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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

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One obvious (though probably also very unworkable) option would of course just be the Finland Option: conscription.

probably also very unworkable

Yep.

The US clearly does not need conscription to defend itself. Its nuclear weapons more than suffice. If Finland built nuclear weapons, it probably would not have any need for conscription either.

And I think that people in the US would quickly come to understand this if the government tried to enact conscription. In the US, conscription for defensive purposes is completely unnecessary. And not many people in the US, on either the left or the right, would be ok with conscription for offensive purposes.

Its nuclear weapons more than suffice.

That and the Navy as a first line. And the Navy needs highly trained experts to operate its ships, not bodies to throw at a meat grinder. If it came to "The Big One", the US would have much more need of workers to be funneled to industry, armament manufacturers and shipyards than combat service.

This would burn down major cities, mostly blue ones, and degrade the quality of recruits. The American military is actually very picky about who it takes and mass conscription obviously doesn’t work with that.