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I would love the idea of mandatory conscription for 12-18 months at least for Americans at age 18, or at the age of high school graduation(possibly after college for those who are definitely attending). It's a small amount of time, during a time of your life when you most could use a little discipline, direction, and training. The military teaches accountability, pride, and responsibility. It would get many American youth into better shape, instill values, and help shape lives at times when many of us are still unsure as to where we want to go.

Aside from the "getting into better shape", isn't that what college is for?

Or couldn't someone just get a job right out of high school and accomplish the same end? I'm a little skeptical of the presumption that everyone needs this. Or more precisely, that we should make it mandatory for everyone to serve in the military in order to accomplish this. (It reminds me a lot of the "you need religion to be moral" concept. You're essentially implying that we need to serve our country in order to be responsible. Or take pride in it and ourselves).

A little by which I mean both the corrective nudge and the limit to human liberty seem a bit out of whack relative to some unspecific goals like "values" and "shaping lives" which can very easily be warped in the authoritarian systems like those the military uses.

I unfortunately have met a large large number of people who, upon getting their first serious job completely lacked the respect for the fact that they are responsible for serious performance, deadlines, accountability for their actions. And now it's a little late for them to get the message, when pulled up short by their bosses they merely retort about what an a@@ that person is, rather than acknowledge the fact that they are performing their jobs like the 15 year old they were in HS.

This is of course only one example of my opinion of how conscription could have helped a few individuals.

So no, I don't think enough people learn this during college, or by getting a first job straight out of HS. In fact I think most people gain almost nothing from college these days. They drink like fish, eat like animals, attend classes rarely, learn only as much as needed to graduate, then immediately get a mortgage for a $500k house because they "deserve" it. Many many HS graduates need to understand what it means to EARN something, to gain something through trial, and training, and teamwork.

This is a hyperbole for one, and not a statistical certainty that enough people follow this path to hedonistic oblivion to make a mandatory period of military service under authoritarianism a sensible way to form a free society. I'm familiar with quite a lot of people who fell somewhere in between your description and the ideal that I might imagine, and quite a lot who were somewhere closer to mine than yours. So if this is the line of argument you want to make that we have a society bereft of responsible adults, I'm not likely to be convinced by it at least. I concede we have lots of a$$holes, but that doesn't change because of a) military service (I've met my share of cops and soldiers who are prime candidates) and b) because people got older or went to college or whatever. Some people are "mature" at 18, some at 25, some at 50, and some never. It is ludicrous to me that the appropriate response to this as a "problem" is to make everyone doing something mandatory, whether they seem to need it or not and without demonstrating that it would have any positive externality effects. Which you haven't done simply by whining about human beings and claiming that military service necessarily improves their character.

I will concede most people learn only enough to graduate. In truth, they learn only enough to pass the classes they must and discard most of that after. But this is because college is more about signaling than education anyway. Some of the values you prize here, responsibility or accountability, are, I would argue, so highly prized signaling effects that they are excluding the actual learning and thinking processes in most colleges. There are a small minority of students who are just that, students, interesting in learning, and a small minority of students trying to acquire useful skills. But otherwise, it's basically just an expensive game for people who could otherwise do quite well without playing it and picking up a few books now and then on their own.

And as a further problem with this, you are implying that people never learn anything from these putatively negative experiences. I would imagine they will. Consider what happens when people get into their first few sexually themed relationships and the learning that occurs there on all manner of issues. I'm pretty sure that you're not about to propose that we mandate people have a certain number or type of sexual relationship before we issue them a marriage license as an indicator that they are now capable of responsible action (perhaps you would find this idea appealing, I don't know. I certainly don't like the idea of the state dictating such things). Why should we mandate that people have a certain kind of employment status as a military service member in order to have to demonstrate that they are capable of responsible action or teamwork? Shouldn't we instead, if we say we prize responsibility and accountability, simply reward that in our society and economy and punish it when we don't find it?

It would seem to me that your complaints about people who are a "little late to get the message" will tend not to find themselves performing valuable jobs anyway. How is it any my concern to force them to get the point, and to do so by limiting the freedom of others who don't need someone to force them to get the point? When I can just use the price signaling of the global economy to say "you, irresponsible 19 year old male, shall not have gainful employment because you are too often late to work".

All of that is why I do karate. I don't need to be conscripted into a force that I disagree with morally and politically to learn any of those things.

No. It's a rather silly idea that would limit personal freedom and expansion. I don't want to have to waste two or more years of my life in a governmental force that will not fit my goals in life. (I am also a Christian who believes war shouldn't be propagated by a supposedly "Christian" nation, but that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.)

In effect the glaring problem with your line of thinking here is evident from this "how conscription could have helped a few individuals. " okay, fine it helps a "few individuals".

What about the vast majority it provides no benefit at all who can do just fine without it, if not better? If there was really some considerable individual benefit conceived of to joining the military, then people would do so voluntarily (as they often do). Incarceration in jail helps a "few individuals" learn accountability or responsibility by scaring them away from certain hazardous activities. Would you propose that this helps the vast majority of people on a sociological scale too?

What concerns me is that you seem to believe there's an externality effect to people doing this whether they want to or not. I think there are several, but none are necessarily as positive as the values you think we are lacking (and which I'm not convinced we would gain on a sociological level).

Deference to authority for example is not always a good thing. Neither is the militarism evidenced by people who have served in uniform, the idea that our national problems can be solved with bombs and bullets (but only our own national problems, those of other countries and aggrieved parties should never be resolved this way). The combination of those two things as social resources would worry me that we might have a political leadership more willing to go start (unnecessary) wars than we already have. I would regard that as a very serious negative externality. It's possible this is a hyperbolic extreme, or that the quality of having many draftees in society turns those people who are already disposed against military solutions further against it by having lived through it (this is why I thought this question came up, because it's been discussed among foreign policy wonks that having a professional military potentially insulates the society around it from the suffering of the troops and their families and makes it indifferent to throwing them in harms way). But it's still a potential cost to a society that has demonstrated a willingness to use international violence and would have far more resources at hand to do so. For a country like Israel or Switzerland, mandatory service is not that big a deal, because there are only so many millions of people. In Switzerland's case, they have a far more democratic society than we do (most everything is voted on) and they have treaty obligations which constrain their foreign adventurism and in Israel's they have a small country surrounded by relatively hostile forces. It seems a necessity. We have a very large country which is presently threatened by no hostile military forces and which delegates our foreign policy decisions to a small handful of people without having to demonstrate their expertise at making those decisions.

So something should trouble you about that logic.

Whew, there's alot there to try and take in. Forgive me for only hitting certain sections.
1) "What about the vast majority it provides no benefit at all who can do just fine without it, if not better?" To those that don't get the benefit that you and I accept several or many will, they will lose nothing, or at least very little from the effort. Military service really shouldn't be compared to incarceration. The opportunities to see the world, learn a basic skill..etcetc are wonderful, compared to the opportunities to see the exercise yard for 1 hour twice a week.
2)"Deference to authority for example is not always a good thing." Completely agreed! One of the first things taught to you in the military is understanding and evaluation of your orders. Orders that are immoral or un-ethical are not to be followed. And, as a soldier, questioning orders your feel are illegal or immoral is well within your rights, requests for clarification are supported.
3)"Neither is the militarism evidenced by people who have served in uniform, the idea that our national problems can be solved with bombs and bullets (but only our own national problems, those of other countries and aggrieved parties should never be resolved this way)." Also agreed, but not all military issues are solved by bombs and bullets, and especially for those recruits who don't want to fire a weapon, or drop a bomb, there are plenty of opportunities for soldiers in numerous non-combat jobs.
4)"So something should trouble you about that logic. " Also Also Agreed. However, I think many of the issues you detail in your final paragraph are outside of the view of conscripted soldiers; and wouldn't necessarily impact their training or service.

What do you disagree with morally or politically? And how does that really translate to the soldiers themselves?

As a practical objection, in 1940, the US population was about 130 million and by 1945 we had over 10 million people in service during a crash mandatory conscription phase with some selective service features (which your position about "getting people in shape" sort of elides).

A comparable military size of conscripted out of a country of 300 million is over 23 million. Our current military size is about 1/10 of that. So what you're proposing potentially increases defense spending by at least factor of 10 anyway. I'm pretty sure that's impractical outside of a total war footing. This was with what might be a normal 3-4 year term of service at "prime" military age (the time period you're proposing we mandate of 18-23 year olds). I accept that perhaps this would be rotated in and the amount of people would be somewhat smaller at any one time, but you're still talking about doubling the size of the military at the low end I'd think.

1) I accept that some will. But I accept that many of that "some" already enlists or serves voluntarily. You apparently don't. More to the point of disagreement, you don't perceive this as a cost to the people who would receive no benefit. I do. A very significant one. This is where the disagreement emerges. You think there is no downside to individuals. I think there is a very large one for most people in terms of loss of individual freedom, and this is not an insignificant cost for society as a whole. There is to me no reason why someone should have to demonstrate their responsibility and accountability by performing a particular kind of public service (just as I think it silly that we should have to demonstrate our "morality" by performing any particular kind of religious duty). Indeed, I'm not sure we should mandate people demonstrate these things at all, we will either reward them for such conspicuous traits or penalize them for their absence through the economy. I don't see why we need to do more than that to encourage these things and you have not demonstrated to me that we should have to. It is also a very significant cost to all of us that we should have to pay taxes for people to demonstrate their character. I'd like to know we are getting a very significant benefit before meddling in this fashion.
2) Deference to authority extends to lots of fields beyond not obeying immoral orders. It extends to questioning orders which are insensible. There are many government activities which this applies to which many people are quite willing to accept (see: police, or most forms of regulation and law).
3) Non-combat jobs do not resolve my contention of militarism as a national mindset or as a behavior common to many people who have served in the military. But I will concede that most of the military is in fact non-combat positions if it makes you feel better. It does not make me feel any better because I'm well aware we pay thousands of people to type or translate or ship and transport goods and so on while in an army uniform. That has little to do with whether they object to militaristic outlooks. It might have more to do with their physical fitness or the fact that they possess unique skills with computers or languages or logistics.
4) They are outside of the view of conscripted soldiers and individuals, but since your contention is that this is somehow a social benefit (that having more "responsible and accountable" people is apparently not valued enough and we must make more of them by this means and no other will do), I am saying it is a social cost to that benefit that is potentially outweighing your proposed benefit. I'm not sure I accept you have demonstrated it is a social benefit either, much less one we definitively need and are lacking.

In fact, I would go so far as to deny you have even attempted to demonstrate this case.

I might also this take "defence to authority" response about immoral orders as more credible if we did not have people in uniform (or in similar organisational hierarchies in other government agencies) who had committed acts of torture and at least one soldier who objected to such actions as those at Abu Gharib and elsewhere who killed herself because her superiors refused to allow her to complain about the immoral orders they were giving her (she was an MP). Ex-military personnel working as contractors or mercenaries who committed war crimes by executing innocent people, or a rogue group of soldiers who did the same in Afghanistan and covered it up for years, while taking trophies off the bodies themselves. To throw this in another direction, a Mr Hassan served actively in the military, objected to American foreign policy as immoral in a few particular areas and ended up shooting 14 of his countrymen to death.

The point here isn't to throw dirt on the military. I have a great deal of respect for military force and people who train to use it. But I don't see that it actually teaches a great deal of latitude in deference to authority in practice relative to in theory, or that it resists militant strains of violence within its ranks as practiced (indeed, it would be strange that it would, given that it has a job that entails acts of violence). These complaints are not adequately addressed by saying that soldiers do not have to follow immoral orders. My impression is while this liberty exists, it is not one that can be safely protected. Indeed, in a less rigid structure such as that of police work, it's considered extremely bad form to criticize fellow officers and their actions. They are protected and shielded against them by their fellow officers.

Standing up against immoral actions requires a great deal more than the stock line that you may do so. It often requires that you lose your ability to serve and may be stripped of whatever honor and loyalty you feel you might have earned by doing so. To the credit of the military, they do a much better job enforcing discipline internally against loose cannons and mischievous or cruel and inappropriate conduct of its members than do police. And do so much more transparently. But this is different than preventing such actions from happening in the first place by freely speaking up against them.

I'm against mandatory education and government runs schools. No way I'm gonna be for mandatory enlistment.

As you all know I am a retired United States Marine.

My answer to this question is not only NO, but HELL NO!

Drafting – which is what conscription in the U.S. has been called in the past – only weakens a military force by forcing people who do not want to be there to serve. Ever since we went to the all voluntary military we have had a better quality soldier in the Army – traditionally, the USMC has never participated in the draft due to the stringent physical requirements demanded of new recruits (I am also a former Drill Instructor, and not every enlistee makes it through USMC recruit training) – which has been very beneficial in the long run simply because you now have soldiers who actually want to serve.

It doesn't mean I disagree with the soldiers themselves, but the institution of the military itself, and what that institution is used for. As for what I disagree with, I could go on and on, but I'll give you the quick version…

Politically, I greatly disagree with the uses our military has historically been put to. I also am of the opinion that not having a standing army would much better suit the principles America was founded on- personal liberty, etc. As to the moral part of the question: I am a Christian. Many like to claim America is a Christian nation. There's something wrong with a Christian nation that likes to blow people up. As a Christian, I do not want to be part of an institution that does that.

USMC did pull some draftees in during Vietnam when their recruitment totals were short.

But otherwise, this is a solid objection to why this is a bad idea.

If we really needed more quality troops for some purpose of foreign adventurism, we could offer to pay soldiers or their families more, especially for specific specialist roles that might be lacking (translators for instance). I'd suspect you could always get some people who would willingly volunteer to war if the price is right.

L94; You have the right to enlist into the U.S. military as a registered consciencious objector – and registered as such, you would serve your country and not be put into a theater of war.

With an all volunteer force, as we now have, you do not even have to enlist or serve in any capacity. Your freedom and personal liberty will be unquestionably defended by those of us who choose to put ourselves in harms way for you and yours. And that is the way it should be.

As far as how the military is used, it is in the UCMJ (I can't remember which article it is) that any and all American military personnel have the right to refuse any order that is illegal in breadth and scope, and that any commander that issues such an order may be held accountable up to and including a courts martial. That law also includes the Commander in Chief himself.

Well, as I plan to never enlist, I suppose I'll just let it go at that.

I do wish more soldiers would resist the blatantly unconstitutional orders we have coming out of Washington right now… >.>