We also have to talk about the impact of military service on foreign policy. Does military service make a country more hawkish or more dovish? It seems obvious that having a conscript military will give a dovish bias to a country’s military stance.

The case of Switzerland here is crystal clear. We can also look at the United States, and the difference between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. During Vietnam, the antiwar movement only gained steam once conscripts were shipped in large numbers to Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the United States stayed in Iraq for much longer than in Vietnam, and the antiwar movement was much more subdued. America elected a President who had opposed the war, but this President chose to unwind the war on basically the same timetable as the Bush Administration, while strengthening the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and embarking in more foreign adventures. The adventurism of the current U.S. administration is hardly surprising, given that the vast majority of U.S. families will never have to bear a price for it.

The reason why military service gives a dovish bias to a country’s foreign policy is obvious: the entire country bears the cost of military action. Everyone has a child or at least knows someone who is in the military. Those who have seen firsthand the cost of war are all around, instead of confined to a subculture.