As Poland introduces conscription, is it time for Catholics to say we won’t be fighting politician’s wars?
Earlier this morning Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced to his parliament that work is under way to introduce conscription into Poland and make all young adult males there undergo military training.
Efforts are being made to “prepare large-scale military training for every adult male in Poland,” he told the Sejm.
“We will try to have a model ready by the end of this year so that every adult male in Poland is trained in the event of war, so that this reserve is comparable and adequate to the potential threats.”
Poland is already planning to spend 4.7% of its economic output on defence this year, the highest proportion in the Nato alliance, and Tusk told his parliament that spending should increase to 5% of GDP.
Today’s announcement came amidst growing anxiety amongst Poles about their future following US president Donald Trump’s decision to suspend military supplies and shut off access to vital strategic intelligence to Ukraine.
Miroslaw Kaznowski, the deputy mayor of Milanówek, a small town outside Warsaw, told BBC News this week that a friend of his has decided to invest in a start-up to build low-cost underground bomb shelters for businesses and homes, and that interest had been “extremely high”.
Nervousness in Poland about their increased vulnerability to Russian hostilities is perfectly understandable – the country has been the target of Valdimir Putin’s scorn for many years now. Back in December 2019 Putin crirticised Poland’s role in the Second World War at a number of key meetings, and his peculiar vitriol had little to do with the material facts of history. In an outburst at a Defence Ministry board on 24 December, he even described the Polish ambassador to Nazi Germany as “scum and an anti-Semite pig”.
Much of Putin’s ire comes from Poland’s recent efforts to “de-communise” the country. For many Poles the Red Army’s defeat of Nazi German forces in 1944-45 was a mixed blessing with the Red Army being seen as many as an occupying force rather than an army of liberation, as the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact had previously divided Poland between two dictators.
In 2017 the deeply nationalist Polish government ramped up its “de-communisation” legislation, banning “totalitarian” symbols and even threatening to dismantle the 500 or so monuments that glorified the Soviet victory. The move outraged the Russian government, who described it as “an outrageous provocation”, and warned of unspecified “consequences”. To make matters even worse the Polish government then announced that it was going to change the exhibits at a newly-opened World War Two museum in the city of Gdansk to reflect a more narrowly Polish narrative about the war.
Little wonder then that it’s not only the Poles who are deeply concerned that Donald Trump’s apparent alignment with Moscow might mean that Putin has no intention of stopping at the Ukraine-Poland border. Understandably, Poland’s Donald Tusk sees this new geopolitical shift as an existential threat to his country – as well as announcing conscription this morning he also asked that Poland gain access to nuclear weapons as part of France’s increasing willingness to share their nuclear detterrence with other European countries.
In the light of these developments the thorny topic of conscription will no doubt spread quite rapidly to other European countries, with the UK likely to be top of the table as we have a pitifully small and inadequate regular army and a Prime Minister who has already tinkered with this idea recently. Thankfully, the overwhelming response from across the UK public demographic has so far been that our young men would not be willing to fight for their country in any looming European theatre of conflict.
This is not however out of cowardice, as research has also shown that the predominant response has not been a reluctance to fight for country, but for what is seen widely as a corrupt, self-serving and utterly incompetent legislature that has done nothing meaningful to engage with the potential for peace. Such responses are not unique to the UK, which is why social media channels are awash with appalling videos of young men being dragged screaming off the stretts and into the backs of vans, often while terrified mothers and family members make desperately futile efforts to intervene. And no, this isn’t just a thing in Russia, president Zelenskyy’s henchmen are doing exactly the same thing all across Ukraine.
Earlier this morning the British politician, broadcaster and leader of the Workers Party of Britain George Galloway posted out on social media that “my one military-aged child, my eldest son, will be removed by the country by me before I’ll let Keir Starmer get his dirty hands on him … there’s no way my son is fighting a politician’s war.” Normally Mr Galloway is a pretty divise and controversial character, but within 48 hours of his posting this more than three million people had seen and interacted positively with his comments and the slogan “hell no, we won’t go” was already heading for the t-shirt factories.
Rhetoric aside, it’s a matter of fact that successive Labour and Tory governments have been dragging Uk citizens into bitter and largely unproductive wars since VE day – the Falklands, Afghanistan, the Balkans and into Iraq twice, as well as tacitly supporting many other global conflicts. Tragically this political game of playing at wars to enhance our fiscal books and play God with other populations is now threatening to become a full-scale direct military confrontation with the long-dreaded Soviet enemy.
Never so much have we talked about peace, and never so much have we failed to achieve it.
But all the blame mustn’t rest with the politicians; after all some of us voted in elections and most of us have spoken out far too little about the moral need to avoid wars at all costs. Unfortunately this is still pereceived as being difficult or unwise in a country that has become so deeply embedded in, and dependent upon, the production of military weapons and goods.
For too long also our Catholic Church has prevacated and dithered with its insistence on a Just War theory. Pope John Paul II, no doubt because of his Polish background, eventually became adamant that there are now very few circumstances where any war could be justified. In March 2022, when Pope Francis consecrated Russia and the Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary our current pontiff was even more specific: “There is no such thing as a just war: They do not exist!” said Francis. However, that very same day the Vatican released the Holy Father’s opening address to a gathering in Bratislava, in which he seemingly offered his support for “the suffering women and men who are defending their land,” evidently referring to those Ukrainians who have taken up arms against Russian invaders.
There really does need to be some kind of concerted and urgent effort to resolve this theological question of whether or not any war is justified, even when soldiers have entered service voluntarily. When the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops considered this problem in the face of the threat of conscription for the Iraq war, the pronouncement was prevaricative and unhelpful to say the least:
“We are opposed to any reinstitution of military conscription except in the case of a national defense emergency. We support the present standby draft system which requires the chief executive to obtain a new authorization to induct a specific number of men into the armed forces if clear purposes of adequate defense demand conscription. (Statement on Registration and Conscription for Military Service, Administrative Board, United States Catholic Conference, February 14, 1980).
Interestingly, the US bishops did also say that a legitimate objection to conscription could be forwarded on the grounds of religious belief, and US law at least does actually allow for this. Young US men do however need to convince the draft board of this, which usually involves the help of your parish priest, and the state is heavily reluctant to consider expressions of religious devotion that weren’t well in evidence long before any war broke out. Even this won’t avoid national service of some kind, though few Catholics in a war should reasonably object to having to work in non-combat roles or in alternative services such as health care, education or logistics.
This is referenced specifically in Gaudium et spes, when the Second Vatican Council said, “it seems right that laws make humane provisions for the case of those who for reasons of conscience refuse to bear arms, provided however, that they agree to serve the human community in some other way.”
As it happens the Catholic tradition of conscientious objection has a most venerable and ancient history. Maximilian of Tebessa, also known as Maximilian of Numidia (AD274-295) – whose feast day is coincidentally next Wednesday 12th March – is infrequently remembered these days but he was almost certainly the earliest recorded conscientious objector.
Maximilian was a native of Tébessa in modern day Algeria, a region that had been annexed by Rome for four centuries. His father, a Christian named Fabius Victor, was a former soldier enlisted in the Roman army. On 12th March 295 Maximilian was brought before the proconsul of Africa Proconsularis, one Cassius Dio, to swear allegiance to the Emperor as a soldier. He refused, stating that, as a Christian, he could not serve in the military, leading to his immediate beheading by sword.
Over the coming months there is going to be vigorous and difficult debate in this country about our role in the emerging European alliances, with the 4th July 2024 General Election having delivered a mandate to the Sir Keir Starmer government to prosecute whatever consequences they see fit. Ramping up defence spending at the cost of diminishing overseas aid and other vital humanitarian and community services at home is a very difficult pill to swallow, especially when successive governments have been woefully deficient in their attention to our defence capabilities.
However, pushing it to the next level and starting to demand that we hand over our children to fight their political wars and the consequences of their negotiational negligence is simply a step too far, and is certainly one that the Catholic Church needs to state its position on unequivocally – before it becomes too late to speak out.
Joseph Kelly is a Catholic writer and public theologian
Pic: Army conscripts receive military uniform, a collection point, June 18, 2010 in Moscow, Russia. Shutterstock/De Visu