Is national service good for young people? With Manoj Harjani and Christos Tsoukalis

With global tensions rising and many countries increasing defence spending, the question of National Service feels more urgent than it has in decades. Supporters argue it provides young people with structure, useful skills, and national pride, but critics warn it limits personal freedom, delays education, and risks promoting a pro-war mindset. This episode enters the debate with the aim of showing you how to disagree better on a policy that frequently sidelines the voices of those it most effects: young people. 

UCL student host Tara Constantine facilitates the conversation between two people who share first-hand experience of conscription, but disagree on the extent to which it benefits young people: 

• Manoj Harjani, who completed National Service in Singapore, frames his experience as mixed but ultimately finds it to be an essential part of the country's security, economic posture, and societal makeup. He notes that the practice is deeply embedded in Singaporean life, affecting everything from employment structure to policy. Manoj is currently a Research Fellow and Coordinator of the Military Transformations Programme at RSIS in Singapore.  
• Christos Tsoukalis, Senior Analyst of Economic Policy at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, completed mandatory service in Greece and questions the value of conscription. While he acknowledges personal positive moments, he argues that the opportunity cost is too high for young people, and that the nature of modern warfare is increasingly misaligned with mass, non-specialised armies. 

Our resident UCL expert mediator, Dr. Melanie Garson shaped the conversation to mimic real-life dialogue, where people discuss issues based purely on experience rather than prepared positions. She used a key technique: asking each guest to summarise the other's position before responding, forcing them to genuinely listen and identify areas of commonality, such as the shared goal of building a stronger sense of civic duty. 

Key takeaways from this episode: 

• Master the summary technique: Force yourself to accurately summarise the other person's viewpoint before responding; this ensures you are listening fairly and helps close the gap of what you think you heard versus what was actually said. 
• Dig deeper than policy: Productive conversations often move into identifying feelings - the camaraderie of shared experience versus the emotional burden placed on young people - which is where true understanding is found. 
• Find a wider solution space: Even with opposing views on the military necessity of conscription, the guests found common ground in redesigning service to focus on civic participation and social capital rather than just defence. 

Listen now to hear the lived experiences behind this debate and to learn how we can all disagree well.  

This production was led by UCL student presenters, Lea Hofer and Tara Constantine, who are participants on Students’ Union UCL’s Impartial Chairs Programme. Find out more about the programme and, if you are a UCL student, how you can apply here. 

This is a Research Podcasts production.  

Episode Credits 

Presenter:  Tara Constantine, Students’ Union UCL Impartial Chair 

Guests: Manoj Harjani and Christos Tsoukalis 

Producer and editor: Research Podcasts 

Music: The Investigation by Pixabay 

Artwork: Mayuko Yamaguchi, UCL undergraduate student