No, because in all times the elites don't have to fight, while the plebs must die for [insert abstract concept].

100% against.

People don't belong to the government, and shouldn't be forced into doing any sort of job, especially one where they could be killed or traumatized for life.

If the people think their country is worth fighting for and a threat is legitimate, they should choose to defend it if the system is working properly.

I live in a country with mandatory conscription.

If the time served is reasonable and the army is organized enough to actually train you and take advantage of your skills, yes i'm all for it.

If not, it just an excuse for permanent stuff to boss around people and make them do meaningless work to look busy.

Conscription is not good or needed, the modern military is equipped with a wide array of technology and the best training available, it takes year(s) to fully train a soldier. There was a time when you could hand a consript a gun and point him in a the right direction and you had an army, in a modern conflict that lack of training is lethal.

Also in an all volunteer force it's hard enough to manage groups who volunteered to be in the military, I can't imagine controlling people who were forced to be there.

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I'd say it depends on the country, I could understand if the country's military is a self defense force like Japan's military for example. In my particular context, I live in US and I hope to see that conscription never happens again, we have an insatiable military industrial complex and war machine. We have 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad, we even have one in Syria near the oil fields and we were never invited there. Plus we have a long history of interventions that have gone awry, including the more recent ones like Libya back in 2011, we made the situation even worse. All conscription would do is just serve our imperialism.

I'll speak from the perspective of Greece, which has mandatory military service for all males >= 18yo that lasts a full year.

It makes sense that the country needs conscripts and a population that knows how to fight, since we have a neighbor that doesn't play so nice with their surrounding countries.

However the way it's implemented is pure bullshit:

• The actual training happens in the first few months, after that it's just free manual labour.

• You get to deal with so much BS from the permanent staff, they have a huge superiority complex that you have to accept and play by in order to not have penalties or military prison.

• You can't go home, can't see your loved ones, your life is basically shit except the days that you're given leave, which is around a month or so in total.

• You get no sleep and work all day, it's a common phenomenon to sleep 3 hours every day.

• It's unpaid. (it's actually 8.5 euro a month which is arguably worse than unpaid, it's like getting spat on the face)

• You pay for lots of things, travelling to/from the base, buying food outside etc.

• It's corrupt as fuck. There are so many people that know someone in the military or meet someone inside, and get very special treatment while the rest have to work twice as hard to cover up for them.

• It is extremely hard to avoid it completely, there are parents with little kids that are missing from home for months because of it, there are poor people that can't afford not to be working but still have to go, there are mentally ill people that aren't given a full exclusion.

And it used to be much worse than this, we're the ones that "have it good"..

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Against.

If I get conscripted you'll never find me.

I'll fight for the country on home soil but never overseas.

Government should incetivise population to fight for it rather than force service.

If in service of national infrastructure projects or search and rescue yeah maybe.
If to die in a far off jungle/desert I'd as soon shoot my CO

I think it's utterly necessary in situations like what Ukraine is facing. Could a government misuse it? Sure, but most government powers can be misused.

It's not ok but it's unfortunately necessary

Only if The Nation I live in is so ideologically in synch with my own beliefs that I'd be willing to volunteer. In other words I'm fine with people being forced to fight for what I believe.

I think mandatory military service is likely a good thing for a population (maybe not the individual). With a highly trained population, volunteering would likely increase and reduce the need for conscription during times of war.

The benefits of military service for young adults are numerous. Discipline, exercise, comeradity, professional exposure, etc. Could reduce some of the mental issues we see due to isolation through technology. Of course I'm taking in peace time.