We often assume that slavery was an evil of the dismal past. Although remnants still exist in a few places, slavery supposedly is gone from civilized countries.
Unfortunately, extensive slavery still exists in well-developed countries, including Russia and Ukraine: military slavery, created by drafting young men (and in some other countries, women).
The Thirteenth Amendment appropriately refers to slavery and "involuntary servitude" in the same breath: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime .... shall exist within the United States ..."
Even though forced military service is clearly involuntary servitude, if those words have any meaning, the Supreme Court ruled in 1919 that the World War I draft didn't violate the Thirteenth Amendment.
The Court's very odd opinion didn't state any reasoning to support its holding that draftees were not subjected to involuntary servitude. The justices just said that the claim was so ridiculous that it was refuted by its mere statement!
The Court, which has often been willing to use bad reasoning when it couldn't find good reasoning to get to its desired outcome in a case, couldn't even find bad reasoning!
Ironically, slavery in its classical sense was abolished in the United States by an army containing many draftees — military slaves — in addition to volunteers. (The Confederates also had a draft.)
Of course military slavery is somewhat different from classical slavery. Soldiers are not slaves for life, they don't pass that status along to their children, and they aren't members of a particular race.
Perhaps recognizing the dubious legitimacy of a military draft, Russian leaders have insisted that draftees are not being sent to fight in Ukraine, but this is a lie. For one thing, most of the fighting is going on in Ukrainian territory that was unilaterally annexed into Russia. By Russian government reasoning, drafted soldiers can be sent there because it is part of Russia!
Russian authorities are preparing to make it illegal for draft-age men to leave the country. Many Russian men, not wishing to be involved in the so-called "special military operation" (it being illegal to call it a war!) have already fled.
Ukraine, which has already prohibited military age men from leaving, also has a draft, so both sides are relying on slave labor.
If there were no military drafts anywhere, wars might be less likely, and this is why encouraging all countries to respect the rule of law would be very helpful.
A genuine law must be a general rule of action enforced by sanctions. Military conscription is incompatible with the rule of law. Draftees are always picked arbitrarily (the historic U.S. term was "Selective Service") and not because they have taken some action that was prohibited by a general rule.
Toward the end of the American draft there was an attempt to make it less arbitrary by pulling the birthdays of draftees randomly out of a hat. But the system was still arbitrary and incompatible with basic American values of individual liberty and equality, limited only by genuine laws.
Imagine, by analogy, a very high federal income tax paid only by a tiny minority of individuals whose names were chosen randomly. Such a tax would clearly be an outrage, even though it only took people's money, not their liberty and potentially their lives.
The United States eliminated its last remaining slavery when it ended the military draft during the Nixon administration. It should now be our national policy to encourage full respect for the rule of law in all other countries. This would include wiping out the remaining military drafts.
If this had been done a decade ago, the Ukraine war might never have happened. But, better late than never.
Paul F. deLespinasse is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Computer Science at Adrian College. Read Professor Paul F. deLespinasse's Reports — More Here.