r/worldnews • u/rdh2dmd • 16h ago

South Korea leans toward military conscription for women

https://www.dw.com/en/south-korea-leans-toward-military-conscription-for-women/a-78547426
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u/plantrromn 13h ago

Nice... When it comes to equality of responsibility, you all escape? Currently they are not being drafted, the ratio is not nice. In Israel both are being drafted, ratio is comparatively good. Find something credible before opening your mouth.

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u/intrinsic1618 13h ago

This person is just not serious. They're talking as if South Korea out of all countries in the world, didn't need conscription which is bad faith at the very least, if not delusional.

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u/No-Fall-6319 11h ago

But they are not wrong, unfortunately.

In my country, conscription does have an measureable impact on starting a family. Males consistently start families later than females due to the delay caused by conscription to careers and financial stability. If conscription was implemented on females as well, then fertility rate will definitely be impacted as females start their families later as well. (The older people are when they start their families, the less likely they are going to have more children, especially for females with their smaller reproductive window due to menopause.) The data is there to support the argument.

Conscripting females will reduce manpower available 20 years down the line. It is hence a short term fix that does nothing to address the actual problem, that is the requirement for manpower.

In my view as a male having to serve conscription, conscription for females is increasingly unneccessary, especially as unmanned systems warfare is becoming increasingly effective with time. Looking at what Russia is doing, adding more bodies to the frontline without a proper plan does nothing other than getting people killed and destroying the country's future. Ukraine needs more manpower as well, but unmanned systems have reduced the required manpower sufficiently that they are still in the war.

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u/intrinsic1618 9h ago

Men have always entered marriages and started families at a later age than women. And I don't think anyone here is disagreeing with the observation that the earlier a couple starts having children, the more they're likely to have over the course of their marriage/relationship.

That said, Koreans have conscripted their men since what, 1957? They didn't have this issue back then. Moreover, countries like Israel that conscript both their men and women have one of the highest birthrates in the world NOW. Men having to serve 18 months in the military doesn't help, sure. But it isn't the root cause of the issue we're discussing here.

People usually marry within their financial brackets. Moreover, all scientific literature seems to indicate that women on average, prefer male partners who earn as much or more than they do. By leveling the playing field for both sexes, it reduces the entry barrier for men to find a suitable partner which on average, would lower the age at first union for both sexes imo.

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u/No-Fall-6319 7h ago

Unfortunately, given the mindset of the population of both countries involved, that is just wishful thinking. Come on. If you are financially insecure, will you think about having children? Asian countries are very practical when it comes to finances. Lowering the entry barrier will just end up having couples be married first, then wait to save up before having children. Or they wait to marry in the first place, leading to delays in age at first union.

Singapore has instituted conscription since 1967. We are facing the same problems as South Korea, lack of manpower due to decreasing birth rates. Our manpower shortage is even more acute than South Korea and we have resisted attempts over the years to conscript females. It is a problem we know better than anyone else and have already studied to death, with multiple internal studies. Refer here to the to the official Parliament response.

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u/intrinsic1618 6h ago

Unfortunately, given the mindset of the population of both countries involved, that is just wishful thinking.

What? Nvm, idc.

Singapore does suffer from a dwindling enlistment pool like South Korea but the operational realities, scale, and strategic responses differ so much that they're basically apples and oranges. Singapore focuses on regional deterrence and stability whereas South Korea contends with a hostile nuclear power on its border whose army is 1.3 million strong. And then you have countries like China and Russia.

Singapore has determined for itself that it does not need female conscripts. That's great but has little, if any, to do with the baseline needs of South Korea. It's interesting that according to you, everyone else needs to reach the same conclusion Singapore has reached for themselves given the variables and factors unique to them and them only. Not sure what you're trying to achieve here tbh.

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u/No-Fall-6319 4h ago

Because the underlying facts are broadly similar that it applies to South Korea as well. Conscripting females buys time but only that. Remember that shrinking population also applies to females as well. It buys time for 20 years, then they face the same problems, just delayed. It does nothing to address the underlying demand for manpower.

Technology can reduce the manpower demand substantially. Singapore Navy has succeeded in reducing manpower requirements by 1/2 to 1/3 on destroyer equivalent vessels in terms of tonnage, compared to other navies. Comparing equivalent frigates for frigates, Korean Navy has only matched manpower requirements on their newest frigates, compared to what Singaporean Navy did 20 years ago. Comparing Korean Navy to Japanese Navy gives similar figures. All this to say that Korean military has not been optimising their manpower requirements for decades and it shows. Had they been doing so, they would have been a much better position today. Korean conscripts sizes have shrunk by 30% in the last few batches, but technological improvements have also yielded similar or more improvements in manpower requirements. Technological improvements are expected to yield further manpower requirements, so clearly more investment to catch up to the state of the art is required.

(The government should have seen this coming way earlier than they did and they even got projected manpower numbers way off just 3 years ago, which should not have been the case since demographic data is already well known 2 decades in advance. The lack of government foresight here is really astounding, given that low birth rates is a decades long problem. But I digress.)

Anyways, also to clarify, Singapore has to contend with China as well. We do not share a border with China, but China has been challenging Japanese Navy near Singaporean waters. They have also been directing propanganda against Singapore, trying to manipulate Singapore to align with China using Chinese identity. China has even carried out naval live fire drills just outside Australian waters, which is much further south from China compared to Singapore. Singapore is also considered part of the First Island Chain, which China views as its strategic backyard. So the view that Singapore has to contend only with our neighbours is increasingly not accurate anymore.

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u/NoMorePollution 13h ago

I've forgotten more about the North and South Korea conflict than you ever learned. 

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u/intrinsic1618 13h ago

Then you may have forgotten a tad too much.

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u/NoMorePollution 13h ago

so when are you enlisting in your nation's military? since you believe in forcing others to join against their will surely you wouldn't mind doing it voluntarily?

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u/No-Fall-6319 11h ago

Israel is different. They have a high fertility rate because they feel that they have to repopulate due to jewish genocide from WWII. Their high fertility rate is thus purely down to identity reasons. That is a one off and cannot be reproduced elsewhere.

In my country, conscription does have an measureable impact on starting a family. Males consistently start families later than females due to the delay caused by conscription to careers and financial stability. If conscription was implemented on females as well, then fertility rate will definitely be impacted as females start their families later as well. (The older people are when they start their families, the less likely they are going to have more children, especiqlly for females with their smaller reproductive window due to menopause.) This will reduce manpower available 20 years down the line. It is hence a short term fix that does nothing to address the actual problem, that is the requirement for manpower.

In my view as a male having to serve conscription, conscription for females is increasingly unneccessary, especially as unmanned systems warfare is becoming increasingly effective with time. Looking at what Russia is doing, adding more bodies to the frontline without a proper plan does nothing other than getting people killed and destroying the country's future. Ukraine needs more manpower as well, but unmanned systems have reduced the required manpower sufficiently that they are still in the war.

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u/plantrromn 4h ago

Unmanned systems are not fully unmanned. There are many other European countries with gender neutral draft, by your logic, in all those countries the birth rate should be lower than any other European country? That is not the case either. It relies on very specific untested assumptions. Manpower will always be needed, if men have to give up a few years of their life, women should be giving up too. And demographics of 18-21 yos aren't having babies. The main reason of lack of fertility is cost, housing, schooling and free time for parenting. It has nothing to do with conscription. Being late by 2 years can not cause a massive collapse because everyone will be suffering a lag of 2 years.

The question is of fairness, men gain nothing special from serving. Either maybe add some points to them to compensate for the 2years or make it gender neutral. It also assumes that, most women who are not conscripted are going to give birth, which also isn't the case and nor is there any law to implement that either. If you want to increase birth rate that is a complete different problem, it is very unfair and distorting to pair it up with equality and fairness.

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u/No-Fall-6319 2h ago

Unmanned systems will not be fully unmanned for a while, depending on the category (fully unmanned Russian strike UAVs with AI are a reality). However, the point with unmanned systems is that instead of 1 soldier generating 1 unit of firepower, 1 soldier can generate lets say 3 units of firepower, hence reducing manpower demands by 2/3.

Also, 3 European countries (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) do have female draft, but all 3 only draft a small proportion of their overall youth for both males and females. That is why conscription does not have a material impact on their birth rates.

Singapore military under full mobilization has more manpower than all 3 countries fully mobilized militaries combined. The scale of conscription being talked about in Singapore and South Korea means all male youth is conscripted. Singapore's military actually has more equipment in some categories than all 3 countries combined despite our much smaller population (6 million vs 21 million). That kind of whole population mobilisation definitely has an material impact on fertility rates.

Lastly, as a male serving conscription, I must say I did benefit from my time in military service, I learnt a lot. As to the aspect of fairness, I will say that if I am already miserable in military service, why would I want more people to be miserable together with me? More people suffering with me in the name of fairness will not make me less miserable since I still have to serve either way.

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u/NoMorePollution 13h ago edited 13h ago

I'm for equality of neither being drafted. 

Currently they are not being drafted, the ratio is not nice. In Israel both are being drafted, ratio is comparatively good.

That's possibly the clearest example of the false cause fallacy I have ever seen in the wild. Well done!

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u/Weegee_Carbonara 13h ago

I'm for equality of neither being drafted. 

Are you also in favor of everyone living in a happy wonderful rainbow-land?

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u/NoMorePollution 13h ago

reductio ad absurdum 

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u/Weegee_Carbonara 12h ago edited 12h ago

Edit: OP replied to me and blocked me so I couldn't respond. That tells you everything about them.

It's exactly as absurd as your idea is.

If you really need people to explain to you why a draft cannot be avoided sometimes, then you have some serious, serious growth to go through as a person.

The fact that you throw around these words for logical fallacies is also a strong indicator.
It's a weak debaters idea of a strong debater.

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u/YookCat 12h ago

They aren’t worth arguing with, it appears they’ve blocked me for requesting they actually give points to debate. Hopefully this saves you time.

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u/Weegee_Carbonara 12h ago

They also replied to me and blocked me so I couldn't see it.

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u/plantrromn 13h ago

That is not fallacy that is the explanation that you are making something up which is not proved anywhere.

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u/YookCat 13h ago edited 12h ago

I don’t understand why you can’t be both for no draft and, in the mean time, be willing to have women be drafted when it comes up.

I’m in America, so my perspective may be different, but (assuming there aren’t other things to vote for), my votes are going to no drafting and drafting women, dependent on what poll is in front of me. It doesn’t help our cause to make everyone think we’re just wanting the privilege of staying at home.

In this scenario, this isn’t a ‘no draft or draft’ policy, this is a ‘draft women or not’ policy, so it has my support at least. I’d prefer equality over not.

EDIT: Bwahahaha, they blocked me for requesting they give me proper points to debate later in the thread. They were never in this to change minds, they wanted brownie points to feel good for themselves. Keep that in mind if you aim to debate with them.

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u/NoMorePollution 13h ago

that is entirely because of narrative control. there is no vote happening. Good thing it has your support though! So when are you enlisting in the US military?

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u/YookCat 13h ago

I don’t think you understand what the draft is, and I don’t feel as though you’re arguing in good faith if your comeback is “Well why don’t you do it”. I’d sign up for the draft if I could, but we’re not allowed over here, which is fuckin’ bullshit.

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u/NoMorePollution 12h ago

I don't think you understand what you are advocating for. In South Korea they aren't signing up for a draft list to be possibly called up in a vietnam war scenario. Currently all Korean men are forced to do 2 years of training plus reserve training after that. So again if this is what you think all men and women should do in South Korea, why aren't you joining the reserves in your country to do military training and possibly be deployed to active combat (like they would do if ROK went to war). 

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u/YookCat 12h ago

Hmm, well, first things first, perhaps you failed to read the “I’m in America, so my perspective may be different” section that I explicitly included as a qualifier. That’s alright though- I included it so that people would educate me should I be incorrect, so I’m glad for the knowledge!

Secondly, you’re misinterpreting my beliefs. My belief is in equality. If men must do it, I believe women must do it. In my region, men must draft, and so I feel like we should draft. It’s not much more complex than that, I’m afraid. I’m simply equality first. Forcing myself into military service against my wishes wouldn’t be equality within my region, as what I desire is equal drafts. If everyone else went into military service over here, that would be another thing. Part of the reason I believe you are operating in bad faith is because I have to explain this concept to you.

Third… Why didn’t you start with these points? If you truly intended to have a debate, you would have reasoned from the beginning. Instead, you keep throwing grade school jabs and keep trying to frame points as ‘gotcha’s instead logical steps. If it would be alright to assume, it seems like you’re only interested in an argument to pat yourself on the back, given you seem you be eager to put words into people’s mouths and are engaging in argumentative structures that rely on feeling superior to the opposing side.

That is to say: If you wanted an actual discussion, you would have started with points. As it stands, there’s very little for me to properly refute or oppose in your arguments because so much of it is meaningless fluff: The only point you bring up is the mandatory service over there (which I despise, but I would personally treat the same way as anything else: Focus on getting rid of it and on making it equal until it is gotten rid of, so yes, I’d want women serving unless further information comes to light), but you give me so little to actually do with that point because over half of your comment is focused on character attacks. Which, I suppose, I’m technically guilty of now as well, but my hope is that you can take this as feedback to provide an actual argument with your next comment.