Conscription—long thought to have been on the outs in the European military tradition—has featured prominently throughout the nearly two-year-old war in Ukraine. Despite the appearance of novel uses of technology, from drones to social media psyops, the war has validated the relevance of conventional, large-scale combat operations that characterized the 19th and 20th-century conflicts fought primarily with mass armies. Indeed, as the war drags on into an apparent stalemate, securing a steady supply of military personnel has become increasingly crucial for both sides to sustain a war of attrition.

Why, then, has Ukraine announced that it plans to move away from conscription after the war ends? The massive infusion of manpower enabled by conscription allows Ukraine to hold its ground against Russia—despite its numerical and material advantages. Regardless of whether Ukraine manages to reclaim all its territory, threats to Ukraine’s territorial integrity will likely remain for the foreseeable future—and some argue that conscription offers a guaranteed mechanism for mobilizing a large army as quickly as is often required in such high-threat environments.

While conscription currently serves a vital purpose for Ukraine, a planned post-war transition to a fully professional, all-volunteer force (AVF)will contribute more to Ukraine’s long-term security. As we have argued elsewhere, conscript armies bring a host of challenges and may be particularly ill-suited to Ukraine’s post-war domestic political and national security goals. There are both tactical-operational and strategic reasons for this.

In terms of the former, there’s considerable evidence that conscript armies aren’t nearly as successful on the battlefield as forces built on a volunteer model. Volunteer forces have at least two distinct advantages: sustainability and capability. For one, conscripts have limited patience for long-term deployments. In Ukraine, soldiers have no clear answer as to when they can leave service and return home. This can breed significant resentment, making it difficult to sustain campaigns as long as one could with volunteers.

We also know that drafts tend to reproduce or exacerbate societal inequalities. It is extraordinarily difficult to implement a draft fairly and without corruption. Even in Ukraine, men still find ways to evade the draft, including enrolling in higher education or simply leaving the country. If these recruiting challenges continue into peacetime, the country may face a crisis of legitimacy that undermines its efforts to build a stable and peaceful democracy.

While recruiting for an AVF poses a distinct challenge, we think it is a far better challenge to confront than relying on unwilling soldiers for survival. Training soldiers only to lose them to desertion or the kinds of limited tours that conscripts usually demand would result in the type of personnel turnover that would severely hamper a sustained defense. A fully professional and volunteer force signals a country’s military has the popular support to sustain a long fight.

Furthermore, while conscripts may provide much-needed manpower, they are rarely substitutes in capability for a well-trained volunteer. Conscription frequently leads to a mismatch between conscripts’ assigned duties and the skills they already possess. Ukraine just announced that it is switching to a more targeted recruitment approach, where conscripts won’t simply be sent to the front but will instead be assigned to jobs that match their abilities.

Civilian jobs, however, aren’t always perfect analogs to military roles—and skills may not be entirely transferrable. A volunteer force provides a valuable chance to train civilians into professional soldiers, giving them the skills and knowledge to handle complicated military technology, tactics, and logistics. This is particularly important for modern warfare, which depends on a complex set of skills to effectively employ and maneuver combined arms forces equipped with advanced technology. Militaries cannot afford to invest the time necessary to thoroughly train conscripts—who only serve for short periods—in all these techniques and technologies.

This means armies manned by conscripts are often less flexible on the battlefield. Modern war requires soldiers to react quickly and take initiative. Scantily trained conscripts don’t always have the skills or experience to do more than execute the basic battle drills they’ve been taught, and conscript units often lack the cohesion and discipline necessary to carry out combined arms maneuvers. It’s not enough to foster a culture in which junior officers have initiative if the soldiers they rely on are not well-trained enough to respond quickly to new situations.

An army of well-trained volunteers would not only be more capable on the battlefield but also would bolster Ukraine’s efforts to tie into a broader European security community. Capable militaries send a strong signal to potential allies that they will not free-ride. In the past, conscription may have served this purpose by signaling that a country could amass the large armies necessary to fight the wars of the time. Today, when military effectiveness depends on highly skilled professionals, a conscript army may undermine allies’ faith that Ukraine is maximizing its own security.

This is not to say that any continued use of conscription would be detrimental to Ukraine. After all, Ukraine’s ability to quickly mobilize experienced reservists was a major reason it was able to defend Kiev in the Spring of 2022. However, a limited form of conscription to produce capable reserves is not inconsistent with relying exclusively on longer-service volunteers as the primary source of experienced military manpower.

Clearly, the societal and military benefits of an AVF are significant enough that Ukraine’s decision to professionalize its military far outweighs the logistical challenges of doing so. Ukraine’s decision should reinforce the beliefs of Western militaries that the AVF is the right way to go—despite what detractors may say.

About the Authors 

Max Z. Margulies is a Nonresident Fellow at the Institute for Global Affairs and Director of Research at the Modern War Institute at West Point. All views are his own and do not represent the official positions of his employers.

Laura Samotin is an adjunct assistant professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and the USC Schwarzenegger Institute.

Image: Shutterstock.com.