What if a group of conscripts decide that they'd rather "save themselves" by blowing themselves up, along with $100mm of your materiel? And then this becomes a meme—something other conscripts hear about and copy? I could see that happening if conscription ever returned in the US—we have an awful lot of "violent pacifists" (picture what happens if you draft some of the police-brutality protestors.)

That's called being a domestic terrorist and, IMNSHO, is a prime candidate for a long prison sentence.

Actual terrorists generally aren't deterred by the threat of prison. You're talking about people willing to blow themselves up; they're not worried about prison.

I'm not saying it will deter them, I'm saying it's already a crime. There's nothing special about going after them for it.

With our current volunteer system nothing stops a nut job from signing up. That's why they have psych exams and ongoing mental health monitoring.

It's no different if you have a draft with everybody having to join. Heck, I'd bet you'd get less overall craziness (as a percentage) from the population of people that otherwise wouldn't join the armed forces.

I wasn't positing psychosis; I was positing a spontaneous violent resistance movement forming as a rational response to conscription in otherwise mentally-healthy individuals: the same people who would draft-dodge, but angrier at the state and interested in seeing their country actually lose an unjust war.

You know, like you'd feel if you were an Iraqi citizen under ISIS.

And I'm proposing that in the event that happens, we round up those domestic terrorists, give them a swift (but fair!) trial, lock them up, and finally throw away the key.

You'll find little to no sympathy from most people, including your humble commenter, for domestic terrorism and treason.

So you think people in Mosul who refuse to fight for ISIS, and violently resist them, are traitors?

Nice to know that you support terrorism.

And before you try the "ISIS isn't a government" BS line, the same logic applies to German citizens in the 1930s-40s. Apparently you think Germans who refuse to fight for Hitler are traitors.

Interesting what kind of values you support. I think people like you should be locked up and the key thrown away. Supporting mass murder is disgusting.

> So you think people in Mosul who refuse to fight for ISIS, and violently resist them, are traitors?

> Nice to know that you support terrorism.

> And before you try the "ISIS isn't a government" BS line, the same logic applies to German citizens in the 1930s-40s.

I'm not the one in this thread defending domestic terrorism. And yes ISIS isn't a government so that doesn't apply. Quite the contrary, as ISIS the terrorists in your example so fighting back against them would be encouraged.

> Apparently you think Germans who refuse to fight for Hitler are traitors.

Well yes that's the definition of treason / being a traitor. You could say the same thing for Churchill/England, Roosevelt/USA,or Stalin/USSR.

> Interesting what kind of values you support. I think people like you should be locked up and the key thrown away.

Sounds like you don't particularly like freedom of speech either. To quote our great new president, "Sad!"

> Supporting mass murder is disgusting.

Damn straight. Though I fail to see how that's relevant or where anyone claimed it's not.

We have thousands of years of histories of armies. How often has this happened?

We don't have thousands of years of people thinking they're entitled to never do what anyone else tells them. That's something unique to "the Western world, post-conscription."

(Or, we do have some examples: look at what happens when a country's nobles are conscripted [directly commissioned, rather] into service during wartime. Frequently they lock themselves in their mansions garrisoned with the very private standing armies they were supposed to bring to draft.)

Ever heard the phrase "rabble of conscripts"? Napoleon was the first to use conscripts successfully; before him, it was proverbial that a smaller force of professionals (volunteers, landowners, adventurers, or typically a mix of all three) could wipe the floor with a much larger conscript army. Conscripts could make adequate garrisons, where they'd seldom be called on to fight (and if the castle or fortress fell, everyone in it would be killed, so there was that too), but not much more than that.

As a citizen of a country with a conscription-based military, and having served myself, that "what if" question is better aimed at https://what-if.xkcd.com/.

I'm truly amazed that it took so long for this answer to be posted!