Military service is one of the most demanding jobs a European or American can undertake. It involves gruelling physical strain, strict control over personal life in military barracks, isolation from friends and family, insane work hours and often humiliating obedience to the orders of drill sergeants. While one could maybe find an outlier example, such as underwater welding or fishing on the arctic seas that surpass their strain, almost no jobs on the market even come close in their gruelling difficulty to the profession of soldiers.

As South Korea reacts to President Yoon Suk Yeo’s unexpected attempt to impose martial law, Europe should learn lessons from recent Korean missteps in defence policy—not least South Korean military conscription.

Conscription is an explicit usurpation by the state of the power to send you against your will into the fire of enemy machine guns.