.





Well, that does seem bad I guess. Though otoh, in a real war with a real draft you'd hopefully avoid that.





So it's better to have everyone equally pumped full of nationalist propaganda?




Depends how many people are in it. If it's well under 1% of the population, as I believe is the case in the US, it seems unlikely to be an issue.

Also, it isn't obvious to me that an armed forces is a place for social mobility and making lots of friends, at least not on the same level of college. Seems much more structured. If it were a meritocracy, you'd have a stronger argument imo. But most armed forces make the advantaged kids the officers and the less advantaged ones the grunts. That would seem to reinforce those divisions, not remove them.

You've taken all the worst parts of what is and criticized them as parts of what I've proposed, only I never did propose them.

For example, the ranks of a mandatory service armed forces will skew far closer to the center as compared to the rightward/nationalistic skew of a volunteer only military. I do concede that it's possible that while the military would be far less right leaning/nationalistic/conservative/whatever, society as a whole may to one degree or another lean moreso. I don't think that this is a given, but if it is the case, I think the more cohesive society is likely a fair trade off.

Regarding this resulting in a bloated rank (my math lands at 4-8m. The annual births 18 years ago were right around 4m, so depending on 1 or 2 years service..), the mission can expand, everyone can have basic military training, but a large percent of conscripts can serve their mandatory years doing hearts and minds kind of work here at home as well as abroad.

Anyways, I could go on, but I'm sure if you cared and were open to a change of mind, you could go back to your post and pick your own low hanging fruit.