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"they" that you talking about is an abstract nation-state entity called "Ukraine" and/or its rulers. We peaceniks don't mean them when we say that immediate ceasefire is in everyone's interest. We talk about actual everyday people who suffer, who are locked in this country and are forced to fight. I don't see how nationalists' tears about lines on the map or pride of a certain someone are worth hundreds deaths every day.
If Ukrainians actually want to fight to the end then open the borders, make army volunteer only, maybe pay enough to recruit people willingly(which is still terrible because this willingness both in Ukraine and Russia comes from the utter poverty that its rulers are responsible for). If the problem is with security after the war then you can either get it with joining Nato or at least adjacent web of alliances or you don't and continuing the war won't solve this.
Do you believe that all conscription is always wrong, or that it’s only wrong in this case?
Conscription may be necessary for practical reasons.
"If conscription is against the law, then only criminals will have conscription."
But for those who advocate stuffing men in vans and then shipping them off to die, why does the civilian population get a pass? Why are they not also enslaved in factories producing weapons?
Fun fact: most people don't realize that German wartime production actually peaked in late 1944, long after the war was a foregone conclusion. At the start of the war, the civilians were mostly living as normal, and it took years for Speer to orient the entire economy to wartime production.
At a minimum the following things should not exist in Ukraine while conscription continues: night clubs, restaurants, old age pensions above meager subsistence, construction of civilian buildings etc... If you are going to enslave men and force them to die, then the whole economy should be oriented to giving them the best chance.
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I would say yes, while still understanding that there are many specific examples where you can justify it. But here many nuances and arguments for no longer apply. Like for example the question of deterrence is already solved, it's already shown that any future war wouldn't be a walk in the park.
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Wasnt that basically Heinlein's take? Any nation that requires conscription doesn't deserve to continue to survive? The problem, of course, being that in that case the world may end up with only "nations that don't deserve to survive" on the map.
For this reason, conscription is ironically good because it allows meatgrinder-wars that eliminate the populations of “nations that don’t deserve to survive.” If we do this enough we might end up with some deserving nations coming up.
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Tbf you probably wouldn't need conscription if you had Mobile Infantry!
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