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"Conscription should return in the sense of a broader national service."
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Professor Charles Moskos |
The exceptions are in Germany and Scandinavia, while elsewhere in the world, there are places on every continent where conscription still survives.
And indeed, despite the fact that warfare is very different these days - few countries require standing armies to protect their borders - it would be wrong to think that military service belongs to the past.
Even in the US, which abolished conscription in the '70s, some politicians think it should be brought back, partly to ease the nation's current difficulties in recruiting skilled men and women for the military.
But elsewhere conscription is often seen as an infringement on the rights of the individual. Many would not be ashamed to put their own rights before the demands of their country.
In this week's edition of Amsterdam Forum we decided to investigate the place of conscription in modern day society, and to find out if patriotism itself was going out of fashion.
Panellists
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| Click to listen to the programme | |
Anna Leander - Social and political scientist based at the Copenhagen Business School. She has made significant contributions to the study of conscription, especially in Sweden and France.
Charles Moskos - Military sociologist, and professor emeritus of sociology at Northwestern University in Illnois, USA. He was also drafted into the US military in the '50s.
Dick Pels - Freelance writer and political commentator, author of Een zwak voor Nederland, his book on what he calls the "weak" Dutch identity.
There was also a contribution from Tom Smith, from the National Opinion Research Centre at the University of Chicago, talking about the 'patriotism index' he helped create, measuring feelings of national pride across the world.
Extracts from the debate
Charles Moskos on his experience as a conscripted soldier in the '50s:
"I graduated from a prestigious university, Princeton University in America, and then I became a conscriptee, starting at the lower ranks, and I spent two years on active duty, mostly in Germany. I found it one of the most memorable and pleasant experiences of my life."
Charles Moskos on how the draft should be brought back:
"Conscription should return in the sense of a broader national service. I'm now an advocate of a three-tiered conscription system. One would be the military service like the old fashioned conscription system. The second would be homeland security … and a third option would be regular civilian service like tending to older people, teaching handicapped children … things of that sort."
Dick Pels on how he avoided being conscripted in the Netherlands:
"I asked a friend - and this was quite a routine operation - to write a letter, stating that I was psychologically unfit for any kind of discipline."
Charles Moskos on how he thinks the USA now lacks patriotism:
"I say we are now experiencing what I call 'patriotism-lite'. We talk about how we support our soldiers, but nobody - particularly the privileged classes - is prepared to send their own sons or daughters."
"Conscription allows the armed forces to recruit when it's difficult, and to recruit qualified personnel. So in that sense I definitely don't belong to those who think that there's been some kind of a change which per se makes conscription useless. On the contrary, as an institution in that way, it's still very very much alive."
Anna Leander on why Germany and Scandinavia retain conscription:
"I think it's … precisely because they've been capable of arguing that it's a very useful system, both militarily, because it makes it possible to recruit soldiers … and the importance of keeping the armed forces anchored in the population - so this idea that conscription plays a very very important role in controlling the armed forces, and avoiding that the armed forces become a state within a state, separate from the rest of society."
Dick Pels on why conscription is no answer to terrorism:
"There is a threat coming from .. world-wide terrorism, which is a very real threat, and I would suggest that conscription is not the answer to this. The only way to fight terrorism on a global scale is a professional army or professional services of whatever kind."
Charles Moskos on how the draft might be brought back in the US:
"I think if a major political figure really made the argument under the system that I propose - which is the three-tiered national service system and community service - it seems public opinion might be quite warm to that idea."
Tom Smith on the findings of his patriotism index:
"Patriotism or national pride is a more central, more important characteristic of the national character in the United States than it is in many other countries."
"Basically ex-communist states are at the bottom, new nations are at the top, and established European and east Asian nations in the middle."
Tom Smith on why Swedes score low for patriotism:
"There was a strong association in Swedish thought with national pride, with extreme nationalism … Swedes therefore shun a strong expression of patriotism or of national pride because of that association."
Anna Leander on how patriotism is expressed in different ways:
"Just as I think that there are different meanings to conscription in different societies, I also think that the way patriotism is understood varies a lot, and I'm not surprised at all that Sweden ranks very low on this index - which of course doesn't mean that there is not a form of [Swedish] patriotism."
Dick Pels on why he is not comfortable with being called a Dutch patriot:
"There is a sense of attachment which is very real, and also very emotional, but it doesn't add up to something as strong as for example the French, or maybe the German sense of national character."
Dick Pels on the rise of a form of nationalism in the Netherlands:
"I am concerned that five years or so since the rise of Pim Fortuyn, who was the populist agitator who was shot in 2002, there has been the rise of an intellectual right in the Netherlands, a neo-conservative right, which has sort of re-invented a kind of nationalism for the Netherlands, which is really too small for it to apply to it. It's actually a re-invention of something that never was there before."
A selection of your emails:
Nelson, Cyprus
"One of the questions that is often forgotten is the participation of women in national defence. It is not an easy question to deal with but now with the gender-equality and role-changing drives it can no longer be ignored."
Elaine, Los Angeles, USA
"I do not believe in mandatory conscription, at least not for the US. I am individualistic, and I work to further my position in society, so hence not very patriotic. In a country like Switerland, however, military service does not seem like such a bad deal, because those young people in Swiss service will probably never fall in harm's way. Isolationism and armed neutrality is probably a good policy we should all attempt to follow."
Jude, Vancouver, Canada
"On the one hand conscription seems like the only way to prevent elites protecting their own families from the consequences of their disasterous foreign policies, but on the other hand the thought of getting conscripted myself is abhorrent. Hmm, how about we privatize the military? In the end dictatorships aren't nearly as rich as democracies, so we could just buy better mercenaries and outspend them like how the cold war was won."
Allan, the Netherlands
"I did do military service in The Netherlands (conscript and UNIFIL volunteer 1980/1) and feel that a conscript army is far preferable to voluntary enrolment. It prevents political polarity in the army and thus protects the government from the threat of a coup AND also protects the population from misuse by a minority controlled armed service. A conscript army is unlikely to allow itself to be used to commit genocide for example as there will be too many individual dissenters."
Michael, Houston, USA
"I think a conscription army under the control of some leaders is a dangerous tool; far better (as in our case) a leader with a blind eye to failed foreign policy and reckless use of resources (i.e. the military) be reigned in by limits of theses resources. The US military while still a powerful and formidable force is stretched; Iran will not be the next Bush blunder."
Ludwig, USA
"I am an American citizen and do not wish to fight in combat for this country because I do not want to kill people."
"I love this country, though."
Tags: Amsterdam Forum, conscription, draft, duty, military service, patriotism, soldiers