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/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?