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I think the advantage of conscription in Singapore that I'm trying to get at is that it increases the prestige of the army as a social institution, and the concomitant prestige of the career (non) commissioned officer corps. LKY is always about attracting the best.
Don't know about Singaporean system, but any prestige from conscription hinges on the implementation details. My hypothesis:
Conscription system where everyone is called up, avoiding draft is difficult, and candidates to officer and specialist tracks are selected by reliable, standardized tests and methods for IQ and other desiderata, compulsorily administered to all -> Military is unpleasant, but has some prestige to offset, because (a) if you made it to the officer track, your rank signals your IQ (b) no matter your personal rank, there is a high chance that in you observed relatively intelligent and competent superiors during your stint.
Conscription system where draft avoidance is easily possible -> Highly competent, affluent people who have most to gain from college or have family networks or otherwise good prospects of lucrative career have the highest opportunity cost from the draft -> They avoid the draft -> The majority of the elite in your country doesn't serve -> If you manage to nevertheless recruit competent officers, the elite won't observe their competence first-hand -> Avoiding draft correlates with elite status and signals good things, military career signals bad things. -> Prestige plummets.
Won't outline the failure mode where instead of standardized tests the officers are selected by either political patronage or nepotism.
Officer's rank absolutely offers prestige in Finland, even moreso in the old days than now (people unironically used to say that the Reserve Officer School offers better training for general leadership, in corporations and so on, than dedicated leadership courses), but it's probably still the case that young male job applicants are instructed that you shouldn't put your military rank in your CV when applying for jobs abroad, since it's... well, not a similar sign of prestige in many other countries, quite the opposite.
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Has any conscription system ever placed officers through conscription? I was under the impression that officer corps always consisted of volunteers.
To my knowledge, Israel and Finland. I think both are offshoot developments the old German system, where a prospective officer candidates were volunteers but had to serve a lengthy period of time first in enlisted and NCO equivalent positions in regular regiments before and between officer school exams.
Basically, in the Finnish system, there are two sorts of officers:
Reserve officers: Every conscript starts as, well, a conscript, equal to all others. After eight weeks of basic training, the most suitable ones for command are selected for reserve NCO training, organized in their company, and after seven weeks of basic NCO training, the most suitable ones for further command then go to the Reserve Officer School, which can train them up to (generally) a major's rank, usually lieutenant's rank. They would then be activated in wartime but don't stay in the army after their conscript service are up (apart from refresher courses, of course).
Commissioned officers: These are commissioned for army service (training, rapid response etc.) during peacetime. They are trained at National Defence University, which takes applicants on the basis of exams like any other university, though you have to be a reserve officer (in some cases reserve NCO) to apply.
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Huh, TIL. Looked it up, guess I was wrong. I was more used to the American system and assumed it was universal, I guess.
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That's what I'm saying, judging purely by the chap I knew, it did the exact opposite, it instilled a lifelong contempt that otherwise he might not have felt. You cannot 'attract the best' and conscript every able-bodied man, they aren't compatible. If the army was prestigious (as in Rome) people would be queuing up to join of their own accord.
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