Robert,

One shouldn’t ignore the effects that conscription had, and the shifts in consensus within the military where it has been abolished. But in a line of work where your boss has the legal power to treat striking or quitting as a hanging crime, the line between volunteers and conscripts is fuzzier than it might at first appear.

That mattered a lot for the boys who signed up voluntarily in the Great War, not knowing what they would find in the trenches. And it matters a lot today in this age of stop-loss and endless reserve call-ups.

I didn’t say that so-called “volunteer” soldiers aren’t responsible for their actions while in the military, or that the government’s coercion against them excuses immoral actions. I said that they aren’t actually willing volunteers. Willing volunteers are free to withdraw their decision to volunteer if they repent, or get scared, or have second thoughts. Soldiers aren’t.

These are willing volunteers who have pledged their lives to the nation state. They are nothing less than his partners in crime.

To the extent that soldiers willingly engage in deliberate violence against innocent people, they are certainly complicit in the crime and should be held accountable.

On the other hand, I don’t think it’s quite true that all soldiers in the American military are “willing volunteers.” Normally when someone willingly signs on for a job, they can always quit later if they have second thoughts about either the job in general, or about specific requirements imposed on them by their employers. Everywhere else in the world besides the military, this is called “quitting.” In the military it’s called “desertion” and it can be treated as a hanging crime if the government so chooses.

Soldiers, even so-called “volunteers,” who want to leave the military, but are coerced into staying by the threat of imprisonment or death, should not be considered willing participants, any more than victims of the draft should.