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13 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 5 OCTOBER 2022 OPINION Kevin Fahey Kevin Fahey is Assistant Professor in Political Science, University of Nottingham RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin has yet to call for univer- sal conscription, although he re- cently announced mobilisation of 300,000 reservists. The reason why the Kremlin has not intro- duced a wider policy may lie in the history of conscription and its impact on public support for war. In recent research, my colleague Doug Atkinson and I analysed a dataset of everyone serving in the US army during the second world war. Although there are a number of obvious differences between the US of the 1940s and present-day Russia, both coun- tries used selective – rather than universal – conscription to staff their military. The way the US conscripted its military was deliberately hard to understand. It also helped shield certain voters who were crucial to electoral success of the Dem- ocratic Party at the next election. In December 1941, the US faced Germany and Japan with their massive modern military forc- es. It had to quickly convert its industrial output to a wartime footing, modernise its own mili- tary and conduct offensive opera- tions on four continents. Victory would require a military staffed by millions of soldiers, engineers, technicians and administrators, backed up by the full agricultural, industrial and intellectual power of the civilian workforce. Anticipating involvement in the second world war, the US Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which created a way to rapid- ly conscript large numbers of soldiers. The Selective Service System (SSS) relied on the judge- ment of political appointees and local draft boards to choose who was conscripted. In spite of what- ever good intentions may have been behind it, the conscription of young men for military service was unequal. Nearly 140,000 few- er soldiers enlisted in the military from "swing" counties than "safe" counties (either backing or op- posing the government) – a force equivalent to the Allied landing force at Normandy in June 1944. Support for government and war is likely to dwindle among families who experience loss or injury. Governments may lose the support of not only those families but also their friends, neighbours and coworkers. Our research suggests that strong core supporters and oppo- nents of war are unlikely to shift their support, even in the face of losses. So the government doesn't gain much from protecting those voters from enlistment. There- fore, the group most likely to benefit from selective conscrip- tion will be weak or "tenuous" supporters – swing voters – many of whom are likely to "bolt" back to their previous party. Keeping their dissatisfaction low is vital to remaining in power. We drew on a new dataset of 9.2 million individual service re- cords from the army, aggregat- ed by county and year. The map below shows enlistment rates by county in 1942; brighter yellow refers to higher enlistment rates, while deeper purple reflects low- er enlistment rates. There is clear evidence of lower enlistment in the swing Midwestern states and counties, with higher enlistment in the south and the northeast (the Democratic and Republican party base regions at the time, re- spectively). Our findings show that in coun- ties that narrowly supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt in previous elections, between 50-55% had fewer residents en- list into the army, volunteers and conscripts alike. Across a large range of models, we demonstrate how swing counties had fewer enlistments, either as a share of the total population or the mili- tary-eligible population. This research shows that the easiest and most transparent way would be to bar swing voters from enlisting, but doing so makes it clear to the wider public that the conscription system was unfair. The SSS created an inefficient, decentralised system of recruit- ing individuals, with two mech- anisms that let partisans ma- nipulate enlistment. First, the centralised leadership of the SSS – who reported directly to the White House – in Washington DC would set quotas for each draft board. The SSS and Con- gressional regulators then had the responsibility for ensuring quotas were met. Considerable discretion was given to the head of the SSS: its leader, Brigadier General Lewis Hershey, even in- structed his subordinates: "I do advise you to not leave a lot of memoirs on what you did. If you make decisions, you will not have time to justify them." Second, the SSS made counties the unit of organisation for draft boards, and allowed local civic leaders to participate in meeting enlistment quotas. These civic leaders were often local party of- ficials as well. If a county did not meet its quota, then it would be up to the central SSS – again, who reported directly to the White House – to enforce the quota. These twin mechanisms pro- vide a ripe ground for partisan manipulation: a lack of trans- parency, often made by elected or appointed partisan officials, meant that the Democratic Party may have protected some young men in key swing constituencies from enlisting. Parallels with Russia Similarly, the Russian conscrip- tion system today is not easy to understand – regional gover- nors are assigned quotas, and the central government has the dis- cretionary power to punish gov- ernors who do not meet them. There are indications that Putin may be following the same strat- egy as the US to protect his sup- port for the war, allowing him to stop politically valuable segments of society from being sent to the front lines. "One idea was that the local governor was keen to meet his quotas like a schoolboy before schoolteacher Putin," Alexandra Garmazhapova, leader of an ac- tivist group that has reported on the draft in the region told The Guardian. We see evidence of this every- where. Russian mobilisation in regions such as Dagestan, Bury- atia and Siberia (historically anti-Moscow and anti-Putin) is rife with large-scale conscrip- tion, protests and violence. By contrast, unconfirmed reports suggest that Moscow and St Pe- tersburg, areas which are more pro-war, have seen relatively low-profile conscription efforts. Different approaches by Ukraine (where there is a nationwide con- scription policy of men between 18 and 60) and Putin may in the long run lead to a more unsta- ble Ukrainian government and a more stable Russian government. By protecting its winning coali- tion, the Putin regime is trying to ensure that anti-government ac- tion is small and manageable. The Zelensky government in Kyiv probably must ensure vic- tory if it maintains universal con- scription. Battlefield failures, economic deprivation and long-term fa- tigue for the war might lead to its electoral coalition fragmenting and public support dwindling. However, Putin may not be able to continue with his partial mobi- lisation strategy if his forces con- tinue to take severe losses. His decision then will be whether he can risk undermining support for the war any further. Russia: What the history of WWII conscription shows us about who gets sent to the front lines The remains of a Russian Army armoured column in Bucha, Ukraine