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Ukraine has been compelled to expand conscription in recent months as it continues to battle against an enemy with greater manpower.
The age when Ukrainians can be drafted has dropped from 27 to 25 and those liable for conscription are now required to log their details with military authorities. Those who do not comply potentially face driving bans, having their bank accounts frozen and harassment and detainment by conscription squads.
The Confederate states during the US civil war (1861-65) also resorted to a stringent conscription policy to keep trading blows in an increasingly attritional conflict.
In that war, the 11 states that had seceded from the United States named themselves the Confederate States of America and went into battle against what remained of the US for their independence. The Confederacy began by conscripting white men between the ages of 18 and 35. It then evolved and expanded its conscription policy throughout the war to draw more men into southern armies.
Conscription undoubtedly helped the Confederacy fight for as long as it did, but it also exacerbated societal divisions by offering opt-outs of military service to some men with high status, for instance.
While there are profound differences between the Confederacy and Ukraine today, when Ukraine reviews its conscription policy – something it is likely to have to do again – officials in Kyiv might reflect on the Confederate experience.
The problem with exemptions
Conscription is necessarily a balancing act. States that deploy it during periods of war must weigh up the needs of their armed forces against the disruption and disorder that will result from removing significant numbers of men from their homes, communities and civil society.
Politicians and military officials do have one vital tool when it comes to navigating this balancing act: exemptions. Exemptions, though, are fraught with the potential for frustration if they are seen as unfair or open to abuse.
Exemptions can cause their deepest divides when it comes to class. In April 1862, the Confederate Congress passed the first national conscription law in US history. It soon adopted an array of occupational exemptions and, later that year, also offered exemption to some white men who owned or oversaw 20 or more enslaved labourers.
This divisive policy reveals how difficult conscription’s balancing act can be. In the US civil war, fears about agricultural productivity, food shortages and potential rebellion by enslaved people was used to justify an exemption for plantation owners and overseers (white plantation managers, effectively). Thousands of black Americans, it must be noted, did indeed flee the plantations and join the Union army.
In Ukraine, the issue of exemptions, or bias, has been less overt but noticeable nonetheless. There have been allegations of corruption and bribery, practices that are always likely to favour those with greater economic and social connections and power.
There have been some reports that Ukrainian enforcement efforts have focused more on working-class areas than richer neighbourhoods. One draft evader reportedly said he moved to a wealthy neighbourhood of Kyiv because conscription officers tended to operate in poorer districts. His wife concurred, stating, “The military don’t visit here. Our compound is an island of survival. To be poor in Ukraine is to be dead.”.
Such sentiments would have resonated with those lower-class Confederates who came to feel that the burdens and sacrifices the war demanded fell too heavily on them and their families.
Some Ukrainian men who are likely to be called up have left the country, or are trying to hide from the system. Meanwhile, officials are being sent out to look for those avoiding the draft.
Prior to this recent push for mobilisation, more than 20,000 men are believed to have fled the country to avoid service, with a small proportion of that number drowning in attempting to get from Ukraine to Romania. Parallels can, again, be found in the civil war south, where men hid out in woods, swamps or mountains to avoid military service.
Facing such evasion – and even violent resistance at times – Confederate and state authorities sent out teams to look for recusant conscripts and deserters (and sometimes their loved ones). They were subjected to increasingly rough treatment from those tasked with apprehending them. At the time of writing, Ukraine has responded to the problem of evasion by launching a campaign to try and boost volunteer numbers..
If adverts and social media posts do not yield enough volunteers, Ukraine will find itself weighing up the pros and cons of force and compulsion. There are risks in this as the Confederate experience shows.
The parts of the south in which conscription often met most resistance were those with a tendency towards “Unionism”. These were areas with a stronger connection to the Union and a belief that the breakaway slave-holding Confederacy was in some way illegitimate.
But even for those who were not inherently opposed to the Confederate cause, attempts to strong-arm men into the army could damage morale and faith in the government, especially when the policy was seen by some as unfair in class terms or entailing suffering for those left behind.
Tony Ingesson, a political scientist from Lund University in Sweden, believes that conscription’s “legitimacy is closely associated with the legitimacy of the state that is using it, in the eyes of its citizens”. Right now, Ukraine’s reluctant soldiers might be weary of war, worried about the consequences of their absence for their families, or fearful of ending up as cannon fodder, but most desire victory.
As historical experience suggests, future further expansions of conscription and a turn to draconian enforcement measures might deepen social divides in Ukraine and, in the eyes of some, harm the government’s legitimacy.
Clearly, if the war in Ukraine goes on and the need for men inevitably increases, conscription’s balancing act will become more precarious.
Patrick J. Doyle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
