i’m honestly very confused by this comment. if it’s shameful to make moral statements about theoretical or actual drafts, then why are you strongly implying that drafts are immoral? as primarily westerners, we discuss things that don’t directly affect us all the time, just by virtue of being westerners. i thought we did this with the full understanding that our discussion very rarely affects much of anything, especially without any material organization. what makes this case any different?

the actual content of your argument seems focused on the morality of drafts in the general sense, which i will address. drafts are a tool of the state, enacted through threat of and a monopoly on violence. because drafts are state policy, like literally any other state policy they should primarily be judged by the class character of the state in question. is it socialist or capitalist, is it in the core or periphery, is it fighting for its sovereignty against aggression or being aggressive itself?

i think the most important thing to understand here is that drafts are seen as tools of necessity, i.e. generally a last resort, by those enacting the draft. literally no populace wants a draft, at the very least unanimously. how true that actually is, again, generally relies on geopolitics and class character like any war does. the US draft for vietnam was an act of desperation to complete a decade-long war, but was obviously not justified given the imperialist aggression. the draft in the USSR was an act of desperation to continue to exist as a state, and i hope we can all agree that in this case it was not only justified but necessary. in fact, the USSR had a shoot-to-kill policy against deserters, which as brutal as it was, was enacted because of how desperate the situation was.

the other thing i’ll say about drafts generally is that it’s not an either/or thing, there can be degrees to which a draft is in service of the working class, so long as the aim of the war is also in their interest. i’m talking about things like drafting the elderly and children, which nazis did in their last days. or, drafting inexperienced people for the front lines, regardless of perceived or real necessity.

what about in the specific case of russia? let me preface by saying that almost all of us, including me, are not qualified to say very much regarding the specifics of the draft in russia, which is all the more reason why we should not take places like reuters and the guardian (literal MI6 operations) at their word before investigating further. however, we can be pretty certain that given the nature of drafts, the russian state sees this as a necessary act (again, whether or not this is actually true) in the same way that they saw starting the original SMO as a necessary act to defend its sovereignty. given that russia is currently de facto at war with NATO in ukraine, i could perceive this escalation as either wanting to finish what was started ASAP, as a preemptive escalation to prepare for total war with NATO, or both. as far as the class character of russia, it is industrial bourgeois with relatively strong state power and industry, taking an anti-imperialist stance against the west and alongside the global south. imperialism is the primary contradiction in our global society today, but the lack of socialism and proletarian dominance opens up space for criticism. make of all of this what you will.

do i wish that we lived in a world without drafts? yes. i also wish we lived in a world without weapons, war, and exploitation, but that’s not the hand that any of us was given. personally it’s a little ridiculous for me to see “drafts are always bad in every situation, and i would dodge every theoretical draft” because this is ahistorical and implies a metaphysics of morality. do you also morally decry the USSR’s draft? if china were on the brink of destruction and implemented a draft out of necessity, would you also morally decry it?