It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when Brits started talking about it.
Perhaps it was when then-prime minister Rishi Sunak told voters he'd reintroduce compulsory national service for the country's 18-year-olds if he won last year's election.
Maybe it's been prompted by fear amid increasing Russian aggression — after all, Moscow is closer to London than Melbourne is to Perth.
Certainly by the time MP Mike Martin described it as "inevitable" last month, conscription was well and truly back in Blighty's national discourse.
Around the United Kingdom, for the first time in a long time, the idea of drafting civilians into the military is being discussed, whether it's by politicians or parents at school pick-up.
The fact the current UK government has no plans to introduce conscription doesn't mean people aren't concerned.
In his comments to the Daily Express tabloid last month, Mr Martin made it clear things could change in the future.
"Obviously, if we get involved in a general war with Russia, we'll be conscripting the population — there's no question about that," the first-term MP, from the centrist Liberal Democrats party, said.
Mr Martin is a former soldier who served multiple tours of Afghanistan.
While he's not part of the Labour government, he is a member of the UK Parliament's Defence Committee, which examines policy and expenditure.
"There's a significant chance that it [war with Russia] might happen so we must be prepared," he said.
The lawmaker's comments come after Mr Sunak, during his unsuccessful general election campaign last year, announced he'd reintroduce national service if returned to office.
His policy would have seen Brits choose between completing community work, or year-long military training scheme, when they turned 18.
At the time Labour leader Keir Starmer, who went on to claim a thumping victory in the vote and become PM, described the idea as a "gimmick".
Labour MP Tan Dhesi, who's chair of the Defence Committee, told the ABC Britain's armed forces needed to be "as strong as possible", but that didn't mean conscripting.
"We need to recruit the very best," he said.
"We need to make sure that that pool of talent is vast so that we are recruiting the very best service men and women from across the country, so there will inevitably be a focus on that."
Russia steps up civilian draft
As Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine rages into a fourth year, the country's president, Vladimir Putin, earlier this month signed a decree to draft 160,000 young men into the military.
Moscow conscripts like this twice a year, although the latest figure is 10,000 higher than last spring's drive.
While Mr Putin's conscripts will swell the size of his army, under Russian law they cannot be sent to active war zones without further combat training.
However, there have been claims that this legal barrier has been flouted over the course of the invasion of Ukraine.
As the US attempts to negotiate a ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv — unsuccessfully, so far — some nearby countries are preparing for an escalation.
Finland and Estonia, which both share borders with Russia, have had long-established conscription programs, as do Norway and Denmark, which also draft women.
Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden reintroduced it in the past decade.
Earlier this year, Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced plans to give "every adult male" in the country military training.
Russia's army is estimated to now number 1.5 million personnel. Britain has just over 100,000 personnel, including reservists.
While it's previously been introduced in the UK, the concept has faced plenty of opposition and was abolished in the 1960s.
Doctor Glyn Prysor, the research director at London's National Army Museum, said Britain had no tradition of national service outside of "great crises", namely both world wars.
"There have been other forms of service and national duty and volunteering, that's always been a strain," he said.
"I think it's often been a balancing act between encouraging people voluntarily to commit their time and their effort to a greater cause, against the importance that we placed on individual liberty and personal freedoms."
In Mr Martin's constituency of Tunbridge Wells, an affluent area about 50 kilometres outside central London, young men had mixed views about their local MP's assertion conscription would be "inevitable" in a war with Russia.
Most, but not all, the people the ABC spoke to were against the idea.
Navin Chahal, 28, who had recently applied to join the Royal Air Force, said he did not want to see civilians called up to serve against their will.
"I think the general public would agree, that conscription is not the way to go," he said.
Another local man, Zach Merricks, said it was a "good idea".
"Obviously I would never want to get to that point ... but the concept of it is important, and it's important to be prepared for these things," the 36-year-old said.
