Military service

Conscription
1780 caricature of a press gang
Related concepts
Alternative civilian service Civil conscription Conscientious objector Conscription crisis Counter-recruitment Draft-card burning Draft evasion Impressment Levée en masse Military service National service Penal military unit War resister
By historical country
Ottoman Empire Russian Empire Soviet Union
By modern country
Argentina Australia Azerbaijan Bermuda Brazil Canada China Congo-Kinshasa (child soldiers) Cuba Cyprus (reduction) Denmark Egypt Eritrea Finland France Georgia Germany Greece Israel Iran North Korea South Korea Latvia Lithuania Myanmar the Netherlands New Zealand Norway Mexico Monaco Mozambique the Philippines Russia Serbia Singapore South Africa Sri Lanka Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Turkey United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Ukraine Vietnam
By geographical area
Ireland
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Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription).

Few nations, such as Israel, require a specific amount of military service from every citizen, except for special cases, such as limitation determined by a military physical or religious belief. Most countries that use conscription systems only conscript men; a few countries also conscript women.^[1] For example, Norway, Sweden, North Korea, Israel, and Eritrea conscript both men and women. However, only Norway and Sweden have a gender-neutral conscription system, where men and women are conscripted and serve on equal formal terms.^[2] Some nations with conscription systems do not enforce them.

Nations which conscript for military service typically also rely on citizens choosing to join the armed forces as a career.^[3]

Some nations with armed forces do not conscript their personnel (e.g. most NATO and European Union states). Instead, they promote military careers to attract and select recruits; see military recruitment.

Some, usually smaller, nations have no armed forces at all or rely on an armed domestic security force (e.g. police, coast guard).