Conscription

• 1. Introduction

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  Conscription has forced individuals into military service for nearly four thousand years. Around 1791 BC, the Babylonian Empire under Hammurabi required eligible subjects to serve in the royal army during wartime and provide state labor during peace. The same Code of Hammurabi that made avoiding the obligation illegal also banned the sale of exemptions, yet substitutes were hired before and after the code existed, and Ilkum lands were sold with their military obligations attached. Beneath every draft law ever written, the same tensions reappear: the power of the state pressing against the body of the individual, the question of who must serve and who may escape, and the debate over whether compelled service is civic duty or something closer to slavery. How did a practice born in ancient Babylon become the engine behind the largest armies in human history? Why did the French Revolution change everything? And why, in the early twenty-first century, are countries like Norway and Sweden conscripting women on the same legal terms as men?

• 2. Medieval Service and Slave Soldiers

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  Under feudal law across continental Europe in the medieval period, all peasants, freemen, and noblemen aged 15 to 60 could be summoned for military duty by the king or a local lord. France called this the arrière-ban: a general levy in which men ranging from the wealthiest noble to the poorest commoner were required to present themselves to the king or his officials. Bailiffs and sénéchals were the local administrators who gathered these men. In medieval Scandinavia the equivalent institution was the leiðangr, a levy of free farmers drafted into coastal fleets for seasonal defense of the realm. The Anglo-Saxon fyrd drew part-time soldiers from freemen of each county, and the laws of Ine of Wessex in the 690s imposed three levels of fines on different social classes for neglecting that duty. Historian David Sturdy dismissed the romantic idea of a peasant national army as a "ridiculous fantasy", arguing that the belief was invented by antiquarians in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to justify universal conscription after the fact. A very different model emerged in the Muslim world. The Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim created the first corps of Turkic slave-soldiers, ghulams or mamluks, in the 820s and 830s. These were non-Arab, ethnically diverse enslaved soldiers of Turkic, Caucasian, and southeastern European origins who were given high-ranking military and administrative duties. Scholar David Ayalon described the Mamluk institution as one of great political importance, a warrior class that endured for nearly one thousand years from the 9th century to the early 19th century. The Mamluk Sultanate, centered on Egypt and Syria and ruling from 1250 to 1517, defeated the Ilkhanate at the Battle of Ain Jalut and formally expelled the last Crusaders from the Levant in 1302. The Ottoman sultan Murad I developed a parallel institution in the middle of the 14th century with the Kapıkulu, and the devşirme child levy supplied the Janissary Corps by drafting non-Muslim boys, predominantly Balkan Christians, who were converted to Islam and trained as soldiers. By 1609 the sultan's Kapıkulu forces had grown to about 100,000. Ottoman sultan Mahmud II abolished the Janissary Corps in 1826 in what became known as the Auspicious Incident, in which 6,000 or more Janissaries were executed.

• 3. The French Revolution Remakes War

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  Modern conscription as the world now understands it was devised during the French Revolution to protect the Republic from the professional armies of European monarchies. Deputy Jean-Baptiste Jourdan gave his name to the act of the 5th of September 1798, whose first article declared: "Any Frenchman is a soldier and owes himself to the defense of the nation." Between 1800 and 1813 more than 2.6 million men were inducted into the French military under this system. Napoleon Bonaparte called the resulting force "the nation in arms." The defeat of the Prussian Army in that period was a profound shock. Prussia had prided itself on superior organization and the tactical legacy of Frederick the Great, but those advantages counted for far less when facing French forces that outnumbered Prussian armies by more than ten to one in some engagements. Scharnhorst pushed Prussia to adopt the levée en masse in response. The Krümpersystem became the beginning of short-term compulsory service in Prussia, replacing the older model of long-term service. Russia moved in a similar direction. At the start of the 19th century, Russian serfs owed 25 years of military service. By 1834 that obligation had been reduced to 20 years. In 1874, following the abolition of serfdom in 1861, Russia introduced universal male conscription in the modern pattern, requiring all male subjects to serve for six years upon reaching the age of 20. By 1914 the only major powers that still relied entirely on voluntary enlistment were Britain and the United States.

• 4. World Wars and the Expansion of the Draft

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  Both world wars pushed conscription systems past their previous limits. The United States Selective Service System initially drafted men aged 21 to 30 for World War I, then expanded eligibility in 1918 to reach from age 18 to age 45. Britain's wartime conscription was commonly called "call-up" and extended to age 51. Nazi Germany's Volkssturm, meaning "People's Storm", reached even further, pressing into service boys as young as 16 and men as old as 60. During the Great Patriotic War the Red Army conscripted nearly 30 million men. Women also entered the picture in ways that would have been unthinkable a generation earlier. Both Britain and the Soviet Union conscripted women during the Second World War. In the United Kingdom, conscription for women began in 1941, though all women with dependent children were exempt and many were informally left in occupations like nursing and teaching. Those who were conscripted were mostly sent to factories, though some served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Women's Land Army, and other women's services. None were assigned to combat roles unless they volunteered. The United States came close to drafting women into the Nurse Corps in preparation for the planned invasion of Japan. The Japanese surrender made the measure unnecessary and the idea was abandoned. The Soviet Union never formally conscripted women for the armed forces, though medical doctors of both sexes could be conscripted as officers.

• 5. The Case Against Conscription

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  Ron Paul, a former U.S. Libertarian Party presidential nominee, described conscription as "wrongly associated with patriotism, when it really represents slavery and involuntary servitude." That argument has a long history. In 1917, radicals and anarchists including Emma Goldman challenged the new draft law in federal court on the grounds that it violated the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition against slavery. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the draft in the case of Arver v. United States on the 7th of January 1918, ruling that the Constitution's grant of power to Congress to declare war and raise armies carried with it the reciprocal obligation of citizens to serve when called. The philosopher Ayn Rand put the case against conscription in starker terms, calling the military draft "the worst" of all statist violations of individual rights, arguing that it negates "man's fundamental right, the right to life." Milton Friedman linked the economic cost of conscription to the parable of the broken window: the work performed by conscripts is not free simply because no salary is paid. An unwilling workforce is extremely inefficient, and in a post-industrial economy, forcing skilled specialists into combat roles removes workers who are difficult to replace. If such a specialist is killed or permanently disabled, both work effort and productivity are lost for good. Religious objectors have also resisted conscription on principled grounds. Members of the historic peace churches are pacifist by doctrine. Jehovah's Witnesses refuse participation in armed forces on the basis that Christians should remain neutral in international conflicts, a position that in Finland led to formal exemption until as recently as the 27th of February 2019, when that exemption was removed. Countries like Finland and Austria have addressed some of these concerns by offering alternative service: Finland's siviilipalvelus and Austria's Zivildienst provide paths outside combat or outside the military entirely.

• 6. The Case For Conscription

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  Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued vehemently against professional armies, believing it a mark of moral decline to leave national defense to hired soldiers. He grounded that belief in the history of the Roman Republic, which he saw as having ended at the same moment the Roman Army shifted from a conscript to a professional force. Aristotle had linked the distribution of military service across the population to the political order of the state. Niccolò Machiavelli argued across works including The Prince and The Discourses on Livy that political regimes should enlist their own subjects rather than rely on mercenaries. Other proponents, such as William James, viewed mandatory service as a means of instilling maturity in young adults. Jonathan Alter and Mickey Kaus have supported a draft as a tool for reinforcing social equality and breaking down class divisions. Charles Rangel called for the reinstatement of the draft during the Iraq War not because he expected it to pass but to highlight that very few children of upper-class Americans served in the all-volunteer armed forces. The British military has estimated that for every company deployed in active peacekeeping, three companies remain inactive at home, all drawing salaries. Trained reservists who return to civilian jobs between deployments represent a more efficient use of the defense budget. This logic of total defense, pairing conscription with periodic refresher training to keep the entire able-bodied population ready, has led several European countries to reintroduce or debate reintroducing conscription since the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A study of Portuguese men born in 1967 found that participation in conscription was more financially beneficial for less-educated young men than competing in a job market against peers who had continued to higher education.

• 7. Women, Gender, and the Draft

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  Norway introduced female conscription in 2015, becoming the first NATO member to have a legally compulsory national service for both men and women, and the first country in the world to draft women on the same formal terms as men. In practice, Norway selects only motivated volunteers. Sweden introduced female conscription in 2010, but because the national conscription system was suspended that same year, the measure only came into effect in 2017 when compulsory service was reinstated for both genders, making Sweden the second country in the world to draft women on the same formal terms. Denmark brought forward a similar gender-neutral system, initially planned for 2027 but moved earlier to 2025. In 2006, eight countries, including China, Eritrea, Israel, Libya, Malaysia, North Korea, Peru, and Taiwan, conscripted women into military service. Israel's system is among the most extensive: men serve 32 months and women serve 24 months, and 92 percent of military roles have been opened to women since the gradual expansion of roles beginning in 2000. The legal battles in the United States trace a long arc. The Supreme Court upheld a male-only draft in the 1981 case of Rostker v. Goldberg, finding that Congress was entitled to focus on military need rather than equity. In September 2021, the House of Representatives passed a version of the Defense Authorization Act that included an amendment requiring "all Americans between the ages of 18 and 25" to register for selective service, dropping the word "male"; however, the amendment was removed before the final National Defense Authorization Act was passed. In June 2021 the Supreme Court declined to revisit the male-only requirement, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Brett Kavanaugh acknowledging that the male-only draft was likely unconstitutional given changes in the military's policies on roles, but deferring action because Congress had been reviewing the issue via the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service since 2016. The National Coalition for Men sued the Selective Service System in 2019, and a federal district judge declared the male-only system unconstitutional, though that ruling was unanimously overturned on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

• 8. Conscription Today

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  As of 2025, many states rely on professional all-volunteer militaries rather than the draft. The United Kingdom abolished conscription in 1960. The United States has not enforced it since 1973, though every male resident is still required by law to register with the Selective Service System within 30 days of his 18th birthday, an obligation often completed automatically when applying for a driver's license or registering to vote. Men who fail to register in the United States cannot apply for citizenship, receive federal financial aid, be employed by the federal government, be admitted to public colleges or universities, or, in some states, obtain a driver's license. In Europe, conscription ended in most countries during or shortly after the Cold War, but it remains in force in Scandinavian countries, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and several countries of the former Eastern Bloc. Germany suspended compulsory conscription in 2011 as the Cold War threat receded and demand for conscripts dropped; in 2025, Germany began steps toward potentially reintroducing it, issuing compulsory questionnaires to 18-year-old men, with Defense Minister Boris Pistorius specifying that mandatory service would not return "in the immediate future." Democracies are statistically less likely than autocracies to implement conscription, and former British colonies are less likely to have it, influenced by anti-conscription norms traceable to the English Civil War. States involved in active wars or interstate rivalries remain the most likely to implement a draft. The experience of Erik Fenn in Sweden, an autistic man who won a discrimination lawsuit in 2024 and gained conscription eligibility, points toward one of the newest frontlines in the long argument over who must serve: the question of how neurodiversity and disability intersect with the legal obligation to bear arms.