In defense of the draft army

We are well aware of the arguments against the draft army. However, what is happening in the world makes us think that there may be arguments in favor of the draft army. I’ll make a reservation right away that we are talking purely about moral arguments, and not about efficiency (here, I believe, a professional one is more effective than a draft one, with the exception of small countries that expect to put everyone under arms, but even here a significant percentage of professional units is required).

Now there is a country in the world that more often than others gets involved in unjust wars, commits war crimes, getting the result of the format "they wanted the best, but it turned out to be ISIS." At the same time, in fact, the American population is not very worried about how many strange, grimy men across the ocean are dying there. Outrage happens, but mostly when the scale of disgusting becomes quite extensive - for example, evidence of torture flows out to the public, etc. At the same time, their own losses do not cause much excitement, because after all, we are talking about professional soldiers who themselves chose the path of life, and not about conscripts, as was the case in the Vietnam War. What is even worse is that PMCs are not soldiers at all, but pure commerce, therefore, few people care what they do there.

The Russian army is also moving towards professionalization, and Russian PMCs are much cooler than the American "military guards". Where they have been lately is Syria and the Central African Republic. And what happened there was about the same as what is happening to the West today. It cannot be said that no one in Russia was interested in this at that time. But even the opposition as a whole discussed corruption, elections and other internal problems much more. If in the 90s "soldier's mothers" massively stormed the checkpoints of military units, today we don't see anything like that. This is partly, of course, because our civil society has been destroyed. But partly because contract soldiers are now involved, not conscripts (at least according to the official version). At the same time, the Russian authorities are now spinning as best as they can, as long as they do not carry out official mobilization. it is understandable that the current passive attitude can quickly change as soon as the public is required to put their lives on the line.

In general, my argument is as follows: when you have a professional army, supplemented by PMCs, the costs of war are not felt by society. But you can feel like a patriot and just wave a flag. When professionals deal with war, society loses its vision of the "horror of war", forgets that war is actually very serious. Under such conditions, the war easily turns into a sort of "patriotic show" for the average person. Well, why not bang somewhere across the ocean? There are no cons, but it's fun. But with the draft army, everything is different - for society, it works like a skin in the game ("skin in the game"). If you know that in the event of war you may die, your children may die, your life may be destroyed - this makes you take war extremely seriously (as, in fact, you should take it). And think carefully before giving your native government carte blanche for foreign policy adventures.

All this, of course, does not mean that the draft army is better than the professional one. it has other moral disadvantages (the most obvious being that it is an institution of coercion). However, this is an important point that should clearly be kept in mind.

Mihail Pojarsky 2022-08-02