> One good argument for it is that a conscript army is unlikely to stage a military coup in a democracy. If the soldiers are more or less random people, they wi

> One good argument for it is that a conscript army is unlikely to stage a military coup in a democracy. If the soldiers are more or less random people, they will more or less support the elected government, at least a portion of them. At the same time, military training involves quite a lot of indoctrination as part of getting people to shut up and follow orders. I'm not sure it's particularly healthy for democracy to send a large part of its citizens to indoctrination camps.