>That starts with the fact that the US doesn't do compulsory military service, because soldiers who don't want to be there aren't effective soldiers (note that

>That starts with the fact that the US doesn't do compulsory military service, because soldiers who don't want to be there aren't effective soldiers (note that Israel does do compulsory military service, which is because they have different problems than we do). While the security concerns of certain countries have motivated compelled military service, I wonder if a side-effect is less division/greater intra-country tolerance? And would the U.S. benefit from instituting compelled military service, or perhaps, compelled national service, which doesn't necessarily entail holding a weapon. Some cursory searching turned up this study from Brookings suggesting that it would. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/national-service_text-3.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/nationa... And here's a paper - more of an opinion piece - arguing against it: https://www.cato.org/testimony/mandatory-universal-national-service-dystopian-vision-free-society#bad-arguments-for-mandatory-universal-national-service https://www.cato.org/testimony/mandatory-universal-national-...