Talk:Conscription

Ancient Rome

I think that in the field of ancient military this article should include at least a reference to Structural history of the Roman military.Diegopiacc (talk) 09:17, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Taiwan part all wrong

Taiwan currently has conscription, but in the process of abolishing it, not reinstating it. Only men are drafted. -Szqecs (talk) 21:51, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

If you're talking about the table entry, I think that the part which says "conscription will remain in practice thereafter" is relying on the part of the cited source which quotes Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min as saying, "In addition, people scheduled for their one-year compulsory military service would only have to go through a four-month military boot camp" -- interpreting conscription as a term validly describing "one-year compulsory military service". Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:44, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Greenland

Given it is a part of Denmark still I don't see why it is counted as lacking any sort of armed force. Looking at the wiki article on the topic Denmark has responsibility for defending Greenland and maintains military bases ther — Preceding unsigned comment added by Threadnecromancer (talk • contribs) 18:45 8 January 2015 (UTC)

This is true. Denmark at least the Sirius Patrol, Station Nord (north) and ships patrolling the waters. I don't see Greenland in the article though. Perhaps it has been removed. 2.110.44.130 (talk) 21:47, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

The OP may be referring to the map in the lead, where Greenland is colored to mean "No armed forces". 2600:1006:B16F:48A2:14E8:C473:9B00:7111 (talk) 22:33, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Austria (done)

Austria still has conscription

https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrage=Bundesnormen&Gesetzesnummer=20001612 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.32.131.104 (talk) 21:34, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, came here just to post that. Recently I think they even had a referendum and decided to keep the law on mandatory conscription. The map has to change. Regards, Ratipok (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

NORWAY also has mandatory conscription. See: Norwegian Armed Forces Ratipok (talk) 20:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The source which is used for the "proof" that Austria has no enforced conscription claims that "in recent years" nobody has been punished for total objection. Even if that is the standard for the map and the list - which is questionable IMHO - the source is flawed. It cites a report from 1993 (!), so that the recent years mentioned there are not so recent at all. I found this report from 1999 [1] which shows a case of a total objector who was sentenced to 2 months inprisonment. Maybe you can weigh in and help to convince the user who maintains the view that Austria has no conscription [2]. --Hansbaer (talk) 21:50, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Peception of truth vs. perception of untruth by individual Wikipedia editors ought not to be the focus. If source A is outdated and the info in it is overtaken by later contradictory info in source B, then the info in source B ought to be used and that source cited. If there is some controversy about the matter (perhaps mentioned in source C), then perhaps that should be mentioned and sources A and C cited. See WP:DUE. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:21, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I just wanted to avoid an edit war. --Hansbaer (talk) 17:20, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Norway does not have conscription. Nobody is forced to serve, so the service is voluntary: http://www.dw.de/norways-military-conscription-becomes-gender-neutral/a-17995882

"As with male conscripts, the change is not expected to force women to serve against their will, but to improve gender balance."

Nor does Denmark, there has been enough volunteers so no one has been forced to serve: http://www.voxeurop.eu/en/content/news-brief/263421-army-good-times-crisis

"The number of young Danes who have opted to volunteer this year has been more than sufficient to fulfil the Danish army's annual quota of 6,500 new recruits."

However I admit that there are not enough information about Austria. If someone could find sources proving that austrian men are currently sentenced to prison because they object, that would mean there is still conscription in Austria. --Roopeluhtala (talk) 11:54, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps info in the Austrian conscription referendum, 2013 article has some relevance. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:10, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

The link you provided does not have any relevant information about whether total objectors are punished in Austria. But article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Armed_Forces#Personnel.2C_Conscription.2C_Training.2C_and_Reserves states that "Exemptions from service are liberally granted — in 1992 about 12,000 persons were exempted, a great increase over the 1991 total of 4,500." Since the number of recruits has dropped from 45 000 in the early 1990's to 26 000 in 2015, it is likely the exemptions are even more liberally granted nowadays. So unless there is proof of a recent prison sentence of an austrian total objector, it is likely that Austria does not have conscription in practice.--Roopeluhtala (talk) 12:30, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I did not find any entries of austrian total objectors in War Resister's International's activist database: http://www.wri-irg.org/ActivistDatabase Countries that have conscription (Finland, Greece etc) usually have multiple entries. This also supports the claim that Austria does not have conscription.--Roopeluhtala (talk) 12:51, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

The part of the above beginning with "It is likely" is called "original research" in Wikipedia. See the Wikipedia policy at Wikipedia:No original research (Often referred to as WP:NOR, NOR, and by other shortened mnemonic tags).

Your second paragraph relies on synthesis of published material See the Synthesis of published material section within the NOR policy.

If you feel that Wikipedia policy is in error, this is not a proper forum for a discussion about that. One more appropriate forum might be WP:VPP.

You might also take a look at WP:NOT. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:46, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

The problem seems to be that people do not understand that conscription means compulsory service. If a country forces people into armed service, then they have conscription in practice no matter what the law says. So any proof of whether people are forced into the army or not, is directly related to conscription.

If you look at the article about Capital punishment, you can notice that the page shows statistics of capital punishments carried out in each country. They for example classify South Korea as "abolitionist in practice", since no one has been executed in recent years. So whether punishments are actually carried out, is a criterion of whether the country has capital punishment in practice. The map also shows countries that have not had executions in recent years in a different color.

We should apply the same logic to conscription. Statistics of punished total objectors is not synthesis of published material, but a proof of whether there is conscription in practice or not. So the decision whether Austria has conscription should be determined by the existence (or absence) of austrian total objectors in recent years.--Roopeluhtala (talk) 04:56, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Re what conscription is for purposes of this article, the lead sentence of the article says, "Conscription, or drafting, is the compulsory enlistment of people in a national service, most often a military service."

The article section headed Countries with and without mandatory military service does not explain the intended meaning of those words beyond that. I take those words there to mean that the table in that section contains information about which countries require by law that at least some persons perform some form of military service.

Per WP:SYNTH, for purposes of Wikipedia, synthesis is combining material from multiple sources or from different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Your paragraph above which I said relied on SYNTH said, "If someone could find sources proving that austrian men are currently sentenced to prison because they object, that would mean there is still conscription in Austria." Citing a number separate reliable sources asserting that austrian men are currently sentenced to prison because they object in support of an assertion in the article that Austria has conscription would not "prove" that austria has conscription. One reliable source which says that Austria has conscription would be sufficient to support an assertion that Austria has conscription (or did have, as of the date of that source). If that assertion by that source conflicts with contrary assertions by other reliable sources, WP:DUE comes into play.

Per WP:OR, to demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented. In order to avoid OR in stating that Austria does not have conscription, you must be able to cite a reliable source which asserts that Austria does not have conscription. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:43, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

"I take those words there to mean that the table in that section contains information about which countries require by law that at least some persons perform some form of military service." Your assumption is wrong, the section contains information about which countries force people into service. In Norway and Denmark the law requires people to do service, but people are not forced, so the law is not applied in practice.

"Citing a number separate reliable sources asserting that austrian men are currently sentenced to prison because they object in support of an assertion in the article that Austria has conscription would not "prove" that austria has conscription." Would a number of sources asserting that south korean courts sentence people to death prove that South Korea practices capital punishment? Yes they would. We should apply the same logic here.

"One reliable source which says that Austria has conscription would be sufficient to support an assertion that Austria has conscription" Conscription in practice or by law? I agree there is conscription in Austria by law, but what happens in practice is relevant. So the source should use the correct criterion to make the claim.--Roopeluhtala (talk) 08:57, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I see that you and I understand the words Countries with and without mandatory military service differently. The word Mandatory is defined here as "Required or commanded by authority; obligatory", with an example usage given as "Attendance at the meeting is mandatory." The meaning of that word is not dependent on what measures,, if any, are employed to enforce compliance. Also, you may be interested to know that I am the editor who originally added this section and this table to the article with this July 23, 2007 edit, which changed the section header from Countries with mandatory military service. I added the table (something which I have subsequently had plenty of cause to regret) in order to provide some concrete examples to replace a couple of unsupported editorial assertions which had linked the employment of conscription by national governments to factors such as size of the country, its political system, etc.

I am doubtful that this discussion here is producing any useful results. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:11, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH is actually a good point. The claim that Austria does not have conscription is entirely based on a source which explicitly says that Austria has conscription. In fact, it does not even claim that total objectors are not punished. It just says that there were no cases of total objectors in recent years, and even that is based on an outdated report - while there is a more recent newspaper article that there was one total objector who was punished for not serving [3]. Apart from that it seems that nobody here or on the Commons shares Roopeluhtala's philosophy on what constitutes conscription and what doesn't. Both the map and the table should be changed. --Hansbaer (talk) 09:34, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

The example you gave was about a total objector who objected in 1980's and got his sentence after 17 years in 1999.[4] Would it be possible to find another example of an Austrian total objector, who objected for example within last 15 years and got sentenced? --Roopeluhtala (talk) 19:21, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

It might, but probably not online. This was apparently not national news, and many if not most local newspapers do not keep extensive online archives. In any case, it is not relevant. --Hansbaer (talk) 20:45, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

http://derstandard.at/2000012854620/Jenseits-der-Vor-Stellung-Will-nicht-gibts-nicht this article is in German and describes how a 17 year old views conscription in Austria today, http://www.bundesheer.at/adressen/pdf/stellung_vorarlberg_2015.pdf conscription does exist in Austria. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.208.182.159 (talk) 16:38, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I think, the WP-Administration wants to say that in Austria there is conscription, but it's ommitable through legal methods, which is true. But this should in the graphic be better explained. Or the graphic could be simply changed so that it collectivates all countries with conscription and not to divide between enforced and unenforced conscription. And if yes, it should be better explained in the graphic legend. Or one could make a single explanation of Austria's conscription. --TheHeroWolf (talk) 12:32, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Austria has been changed back to red.Roopeluhtala (talk) 07:38, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. --TheHeroWolf (talk) 19:47, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

"Mandatory military service" vs. "Compelled military service"

The meaning of the word mandatory has been discussed in the section above on #Austria. In fact, the question of the meaning of this word appears to lie at the heart of that discussion. However, the impact of a consensus decision regarding the meaning of that word for purposes of this article would have impact beyond this article's assertions re Austria, so I have started this new discussion section.

As I said in the section above, the word Mandatory is defined here as "Required or commanded by authority; obligatory", with an example usage given as "Attendance at the meeting is mandatory." Also see here, defining the word mandate as "An authoritative command or instruction". This might be thought of as indicating by the use of the word mandataory that the section headed "Countries with and without mandatory military service differently" speaks of countries where military service is required by law for at least some persons. Perhaps introductory material clarifying this ought to be added ahead of table the section presents.

I believe that a section with this name ought to observe the usual meaning of the word mandatory in selecting and presenting content contained therein.

I note that this section came into being (prior to the addition of the table) with this 7 January 2004 edit, which merged material from a separate article titled Mandatory military service which had existed for just one day and which now redirects to this article.

The section could be re-headed something like "Countries with and without compelled military service", and could present content regarding countries where military service is compelled (with and/or without an underlying legal mandate). However, I suspect without having checked that (1) the two sets of countries are not identical and (2) some of the supporting sources currently cited in support of an assertion that conscription is mandated would not support an assertion that the conscription mandate is enforced.

More appropriate at this point, I think, might be the presentation of clarifying information about countries where supporting sources exist with information that conscription mandates are or were not enforced for particular periods, and citing those sources. Perhaps this might be in a subsection on "Countries where Mandatory Conscription is not enforced", or "... is not universally enforced", or "... is or has been sometimes not enforced".

Perhaps, on the other hand, the section and the table it presents ought to be eliminated. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:07, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

There is a wide range for interpretation within compelled. E.g. one may consider it compelled if you can get out of military service by paying a fine. Others may require that a possible jail sentence is involved. Mandatory is much more general and easier to determine. I think a table is informative and it would be nice to keep it. --Hansbaer (talk) 09:37, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

You lost me there. It appears that whatever you understand the word compel to mean, it is different from what I understand it to mean. My understanding is that "to compel" is synonymous with "to force", per [5], [6], [7], [8], etc. This is contrasted in this discussion with a "mandatory" requirement, which is a requirement made obligatory by command from authority ([9], etc.). My understanding is that the authoritative command which makes the requirement mandatory is separate and distinct from any compulsion which might (or might not, or might not always, or might not evenly) be applied in order to force compliance. The mandate and the compulsion are separate and distinct and, if both are treated in the article, the difference between them should be made clear. It is possible for mandatory requirements to exist which are never enforced. It is possible for compulsion to be applied to force actions for which there is no authoritative mandate. The two are different.

Yes, "Mandatory" is easier to determine; a reliable source verifying the existence of the mandate can probably be found. Verifying whether and to what extent the mandate is enforced (i.e., compliance is compelled) is probably more difficult.

I should probably clarify that I added the final sentence in my statement beginning this section after looking at WP:RECENTISM. I'm thinking that perhaps the section we're discussing might be better placed in a summary style detail article summarized here and linked from here. Placed here, it seems to me that it overwhelms the article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:36, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I got you there actually, I think. I mean it's just dependent on how the force is exerted. If a mandate exists is more or less binary: either it exists or it doesn't. So a column in the table would be pretty much "yes" or "no". But compulsion can be indeed a wide range - difficult to compress into one column, but worth a try. --Hansbaer (talk) 08:34, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

This article is about conscription, in all its varying meanings. The section should just be title "Conscription by country", and then we can add a whole paragraph explaining that conscription may be mandated, compelled, required, recommended, implied, or vaguely suggested, as detailed in the table. --A D Monroe III (talk) 15:30, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

North Korea

I have changed the text because it asserted that Israel was the only country that had universal conscription for women. North Korea does too. Some women might get exemptions in North Korea, but they also do in Israel, as the text admits.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:08, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Norway

The article claims No, although conscription exists legally, in practice total objectors have not been punished since 2011. The Norwegian Military claims they now have conscription for women.[10] How is that possible if Norway doesn't have conscription? Norway also has subscription for their Civil Defence forces. And they do get punished[11]. We do need to make a phrase that informs that many manage to avoid the service. But Norway has conscription, nevertheless. Please argue for keeping the text as it is. If no response, I will change it. Vbakke (talk) 12:39, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, please change the text, that's the point I already mentioned above for Austria. --TheHeroWolf (talk) 15:10, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I myself changed it now, but maybe someone is gonna revert it once more. --TheHeroWolf (talk) 20:15, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

"And they do get punished" - Are these soldiers who voluntarily signed up and then quit? In many countries that do not have conscription, it is common to get a penalty if you quit the service after signing up. Punishing those who have voluntarily signed up does not mean there is conscription.

According to other sources Norway does not have conscription. Nobody is forced to serve, so the service is voluntary: http://www.dw.de/norways-military-conscription-becomes-gender-neutral/a-17995882 "As with male conscripts, the change is not expected to force women to serve against their will, but to improve gender balance." Norwegian civil service was reported to have ended in 2011: http://www.wri-irg.org/node/13541 and objectors have not been punished since 2011: http://www.bladet.no/nyheter/article5811750.ece Roopeluhtala (talk) 07:39, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Norway has conscription, according to this article (http://www.abcnyheter.no/nyheter/2013/01/12/flere-ungdommer-soeker-fritak-fra-foerstegangstjeneste) 10 % of applications to be exempted from service were denied in 2013 (post removal of alternative service). Conscientious objection is not the only grounds for exemption, but it seems unlikely that none of the denied applications were for this reason. In any case, you have to apply to be exempted from service, which makes it conscription, and not all applications are accepted, which means that it is not de facto abolished. 85.166.127.45 (talk) 20:48, 10 April 2015 (UTC)