Is a military draft ever justified?

Great Debates
1

Continuing the discussion from Multiple Shootings At Fort Hood:

In the linked thread, @Darren_Garrison characterizes the draft (specifically in WWII) as “the pure evil of drafted military slavery.”

Is he right? Was the military draft in WWII “pure evil”? Stated another way: Was the draft in WWII morally justified? And more broadly, is a military draft ever justified?

I don’t believe the draft in WWII was evil. I think WWII was morally justified for the U.S. to engage in, and I know of no way to fight a war of that magnitude without a military draft.

This holds for the military draft in general, in my opinion. Indeed, I’m not sure our current system is much better, from a moral point of view, anyway. There hasn’t been a draft since Vietnam, of course. Instead, the U.S. military throws money at potential recruits instead. This tends to select for those who have fewer opportunities, whereas people of means and connections are not incentivized to join. There is therefore no reckoning that makes the population as a whole consider if all of the wars of choice we have engaged in since Vietnam are actually worth it.

(As for Slovik, I characterized him as an idiot because he exchanged the chance of being killed or injured in combat with the certainty of execution for desertion. And yes, it was a certainty, which he was told repeatedly. No military in that type of combat situation can tolerate willful desertion and refusal to follow orders and still maintain a coherent fighting force. He was begging to be made an example of.)

Multiple Shootings At Fort Hood
2

Might I ask why you are asking if the military draft was morally justified?

You say there hasn’t been a draft, that is in the US of course. Russia and Ukraine are recent examples of conscription.

Usually drafts are decided by a government, or forcibly done by press-ganging. Popularity and backlash are often considered, but usually the people deciding about instituting a draft are not taking moral considerations as highly as other considerations.

3

He was forced to be there, and when he didn’t go along with it, they murdered him. Full stop. Pure evil. The people who did that to him were scum.

4

BTW, here’s the letter that he handed over (he didn’t run and hide)

I, Pvt. Eddie D. Slovik, 36896415, confess to the desertion of the United States Army. At the time of my desertion we were in Albuff [sic; “Elbeuf”] in France. I came to Albuff as a replacement. They were shilling [sic; “shelling”] the town and we were told to dig in for the night. The following morning they were shilling us again. I was so scared[,] nerves [sic; “nervous”] and trembling that at the time the other replacements moved out I couldn’t move. I stayed their [sic; “there”] in my fox hole till it was quite [sic; “quiet”] and I was able to move. I then walked into town. Not seeing any of our troops so I stayed over night at a French hospital. The next morning I turned myself over to the Canadian Provost Corp [sic; “Corps”]. After being with them six weeks I was turned over to American M.R[.] [sic; “MP” - “military police”] They turned me lose [sic; loose]. I told my commanding officer my story. I said that if I had to go out their [sic; there] again Id [sic; “I’d”] run away. He said there was nothing he could do for me so I ran away again AND I’LL RUN AWAY AGAIN IF I HAVE TO GO OUT THEIR [sic; “THERE”].

The “offers of clemency” were people telling him to tear up the note and go back into combat. But he didn’t, so they (eventually) stood him against a wall and shot him.

5
6

Yes, I should have specified that I was talking about the U.S. there.

Do you have anything to support your thesis beyond name-calling?

More to the point, how would you propose WWII have been fought? Or should Hitler have been left to freely continue rampaging across Europe and exterminating Jews and other marginalized people?

Indeed. Since Russia is engaged in a war of conquest initiated by an autocratic dictator, I would say that their conscription efforts are not morally justified.

Whereas Ukraine is engaged in a war of defense and survival. Their conscription efforts are therefore eminently justified morally and practically. Their only alternative is surrender.

7

The guy was terrified of being killed. People who are terrified are incapable of reason. That’s no more being an idiot than someone who panics when facing a tiger all of a sudden, even if they were warned not to act scared. You can’t judge someone as being an “idiot” for reacting on pure instinct and fear.

The idiots are the ones who executed him. There were nearly 2 million courts-martial held by the US during WWII, and he was the only person who was executed for desertion. All other people executed were for murder and rape. I don’t know how great of an example it was to pick one arbitrary person and kill him. Unless you are consistent in how you apply punishment, the only example you’re setting is one of inconsistency.

8

That there would have been likely negative consequences to what you possibly argue to be avoiding a lesser evil is a separate issue to whether it was evil. And my stance is that ripping someone away from their life with no choice and fucking KILLING THEM if they don’t obey is entirely evil.

9

As to the original question, I do think it is a form of evil to draft people but also justifiable. Which is awful. War is awful. Being forced to kill other people is awful. But I do think that if there is an actual existential threat, and you truly have no other choice, it is justified, as detestable as it is.

10

Because they knew he was signing his own death warrant. Every inductee into the military is repeatedly told the penalty for desertion in the face of the enemy.

It’s just that this extreme penalty is rarely meted out because there are virtually always extenuating circumstances. Slovik instead said to the authorities, “Do your worst,” because he was so sure there would be no real consequences other than some possible jail time. So they did.

I called him an idiot, but a better characterization would be that he was “hoist by his own petard.”

He also managed to screw over his wife, who was denied his pension and survivor benefits.

11

An induction that they had forced on them. It isn’t a consequence of a poor choice, it is something a more powerful external force made them do. If I was forced into the military against my will, I damn well would know who my real enemy is.

12

I wouldn’t characterize it as slavery. It’s compulsory, but then again so is school until you’re 18.

The whole idea of conscription is in my mind anyway, tied up in the whole idea that the government has the legitimate monopoly on violence. Part of that includes being able to compel your citizens participate in that monopoly.

It’s the “by the People” part of the government in a sense; if a democratic government is choosing to exert its will by force, then the people (i.e. conscripts) can be expected to do that.

Volunteers would be best, and that’s what we’ve got in peacetime, but if necessary, it’s not unreasonable to be able to compel the citizens of a democracy to participate. IMO, that’s part of the adventurism problem we’ve seen since the advent of the all-volunteer force. Even though we’re a democracy, the costs of what we voted for aren’t being borne equally by the sons and daughters of the people. Conscription, if done right, solves that problem. Unpopular wars will cause politicians and voters to turn against them, because people’s children are fighting and dying somewhere that they aren’t on board with.

Slovik wasn’t murdered. Capital punishment is and was a de jure punishment for desertion as stated in the UCMJ (10 U.S.C. § 885):

Any person found guilty of desertion or attempt to desert shall be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court‑martial may direct; but if the desertion or attempt to desert occurs at any other time, by such punishment, other than death, as a court‑martial may direct.

He had several non-judicial opportunities to go back to his unit, and a court martial at which he refused to present mitigating evidence on his own behalf. The sentence was approved by several JAG lawyers and judges, all of whom agreed with the sentence.

Basically Slovik was expecting imprisonment and dishonorable discharge and was angling for that, and was surprised when it didn’t work that way. He fucked around and found out, as they say.

13

A country’s first obligation is survival. If draft is necessary for a country to survive, then it is not only justified, it is a moral neccessity.

14

I’d argue a Draft is justified but, in today’s era, only for defensive purposes. If you need to wage a war like Vietnam, that is far from home and in which your nation faces no threat, you can’t do a Draft for that. Only nations like Ukraine are justified in forcible drafting.

That being said - and I hope this isn’t veering off topic - a Draft can easily be used as a way to target political opponents. An administration, knowing full well its male opponents would duck the draft, would then have a legal reason to prosecute them.

15

I’ll also point out that there are drafts, and there are drafts. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a perfect example. Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked for no other reason than simple greed. Russia (particularly Putin) wants to possess Ukraine, and so they invaded. They weren’t responding to a threat, they just saw something they wanted and thought they could easily take it. That led to a protracted war.

Russia has conscripted numerous people, and as documented often send then into the front lines with inadequate training and equipment just to throw bodies at a problem. They are a resource to spend, not lives at risk to their perspective. Often these are prisoners and tossing these people into a war is seen as solving multiple problems simultaneously.

Meanwhile, as Ukraine is literally fighting for the existence of their nation, any conscription they undergo is understandable to me, because they are fighting a larger foe and if they give up this fight they will cease to exist as a nation and have to accept being ruled by a leader who has proven to be tyrannical.

I can’t think of a better contemporary example to contrast a justified and unjustified example of a military draft.

16

'Zactly.

Said in very short summary: Any draft is as moral as the war it’s supporting.

Russia’s draft for the invasion of Ukraine? Immoral.
Ukraine’s draft following the invasion of Ukraine? Moral.
The USA’s draft in WW-II? Moral.
The USA’s draft in 2027 to escalate the war against Iran by a ground invasion? Immoral.

This calculus isn’t that hard. Might there someday be a gray area? Sure. Here and now? Nope.

17

The US draft is constitutionally valid US law. US law is made by our elected representatives. So it’s certainly legal, politically legit, and borne from our system of Gov’t.

Does that make it moral? That’s probably a deeper question of a democracy than of any specific law that is borne out of it. Is it moral for a majority to force a person to do something they don’t want to do? Does that something depend on the specific thing that’s being forced on them?

Personally, it depends on what being drafted means. I think being forced to join the military is fine, but being forced to kill someone is not fine (or be punished/killed yourself for not doing it).

18

Is it immoral for some individual Ukrainian (or Russian, or American, Israeli, Ethiopian, etc.) to nope out and move himself and his family far away from the country, even if this is explicitly in violation of Ukrainian law?

19

It’s certainly not immoral to send someone’s family away to a place of safety, if one exists.

As for the individual themselves—assuming they are subject to conscription—do they intend to come back after the fighting is over? Because if they do, then they are a coward by any definition. And I would also argue that their actions are immoral, in that they are forcing others to “take up the slack” and also making it that much more likely the country will be overrun by the invaders.

20

A draft is involuntary servitude. A country in danger doesn’t need a draft for citizens to support it. If it does need a draft, it probably isn’t in danger. If it is in danger and still needs a draft, there’s probably not much of a Country left anyway.

The first felony I ever committed was failing to register for the selective service