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Re:Sweden brings back military conscription by vidarh on Thursday March 02, 2017 @03:03PM (#13777679)
I agree. In my refusal to serve in the Norwegian military, this was one of my arguments. Coupled with pointing out that I could not guarantee that I would agree with the political views of any future regime, and so I considered it immoral to be put in a position where I might be threatened into using violence in favour of a cause I might fundamentally be opposed to. I also made it clear that should that happen, I'd consider it my moral obligation to shoot at my own officers. They didn't like that.
Re:Sweden brings back military conscription by mrob on Thursday March 02, 2017 @03:23PM (#13777822)
Whether you consider killing officers moral or not, as a practical matter I think sabotage would more effectively discourage people from taking conscripts. The military is well optimized to cope with the death of personnel. Frag an officer and the chain of command does its thing and everything continues as normal. There's not even much deterrent value because the officer was fully bought into the values of the system and ready to die. But a modern military is highly dependent on bureaucracy, and that seems more vulnerable to disruption. Falsified records, misplaced parts, incorrect maintenance, etc. could cause some real problems. The conscript might even be able to pass it off as an honest mistake if they got caught, letting them continue their resistance.
Re:Sweden brings back military conscription by vidarh on Thursday March 02, 2017 @03:29PM (#13777882)
Sabotage probably would be, sure, but keep in mind this was a hypothetical situation described in a letter to the Department of Justice to make it very clear to them how unwilling I was to serve. While I stick by the overall sentiment, it was not shaped out of a need to be as efficient as possible, but to sound as offensive as possible.

E.g. the described situation was a hypothetical one where the Norwegian government had decided to use the military in a way I found morally unconscionable. In practice I consider that very unlikely - offensive forces are all volunteers in Norway, so the conscripts are used for purely defensive roles. It was the principle of it first and foremost for me.