"Fully committed to peace" Is it time to bring back conscription in Germany?
"Fully committed to peace" Is it time to bring back conscription in Germany?
Calls to reinstate compulsory military service are growing louder in Berlin's political circles. But is drafting thousands of 18-year-olds the answer to Germany's defence challenges? #EuropeNews
At the beginning of March, Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) defence policy spokesman Florian Hahn called for the reintroduction of compulsory military service before the end of the year.
"We can’t just sit back and watch as the world around us becomes more insecure," he told German tabloid Bild.
Highly contentious question, but Germany should bring conscription for everyone (including women) with the option of doing volunteer/civil service.
The German constitution is very gender bias in that it only allows men to be forcibly conscripted. To be fair they can also choose a civilian alternative, but still sexist.
TBH, I wonder whether the constitution is "unconstitutional" in this regard:
GG §3 explicitly states that men and women are equal before the law and have the same rights. So GG §12a limiting compulsory service to men and GG §12a (4) even explicitly forbidding to force women into service to me at least, clearly contradicts GG §3.
The constitution is easy to change, it only needs a 2/3 majority, which has been abused to write all sorts of silly self destructive shit into it, like the "debt brake" which has been a major factor in the crumbling of Germany's infrastructure over the past few decades.
Why not write something sensible into it for a change?
Won't happen as it'd require a change in the constitution but the Nazis and the far left have a blocking minority for that.
Not far left, just left. Germany doesn't have anything resembling a major far left party.
In my opinion the actual reason for suspending conscription back then was saving money on all the (socially very beneficiary) substitute services you could do.
Now we are reaping the fruits we sowed by letting a bunch of self serving neoliberal arse clowns run the country for decades.
I honestly am starting to think that compulsory service is a good thing, I wish I’d had to do it. I’ve known lots of people who are from countries that have to do it and I expected them to hate it but they seemed fine with it. And they all had much better self-discipline than the normal person.
I wish I’d had to do it.
You can go and volunteer for the reserve right now. You'll get a mini basic training and everything.
You may have heard in the news that Denmark’s defense ministry on Tuesday announced it was bringing forwards military service for women by two years
“In light of the current defence and security policy situation, the armed forces need to recruit more people,” Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said in a statement.
Women who turn 18 after July 1, 2025, could be required to take part in an annual ballot from next year to determine which ones must perform mandatory military service, something which is already required of men.
The annual ballot would only take place if there were not enough volunteers that year.
I am against bringing back the old-style conscription here in Germany. First, it is limited to male youths only - a no-no in the 21st century. Second, it is designed as "military first, anything else second, and only with a good reason", another idea that belongs to the past.
And, seriously. the German army could not deal with it. Since we halted conscription, the army has done a big and painful transformation into a professional military force, They could not house nor train those masses of unwashed kids anymore, and would basically have to regrow that part from the start.
What Germany could do is install a mandatory service time for all - men and women - with one option being the army, but with a strongly limited number of recruits.
Damn, are we really that afraid of Russia invading Europe? Seems like a short time ago we were mocking their pathetic inability to even conquer a quarter of Ukraine.
If NATO isn't a completely worthless organisation, then Russia will never invade.
I mean Russia has had quite some success turning NATO into a worthless organization. They're not quite there yet, but in ten years when half of Europe is controlled by the far right? It's anybody's guess.
Damn, are we really that afraid of Russia invading Europe?
No, we are afraid of Germany having an actual army. But telling the biggest economy to just lay back and chill is no option either.
So we need to find a way for them to waste enormous amounts of money on defense without getting anything to show.
Enter: conscription.
Because this way you can then spend massive amounts of money on infrastructure for a lot of people instead of buying actual stuff like equipment or ammunition. And as a bonus for the country that has perfected keeping the population poor and on low wages while the top 1% make all the money (see: Germany's GDP while at the same time having a median wealth more fitting for eastern Europe*), they can get a lot new
slavesserfsforced workerscheap labor from those refusing to serve to optimise corporate profits even more.*reference (because I know people love to deny reality): median/wealth...
I also agree that investing in training, equipment and deployment capabilities seems like a better option than having a conscription as the number of fighting personnel is roughly equal (and as a defender you need less people for defense). From what I heard the European armies match Russias army in power overall - however I'm not sure if they could be as fast as Putin in getting this power coordinated to the Baltics.
Regarding the median and wealth statistics: I agree that they are concerning especially for a rich country as Germany. However I think that is mainly due to the lower home ownership rates compared to most other countries. So I think it's more an accidental situation (with f.e. historic reasons) than result of more neoliberal policies. Still an important point to highlight and work on.
If Russia decides to, it could glass a good part of Europe
And as they're getting more imperialistic and global warming also throws the world into tumult (is this a correct English word?), we will see more and more nations trying to get an advantage.
Sometimes because it's just about survival, sometimes because there are just opportunitiesI think the concerns mainly evolve around the Baltics as f.e. Estonia couldn't defend alone against the Russian army and the armies of other nations could be to slow/ineffective to respond - before the region has been conquered. However I am also unsure how mandatory conscription could prevent this situation (maybe as a way to recruit more professional soldiers?).
The main point point of conscription is to build up a large number of reservists who will require minimal training compared to fresh recruits when called up in case of a war. This is especially important when a smaller country is attacked by a larger one, because in that case, there is precious little time to react, and no country can afford a standing military even remotely capable of defending it against a much larger opponent.
A proper all-encompassing conscription would be kinda insane. Drafting a percentage of people like they do in sweden might be reasonable. AFAIK they don't actually have to force anybody to go to the army in sweden though, they have enough volunteers, but the system is set up so that in theory they can.
“We can’t just sit back and watch as the world around us becomes more insecure,”
I imagine GlaDOS' introduction scene in Portal 2, only it's not GlaDOS towering over Chell but Merz admonishing some hapless 17-year old: "Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret."
From what I heard the European armies match Russias army in power overall - however I’m not sure if they could be as fast as Putin in getting this power coordinated to the Baltics (if there was a conflict, then it would take place there). So I think that should be the most important part to work on.
Furthermore I think that spending the money on more advanced equipment is better than a mandatory conscription, which would make the current shortage of highly skilled workers only worse (and there's also the question about how it would affect 18-year-olds personally).
In these troubled times the nation will need a strong leader. Is it time to bring back the divine right of kings? Experts remain divided.
