There’s a difference between drafting citizen soldiers for an existential war for survival vs drafting them for imperial wars of conquest and genocide.
That doesn’t mean you have to agree with, or can’t criticize, the former, just that you should understand the stark moral contrast between them.
I don’t think the moral contrast is that stark. If you, even as a defender, have reached a point where your “volunteering” army is exhausted and you have to resort to drafting under the threat of punishment, you should instead accept defeat. Otherwise you are essentially forcing people to sacrifice their lives for a cause they apparently do not sufficiently believe in to do so under their own volition.
great idea, so any independent state should roll over and accept defeat from agressive imperialist countries that do conscript citizens
If the only way you can get people to fight for you is under the threat of punishment, yes, absolutely. The population does not value independence enough to enlist voluntarily, therefore you have failed your population and you should accept defeat.
I disagree though about the contrast though. I believe in individual freedom and equality between men and women. Whether it’s the one of the latter purpose or specifically Russia or Ukraine doing it, both of them have shown very little appreciation towards male lives. With both parties, men immediately became an object of war and victims of orders from those in power. The sensitive issue with Ukraine is that they’re the defending party, so it makes it very hard to run away (if affected) or criticize (as an external) this approach. I think both parties equally violated human rights; Russia for conducting a racist war (where also mostly minorities are pushed to join the war) and Ukraine for its sexism and taking away freedom of men to choose whatever the fuck they want to do.
I doubt this will make anyone who didn’t get back to fight (millions of them) to get back to fight. The only thing it will manage to do is to make the emmigration permanent since even after the war end those people won’t ever get back since they will be arrested for dodging draft in the wartime, for which in most countries punishments are pretty serious.
