6. Should you start with aggression or persuasion to recruit and retain people for military service?
Aggression seems so easy. Persuading John Dove to join the military is tougher. You presume he’ll comply because he doesn’t want to be arrested or killed. Persuasion seems fraught with peril. You may not get enough participation to defend the country, or to slay the foreign villain who concerns you. But this seeming defect might actually be a benefit…
Having to persuade people to participate means soldier morale and devotion will be high. Would you really want your life to depend on someone who opposes what you’re doing? But there’s a deeper consideration…
The politicians will be less likely to start bad wars if they risk having their fighting force walk away. Imagine how brief the Vietnam conflict would have been if the soldiers could have voted with their feet!
And who knows how many soldiers we need anyway? Shouldn’t the force level be determined by how much citizens are willing to fund, and by how many people are willing to serve? Shouldn’t free individuals make their own decisions, instead of having politicians impose things on them?
Even if you still worry that the force level might be inadequate under a system based on persuasion, shouldn’t you always prefer to try voluntary service first? Keep the draft and compulsory retention in your back-pocket for as long as possible
What’s your starting point for defending the country? Persuasion or aggression? Register your view on the slider.
Pick 10 or 20% if you want soldiers to be unable to quit in time of war. This means you’ll use some aggression to retain soldiers during war, but otherwise you want to use persuasion.
Pick 30 or 40% if you believe soldiers must honor their full enlistment commitment at all times.
Pick 50 or 60% if you want to draft people for military service during foreign wars.
Pick 70 or 80% if you support reinstituting the draft as part of a “national service” requirement.
Pick 90 or 100% if you want draft resisters and deserters imprisoned, or even shot.
- How many people moved toward persuasion or away from it, and by how much?
- How your Aggression Quotient (A.Q.) compares with the average A.Q for this issue?
- How many people joined the Zero Aggression Project through the Aggression Tracker for this issue?